I am not good German either. I guess when they took the von off my last name they changed our character too. I do not care for canned sauerkraut at all but I like raw fermented foods.

I have opportunity to get juju be fruit this weekend. I hope I can get enough to make jam and dehydrate too. I miss having a way to can. A friend offered use of her extra house. Full kitchen ac so I may check it out. I could set up and leave it for 3 days and get plenty done

Jen, It looks like some sort of winter squash, but is still awfully early to tell. In another 3 or 4 days it should enlarge quite a bit and perhaps provide a better clue as to what it is going to become.

Mowing has been impossible lately, and ditto for weeding. If we didn't have timber rattlers, I'd have been outside weeding the garden all day yesterday, but we just have too many venomous snakes for me to stick my hands into places that need weeding. It is driving me crazy. I'm considering weed-eating most of my garden clear down to the ground to clear out summer stuff without getting snakebit so I can plant fall stuff. We're still awfully hot down here and the snake problem usually worsens in August/September so I have to remain vigilant. You get to a point with the grass here where it is too high to mow, and too snakey not to mow. It looks like we'll be doing some 'mowing' this weekend with the string trimmer. We have a scythe we can use to cut tall grass, but it is hard work out in the heat, so it seems to be that whacking away at the tall stuff with the string trimmer is a better option.

Rebecca, I wish all of us could take some of that rain off the hands of the folks along the Gulf Coast who are about to get far too much. For a lot of them, not only are their gardens in trouble, but their homes as well.

I don't even know if the rain will make it this far. Often it veers more towards Louisiana when it hits down there between Corpus Christi and Houston and all points east. We more often get rain here from storms that hit near Brownsville.....not that we really need any more right now. A week from now? We might be wishing for more rain. It is raining in the county just south of us right now, and some of that area has a Flood Advisory, but on the radar it looks like the storms just melt away or veer west of us as they near the Red River. If we were really dry right now, I'd be aggravated that the rain seems unable to cross the river, but we aren't dry, so I'm not aggravated. A Hurricane Warning is up this morning. I imagine this storm restrengthened so quickly that people down there really haven't had much time to prepare and I doubt many will be able to evacuate on such short notice. I hope they all are able to shelter in place in their homes safely. Houston is in trouble. They've had flooding already this summer just from heavy rainfall associated with thunderstorms, so their soil is heavily saturated. I fear they are going to have massive flooding issues.

Jacob, Well, different strokes for different folks and all that. My dad loved liver, but none of us kids did, and there was nothing worse than coming home from school and smelling liver and onions, knowing we'd be forced to "try it, you'll like it" or go hungry that night. I have never cooked liver in almost 34 years of being married to a man who likes it and I'm not going to start now. He has cooked it for himself once or twice and doesn't even order it in restaurants much any more.

I like sauerkraut and usually make it but didn't make any this year. There's a German grocery store in Muenster, TX, across the river from us where we can buy sauerkraut if we want any.

Kim, Good luck with the jujubes. If I wanted to can, I'd take up that friend's offer to use the house---it is a very kind offer, isn't it?

My garden is turning into a jungle. I don't even want to step foot in it. All this rain is making things grow like mad and it seems like a million new morning glories are sprouting daily all over the garden. The prospect of getting bitten by a snake is really high at this time of the year, especially when we are getting heavy rainfall, and then when there's such dense vegetation, you cannot see what is in there with you---nothing is worse than hearing a rattle nearby but not being able to pinpoint its precise location. I don't know how I'm going to get my fall seedlings in the ground---currently they are growing well in the sunroom, but I cannot leave them there forever.

Dawn

I couldn't sleep yesterday, but I decompressed. A glass of kombucha may have helped. Rebecca, kombucha is fermented tea. There's a process, which H/J can explain. I believe it's Asian (Chinese?) in origin. Being fermented, it is carbonated, kind of like beer. There is a very low residual alcohol content from the fermentation. People flavor it with fruit or ginger, making it a good substitute for soda pop when people want to break that habit. Being fermented, it is probiotic. I like to keep some on hand for those days my digestive track is unhappy. There are websites out there that promote it as a cure all. This is an article with less hype.

I'm way behind. If I've missed responding to you, ask me again.

DH makes an excellent leg of lamb. But gyros are the best way to eat lamb. Nancy, ask Garry if he ever got a gyro from the place at Pine and Mingo. It's between Batman's and another diner on the south side of the street. DH loves it. It's a little greasy for me.

I like liver if it's not cooked into shoe leather. I haven't eaten it in years, though apparently there's some in our freezer that DH bought.

I didn't even go out to the garden yesterday or the day before. I really need to water today. Thankfully it wasn't evil hot yesterday, so maybe the trace that fell the day before will hold things till I get out there. I guess the chickens will get all the stuff that should have been processed the last 2 days.

Dawn - On radar it looks like the rain finally made it across the river so you might have received a few drops. Everyone in my company is concerned about Harvey. I work for a railroad that has a lot operations in TX, LA, and Mexico so everyone is scrambling to get prepared and get trains and equipment out of harms way. Unfortunately we can't move the tracks so they are on their own and any washout damage will need to be repaired ASAP after the storm so the trains can get moving again.

Amy, I brought a leg of lamb back from Buffalo--a gift from my SIL--it's a good-sized one, and just having it in my freezer is a dream. I made gyro meat a couple times but not for about 10 years. I'd happily make it now if I could find some ground lamb! Well, I finally did find what looks like a good place online. So expensive. BUT. . . we had THREE excellent Greek restaurants within 3 blocks of my workplace. One was a half block away--walk in, eat it there or take it out. Fabulous gyros and tzatziki and everything else Greek. Two brothers owned and operated it. Every decent weather day there was always a long line of people, so we learned to go early. Here, if we go to dinner in Tulsa, most likely it would not be Greek, as GDW is not as keen on them as I am. (And not that keen on lamb. . .)

Amy, You have been blessed with a new grandchild this week. Of course you need to decompress. I wouldn't give the garden another thought this week and would just relax and catch up on rest and all that good stuff.

The chickens will be delighted to eat the stuff you didn't have time to process. Not only do the chickens wait for me and follow me to the compost pile when I walk out the door with a bucket, but the deer come out of the woods and stand on the edge, where the forest meets the woodland, and watch to see what I am dumping on the compost pile. It is sort of creepy. Do they stand there in the woods and watch and wait??? Am I being stalked by deer? The doe who brings her two young fawns to eat is very tolerant of my presence. She doesn't run and hide like the buck does. She stands and watches me, and I talk to her by saying "Hi, Mama" and either asking about her day or telling her what yummy things I'm putting on the pile (as if she can understand or even cares). She won't turn and run as long as I don't stare right at her, but her limit is about 20'. If she is closer to the compost pile than 20', she backs off as I approach the pile. I'm okay with that---I don't want her too close to me either.

Jack, The rain did finally come across the river a bit. We got about a tenth of an inch. The best part is that the clouds and rain-cooled air are keeping us cooler, so they lowered our forecast high to 81. That's unheard of for August so I'm thrilled. The NWS says there might be more rain later. We'll see. Regardless, I think Harvey is likely to send a little rain our way this weekend.

I am sure you're watching the weather news carefully. As soon as the NHC issued the noon statement and said that Harvey had achieved Cat 1 strength already and now is expected to come ashore as a strong Cat 3 instead of barely making it to Cat 1 by landfall, my brain nearly exploded. All I could think about was Ike.....not that this storm is expected to have the early, strong storm surge that Ike did, but it will make up for it by dropping tons of rain. They are saying Austin, as far inland as it is, could get up to 18". That is just crazy. I love the Texas coast and there are times I think it would be fun to live there, but then this sort of stuff happens and I am reminded that there's reasons not to live that close to the coast.

Y'all may have even more trouble than you're already anticipating with the storm strengthening so much more quickly than originally expected. Good luck to everyone who works for/with your company to achieve your goals ahead of this storm. I really think the flooding is going to be horrific, especially if Harvey hugs the coast and moves toward Houston, whether before landfall or after. I just keep thinking of all those refineries and chemical plants all along the coast, and all the people (and trains, too, now that they are on my mind) in harm's way.

Right now on The Weather Channel they just showed a crazy wind map that says Dallas-Fort Worth will experience Tropical gale force winds beginning from approximately 8 p.m. Friday through 8 a.m. Sat. Now, that is nuts. That's only 80 miles south of us, more or less, depending on which part of the DFW metro you're talking about. My son works on Saturday. He's pretty much guaranteed a crazy day because when the wind is that high, the firefighters run a ton of calls, especially for things like alarms set up off by wind, or malfunctioning flow alarms (the alarm indicates a fire has triggered the water to flow within a sprinkler system inside a warehouse, or it should, but what it usually means is they're having power surges and power outages and that water isn't really flowing and a building isn't actually on fire), and the firefighters have to respond to every alarm and check to rule out an actual fire. They just had a killer day like that not long ago and only because of standard thunderstorms with a bit of wind. I can't imagine what it will be like with tropical gale force winds. Maybe the winds will peter out before they reach Dallas.

NWS-Norman has raised our rain chances for this afternoon to 100%. I'm not sure if that means there is more coming, or if they just raised it because we already got rain. Some of the usual low spots in Cooke and Denton counties just south of us in TX have had some flooding today. I'm pretty sure our 0.10" didn't cause any new flooding here. It did stir up the hummingbirds. They are jockeying for position and fighting over 1 hummingbird feeder on the front porch because it is underneath the porch roof and dry, and ignoring the other 4 feeders even though the rain has stopped. Apparently the hummies don't want to get wet today.

Dawn

I direct sowed some spinach seeds today. The extended forecast is showing all 80's, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I put them in the freezer for a couple days first, then soaked them, then into the fridge for two days. I haven't figured out starting seeds indoors. I usually keep them too wet, or knowing that I usually keep them too wet, I'll let them dry out too much.

Hello, I'm Michelle, and I've always overthought these things, making them much harder than they should be.

My nicotiana has no fragrance. None. I've gotten right down there by the flowers (almost snorting a bee in the process) and I can't smell a thing.

This morning I was bending down to check a squash plant, and was knocked in the head by a half eaten pecan. Wasn't standing under a tree at the time, so I can only surmise that a squirrel threw it at me.

Eggplant set 4 new fruits almost overnight. Mom has had her fill of them, so I'll find homes for them when they're ready.

I still need more than one cucumber at a time.

Also lost a fight with a bottle of fish emulsion.

Sorry, y'all, I can't find time to sit for more than a few minutes. About Kombucha, Rebecca, it's a fermented drink made from a SCOBY. A SCOBY looks like a large slimy mushroom (some people have called it mushroom tea). SCOBY means symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. YUM! Right? You make a jug of tea and add sugar. The SCOBY feeds on the sugar. During this feeding period, the sugar is mostly taken out of the tea, so when you bottle it up (into smaller bottles), it isn't really a sugar drink. The tea ferments a second time in the smaller bottles and many people add flavorings at this time--juice, fruit, candied ginger. After 3 or 4 days, you strain it and put it into other bottles and refrigerate. This stops the fermenting. I like a flavored kombucha. It has a very, very small alcohol content. (Anyone can buy it at the store)

It's not exactly tasty like a glass of regular tea or soda or wine, but it grows on you. The health benefits are numerous--maybe some claims are over-blown. Then there's the other claims that say it's dangerous.

I find it beneficial. You can search all the claims and info to see if it's a drink for you. Sorry again, I hope that was worded well enough to understand.

Love you girls and guys. I appreciate you so much!

Rebecca--that is so unfair! Here's a discussion on fragrances: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1383356/nicotiana-scented-varieties-and-over-wintering

I didn't realize that different varieties have differences in scent--I've always lucked out, apparently. And if you google nicotiana seeds, you'll see there are many highly fragrant ones pointed out. I had a whole bunch planted, so although to just lean down and smell, there was no obvious fragrance, but in the evenings, the air is heavy with their perfume.

I think I'll experiment with other varieties next year--some of the more fragrant ones.

I'm still lurking and gardening vicariously through you all! My garden is tending itself at this point. The rain has been crazy so the mosquitoes are just too much for me and the LO. The chickens have had free range of as 'll the fenced garden since the only thing producing is the peppers which I desperately need to harvest. My rogue Seminole plant has taken over half the area anyway.. the birds nap under it most afternoons, and snatch the few cherry tomatoes that the squirrels may have missed. Stupid squirrels. I havent gotten a tomato in weeks.. not that im out much.

Amy, Congratulations on the new baby!!! How wonderful! We're on the home stretch with 11 more days til my due date. I sure am ready although I hope my son is a tad smaller than your new grandson! Lol My Wren was only 6.9lb so I'm hopeful. Lol

I'm with Rebecca on the sweet potatoes kind of. I only like them salted and buttered so much they can't be healthy at that point. I just really don't like them I guess. Nancy, it drives my mom crazy! She thinks it's nuts since I grew up on them, but I don't like sweets like I do savory flavors. Weird thing is I agree with Dawn.. Sweet potatoes are the easiest, most fun thing to grow in my garden. Harvesting sweets is like an Easter egg hunt for GIANT eggs! It's just too fun! I give most of them away to my family, but I always grow them. I love the vines too! A big raised bed of healthy sweet potato vines is simply a lovely sight.

Rebecca, try Kombucha! It's the best, although you won't think that immediately lol It grows on you, and I swear my body literally needs it and craves it now. (I don't drink anything but water or fresh juice from the juicer, hot tea on rare occasion I guess) But I'm hooked on "Bucha" which is what my daughter calls it. It can't be too bad if my 21 month old asks for it right? Lol Next time youre at Sprouts/Natural Grocer/Whole foods grab a Holy Kombucha (we love any of the red ones like blood orange.) I tried another brand my hubby really liked yesterday (he's still on the fence but willing lol). It's more mild imo so maybe a good start for someone new to the drink. Brand is: Buddha's brew Kombucha. I tried the peach and the sour cherry melon which was fantastic.

Dawn, thanks for the info. We have family in Houston I need to check on for sure. Thanks for the reminder. I've been in a bubble the past month if not longer!

Miss you all, I'll try to say hi more often! I care about you all! Everyone stay safe, and enjoy the weird weather!

Alexis

Oh, dear, Rebecca. I just went on a seed-ordering binge, and it is all YOUR fault! Sure was fun, though! lol. I found some HIGHLY fragrant nicotianas, and some dwarfish ones--ordered about 4 different varieties. Found the beautiful bright red coleus (on Swallowtail), and between Swallowtail and Select Seeds, found a beautiful yellow triple-flowered datura and the some of the yummy tomatoes for next year, some more fennel and cilantro. I have about decided that all the great Oklahoma standbys that do so well in the hot sun and heat just aren't cutting it in my particular place. The heat, we got in spades (not as many spades as a lot of you, but still--it IS Oklahoma. But sun, not so much. Drought, well, of course, we all know that's up for grabs. However. I have found 3 years running, that plants I assumed would be rock stars here--rudbeckia, bee balm, zinnias--have all 3 years developed PM and had to be pulled by end of July or early August. I'm giving up on morning glories on our deck lattices because of the aphids; I'm thinking of the rock stars in our 3 years, and will be concentrating more on those. From performers here, I'm going to get some Annabelle hydrangeas started around the shady perimeters. And datura and brugs, and begonias (!), and verbena of all sorts. I love verbena. So many ideas.

Actually, this was our first veggie gardening year here, and though we didn't have great yields of anything, we successfully grew them. Last year we experimented and grew some tomatoes and zucchini (before the SVBs got them) and butternuts and a few potatoes--in mostly oak leaves. So we're both excited about next year.

On a side note. GDW observed this evening that he hoped black walnuts didn't affect pear and apple trees--he noticed some green walnuts on the ground between one of the apple trees and one of the pears. . . we laughed. But then I thought, hmm, wouldn't hurt to check. We laughed and groaned. Juglone--very very bad next to apple and pear trees! I said, "So, Garry? What're you gonna do about that?" He said, "I'm going to go cut down a black walnut tomorrow." LOL

On that funny note, will call it a night. And I am praying so hard for the folks in the hurricane path.

Alexis! Hi! Miss you and am thinking of you. I can't imagine being 8 and 3/4 months pregnant in August. Bless your heart! Can hardly wait for the new little one! Best to you.

Michelle, Soaking the spinach seeds in cold waters for a couple of days usually is all it takes. Keep us posted on how they germinate. Sometimes I don't even attempt to sow spinach seeds until early October because our soil is so hot. This might be a better year for getting spinach going for fall.

Rebecca, Did the fish emulsion fall off a shelf and hit you on the head? Did it spill? We need to know battle details.

I find the best fragrance in the old, O-P varieties of nicotiana. I avoid the newer hybrids, although some of them have been bred for fragrance and I think they may have the word fragrant in their name----not sure about that, though, since I only grow the old O-P ones. The varieties of nicotiana seed at Select Seed tend to be the old fragrant ones.

The pecan thing is a hoot. Those squirrels are not your friends. You could write a book about your summer, and title it "Gardening With Squirrels".

Jennifer,

That's a great explanation of kombucha.

Alexis, I'm glad you're only gardening vicariously at this point. You need to be taking it easy and preparing for the little one's arrival. I imagine Wren is keeping you busy as well.

In case we don't get to talk to you the day you go into labor, just know I'll be thinking of you and your family and hoping for a swift labor, a smooth delivery and happiness and love surrounding you all as your little family expands from 3 to 4. A son? How perfect that you'll have one of each.

I hope your family in Houston is on high ground or evacuated. Harvey is undergoing another round of Rapid Intensification this morning and everything is going downhill fast. I fear Harvey will be an epic disaster---the projections of 35" of rain in the hardest hit area (currently expected near Port Lavaca) is mind-blowing. I'm grateful we have oil refineries here in OK because the ones in TX are gonna be shut down by this weather. I saw on the local news that the children's hospitals from Dallas and Fort Worth flew their medical ambulance jets down to Corpus Christi and brought back 10 babies from the NICU there whose lives likely would be lost if the storm causes the hospitals in Corpus Christi to lose power. It is so heartwarming to see medical institutions band together in advance to save these babies. All ten are settled in at the Fort Worth Cook's Children Hospital NICU, which is one of the best in the country. I know they couldn't be in better hands. Disasters/impeding disasters always seem to make most people rise to the occasion and do heroic things. To me, transporting these babies out of there in advance before complications occur is truly heroic. I hope everyone in the danger zone heeded the evacuation orders and got out while they could. It is my understanding that if folks didn't get out of Port Aransas, it may be too late for them to leave now unless their cars were full of gas because all the gas stations are shut down. Our son was just down there in the Corpus Christi area on vacation in early June and had a wonderful time, and it is hard to contemplate the extreme risk that area now remains under. Bands of rain being thrown off by Harvey already are blasting different areas and landfall isn't expected until around 1 a.m tomorrow. Y'all, please keep our neighbors to the south in your thoughts and prayers. God bless Texas.

Nancy, I've found it is a continuous journey to find the flowers that do best here in our specific locations, but once you find the ones you love that also tolerate your climate, weather, sun or shade exposure, etc., then you're all set because you'll have bulletproof plants. The problem for me in clay soil (even well-amended clay) is that the plants that tolerate a year with exceptional drought and 18-28" of rainfall will not necessarily tolerate 40-60-78" inches of rainfall in one year or 24" in one month, so I really have to make adjustments in any given year depending on what we are expecting....and then I have to hope we get the weather I expected/planned for.

Garry has turned into a tree-cutting maniac, but in the best possible way. I don't mind bringing down trees in order to improve garden and landscape areas. As important as trees are to our ecosystem, some trees are and should be expendable. Black walnuts are in that category for me.

Tim worked four 10-hour days this week so he could take today off. We're hoping to catch up on the mowing and stuff, if we can get the grass to dry out enough to mow before the next rain arrives.

Otherwise, we'll be working our way through a list of minor home, lawn and garden chores all weekend, to the extent that the weather allows.

Dawn

I heard a story like yours Dawn but it was elderly people being moved to nursing facility north of San Antonio. People helping people. And I am thankful that culture color size and shape never comes into play when disaster threatens we are Americans helping each other.

I thought it was funny Dawns post goes from fish emulsion to her favorite fragrance. I had to go back and separate that in my mind lol.

Alexis thinking good cool thoughts for you and your delivery. Since you are so active I believe you will do great and have an easier recovery too. Can't wait to see pictures of your little darling.

Nancy I would sacrifice black walnut for fruit trees too. Is it big enough to harvest any wood? It is beautiful lumber.

Rebecca - That is so funny about the squirrel knocking you in the head with the Pecan! You have certainly had your battles with them this year. I think I have more of them than ever on our property this year and me and my 22 will be thinning the herd this winter as much as possible.

Right now the squirrel herd is harvesting Hickory nuts at a frenzied pace. I don't even want to walk under any of the 2 dozen or so Hickory trees around my yard for fear of getting a dented head by the falling nuts. The nuts would not be falling yet if it weren't for the squirrels chewing them off the limbs. I have to cover my newly planted fall beds every year with welded wire fencing to keep them from digging up the beds to bury their nuts. The acorns haven't even started falling yet so it's going to get worse before it gets any better.

Dawn, I couldn't get the cap off the bottle. When I finally did, it splashed on me. Very happy for laundry machines, Biz, and borax right now.

LoneJack, if it was legal for you to come down here with your .22 and help with the squirrels, it would have happened back in June! Alas, can't risk it here. Hoping the rat zapper works. Afraid to say anything else right now in case I jinx things.

Nancy, sorry about the enabling. Only, not sorry. I am going to try my own nicotiana next year. Think it'll work fine winter sowed. This one I picked up from TMD in July. Sure is pretty, though, so I definitely want more.

I finally figured out from the BC website that the morning glory seeds I used were a different variety than the packet stated. Pretty, but not what I was going for. Will try a different vendor next year. It's disappointing, though, that I can't trust their seeds to be what they say they are. They have some wonderful varieties. Before I figured out what was going on, I bought a new packet of Creole tomato seeds for next year. Guess I'll see what I get from them. I really should email them and find out what's up with everything. The plants I do get are strong and do well, though, even if they aren't right.

Brussels sprouts seeds are settling in. One of them died back to just one funny looking leaf on one stem. But, I'll feed them this weekend to get them going. Hope 80 degree weather isn't too warm for them. Imagine, 80 degree weather the last week of August. Incredible. Maybe we will have a colder winter this year. Kill off a bunch of bugs.

I'm getting in a fall mood. I want to wear jeans and boots and drink hot cider and make stew.

Your description of kombucha sounds similar to something a friend was drinking years ago. It was some sort of tea with a huge mushroom in it. I remember tasting it and thinking it was awful, but it didn't have any flavorings added. Definitely an acquired taste.

I went "curb shopping" during our neighborhood's bulk trash day and scored about a dozen planters. A couple nice hanging baskets, the rest were med size ones. Yes, I dig through people's trash. I wear my cheapskate badge with pride.

Jlhart me too. Now I am in the process of trashing it all myself to get ready to move. I don't have a curb but I may offer some nicer stuff on the trades pages. One thing about it I know there is always more free stuff waiting.

Fighting this bind weed has me in tears every week trying to harvest for market. I want a big torch : )

I have a BER problem on my Black Prince. It's the only plant suffering from it, so I don't understand, unless the plant was trying to carry too many fruit or something. It gets the same water and nutrition as all the other tomato plants, but it was also very heavily laden with fruit. I took off 5 golf ball sized tomatoes today and threw them away. It looks like it may be trying to happen on some more. What should I do??

Kim, I've seen a lot of similar stories today, including homeless people being bussed from the Gulf Coast towns to shelters in San Antonio. I'm glad somebody has the kindness and compassion to make the arrangements for the homeless folks.

Jack, So, you have a lot of squirrels too? It isn't just in OK then. I expected a lot of squirrels in 2016 because the mast crop in 2015 was huge after all that record-setting rainfall. Then, in 2016 we had good rainfall for at least the first 7 months of the year, and had a big mast crop for the second year in a row. Huge squirrel population again. So, now, here's the kicker......while some months were dry, we have had tons of rain in late summer. I wonder if the mast crop will be huge again this fall or if maybe the moisture came too late? I need to look at our oak trees tomorrow and see what I can see. I know the pecans are heavily loaded. So, if we have a big mast crop this fall, that's a third year in a row....and likely squirrels will be really, really bad in 2018. I guess we can use that knowledge for planning purposes for our S2018 gardens.

Rebecca, Oh yuck, and I agree with you---thankfully we have great laundry products to help clean up our gardeners' messes.

For a long time, I thought I was the only one getting crossed seed or outright incorrect seed from BC, so I didn't say much about it for years. I just started phasing them out of my garden plans....and I used to buy so very, very much from them. So, while I'm not glad you got the wrong seed from them, I am relieved that it isn't only me. Luckily, there are many seed purveyors who deliver the varieties you order instead of sending you the wrong seeds in the wrong packet, whether it is because the seeds were cross-pollinated when grown or merely mishandled/mislabeled when packed.

I'm in a fall mood too, but the weather isn't quite there yet. Still, it is better than usual for late August. When we went outside this morning we had obvious bands of low clouds being pushed up here from Texas. They were pretty but didn't deliver any rain, and that's okay---we had a nice cool breeze blow in with them and the early morning hours felt spectacular.

Jen, Congrats on your planter finds. It amazes me what people throw away sometimes.

Kim, Have you chosen a place to move to yet? Or are you just doing some early preparation to move somewhere?

Bindweed is a plague. I fight it and fight it and fight it for as long as it is not too snakey to pull the stuff. Once it is that snakey, I let it go, which is why I cannot get rid of it....because, inevitably, when I cannot pull it in August and September, it is setting and dispersing seeds.

Mary, BER can be caused by multiple things---but mostly by anything that disrupts the normal operation of the plant's vascular system---so, generally, too much rainfall/irrigation or too little rainfall/irrigation. Either one interferes in the way the plants' vascular system distributes calcium within the plant. It also can be caused by excess fertility or excess fruit set, both of which can unduly stress a plant. I don't really know what you can do other than assess how that plant is being maintained and change something if you think one process or another is out of whack. Plants are not identical genetic clones---they are just as individual as people---so you can grow them all in the same mix and treat them all exactly the same and there's always going to be a plant that marches to the tune of its own drummer, does its own thing, and fails to thrive like the other plants---just like one person in a group may have allergies and another may have arthritis and another may suffer from male pattern baldness. I've never observed that Black Prince is necessarily more prone to BER than others, so it probably is related more to how it is reacting to how it is being handled and you cannot predict how any given plant will react.

Other than keeping them evenly moist to the extent you can in this weather, you cannot do much except maybe skip a feeding or two with them and see if it has any impact.

We got much of the yard mowed today---not the back acre, but everything else. Maybe tomorrow will be the day to get that back acre done and to finish all the edging with the string trimmer. This is the best our place has looked all summer and it is nice to be able to mow in the afternoon (mornings are still too wet) without having to endure a heat index of 110.

I've been watching TWC's coverage of Category 4 Hurricane Frank the last few hours. It is crazy how big and strong it got in just a couple of days. I'm hoping for the best for everyone in its path. The rainfall predictions? Oh wow, the gardeners in the path of this storm won't have to worry about their gardens because those gardens will be gone. They probably should be more worried about their homes. I hope everyone evacuated who who should have, and know that they all probably did not. Landfall is imminent, but considering this thing is supposed to sit and rain in almost the same area for up to 5 days, that's probably not a good thing. Having Tim home for an extra day this week helped immensely---we were able to work our way through the To Do list and make a nice dent in it. Maybe tomorrow we make an even bigger dent in it. And, we ate all three meals together, which is really rare....and the fire pagers didn't go off and ruin our plans for the day either. Dallas opened a shelter and it does have people in it who fled the coast. At least those folks are in a safe place for now, though I am sure they are worried about their homes and everything in those homes.

I heard there was a lot of rain in parts of OK today (not mine, but I'm not complaining) and some serious flooding. This must be the craziest August ever here in our state. I bet it ends up being the rainiest August ever statewide in OK when all is said and done. Lots of other nearby states have had tons of rain too. I guess it makes up for all the recent drought years.

Dawn

I will say that we used to have bad issues with squirrels, like REALLY bad. Anything that was ripe would be scavenged by them. For the last 2 years we just squirt some fox urine here and there in the garden and they stay away now.

I read where the mayor of one small Texas town on the Gulf coast advised those who chose not to evacuate to write their names and SSNs on their arms in Sharpie so they could identify their bodies later. And some in RVs in Port Aransas who refused to leave, and that is just about ground zero. Amazing how it's almost a Category 5, when just a day ago they weren't thinking it would even make a Category 2. I think a couple of these Weather Channel reporters are putting themselves in too dangerous of a position just to get a report.

Dawn, bite your tongue! No bad squirrel problem next year, or I WILL have to pay someone to hang out in my yard with a shotgun.

Rebecca, maybe you could find someone with a silencer. . . .

I ADORE springs and falls in OK!! Never have had them before. Spring in Wyoming and MN is maybe last half of April, maybe not, and May; fall was half of September through most of October--though we almost always had at least a skiff of snow by Oct. 20. I remember a couple years in humid MN when June 1 rolled around temps were 101. Truly. And USUALLY the first week of June we'd get a spike similar to that up there. Every single year it happened, I'd feel horrible--and every year I'd think there was something horribly wrong with me. THIS time, I know I have something really really seriously wrong with me. Even tho I knew this happened, I never quite seemed to catch on. Hard acclimating to temps of 100 after being 60-70 for 6 weeks and -30 to 30 or 40 for several months. Now. . . I live in a place that has roughly 3 months, give or take, of each season; though since I've been here, winter has actually been the shortest season. I hope that can change a bit in the future, but doubt it will happen regularly with the overall warming.

And what a treat August has been, for the most part--plenty of rain, and now this! This very pleasant weather.

We got a TON of stuff done today. I thank the weather for that. Mowing, weeding, planting, fertilizing, GDW working on raised bed remodel, tending fruit trees; and on and on--6 pints of pickles put up, and so much more.

Of course, I know we're all sick at heart about what our neighbors near the Texas coast are facing. I'm praying for all of them. And am also watching the updates a lot.

I know I shouldn't breathe a word about this, but we don't have bindweed. We have hateful crabgrass everywhere--after all it's a mainstay of our lawn--lol--and Bermuda, of course. But no bindweed and no purslane. On one post somewhere they were effusively praising the healthful benefits of purslane, which EVERYBODY has. I mentioned that nope, we had no purslane. This lady all but called me a liar, saying of course we did. Everyone does. LOL. Nope. No purslane. And I'm also telling ya, we have no bindweed.

One thing we did not have this summer was BER. But glad to hear about it, Dawn--my SIL in Buffalo had one of her patio plants with it--she assumed it was the calcium problem, and I told her to google it, because I recalled it could be for any number of reasons (remembering your discussions of it here). And we had no SVBs, because we had no squash. Drat it.

And yes, I also didn't get what I thought I was getting from BC--with morning glories, know for sure (can you believe I ordered morning glories? And here I am swearing never to grow them again in the yard--and as Garry laughed, I'll be pulling them out for as long as I live. . .), and I ordered moonflower vines, and planted them and "Nada." I ordered blue morning glories and the moonflower vines. The only thing I grew were more purples. Not a blue one anywhere in sight, or a moonflower vine. Lot of lovely purple ones, though. What the! lol oh well, lesson learned. And I do believe the tomatoes were over-hyped. I'm so happy to have you guys--and now am ready to grow some GREAT tomatoes next year.

I'm still on the spice thing. I ordered 3 dozen more little spice containers, because my 4-step little racks arrives--I like 'em, but needed different-sized jars. THEN needed labels, and couldn't find any that had black lettering on WHITE backgrounds, so ordered removable white blank labels, and have been laboriously neatly printing the names with a too-fat sharpy--with a light touch, so is doable. AGGH, the removable labels are a little too removable so am trying to tear little tiny pieces of scotch tape to ensure their stickiness. . . all at the dining table watching the Rangers game with GDW. He got up during a lull and walked over and was laughing. I said, "I know, I'm a geek. What can I say." He said, "Well you are your brother's sister. No way could anyone say you two are not related. I've never seen ANYONE do anything like what you're doing--heck, I've never known anyone who CARED what spices they had."

I tell you, his reminder that I'm my brother's sister touched me so deeply, and he was right, of course--only David took it to the nth degree. I only take it to maybe the 3rd or 4th. But, dagnabbit, I am bound and determined to solve the problem of spice arrangement! When I get this illustrious solution in place, I will take a photo and show you. If I had lots of money, of course, my approach would be different. But I don't.

Jacob. . . the rock thing................ this is just a slight teaser--we got rocks everywhere and rock borders everywhere! LOL

Thanks, Dawn. I have never had an issue with Black Prince before. I don't usually have any BER either, but growing in these fabric pots is a whole new ballgame for me. I will try to figure out what is making Mr. Prince unhappy.

Update: I went out there just now and picked off what was left of the tomatoes on it except for 3, I think. They were all developing BER. The only consolation is that it has lots of new blooms, so maybe they will be ok.

This is just too weird. He's unhappy for a reason, but determining that reason is hard.

Kim, I fear for those folks in the RVs. What were they thinking? You know, having a hurricane come ashore is bad enough, but the real issue is that it will sit and spin over that area through at least Tuesday, unleashing what is expected to be unprecedented rainfall....and it will be so widespread because the remains of Harvey, after he no longer is a hurricane, will just creep and crawl across Texas. People who are feeling good this morning because they made it through landfull and the first 10 hours of Harvey being ashore may not be feeling so relieved after a few days of endless rain. I also hate to think of folks trapped in that hot, humid climate for days and days without power. That will be its own form of misery.

I agree that many reporters (and some storm chasers) were putting themselves a little more in harm's way (or a lot more) than I thought wise. I hope they all make it through this storm unharmed. I want to see good, reliable storm coverage. I don't want to see unnecessary risks or ridiculous hype. It looks like the worst of the hurricane itself missed Corpus Christi, but....poor Rockport, Port Lavaca, Fulton, Victoria and surrounding communities. They sure took a hit. I thought it interesting that Harvey came ashore in the same general area where two hurricanes in the 1800s repeatedly destroyed and wiped out the town of Indianola, to the point that after the second big hurricane/fire destroyed the town, people left and didn't rebult again. I believe Port Lavaca is the closest city to where Indianola once was. There is now a small unincorporated fishing village near/where Indianola once existed. I hope those folks evacuated from it.

I really don't even think the hurricane coming ashore is the big story. The big story will be the incredible rain and destruction that follow, and I hope people pay attention because the flooding could be horrendous as far north as Austin and other parts of the Texas hill country.....which are not areas we associate in our minds with the idea of hurricane damage.

I think you need to mentally gear up for next year being a bad squirrel year if this fall produces a good mast crop of acorns, pecans, etc. Why? Because with that kind of nutrition available, the squirrels will survive winter easily and produce new squirrels next year. The best possible scenario for you is that somehow the mast crops fail and we have an incredibly cold winter---dangerously cold. That might at least knock back the squirrel population somewhat.

Mary, The way the weather has been so up and down, and hot and cool, and wet and dry, and so very humid.....it could be hard to figure out why Black Prince isn't happy. Probably all he wants is a bit more consistency from the weather, but consistency is the one thing it really lacks this summer. Perhaps autumn's conditions will be better.

We have tons of clouds today, courtesy of Harvey, but not rain, and I'm glad. We should be able to get a lot more work done today in milder temperatures without rain.

Dawn

It was so nice up here this morning. I got up and went to Cherry Street market, then went to the garden and worked for a few hours. Finally got the cages on the fall tomatoes. They are so happy right now. Removed one hornworm with wasp eggs, so I just euthanized him. Luckily he hadn't eaten much. I have a volunteer tomato, presumably from the squirrels spitting seeds out. Might be a Brandy Boy. I'll let it go and see what it'll do. The Sun Sugar I cut down is coming back too, from a stump. Caged it and we will see too. I'd pruned my Brandywine Cherry back pretty severely, and it's putting on new growth too. Thanks for that tip, Dawn.

Planted a full packet of Provider bush beans for Thanksgiving. 7 pots worth. Got the grow bag bed set up and sowed beets. Two pots of cat grass sown. Everyone watered and fertilized. Didn't get the sugar snaps sown. That's next.

First crop of green beans are closer to blooming. Female buds coming on the butternut. The LL cukes might be getting ready to go for it. The fertilizer should help. Cilantro is up too.

I need to dry parsley. Oven doesn't go below 200. Maybe the car method is best?

I started a post this morning and managed to close the page on it. I removed all the "not gonna happen" produce from the kitchen to the chickens. Now the flies are harassing me. Cleaned up the cucumbers. I might have one sad County Fair left. At least one relatively healthy Little Leaf and the Home made pickles doesn't look bad. Found some eggs. Fuzzy long white eggs. Need to see what they were. There was a bug that looked like a squash bug, only not quite. I decided to leave him in case he was an assassin bug.

I stayed in a cabin in Rockport years ago on a birding trip. We visited Aransas on that trip, too. Ate in a restaurant on the beach at Galveston. High Island is a Mecca for birders. So sad.

I have to go out and work some more. Today is garden day. Tomorrow is groceries.

Dawn, I hope you are right about the BER. I watched a Gary Pilarchik (Rusted Garden) video this morning, and decided to try one of his recommendations...just in case I forgot to put lime in that container (I may truly have forgotten because I'm about half crazy). (I confused vermiculite with lime the other day when I was mixing up container mix for snap peas and cucumbers....put a big old honkin' scoop of lime where I wanted vermiculite...had to remix all that). I mixed up a slurry of pellitized lime and water in a bucket, and fed to BP. I made sure it was watered in good. I don't want to spray the plants with anything right now, so that was the only option I thought I could try. So, one of three things will happen: 1) Nothing will happen and I'll keep getting BER tomatoes. 2) I'll kill the plant. 3) I might stop seeing BER. If I get nothing but BER tomatoes, then #2 doesn't really matter. I have about a dozen new tomatoes on it today, so part of my problem may be that way too many of those flowers are setting fruit. It is trying to set fruit like a cherry tomato, but it isn't a cherry tomato.

Amy, I cut down what was left on my cucumber trellis today. All of them got hit at the base with the weed-eater. I also took the mower to more of the garden, so it's starting to look more like lawn than garden right now. I scared a little bunny so badly...he didn't know where to go. I had the hedge trimmer and I was taking it to the cream peas, where he was apparently hiding. He tried to run under the shed, but he couldn't get under, so he ran right back towards me and buried himself in the peas/weeds again. Bless his heart.

Rebecca, I hit the Claremore Farmer's Market at 7 a.m. this morning. I didn't buy anything, though. One guy had tomatoes he'd brought down from Ohio for $4/lb, and one tent had pickling cucumbers that were picked 2 days ago for $3/very small container (4 or 5 pickle sized cucumbers in it). I passed on it.

My snap peas are coming up in their fabric pot, and I have their wire trellis in place already. My baby cucumber plants in their container are coming along nicely, but I need to build a trellis for them. I probably need to thin them down to 2-3 plants, but I'll wait awhile, till I can choose what looks to be the strongest. It's a 20 gal. pot.

My carrots look crappy....they aren't really doing anything impressive. They don't even seem to be growing that much. Carrots are cheap at the grocery store, so I may just replace them with some Bibb Lettuce, which is not cheap, and is my favorite lettuce.

I have grass-hoppers the size of small mammals. I have never seen so many grasshoppers in my life. Even the cat seems a bit afraid of them. They are eating the okra leaves to death, they are in my huge patio container of impatiens. They are everywhere. I may just cut the okra down, too. I'm tired of looking at leaves that look like they've been hit with buckshot.

I cut my remaining blackberry bushes way way back, so I am down to two nice fat bushes.

Well, I hope everyone has a good garden day!

When I look out my kitchen window, this is what I see. In the morning there are big yellow squash blossoms.

Sprayed aphids off my whippoorwill peas. There are ants involved. Wonder if I have any ant bait.

Guess what DH is making for dinner? Liver and onions. Ha ha ha!

I might pull my Korean squash too, Amy. I found frass as well...and the squash bugs are terrible. However, I found that these plant endure much more than non c. moschata plants. In fact, a few of them are still producing fruit. (I call squash fruit)

I have some pine shavings that a neighbor gave to me. Two large squares of it still in the wrapper. They have decided to stop keeping chickens. I don't want to use the shavings in my coop (I'm picky). What about using it for garden mulch? Do y'all ever use pine shavings as mulch in veggie beds?

I just got in from a baby shower and band function. I have a dirty house, laundry, messy garden and dirty coops yet I'm finding it hard to get up to start working on any of these issues. I also have hungry chickens and dogs. Okay...I'll get up.

Amy, that's so pretty! Everything looks so healthy and green.

Thanks Mary, it pleases me when I look out first thing in the morning. Mary, I was surprised, I thought my cukes were goners, but oddly, the County fair succumbed to some disease, but the other 2 are still green. I think I found a Diva today, a plant I didn't think survived seedling stage. But it was a dark green smooth fruit that looked like Diva, and certainly was NOT a lemon cuke. So now the question is, did a lemon cuke survive!

H/J, I have used both pine and cedar shavings. If you have to buy your own mulch, might as well get something with no chance of herbicide. It is convenient to carry around, easy to control where it goes, works well in containers. Some people believe cedar shavings repel squash pests. It might. I used it early, and only recently have had issues.

So do you all get snap peas in the fall? I've never gotten pea production in the fall. Probably never planted this early.

Rebecca, I looked at my parsley when I watered and it is GONE. Sometime in the last few days. Not even a swallowtail cat hanging around as evidence. I did see a couple of grass hoppers, but they were in the grass.

Nancy, in 2013, when we had 3 little 4x4 beds out near the fence, the drainage ditch came alive with these pretty pink flowers, like morning glories. They came up in the grass, they covered the fence and came up in the beds. They spread like bermuda from both stollens and seeds. I believe it is worse than bermuda, because it is not grass. People go oh, look at the pretty wild flowers. They should be saying kill it, kill it with fire!

I never noticed purslane in my yard till I ordered seeds. It doesn't offend me. It's edible and I like the taste. Unfortunately something else does too, because about the time they would be worth picking something eats the leaves. I think they can still produce seeds without leaves, and get those seeds 10 feet away from the original plant.

And I just assumed powdery mildew was a fact of life. I get it in my full sun garden. We just need something to come up in August and hide all the diseased stuff. I actually threw zinnia seeds in a bed that are just now blooming. And the cosmos I threw in with the cukes (supposed to be good companions) are blooming. I love cosmos.

Dawn, you soak spinach seed a couple of days??? I've never soaked anything longer than over night. I have to hurry up and make room for spinach. I could put it where I grew it in spring. Are flea beetles done? That would be my concern.

I think I'm seeing some blister beetles. Just what I need, huh? The amaranth leaves are skeletonized, is that them? I don't know when it happened. The coleus next to the amaranth looks ok. So does the lambs quarter plant I can't reach.

I'm resisting the urge to go on a seed ordering binge. But, golly, wouldn't it be fun? I'm going to have to look at nicotiana. I've been mispronouncing it I guess, since I couldn't spell it.

Did Ron come up with that all by himself, or did he know we'd all been discussing it. I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read that. GDW thought it was funny, too! The yard is gorgeous, Amy. Green, my favorite color! hahaha, PM is certainly a fact in MY life!

Mary, I've grown rasperries. . . but know nothing about blackberries. Are there varieties that are especially good in OK? I had sent for two blueberry bushes before learning they' hard to grow here. . I'm sure it will prove to be too hot for them here, but couldn't just toss em out, right? They were tiny when I got them and they are coming along nicely now. We built them their own little foot and a half high raised bed and put a mixture of soil with about 40-50% peat moss. . . BUT I am not optimistic. So I decided I need to put in blackberry bushes. Should I wait until it gets a little cooler?

HJ lucky you! I've been trying to track down pine shavings all summer!

And guess what my new favorite flower is--so glad you mentioned these last spring, Dawn. And the SMELL--divine!

Watched a CSI Miami on Netflix tonight where they used datura as an hallucinogen.

He bought the liver recently and had it in the freezer... It made me laugh. You know the star of the meal? The onion I grew which was very sweet.

Blackberries grow wild in OK, but I recommend a thornless variety... I have one that I call Syd Vicious. It will reach out and grab you from feet away. It got Ron today. On the other hand SOME blueberries grow well here.

hahaha re datura!!

And hooray for the sweet onion. Ron and I need to talk food! LOL. So, how WAS the liver? Not too tough, I take it. Does he lightly flour it with salt and pepper added?

Okey dokey, I'm all about the blackberries! And hopeful for the blueberries!

Here's what's leaving next year in the flowers--veggies are up for grabs at this point. Bee balm are leaving; rudbeckia are gone; cleome maybe yes maybe no. . . although I have them planted everywhere, so probably yes--everyone else around here loves my cleomes, me, I want 'em sturdier and more stalwart. Still, they're good. Up north they were thick and luscious. Down here, they're kind of spindly. Weird. Echinacea, bought 2 more the other day when we went to Tulsa early in the day to pick up the ailing Mac. Still do not have the verbena bonariensis, which is a must for next year. Zinnias are on my bad list, too. Got a hibiscus when we went to Tulsa. Cool. But if it doesn't sweetly scent a yard, not all that excited.

On my good list are verbena and any good-smelling flower. And sedum. Good-smelling and strongmen--4 o'clocks, nicotiana, datura and brugmansia. Peonies are wonderful, but I don't cotton to beautiful and good-smelling flowers that last a month--including my beloved lilacs. Anyone have any more good-smelling flowers you could recommend? Love phlox. PM in spades, so probably won't try them. If a flower doesn't have a delightful scent, then it's really just a flower. If it has a delightful scent, it's a must-have in my garden. Unless it has PM. I am SO done with powdery mildew.

Rebecca,

With all the humidity this year, I am not sure if you'll be able to dry parsley in the car. You could try a little and see if it works or if you get mildew/mold. You might be able to dry it in the microwave, but check it often because it can go from dry to burnt pretty quickly. Here's a way to do it:

How To Dry Parsley in the Microwave

Amy, What has happened to the Rockport-Fulton-Port Lavaca-Victoria area (and beyond) is tragic. My heart goes out to everyone there. The photos of damage that have emerged so far are mind-boggling. I hope that the 30 people considered missing in Port Aransas evacautated without telling anyone and that eventually the list of 30 missing is discovered to be not missing at all---just safe and sound somewhere else. Otherwise, the death toll there will be horrific.

And, yet, for most people in the USA outside of Texas and Texans, their memories of Hurricane Harvey of 2017 won't even include those towns---it will be all about the immense rainfall and catastrophic flooding---especially what is unfolding overnight in Houston and beyond as I type this. I'm watching The Weather Channel (because, of course, if I am awake at 3 a.m. it is going to because of weather or fires, and in this case it is weather) and there are people in attics and on rooftops begging for rescue. Hundreds already have been rescued. It is not a stretch to say that thousands more await rescue. There's far too many people needing help and far too few first responders available, even though it is an all-hands-on-deck situation and there already were first responders from Texas Task Force 1 pre-positioned all along I-35 before the flooding began so they could rush to the hardest hit areas. Even in late afternoon yesterday, other agencies (including Tim's and Chris' employer) were quickly sending more police and firefighters to SE Texas to help....because the unimaginably heavy rain was coming, it was unavoidable, and too many people in that part of the state were ignoring the advice to evacuate while they still were able. Everyone in the emergency response field knew a humanitarian disaster was imminent down there, whether it came on Saturday night, Sunday or Monday. Every area affected by flooding right now needs far more first responders than are available in the entire state of Texas, even with help from the Texas National Guard. Hopefully other states are sending folks to help right now, as we all did with Katrina as soon as it became apparent that the New Orleans area needed help.

As a gardener, it kinda hurts my heart to think of all the folks in Houston who love gardening and landscaping as much as we do and who are seeing their hard work buried under water or debris, flooded, drowned or washed away. Yet, what is happening to the plants is nothing at all compared to what is happening to people. That really is painful to think about. People have been Facebooking and Tweeting pleas for help for someone to some save them and their families....because either they cannot get through to 9-1-1 or because they are in a panic that first responders, surely overwhelmed by the sheer number of requests for help, won't get to them in time. I am not victim-blaming but if I were in an area forecast to get 20-40" of rain or more in less than a week's time and if the NWS and the mayor and everyone else were saying "evacuate", I would have evacuated. Why oh why do people ignore this kind of advise until it is too late to leave? Heartbreaking doesn't even begin to describe it.

I also want to say that the advice to people to take an axe into their attic so they can chop through the roof and climb on top if necessary just boggles my mind. How many people in suburban Houston have axes?????? I mean, really? We have an axe or two, but we have 14.4 acres of mostly wooded land and an axe comes in handy here at times. I cannot imagine suburban families with the average yard and landscape in the average Houston housing subdivision have an axe handy. How many of you here on this forum have an axe in case you have to flee to your attic to escape flooding?

This whole situation reminds me so much of Ike and Katrina. When NWS-Houston/Galveston issued their Flash Flood Emergencey--Particulary Dangerous Situation Warning for the flooding last night, I was so horrified. Here in OK, I guess the closest we usually get to that sort of warning is a Tornado Emergency-Particularly Dangerous Situation Warning. This morning, they have superceded PDS Flash Flood Emergency Warning that with a Flood Catastrophe Warning. You don't see a Flood Catastrophe Warning issued often---most people never see one for their area in their lifetime. (sigh) This probably isn't Houston's first---I am sure it isn't, and it won't be their last, but it may be the one people remember for the rest of their lives.

After being married to Tim for 34 years, y'all would think I would know what it means when he hangs up his phone and solemnly tells me the airport is sending firefighters plus 4 cops with their canines down to Houston. The firefighter part, of course, I understood right away---search and rescue, etc. I asked him why in the world Houston needed bomb detection dogs. At first, realizing I had no clue, he tried to sugarcoat it and said, well they could search for missing explosives, chemicals, etc. carried away by flood waters and then, realizing how truly clueless I wasn, he said.....or bodies. Duh. I should have known that. These highly trained canines (they train with their handlers virtually every day when they are not out on calls) are able to do so much more then sniff out bombs and drugs. Godspeed to all the men and women that Tim's and Chris' departments are sending down to help as well as to all the other first responders already there or making their way there. This is an epic situation we'll never forget. We all can say goodbye to Hurricane Harvey on the NHC's hurricane name list. It will be retired after this year and never used again.

LoneJack, I am thinking of you, your co-workers, your firm's employees, the trains and all those miles and miles of track. I know y'all will face many challenges in recovering from this flooding catastrophe. I cannot even imagine what it will be like. I hope all the trains are far enough north to be safe, and I don't even know how far north that would need to be---maybe Waco? High water rescues are ongoing as far north as Bastrop County already. I see green bands on the radar over even Waco, but know from experience that often the green bands are just clouds and not necessarily rain.

Everyone, even though we have refineries here in OK, it might be smart to top off your gas tanks in your vehicles because this flooding of the refineries, ship channel, rail lines, etc, down there in the Houston-Galveston-Corpus Christi area will have some fairly long-term effects on gasoline supplies and pricing. We've got our vehicles' gas tanks full, but we have 3 or 4 gas cans in the garage---usually used for gas for the mowers, tillers, string trimmers and such. I think we'll take them to town and fill them up sometime today.

Right now they are describing what is happening down there in SE TX as a 500-year flood. It wouldn't surprise me if they eventually change that to a 1,000-year-flood.

Mary, If you used a commercial potting mix, they have lime added to balance the pH and keep them from being too acidic when they are manufactured. If you make your own soil-less mix, you should be adding lime to each batch as you make it. I doubt the amount of lime you added will hurt although it might change the soil pH a bit. Sometimes with BER all you really can do is wait for the plants to outgrow/outlast the conditions causing the BER. It always is a gardener's first reaction to do something, but sometimes it is best to leave things alone, let them be, and wait for the conditions to work themselves out. Sometimes it is hard to know whether to try to do something or to let things be and in the case of your Black Prince plant, I don't know what the answer is, but time usually cures BER on its own.

That's how grasshoppers are here, but normally only in drought years. They stay out in the pastures for the most part (meaning, at least, that they don't totally overrun the garden) in drought years for as long as they fields are green. Once the fields are turning brown, the grasshoppers start flying in huge hordes and descend upon gardens and can strip them bare. The best grasshopper solution for warm weather (since the Semaspore type baits don't work well in heat) is EcoBran, available from Planet Natural. I have used it in some horrific drought years. At the time that I used it, I still had so many grasshoppers that I was sure it wasn't working, but then I saw other gardens near me where it had not been used and those plants were being eaten right down to the ground while I still had plants (albeit heavily damaged ones), so I know it was keeping the hoppers somewhat in check. Down here, we count how many hoppers are present per square yard and don't worry about them until they reach a certain level.

Amy, Your garden photos are awesome. I cannot believe how green everything is. If your squash bug type thing is a solo bug, he is more likely to be something beneficial. If there's a bunch more just like him, the odds are he is a bad guy. He could be a spined soldier bug or a wheel bug. Those good guys have not seemed to be overly abundant this year. LOL about Ron's liver and onions.

Soaking spinach in cold water in a container in the fridge for a couple of days sort of mimics spinach seed being in the ground in winter and then germinating when late winter or spring arrives. Two days is about all it takes. One day might work, but might not. It is the combination of moisture plus a certain number of cold hours and is an old trick used for decades where I come from to get your spinach seed to germinate while the weather still is beastly hot.

Rebecca, It sounds like your fall garden is off to a good start. Now, if only some sort of Squirrel Apocalyse would wipe out those little brats that have been preying on your plants all season long.

H/J, I have used both cedar and pine shavings too and they work great. I've used them more than grass clippings this year, especially in June-July, because we weren't getting enough rain to even have grass to mow, so our mulch was getting pretty thin. One problem with the shavings is that copperheads blend in better with them than they do with grass clippings, but I doubt you have as much trouble with copperheads there as we have here. We are too wild here, and I wish that were not the case. Around here there's always hungry animals needing/wanting/wishing for something, or a cat who needs to be petted or a dog who wants someone to throw a ball for him to chase....or a turkey who wants to be spoken to and petted (though he pretends he does not) or a chicken who thinks she needs you to come open the garden gate so she can go inside to dig and scratch and eat yummy bugs. Sometimes mama gets tired and just needs time for herself without an animal (or, lol, plants) demanding attention.

Amy, I get fewer snap peas in fall, but they are worth planting, and that's doubly true if you can plant them as early as you have this year, or if the first really bitter cold weather is very late to arrive. Like everything else in gardening, it varies from one year to the next and is largely dependent on the weather.

Those pretty pink wildflowers you mentioned must be pink evening primrose. I love looking at them when they are growing anywhere else. I hate seeing them growing on our property. We have them and I wish we didn't. I pull them out of the garden when I see them, but they are everywhere in the front pasture and end up popping up in the garden every year, all year long, just about as often as bindweed and pigweed....which means virtually from early spring through late autumn. I hate them. No one ever should plant them on purpose. They are a lot worse than bermuda, which is quite an achievement on their part.

I haven't seen many blister beetles, but August usually is when they peak, at least down here. My big thing this year is leaf-footed bugs everywhere. I don't even care. We have so much non-gardening stuff going on now and throughout the fall that I am finding it hard to even get into the garden, which probably is one reason the leaf-footed bug population has soared.

Nancy, PM is a fact of life in OK virtually every year. About the best way to fight it is with good plant spacing to encourage great air flow...and then your plants will get it anyway. It comes with the territory here. Even varieties touted as PM-resistant seem to get it. We all just learn to deal with it.

Blackberries are super-easy here and just so resilient. Look for the varieties that have Indian names---Cherokee makes large especially sweet berries but has gotten hard to find, but there's many others. You can choose varieties with thorns or those that are thornless. Along with Cherokee, some of the thorned varieties include Chickasaw, Cheyenne, Choctaw and Shawnee. Some of the thornless varieties include Apache, Osage, Ouachita, Navajo and Natchez. All those are traditonal blackberries, so that the new canes produced this summer are the ones that will give you fruit next year. There's newer ones that are primocane producers and will produce on new canes in the same years the new canes grow. These include Prime Jim, Prima Jan, and Prime-Ark. So far, the jury is out on these in hot climates. The primocane varieties do not seem to produce as well in our hot summers as they do in milder climate areas. We also have native blackberries that pop up and grow all over the place---generally they are referred to as dewberries, and they creep and crawl across the ground and generally are not strongly upright like the commercialy bred blackberries are.

I'm glad you're enjoying your brugmansias. Aren't they awesome? If you really get into growing them, you can raise a few from seed, and many, many others are available each spring as cuttings via mail-order/online ordering.

There are many fragrant flowers. Last night while strolling past the garden on our way down the driveway to lock the driveway gate, we were inhaling the delicious scent of our night-blooming flowers---four o'clocks, moonvine flowers, daturas, nicotiana...and probably mixed in with that we had the scent of the Laura Bush petunias. There's still some sweet alyssum in bloom that somehow survived the heat and summer, and those have a nice scent. Roses, especially old-fashioned heirloom types and David Austin English roses have awesome scents. Sweet autumn clematis blooms heavily in late summer and early autumn and has a strong scent. Honeysuckle. Many spring bulbs have luscious scents, though they are fleeting since they are so short-lived. I am sure I have other flowers with nice scents in spring, but they are more rare in summer as the heat wipes out a lot of them.

Heliotrope has a lovely scent but burns up in the heat down here---usually in June. With your cooler weather up there most years, it might last longer for you.

Don't forget herbs---many have scented foliage that is delightful---scented geraniums come in a wide variety of fragrances, fennel, parsley, pineapple sage, clary sage, basil, oregano, chamomile, dill, tansy and silver tansy, artemisia, lavender and all the various mints.

With flowers, there's chocolate cosmos, chocolate daisies, agastache, brugs and daturas, flowering nicotines, especially woodland tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris), violets, sweet peas (in season), phlox paniculata, dianthus, dame's rocket/sweet rocket, and snail vine/corkscrew vine (Vigna caracella). Petunias. Hmmm. I am sure there's a lot I'm forgetting, but that's a good starter list.

Well, there, I have managed to watch the flooding via The Weather Channel for hours while doing other stuff on my computer. It is almost 5 a.m. I need to go to bed if I am going to have any chance of sleeping.....if I am not asleep before the sun comes up, I won't be able to fall back asleep once there is daylight.

Prayers for Houston and all of southeast TX, central TX and the TX Gulf Coast. I hope this all isn't going to head to Louisiana next.

Dawn

Nancy, I'm not a blackberry expert, but I have good luck with mine that I planted in 2014. I've got both seeded and seedless varieties. I can't remember which of the seedless varieties I have (they have native American names), but the seeded variety is "Prime Jan", and it was developed, I believe, at the University of Arkansas. It bears fruit twice per year. It blooms both on the primocanes and florocanes. It's drawback is that it isn't thornless, but it is a workhorse and it spreads like crazy...throws off tons of new plants within 5 or 6 feet each spring/summer. To me, it has a better taste than the thornless varieties. It will take over your yard if you let it. Having said all that, some of the thornless varieties produce really huge pretty berries. My daughter and I bought our plants at the same time, and put them in the ground at the same time. Her berries have never produced much, nor turned into the monsters that I have, while my berries became these HUGE HUGE monster bushes...like 7 feet tall and wide each...craziest thing you ever saw, and that was after one season. I had all of them cut to the ground in May. To. The. Ground. It is August and I have had to cut them back and prune them twice before they could get over my head and take over the garden. I don't do anything special for them. I don't water them. I don't feed them. If I think about it, I might throw a little 10-10-10 at them in early spring, but that's it. They get about 7-8 hours of direct sun, and then shade from about 4pm on.

Last year I harvested probably 20 gallons or more from 5 plants, and that was sharing some with the birds.

I hope everyone has had a good day, out working in their gardens. I overdid it yesterday, and am paying for it today. Guess that's ok, as I've been unable to tear myself away from Weather Channel's coverage of Harvey. Fascinating and horrifying. Thank God for the good people with boats and big vehicles, going out and risking themselves to rescue people. I know they called the National Guard out, but I guess they can't get to their vehicles to start working? I'm not seeing them on the coverage. Terrible that the Coast Guard is able to rescue people in the city. I heard that many people couldn't afford to evacuate, and the mayor of Houston told people not to, that the roads couldn't handle a mass evacuation.

I have an old friend on Galveston Island(?) and a cousin in Houston proper, and both are safe and their property is as well, so far. Both have evacuation plan Bs.

Probably should have gone out and watered the new seed. But I didn't.

I haven't had time to watch the Harvey coverage, but my prayers are with those who are suffering right now. There's so many things that I've thought about regarding this...so sad.

I did some work outside (when maybe a good person would have been watching the Harvey coverage, but I guess I'm selfish and did work instead. I never thought I was a good person.) this evening. Decided to pull the Korean squash. It was so infested with SVB and squash bugs. BUT, I'm so impressed that the stinkin' plants were still making new foliage and trying to put out new fruit! That's a trooper squash plant right there. Put that garden bed to "bed" for the winter. And a couple of others. I had to ask myself, "IF these cucumbers come back strong are you going to have time to process them?" The answer is no. Out they go.

Y'all weren't joking about Purple Hull Peas being awesome! Yum! I cooked my first batch yesterday. They are so delicious. Sorta like Black Eyed Peas only don't have the slight dirt taste. These are a keeper.

:)

Jen, I was thinking the same thing about myself - selfish me is sitting inside in front of the tube, when I could be out doing something.

I don't know you both that we'll but I have never had the impression that you were selfish in a bad way lol. Gardeners in general are seeking self soothing activities. That is not bad in fact it is more healthy for us and those around us if we have our self time.

I checked in on Harvey reports on fb and must say people's attitudes made me sad so I had to quit and make some jam! I was luvn cannin today. I used my son's kitchen while he is gone : )

Sometimes it's just hard to know what to do when others are suffering and you're not directly involved. Go about your business? Watch their situation? Not sure. Honestly though, at some point people are suffering everyday. Every day. Every single day. And...when you "feel" this, it's easier to just stifle it and keep busy. Maybe not the right thing to do, but when you're "sensitive" it can become self preservation. PLUS, gardeners are soothed when their gardens are still making life even though hard things are going on elsewhere.

Exactly. I feel the horror of this terrible disaster. Watching it makes me sick and I think everyone does what works for them respectfully. Well there are a few trolls on fb but not here in our corner

Whew. Tough watching that, even. Can't even begin to imagine what those poor people are going through. Heartbreaking. And as always, so many good people are working to hard to help others. I didn't--I couldn't--watch it all day. But off and on. Just feel so helpless. Only thing I can think to do is donate to Red Cross (and pray). Anyone have any other good ideas or better ideas? And I'm no weather expert, but it does look like it has come far enough inland that it very likely will hit Louisiana next. Pray it lessens and miraculously more or less peters out by then.

We had a pretty low-key day. Church all morning, then our daily Sudokus (lol), doing the garden walk-around with some banana peppers, a few tomatoes and 8 cucumbers, another couple pints of pickles tomorrow (even with just my 3? cucumbers, I've got 23 pints of pickles so far--guess I'll be giving away about 20 jars of pickles to someone.) And we're eating cucumbers nearly every day, too. Guess what, though; with the peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers, potatoes and onions, our grocery bill has been significantly less in the past month. Since we're eating so many of those things, well, we just don't eat as much of anything else. Very cool. (And the yummy summer squash our neighbor has brought us.) Of course, we're getting a little tired of all those particular things, but honestly. We just pretend this is all we've got to eat, so we do. And spice things up by having other wonderful main courses with them.

Dawn, I was telling GDW about your sleepless night and watching the floods, as well as chiming in the assist the gardening folks. I said I expect you'll be tired and dragging for a few days with this horrible tragedy. Understandable, given Tim's occupation and your son's--and hence, your life. But I do thank you for the blackberry words and flowers of good smells. This brug has me so enchanted, I said to GDW--really, if it doesn't survive the winter (this one is one of the most hardy, to 7B), small price to pay for this amazing small tree. I wouldn't hesitate a bit to plant them every year at $20 a pop--or like you said, from seed, or cuttings. My buddy Scott is going to take some cuttings this fall and keep them in his green house for both of us. GDW agreed, and next year we think we'll put in 4-6 of them here and there. This one gets about 4 hours of full sun. from about 11 to about 3-4. I worry about it being too hot, but it seems to have been very happy. And we do have some other areas that get at least 4 hrs of sun. What a smashing plant they'd be in this big yard. Ditto with the daturas.

Okay. So PM is a fact of life down here. I'm gonna skip the PM plants next year. Period and that's all there is to it. (not counting veggies) I'm gonna go with stout and sturdy and boring standbys! For sure, marigolds for one in the sun. We'll throw in tithonia the few places there's lots of sun. I'm building my new list. Laura Bush petunias, YES. Verbena bonariensis, YES. I love my herbs. . . I have 5 rosemary plants at various places in the yard, to see which of them will survive. Have my lemon balm that I love, the sage is good, the thyme and the oregano. But the beautiful thing this year were the 4 o'clocks, nicotiana, datura, and now the brug, which are all near the deck--the smell in the evenings was amazing. I'm going to have all those things all over the yard. I know you have warned me about 4 o'clocks, but oh my are they performers. Pretty and bright and perky and SMELL so good. I do have a really aggressive one in a near bed, and I pulled and whacked the heck out of it a month ago just to show it who was the boss. LOL. Love that it'll come right back, and it has. That is a GOOD thing!

Had lots of plant failures this year. . . and some great successes. Like every single other year. I'm looking forward to yanking out cucumbers (which have developed some sort of fungal or bacterial thing, of course, but they're still strong and young enough that I have more coming on. So will call it quits next week. So amazing, though, that I didn't plant them from seed until first of July and they've been producing so much that I have had enough to be good for this year, and it's only the end of August. Besides, they need to leave so GDW can proceed with his veggie bed enlargement/renovation project.

We all know life is so fragile and precious, but it takes the floods in Texas to bring it to our minds. Blessings to all of you.

By checking out pictures, I think I've figured out what the invasive vining weed in my yard is. Gooseberries. Has these little green berries on it that are filled with a sticky gel and a few seeds. I keep having to yank them from around one of the tomato plants and the yard spigot. WTF, can I not escape the garden scourges this year?

This is one of the times that I'm grateful that I don't have cable. It's just so so sad to see all the devastation in south Texas. I use to have family that lived part of the year in Rockport, but they are now over in Lafayette, LA. I saw one photo of a nursing home where elderly residents were waist deep in water. I understand that they have since been rescued due to tweets going out from nursing home staff. Unbelievable.

Mary, When I first saw that photo yesterday, I was so sure it was 'fake news'. Because, of course, you don't want to believe such a thing as it was real. When I realized it was real, it broke my heart to think of them sitting there like that. I was so happy they were rescued.

Rebecca, Well, you are in the part of the state where gooseberries can grow, so I guess I am not surprised. Why can't the squirrels feast on the gooseberries instead of your tomatoes? Have you been excessively wet this year? The wet years are the ones in which I seem to get lots of plant surprises.

Nancy, I don't think there's anything they need more than prayer right now. There is a great non-profit organization called Portlight that specializes in serving/caring for the underserved community of disabled folks in severe weather situations like this. It grew out of an effort by members at Jeff Masters' Weather Underground website/blog to help folks that the regular storm rescue/recover system seems to ignore. I like the work they do because traditional aid organizations do not seem to make an extra effort to provide for people who've lost their wheelchairs, crutches, walkers, oxygen machines, etc. Here's a link to Portlight:

Portlight Strategies

One of the things Portlight does is that it works year-round, when there are disasters and when there are none, to teach other organizations how to plan strategically to rescue and care for the disabled during such disasters. This is such an awesome thing and I believe they are changing the way other groups plan for and respond to disaster so that people with disabilities are not ignored and left to fend for themselves because no one is meeting their special medical needs.

Every year here does bring garden successes and failures...and surprises. The only thing I'm sure of after almost two decades of gardening here in this specific location is that whatever we encounter in the current year....well, we won't have it the next year. We'll have something entirely different. That's the hard part. Your mind is all geared up to handle the most recent garden issues, and then the next year tosses all them out the window and throws entirely different challenges at you. It does keep all of us on our toes.

Jen, I don't think it is selfish that you were out living your life and working in your garden. If you'd been indoors watching news coverage, that would not have changed one thing for the folks in danger, and it wouldn't have gotten your work done either. You are far from selfish.

Rebecca, You aren't selfish either. There's no right or wrong in a case like this. I am a weather junkie, so feel compelled to watch these sorts of disasters unfold, but I also spent plenty of time just doing normal stuff--going to the store, taking care of the animals, cooking, doing laundry, cleaning house, etc. I had to stay moving a lot or I would have fallen asleep and slept all day and then been awake all night.

My garden and yard still are too snakey to do much outside. I hate August for this reason, and sometimes it gets worse instead of better. I'm still nursing seedlings along and must get them in the ground soon, but I'm pretty sure I'm in for a stiff battle to keep the suddenly huge grasshopper population from devouring the young seedlings. So, I am just keeping them happy in the sunroom and hoping for a miracle to send the snakes and grasshoppers elsewhere. I have to get these poor plants in the ground, and I simultaneously hate to put them there. My garden is overrun with pests and weeds now and it is too snakey to do anything about it. I need a brand new container garden on the porch in order to be able to garden snake-free....and then the chickens would eat the plants. So, my garden remains in flats in the sunroom, and I'm just grateful to have the sunroom.

Dawn