April 2018, Week 2 Better Weather....and Friday the Thirteenth
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years ago
Featured Answer
Sort by:Oldest
Comments (100)
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years agoMegan Huntley
6 years agoRelated Discussions
Fort Worth spring swap April 21 2018 Forest Park by the zoo
Comments (153)Sylvia--- We had a wonderful time today! Happy the weather held up! Appreciate your efforts to organize the event for us, Sylvia! I brought the plants home and was so excited to learn about the new ones.....felt like a kid at Christmas! Can't wait to see which plants will like it at our house! So thankful for each of your generous plant swaps! Can't wait to see you all in the fall! Judy and Don Cornell...See MoreApril 2018, Week 1
Comments (126)Nancy, As long as the new week isn't the first week of summer, I'll be okay with Spring starting over or whatever. I just don't want for us to skip Spring, so we can reset and start Spring over every week if we wish. Friday's high temperature of 84 (which was not at all forecast) reminded me that some years we also go from winter to summer overnight, and I don't like years like that. I don't think this will be one of them, but I'd sure hate to be wrong about that. Rebecca, If y'all only go to 31, I wouldn't be worried about much. I just feel like I cannot trust my forecast to be on the money because it so seldom is. They've already dropped our forecast low from 33 to 32 to 31, so I need to stop looking at it because every time I check it, it has changed again. And, just because I said that, I felt compelled to go look at the forecast again, and now it is showing 30 degrees for us. This is nuts. If I check it in another hour, will it show 29? Jennifer, I'm glad the power wasn't off for too long. We had sunshine on and off really late in the day, but not that much of it. About the time I got used to the sunshine, the clouds came back and blotted it out again. Nancy, I think we're all coasting.....too many plants inside waiting to go outside again and then into the ground. I couldn't start more now if I wanted to. However, once the plants start going into the ground and I have empty flats and empty shelf and table space, then starting more seeds (this time for the back garden) is a definite possibility. Jennifer, It feels like time to get the poor things in the ground, doesn't it? They've been waiting for so long and the weather has been so uncooperative. Jacob, I cannot speak for anyone else, but the coldest nights (after tonight) left for me are Sun @ 40 degrees and Mon @ 41 degrees. Being rural, we get frost more easily than folks in town where the heat island effect from all the concrete often helps hold temperatures up a couple of degrees, so I've seen frost often at 36 degrees, occasionally at 37 and a couple of times at 38. (This has a lot to do with official temperatures being recorded at 5' above ground level, and frost on plants basically occurring at ground level or just a foot or so above it, where air temperatures likely are colder than they are at the 5' level.) Having moved here from the city, it took me a while to get use to these unexpected frosts that occur when the air is several degrees above freezing. However, we've never had them with lows in the 40s, so I'm hoping our forecast lows are correct. Regardless, I have frost blankets enough to cover the whole front garden if a big disaster were looming, though I hope I never have to do that. I hadn't used row cover at all this year until last Sunday night and now I'm sick to death of looking at it. However, having it on the plants does make killing mosquitoes easier, so at least there's that. They land on the white fabric, I see them, I swat them and another skeeter bites the dust. Is is odd that we have mosquitoes out at the same time frost blankets are in use? Sadly, it is not. I've noticed mosquitoes seem to be becoming cold hardier all the time and we see them here in every month of the year, even when temperatures are in the single digits. This goes against everything I once believed about mosquitoes. By the time you're hitting the 70s, I should be hitting the 90s. Is that nuts? We've already hit 88 once or twice this year, so hitting the 90s in April isn't unheard of. We hit the 90s Easter week in 2011, which maybe should have been some foreshadowing of the summer heat that was to come, but I was hoping those hot days were an anomaly. For that year, they weren't. It was the worst tomato year ever because we were hot enough to inhibit fruit set before all the tomato plants even went into the ground. So, when you see the risks we take with putting tomato plants in the ground so soon after a big cold spell, it is because of past years like that. Long before you were born, Jacob, there was indeed an over-the-counter pesticide made from nicotine. I want to say that the one I recall was called Black Death, and it wasn't even that unique or new. Compounds containing nicotine sulfate were used as a pesticide as far back as the 17th century. What Ruth Stout was doing was basically her version of that sort of product, though the commercial products were sprays, not burning cigarettes. (grin) As I recall, the nicotine products fell from favor in recent decades because of hazardous side effects, but nowadays modern science is giving us neonicotinoids, which I haven't used, and never will. Do you mean to use just a fire with no tobacco? I don't think it will work. I think that for Ruth Stout the fact that it involved tobacco was the key. I go to many wild fires and grass fires every year, and they are not that good at driving away the insects (or the snakes) during the summertime. One of the things that drives the gardener in me totally insane is that I'll be standing near or even walking through a blackened, burned area that is still smoking and smoldering, and there will be grasshoppers everywhere. Live, unharmed grasshoppers, clinging to a fence post, or a tree, or hopping around in the blackened area. Sometimes they are clinging to the top of unburned prairie grasses, usually in an area where a strongly wind-driven fire raced through the area so quickly that it hopscotched its way through a field, leaving unburned patches here and there. Were I not used to seeing grasshoppers in these burned areas, I'd think the fire surely drove them all away. It simply doesn't. I do remember hearing tales of back in the olden times, before I was born, where farmers, in desperation, would set fire to a field, hoping to kill or drive away the grasshoppers. They were sacrificing one particular area in the hope they could save everything else. Now I'm wondering if that even worked for them. Some people make a similar homemade concoction (similar to the nicotine compounds) from tobacco leaves or from the leaves of any nightshade, but most often tomato plants, and use that to try to kill pests. You're hardly the first person here in this group to drop a flat of plants. It happens to everyone sooner or later, and it has happened to me many times. Luckily, sometimes we can salvage the dropped plants, although sometimes we cannot. Kohlrabi has an unusual flavor that is hard to pin down and hard to describe. Mostly, I think that it tastes quite a bit like the stalks or stems of broccoli plants, but not exactly like them and the flavor is a bit milder, and just not so strong and assertive. There's some hints of something else. Perhaps a little bit of a turnip flavor, or even a bit of radish. I always think it tastes weird, but I think that's because it looks weird....like an alien version of an turnip or something. Or the vegetable version of Sputnik. The first time I grew it, I had no idea how to use it or even if I wanted to. I just had to try growing it because it was so different. Cabbage plants can last surprisingly long in to the summer here, but eventually our extreme heat tends to make it bolt and send up a seed stalk. Still, you can usually tell when that's about to happen and can harvest it and use it before it bolts. In your summer weather it might not bolt in the summer at all. Eileen, Of course you should try them if they sound appealing to you. That way, you'll know if it is worth growing them. The current issue of GRIT magazine has an article about growing them and even tells you how to make a slurry of actual morel mushrooms in order to start your own patch of them, instead of ordering the morel spawn or culture from a mushroom company like Fungi Perfecti. Around here, mostly all you have to do is cut down a very old, half-dead elm tree (or wait for it to fall in the woods on its own), wait for it to rot, and eventually you'll have morels there. I need to go back to bed before the dog wakes me up wanting to go outside again. Dawn...See MoreSeptember 2018, Week 4
Comments (55)We have a huge mosquito invasion here. Hordes of them hang around just outside all our exterior doors just waiting for us to walk out the door, and every time a person, dog or cat goes in or out, the mosquitoes try to fly inside. Hunting them down indoors and killing them if they make it indoors is very tedious. It is the same thing when you get into the car---the mosquitoes fly in with you. Many counties near us, mostly on the TX side of the river, are reporting positive findings of West Nile in mosquitoes caught in traps. Fort Worth has had 200 mosquitoes test positive for West Nile in recent days. Some cities have begun spray programs. Y'all be careful around all these mosquitoes. I assume that with this many mosquitoes active and testing positive for West Nile, we likely will start hearing about human cases of West Nile soon. Tim and I suddenly have wasps---three new, big wasp nests have appeared on the house this week. He sprayed those with a wasp spray just around sunset yesterday and will spray again this evening if any wasps still are on/in the nests. I imagine the cooler weather explains the sudden appearance of the wasps and the building of nests on the house. We had wasps around all summer and just ignored them because they are very beneficial insects to have as many prey on caterpillars, but they weren't around the house much in the hot summer months, and they weren't building nests attached to the house. We won't even mention the huge fire ant mounds popping up everywhere, other than to say they are here. There's tons of grasshoppers still, and we also still have stink bugs and this week I am seeing a few squash bugs. Y'all know that squash bugs will feed on Halloween pumpkins and decorative pumpkins you have sitting outside for autumn decorations right? I watch for them and try to kill them when I see them there. Any that escape death will overwinter and be the start of next year's squash bug problem. Back in the summer months I got tired of weeding the asparagus bed, so cut back the asparagus really hard and sowed a ton of leftover flower seeds into that bed. I figured if weeds were going to grow mixed in with my asparagus plants, they might as well be the weeds of my choosing. So, in the asparagus bed we now have a lot of plants in bloom: cosmos, the grain type amaranths, Nicotiana alata, daturas, Laura Bush petunias, zinnias, rose moss and more. I'm sure there's weeds in there as well but you really cannot see them because of all the pretty flowers in bloom. The asparagus grew back of course. Nothing kills asparagus. The seeds I tossed into the asparagus bed were slow to sprout and grow because we were in drought, but the plants are doing great now. That is a good thing as many of the summer bloomers that have been growing in the garden since March or April are worn out and dying back or going to seed, but that one long asparagus bed is full of fresh fall blooms. Many of the zinnias I planted in the spring are rapidly declining now after this latest couple of inches of rain that fell this week. The soil is just too wet for them now, but at the same time, a few small zinnias that sprouted in the mulch in adjacent pathways are getting ready to bloom. I'm glad I left them in the pathways when I saw they had sprouted there. Usually I immediately yank out anything that sprouts in the mulch, but I can't yank out baby zinnias in August because I know the older ones are tired out and worn out and declining. Some of the pineapple sage plants are in the same condition of decline---they like well-drained soil, but I have a total of 9 pineapple sage plants, which means we still have plenty in bloom because only a couple have died. I believe the monarchs are migrating through here now. We had tons of them nectaring yesterday and most are flying south. Some are flying southwest, which also is fairly typical here at this time of the year. Some of the males are puddling. All in all, there's still a whole lot going on outdoors even as the season is winding down. The most amazing garden survivor is 2 or 3 flat-leaf parsley plants that somehow survived all the heat and drought (not bad for cool-season plants in a 100+-degree summer, growing in full sun), followed by purple datura volunteers that sprouted in August and are getting ready to bloom in the next few days. The fall tomato plants still don't have much fruit on them, likely because we stayed in the 90s very deeply into September so it won't be a great fall tomato year here, but the SunGold I put in the ground in March still is producing so at least there's that. So many morning glories, mostly Grandpa Ott's, sprouted and started growing along the fenceline in late summer that they are beginning to shade the pineapple sage, Russian sage and purple daturas, so I spent some time last evening yanking out a bunch of them. With sunlight/day length becoming increasingly limited as we go more deeply into autumn, I want for the flowers in the border along the driveway to not have their sunlight blocked by aggressive, weedy MGs. Today's task will be to cut back four o'clocks that are growing through the western fence and shading my peony plants and adjacent container plants. If only the four o'clocks would stay where they are supposed to grow outside the garden fence, but four o'clocks ignore boundaries. It is all fun and games out in the garden later today, at least until I encounter a snake of any kind. Then, the party will be over. Dawn...See MoreNovember 2018, Week 4 "Oklahoma! Where The Wind Comes Sweeping....."
Comments (37)Aaaackk! I'm so far behind I don't know how I can catch up, but I'll try. And, technically, this is a new month and a new week but I want to finish this thread before I start the new one. Bruce, It definitely is encroachment of a major type. Frisco and all the surrounding areas have grown, and continue to grow, exponentially. We drive down some of the roads mentioned in the coyote area occasionally, and they were country roads not too long ago and are city roads now. The development is occurring at such a breakneck pace that one of the things I tend to say to Tim every time we drive through there is ""where's all the wildlife being pushed away into?....what's left for them now?" Amy, It is alright. You've been through a lot recently and I am sure you have a lot on your mind. Now that you've found this thread, I'll go start the new one for this week in a few minutes. Regarding the chickens? We've had ferrets, weasels and ringtailed cats all get into coops we thought were secure, so maybe you have one or more of those sneaky beasties around? The first two, in particular, can squeeze through fences and through tiny openings. Congrats on the contract on your dad's condo. That happened fairly quickly all things considered. I know you'll be glad when you can cross the condo off your list of things you have to worry about. Nancy, The beautiful weather sounds nice. All too soon it will be icky again, either cold or snowy or windy or icy or some combination thereof. Today was only 56 degrees so warm but neither too hot or cold. All the wind the last two or three days brought down most of the leaves left on the trees, so we look really wintery now and even the last remaining red oaks in the neighborhood have lost their red and gone brown or naked now. It definitely looks wintery and I sure miss the green foliage. Fruitcake is an acquired taste. My dad made it as did several of my uncles, but I never acquired a taste for it. Early in our marriage I made one. I have no idea why. I wonder what I was thinking? Maybe I thought that making a Christmas fruitcake was a southern/family tradition I should carry on into my adult life? Nope, nope, nope. It wasn't worth the bother, we didn't even eat it, and I never made one again. If I wanted a fruit cake (and I don't) I'd order this one from Corsicana's Collin Streat bakery that ships tons of them annually: Deluxe Fruitcake A lot of people in Texas, in particular, consider this the ideal fruitcake, perhaps because a lot of it is not fruit---it is pecans. They sell about 3 million pounds of fruitcakes per year (mostly at this time of the year) and ship to at least 195 countries, in addition to the USA. In this particular case, even though I love to bake, I feel like they make a much better fruitcake than I ever could or would or have. Rebecca, I am not even sure my dad and his family members really liked fruitcake, but I guess it was a tradition from their relatively poor youth so they kept making it and eating it....despite not really liking it. I think maybe it is because their parents loved it and they lost their parents really young, so perhaps they clung to the fruitcake tradition as a way of hanging on to their memories of their parents. Larry, It is really kind of you to provide some entertainment for the cows. I know there must be some really good fruitcakes, but most of the ones I've eaten would not have been labeled as good in any shape, form or fashion, which is a shame considering how much work goes into making one. It also is tiring to try to chase down all the ingredients. I've noticed the last two or three years that a lot of the candied fruit type stuff that goes into them isn't even sold in local stores any more. Kim, I bought the Whole Seed Catalog at Sam's Club the first couple of years but it wasn't that special, other than just for reading it to pass the time, and I stopped spending money on it. Jen, I don't know of any way to tell the good seeds from the bad ones when they all look the same at the time you harvest and dry them. About the only thing you could do would be to run a germination test by sowing 10 or 20 of them on a wet paper towel or coffee filter and putting it in a ziplock bag. Check daily to see how many germinate. That at least would give you an idea of what percentage of the seeds you've saved will be viable. Keep in mind if the original plants were hybrids, their offpsring likely will not come true from saved seed. Jennifer, I hope your long day on Saturday went well and that you've spent today resting and recovering. Amy, I was watching the weather when the tornadoes spun up and was horrified when they started issuing Tornado Warnings for a "Particularly Dangerous Situation" type tornado emergency. It looks like it was horrible in the areas hit, but also seems like injuries were minimal and no one died. Why can't we have normal weather here? Tornadoes at the end of November are not unheard of but also not terribly common. We had some very strong wind gusts (likely in the 50s) as our severe tstorms roared through, but no real damage here. Some people in our county had portable structures, like sheds and carports, flipped or destroyed and trees damaged and power lines down and such, but I think it all was straight line wind damage and no twisties here. We got less that 0.20" of rain out of it, but I'm so relieved to not have mud any more that I'm not complaining. Rebecca, I hope y'all found a Christmas tree that was up to your standards. We bought a terrific and beautiful pre-lit one several years ago and I love it. I believe we got it at Lowe's. When I looked at the trees they have this year, none of them were anywhere close to it in quality though. It seems like everything we buy anymore just keeps being made more and more cheaply, although prices continue to go up. We had the girls this weekend and had lots of holiday fun, but I am exhausted and ready for the new week so I can catch up on my rest a little bit, Good-bye November! Dawn...See MoreRebecca (7a)
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoRebecca (7a)
6 years agoluvncannin
6 years agoMegan Huntley
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agoAmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years agoluvncannin
6 years agoMegan Huntley
6 years agobaabaamilker
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agohazelinok
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years agoluvncannin
6 years agojlhart76
6 years agoRebecca (7a)
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years agoluvncannin
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years agoenstanfield
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agohazelinok
6 years agoMegan Huntley
6 years agoAmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years agojlhart76
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoAmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years agoRebecca (7a)
6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoLynn Dollar
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agobaabaamilker
6 years agojacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
6 years agolast modified: 6 years agoLynn Dollar
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agojlhart76
6 years agoNancy RW (zone 7)
6 years agoOkiedawn OK Zone 7
6 years ago
Related Stories
COMMUNITY15 Ways to Make Your Neighborhood Better
Does your community lack ... well, a sense of community? Here's how to strengthen that neighborly spirit
Full StoryGARDENING AND LANDSCAPING11 Ways to Make Your Sleeping Porch Even Better
Turn off that air conditioner and tune in to the delights of slumbering in the nighttime breeze
Full StoryDINING ROOMSTrending: The Most Popular New Dining Areas in Summer 2018
The once-formal room has become a more casual living space
Full StoryMONTHLY HOME CHECKLISTSTo-Dos: Your April Home Checklist
Kick spring cleaning into high gear, and troubleshoot cooling and irrigation systems for the warmer months ahead
Full StoryGARDENING FOR BIRDS2018 Is the Year of the Bird. See 3 Ways to Celebrate at Home
Learn about the global effort to protect our feathered friends, and how you can help
Full StoryLATEST NEWS FOR PROFESSIONALSRemodeling and Design Firms Expect Steady Demand This Quarter
The Q2 Houzz Renovation Barometer also shows that U.S. firms now have shorter project backlogs than a year ago
Full StoryLIFEIs Cabin Fever Real? Share Your Story
Are snow piles across the U.S. leading to masses of irritability and boredom? We want to hear your experience
Full StoryHOUSEKEEPINGAll Together Now: Tackle Home Projects With a DIY Co-op
You're in good company when you pair up with a pal to clean, organize, repair and replace
Full StoryMOST POPULARBudget Beach House: A Trailer Gets Ready for Summer Fun
Punchy prints and colors star in a creative approach to Jersey Shore living
Full StoryGARDENING GUIDESSimple Pleasures: Savor the First Spring Day in the Garden
How will you answer the call of the garden once the birds are chirping, the bulbs are blooming and the air is inviting?
Full StorySponsored
madabttomatoes