February 2018, Week 3, Planting and....Rain, Sleet, Snow
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years ago
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Sandplum1
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Carol in Jacksonville...getting any sleet/snow/ice?!?!
Comments (13)Sorry to all that's dealing with all this winter misery!! Hang in there everyone!! The next ten days after today seems a lot warmer...too hot for me actually,lol...Why can't we have a happy medium!?!...like Highs in the low 70's in Feb.? Oh well...I'll take the hot over the Freeze any day :o) Silvia, I didn't get off completely Scott free...I did have one morning (Jan. 19th) Hubby's birthday of all days... 27-32 degrees for at least 7 hours...Mango trees sustained some "cold damage" to the leaves...not sure how that's going to affect the blooms? Happy to hear you fared much better :o) This post was edited by puglvr1 on Thu, Jan 30, 14 at 10:57...See MoreMarch 2018, Week 3......Happy Spring!
Comments (100)Kim, I wasn't worried so much about the shed warping as I was worried about it blowing away, but we built a deck-type wooden floor/frame set in posts anchored in the soil in concrete today, so it may warp in morning sun/afternoon shade, but it won't blow away. It did hurt my gardener's heart to cover up beautiful garden soil that was humusy and rich with a shed floor. Regardless, there now will be a shed to hold the tools. We plan to assemble the shed tomorrow and bolt it down. Tomorrow should be less windy than today and that will help will assembling the shed. Hooray for being caught up on your To Do List and for feeling so relaxed, and happy to have traveling money. This is just your week! Jennifer, The netting does break the wind some, and how much just depends on the size of the holes and all. I do think it helps and sometimes all a plant needs is just a little bit of help to get through these crazy Spring winds. The water heater news is not good. I don't do anything for chicken wounds---they heal just fine on their own. You can clean them with Betadine or hydrogen peroxide, but if they're minor they tend to heal quickly with no human intervention. Our chickens are independent and don't especially want us messing with them. Wounds aren't real common here. If it is a puncture wound, keep an eye on that for infection. Nancy, I'm glad they're keeping GDW in the hospital on those IV antibiotics. It will be better to have him more healed than less healed when he is released. Sometimes it seems like hospitals are too quick to shove patients out the door. I'm glad this one is not doing that to him. About the SF, I cannot rearrange our schedule (ha ha) because it is a family wedding (extended family, not immediate family) and I wouldn't dare ask our niece to change her wedding date now. Don't you hate it when real life gets in the way of gardening? (grin) We just had either our second or third day in a row with highs in the 80s, and with only minor fire calls, so it is another good day here. It helps that our relative humidity and dewpoint are really being driven upward by the relentless south winds. I really think the big outbreak of fires here on Wed scared everyone so badly that they've been really, really careful the last couple of days. With all the rain that's supposed to be coming, I'm feeling like our county may already have peaked in terms of the winter fire season and maybe things will start improving now. The green-up needs to speed up though, or that will not be true. Rebecca, I have no idea if I am right or wrong about the weather, but I trust my instincts and they rarely let me down. If they do, I have enough frost blankets to cover my entire front garden and about a third of the back. so I could, theoretically and if the ground were warm enough, just lose my mind and plant everything now. So far this year I haven't covered up anything a single time, except I put a little mulch and autumn leaves over the volunteer pineapple sage plants on a couple of nights when we were going to drop below freezing, and they survived. I suppose the fact that pineapple sage reseeded and the volunteers are growing here already is another sign that our soil is plenty warm. Y'all have to remember, though, that I am really, really far south compared to the rest of you. My weather is more like the weather in Dallas than in OKC, and I plant accordingly. I won't plant everything now, but it is tempting. Not only have four o'clocks sprouted this week (they're usually one of the last volunteers to pop up as they really like and need heat) but so have squash. It is hard to guess if they are winter squash or summer squash, and it won't matter because they are in a compost pile and I'm not going to transplant them and hope they're something worth having, but I find it interesting that the seeds are sprouting. Squash seed will eventually germinate at soil temps of 60, though they prefer 70 or 75 and even will germinate when soil temps are 90-95. Our soil temperatures in the raised beds are staying in the mid-60s and even going up warmer than that during the day, but I didn't think the finished compost that is earmarked for a flower bed I'm reworking was getting that warm. Apparently it must be. There's a family of 7 deer lurking near the front garden. They are making me nervous. They are there every night. They are there every morning. The other day, they came to check out the garden at mid-morning while I was out working, and they were probably less happy to see me than I was to see them. I know in my heart they're trying to find a way over, under or through the fence. I rarely pay attention to the fence on the north side of the garden but I think I need to check it carefully tomorrow because that seems like the weakest section of fence and I don't need for a herd of 7 deer to find a way to breach it. That is a really old fence on the north side and we need to redo it, but that's not going to happen this weekend because it is shed weekend. I've had a flat of purchased tomato plants---7 in all---four Early GIrls, 2 SunGolds and 1 Cherokee Purple that I've been carrying outdoors every morning and indoors every night for at least a month. I meant to pot them up to larger containers (they're in 5" pots) but never got around to it, so now they are big, blooming, have baby fruit on some of them and are getting rootbound. So, today I did the obvious thing and put them in the ground. Oh no you didn't, y'all say. Oh yes, I did. I did it and I'm not sorry. They are in the second highest raised bed and it is staying really warm. Zinnias have been popping up in it for about a month now, and there's a pineapple sage volunteer in that bed too. I lined them all up in a row, three feet apart and I didn't cage them because it is easier to put a frost blanket over them if they aren't caged. I did stake them to help them endure the wind. I know my microclimate, I know my ability to cover and protect these things and I'm confident I made a good decision, but I'm not mentioning it on FB because I do not want to lead astray any less experienced gardeners who might decide to follow my lead. Most people in OKC, for example, have little understanding of the fact that our weather down here is more like the weather in Dallas than the weather in central OK. These days in the 80s are making me worry that we're about to go straight to hot weather with very little mild Spring weather. It isn't that I don't think some cold weather lies ahead---it probably does. I just think I can keep the plants warm enough to mitigate any return to the cold that happens. The great thing is that these are purchased plants, not my sweet baby plants that I've raised from seeds, so if something horrible happens to them, it doesn't hurt as much because I'm not emotionally attached to them. Regardless, I haven't lost tomato plants to late freezing weather in many years, so I don't consider this much of a risk. Well, unless those 7 deer jump the fence, get into the garden and eat the tomato plants. Now, if that happens, I'll consider it a sign from God that I shouldn't have planted so early. My precious raised-from-seed tomato plant babies probably won't go into the ground for another couple of weeks yet as they are younger and smaller than these purchased plants. Oh, the final thing that made me decide it was time to just go ahead and put them in the ground? When Tim was doing the dirt work to combine the two narrower raised beds into one wider raised bed this past weekend, he dug up a sweet potato I had missed when digging sweet potatoes last year....and it was sprouting underground. I say that if you have a sweet potato sprouting in one of your raised beds, the soil probably is warm enough to plant tomatoes. The real miracle is that I restrained myself all week long and didn't rush the plants into the ground the minute Tim dug up that sweet potato. I waited almost a full week, watched the soil temps, watched the weather, etc. and made a fairly rational decision. So the beans are planted and the first round of tomato plants are in the ground. If I can get the east end of the garden prepped in time, I'll sow corn seed before the rain falls. Or, if I don't get it prepped, that will be the first thing I do after the ground is workable again. This might sound early, and it it a little early, but that little voice in my head is telling me it is okay to risk it. That little voice in my head never lets me down, so I trust it. Now, don't y'all go rushing out planting things like I did unless you're willing to risk the consequences. (grin) Dawn...See MoreOctober 2018, Week 3, From Summer to Autumn to Winter
Comments (38)Jennifer, I'm hoping you were able to finally make it home, enjoy Wine Wednesday, and get some rest. You cannot go into this weekend too tired! Some other weekend, yes, but not this one because you are going to stay so busy. Rebecca, Hmmm, pepper bitterness generally only is a problem is you are harvesting them and using them green. They only truly shed the bitterness when allowed to ripen to their full mature color, but there are different degrees of bitterness along the time scale so that the further peppers progress away from being younger and smaller to being older and larger, though still green, the more the bitterness usually fades. I don't know of any weather or nutrient condition that makes them more bitter, but if I run across any description of something that does, I'll try to remember to come back here and tell you. When our mom told us to go out and play, it was pretty easy for me to go out, play a very short while, and then quietly slip back into the house and go into my bedroom and read. With 4 kids coming and going, if you were quiet once you were indoors, you could get away with that. With the seeds that you're sowing that won't sprout, are you surface sowing? That is what works best with me with green seeds---I broadcast sow on the surface of the growing medium and don't cover them up. I do lightly pat them down so they have good soil contact. I don't know if the seeds of greens necessarily need light to sprout, but I know they sprout better (and at a higher germination rate) for me if I don't cover them with soil. I got lower germination rates and slower germination when I covered them, even lightly, with anything---even compost or the lightest amount of peat moss. You are NOT a garden failure. It is either the seeds or the growing conditions that are failing you, so be kind to yourself and please stop feeling like a failure. If I were to allow myself to feel like a failure every time something in the garden doesn't go my way, I'd be so depressed and disheartened that I'd give up gardening. Instead, I push on relentlessly, overplanting everything, figuring if one thing doesn't work, another one will. And, on a lighter side, this is Oklahoma where the weather is cray-cray, so just blame the weather when something fails! Jennifer, You're welcome, and I agree that gardening is grounding. I feel like it surely is as good for our bodies as it is for our souls. I understand how you feel about meat, and I think you are not imagining it---you just have a soul that likely communicates with the souls of the animals. I feel that same way about people, especially native people here in the USA. When we visit a state park, for example, which is the scene of large battles between the native Americans and the European invaders who called themselves Americans, I swear I can feel the souls of the native Americans talking to me....like, I am walking in their shoes on their land, though not in a literal sense as I am not at war with anyone. I feel their pain and suffering when I walk an area like that--not in an intellectual way, but in a true emotional/intuitive way. The first few times it happened to me, I felt quite unsettled by it and then I decided to just accept it and to not try to overanalyze it or to fight it. I hope y'all enjoyed sleeping in today. Nancy, I really used to live in pepper hell because I'd grow 15 or 20 kinds of peppers and wear myself out trying to preserve them all. Now I grow only a few kinds, and only the ones we adore most, and it has made the pepper section of the garden easier to control, and has made the inevitable kitchen mess/workload more manageable too. When we first moved here and I finally had a sunny space to grow stuff (in the city, we had far too much shade so my garden was tiny), I grew far too much of everything. It was fun, but the garden and my life both are more manageable now that I have cut back and am trying to grow only enough excess beyond what we eat fresh to give us some food to preserve instead of trying to grow as much as possible and then ending up worn out from dealing with all the excess. It did take me about 15 years of growing far too much of everything before I started cutting back, and I still am trying to get the balance right so we have enough of each thing, but not too much of anything. Well, with tomatoes, I'll likely always grow too many just because I like to have a wide variety of shapes, sizes, colors and flavors. If growing too many tomatoes is my worst garden vice, then I think I'll be okay. Tiny will learn. Even Yellow Cat, who roamed our neighborhood for a good 10-12 years as a semi-feral cat before deciding to move in with us for his retirement years, still had to learn. After a lifetime of dodging wild things, he still liked to come inside and sleep all day and roam all night, which made me nervous. After a bobcat chased him up onto the roof of our house during the middle of the night, and I awakened to horrible screaming and had to quickly open a second story window to bring him in off the porch roof, he quite abruptly became an indoor cat at night, and outdoor by the day. By then he must have been 14 or 15 years old at least. He might have learned the lesson of nighttime safety a bit later than I would have liked, but he learned it, and then he lived for several more years to enjoy his retirement before he died of old age. My dad was naturally quiet by nature, and I took after him, so I never really was a chatterbox. Our oldest granddaughter? She'll talk 24/7 if you'll let her, and I never knew constant chatter could wear me out until now. We are trying to teach her that it is okay to ride in the car, for example, in companionable silence if you don't really have anything to say that isn't just mindless chatter. It is getting better, bit by bit, but we have a ways to go yet. We got drizzly, drippy, mostly misty rain most of the day yesterday, so no sunshine yet again and today is expected to be pretty much the same. The heavier rain is expected tomorrow. I miss the sunshine. The amount of mud we have is unreal. In the back where I feed the deer, the mud is just a churned up mess, so I keep moving the feeding area to grassier spots without as much bare ground showing, though the deer don't like change. The dogs and cats both are going stir-crazy from being indoors so much, and I am right there with them. Whenever I let them go out, or when I go out myself, because we are in between bands of rain/drizzle/mist and it seems wise to run outdoors while we can, it almost immediately starts to rain again. Just let me walk down to the mailbox without a raincoat or umbrella, and it will start to rain as soon as I am down there, 300' from the house. It happens every time. I'm so bored with being stuck indoors I have cleaned out the spice drawer and thrown away out-of-date spices, which meant (of course) making a list of the few that I threw out so I'd be sure to replace them this weekend. My constant cleaning out of drawers and things might be making Tim nervous. He survived the closet cleanout, but I haven't really touched his dresser drawers, nightstand drawers or anything in his office (where all the desk and printer table drawers are crammed full of stuff) and I think he might be worrying that someday when he is at work and I am bored, I might clean out the desk drawers and throw away some of his precious junk. Of course, I will not but the thought of it probably has him antsy. I am dying to get my hands on the garage/shop which is 1200 s.f. of 'stuff', some of which he actually needs and uses but much of which seems to be 'just in case we ever need it again' type clutter. I might make the garage/shop my 2019 project and work at it month by month. He'll have to be home when I do it though, so he won't worry I am throwing away too many of the things that he deems important. On the other hand, we'll never move to another place again because just the thought of packing up that garage/shop building would make him decide that moving is not going to be worth it. (grin) Seriously, when we moved here, we knew this was our forever home. However, I didn't know that "forever" applied to every piece of anything ever put in the garage. I'm really starting to get worried about the prospect of an El Nino winter. If the rain continues on through February the way it has been now, planting is going to be delayed for weeks if not months. I cannot decide whether to order my Dixondale onions for the usual early arrival date in February or to strategically order them to arrive 2 or 3 or maybe even 4 weeks later than usual in case the garden still is a mucky mud hole like it is right now. They've raised our chances of El Nino developing for winter here in the USA from 65-70% to 70-75%, so it is seeming more likely, even if it is going to be a Modiki El Nino instead of a regular one. Dawn...See MoreFebruary 2021 Week 3
Comments (108)I did manage to go to the grocery store (and as forecast I spent only $20)...didn't need much, was mainly just to get out. As to the false sunflowers, I planted all 20ish seeds and had good germination in November. The good news is they seem to have recovered completely as temps warmed up. Oh yeah, I have japanese primrose (experiment/Plants Delight says it will live here), yellow form of echinacea, and european marsh gladiolus that all have sprouted. No annuals...not starting them till March (started too early last year). Of course that's not far away now..though it feels like it is. I still have in the windowsill (till they go dormant) cyclamen hybrids that germinated Jan 2019. I may have to grow more bulbs...those were fun with constant growth since they germinated (no dormancy). I have lycoris hybrids in media, but no above ground growth (since early Nov), we're (seed producer) not quite sure if I'll see spring foliage or not till fall. But they'll also stay inside for a year after they germinate, before they're big enough to be planted in the garden. Consider that I have about 20 seeds for the price of one semi-mature bulb, and the surprise of what comes from seed, of course the downside of 4 years to see a bloom..lol. All those baby orchids in 2 1/2 inch pot with spagnum moss, that have to be watered about twice a week (and maybe more when heater is running so much as lately). Everything dries out so fast with the heat running so much as the last week. I'm trying to be better about fertilizing (instead of almost never) this year..and things are appreciating frequent weak feeding. I was able to see the plants planted along my south foundation, which is most of my more tender plantings. Most look good, only one looks slightly worrying, but I won't know for till it gets really above freezing (today 33.9...not enough). And even if it does, it's only about a month before it would have died down anyway (fall bulb that has winter foliage..usually gone by end of March). If nothing really got hurt (which would almost be a miracle), I'll stop worrying about how hardy my plants really are. The hybrid snapdragons (supposed to be a short lived reseeding perennial) had 6-10 inch foliage that as of now, looks like it mostly went undamaged at -15F (amazing!), it may have set back bloom a few weeks on the larger growths, but doesn't look like any major damage....See MoreNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
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6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
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6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
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6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
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6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
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6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
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6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
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6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
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6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoAmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years agoRebecca (7a)
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
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6 years agoRebecca (7a)
6 years agoluvncannin
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoluvncannin
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agohazelinok
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoluvncannin
6 years agoSandplum1
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
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