May 2018, Week 1......Finally Safe To Plant it All?

5 years ago

Let's pretend the wacky weather month of April is just over already and move on to May, alright? I'd like to think that at least maybe the cold nights in the 30s have ended. (sigh) To me, the early mornings with temperatures in the 40s still feel far too cold for this late in Spring, but that's what we're stuck with.

It is hard to guess what y'all are doing further north, so I'll do my best to describe what is happening in my garden down south this coming week and then, depending on how far north y'all are, you can take it from there. Most of you probably still are a bit colder up there than we are down here, but that cannot be helped since we cannot control the weather.

First, the existing plants....

The veggies: all the potatoes are up and growing well, and I've 'hilled up' both beds of them with mulch. There's not a sign of a Colorado Potato Bug yet and no diseases either, and we didn't have CPBs last year either, so my fingers are crossed.

The onions are doing great. We have one variety each of short-daylength, intermediate daylength and long daylength types and the number of leaves that each type has formed at this point is different. I find it interesting that they progress at different speeds. No sign of thrip damage on the onions this year. That's peculiar as the wind usually blows them into the garden either in March or April, not that I'm complaining. Now, because I said that, the next time I look at the onions, they'll have thrip damage.

The cool-season greens. I'm lumping these into one category--and this group includes lettuce, mustard, kale, spinach and collards. They all look great and are getting huge. I've been harvesting most of them for a while now, using the cut-and-come-again method. Some of the heading types or lettuce (both iceberg/crisphead types and butterhead types) are heading up already. I planted more lettuce than we ever could eat, so the chickens are going to be eating a lot of lettuce. Our chickens will eat collards and mustard greens, they'll nibble on lettuce, I don't give them spinach (it is all mine since its season is short) but they love, love, love kale. If even one chicken manages to get into the garden, it will eat kale until there is no kale left. That's why the chickens aren't allowed into the garden. The prettiest plants in the greens/brassica beds are the Must-Have Mustard Mix, the scarlet kale, the Purple Rapa Pop mustard and the Groninger Blue Collard-Kale. The plants that add tints of purple, blue and red stand out among the sea of green.

The asparagus. It has been producing forever and I am tired of it. I'm letting it fern out now. I could harvest for another few weeks as most of the spears are still very large, but I'm over it at this point. Tim doesn't really like asparagus, so I know I'm growing too much.

The rest of the brassicas---while they are growing well, they really are not growing as well as the cool-season greens, or at least they are not growing as quickly. Still, if it doesn't get too hot too quickly, we ought to have a good harvest of broccoli (I think I planted at least 5 different varieties) and we still have a good shot at getting brussels sprouts and cauliflower since they are getting the cooler nights they love. I just hope the days don't get too hot too quickly. It was 85 degrees down here on Saturday, according to our Min-Max thermometer, so that's getting a little warm for them. In order to get the best possible cauliflower heads, your cauliflower needs to mature before daytime highs start hitting 75 (ha, ha, ha) but that's nearly impossible here. This is why these crops are more of a crapshoot than broccoli. The good news is that the persistent cold has not yet caused broccoli down here to buttonhead, so that is a positive sign. The cabbages are just beginning to form heads but it will be a while before they reach a harvestable size.

The peas are doing great overall, but the edible podded peas are doing better than the flowering sweet peas. Those flowering sweet peas remain small and look stunted and none of them are close to blooming as far as I can tell. I don't know why. The edible podded peas are making good growth, and one of the three varieties is blooming now. We'll be eating peas soon.

The cool-season herbs mostly have not sprouted. I have one fennel and one dill plant that have sprouted, but planted lots of parsley (from transplants) so at least we'll have that for the swallowtails to eat....for as long as 15 parsley plants last them. The chamomile is doing great---up, growing, and some of them are blooming. Others are tiny. They've been all over the place in terms of when they sprouted.

The cool-season flowers (mostly violas, dianthus and pansies) seemed to just sit there, in bloom but not growing, in April. During this last week, they are putting out new foliar growth so I think their stall is over. I don't know it if was lack of rainfall or cold nights that left them almost in suspended animation for the month but they look better now. I sacrificed almost all the poppies and larkspur plants that popped up so I could add 4-6" of compost (I know! That's a lot, isn't it! I'm so excited for that section of the garden) to that bed. I finished adding the compost last week and transplanted a couple of flats of warm-season flowers to that bed this past week, but I'm sure the poppies and larkspur will return next year.

Warm-season: There's not a whole lot of warm season anything yet, but y'all know that I planted the first tomato plants in the third week of March and the rest of them a couple of weeks later. They are doing great. The first seven plants all have fruit, and both SunGolds have produced ripe ones already. The race is on between Cherokee Purple and Early Girl to ripen the first full-sized fruit, and this is a race that Early Girl does not necessarily win every year, so time will tell. The rest of the plants that went into the ground a couple of weeks later are a mixed bag---some are blooming already, some are not.

The bush beans I planted right around the same time I planted the first tomato plants are doing awesome. Granted, I covered them up on the same nights I covered up the tomatoes and that was a PITA at times, but worth it. Of the four varieties, one is actually in bloom---Contender. Both Royalty Purple Pod and Provider have blooms that are on the verge of opening...and have been that way for several days...but haven't bloomed yet. The fourth one seems slightly behind the others, but it probably has a longer DTM. Bush beans often get spider mites very early here, even before tomato plants do, so I planted marigolds (spider mite magnets in my garden) right beside the beans in the hopes that if the mites show up, they'll hit the marigolds first and I'll see them and yank out the marigold trap plants once the mites are on them but before they move to the beans.

This week, I'll be planting sweet corn, pole beans, summer squash and southern peas. Probably cucumbers too. Our soil temperatures definitely are warm enough for the beans and corn. The southern peas are trickier---usually they need warmer soil, but the volunteer southern pea that sprouted a month ago was doing fine (I yanked it out yesterday because it wanted to climb a tomato cage) so I am going to go ahead and plant the first round.

The nighttime lows and the soil temperatures are still too low for melons, okra and winter squash. Anyhow, they go into the back garden and I usually don't get around to planting it until May, so I have a couple more days to finish up the front garden and then move to the back garden.

There's not really anything much going on with warm-season flowering plants, except both annuals and perennials are growing well, especially given that the nighttime temperatures have been all over the place all month. Purple Homestead verbena is blooming, peonies have just begun to bloom and so has salvia farinacea. The first Texas hummingbird sage plant just popped up just week, as have a couple of moss rose volunteers. The larger Laura Bush petunias are about to bloom, and so is the first verbena bonariensis. The coral honeysuckle is blooming, but pretty much everything else is slower than previous years.

All our trees here are leafed out. Pecans, as usual, were last. I wish we could know what they know because somehow they usually know not to leaf out too early. Down here, it appears that at our place we did not lose our peaches, plums or wild plums (sand plums) to the late freezes. Yay! The dewberries are covered in blooms. The fig trees are still sleeping. Or dead. That's not unusual---they do not wake up too early when the nights are remaining chilly. The yards are a mix of cool-season weeds and bermuda grass. The pastures have been slow to sprout wildflowers, but there's more and more daily.

Rebecca, There are a couple of squirrels hanging out in the front yard and they watch me closely when I'm in the garden. Those little suckers make me nervous. I hope our long run of no-squirrel-damage in the garden is not about to end.

And, now, the first snake announcement of the year, breaking news as I type this....Tim opened the back door to let the dogs out into the dog yard, and after 2 of the 4 dogs ran out, a snake appeared on the back porch. Without knowing if it was venomous or not, he stomped on its head....but it slithered away off the porch. Ace and Princess are scared and had to be coaxed back in. Apparently snake stomping scares them. The first snake of the year usually is not spotted on the porch, but Tim said it had a bird about the size of a sparrow in its mouth. Darn it. It has been a quiet snake year so far and I was hoping the quiet would last a bit longer.

That's a summary of where our garden is at in terms of progress, and how I hope to help it move on with more warm-season plantings this week.

What's new with all of you and your gardens?

Oh, and heads up. In case you ignore the weather news, it looks like a Severe Weather event is likely to occur this week and likely will affect not only OK but parts of TX, KS and beyond as well. Be ready, have your plan in place, clean out those storm cellars, etc. I am going to be MAD if hail hits our gardens after the late cold nights already has delayed them so much, not that being mad will solve anything.

Dawn

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Rebecca (7a)

5 years ago

Y'all, it's a weed whacker! Don't you know anything???? ;)

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Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
LOL. And indeed, that is the official name with a certain-named company. But I'm sorry, for me from now on, it's whipper snipper. GDW liked it too. Been wondering where you were.
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May 2018, Week 4...The Heat Is On, Part 2
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Comments (94)
Good Morning, Everyone! Nancy, Bruce alerted me earlier in the day to the fact that he had rain and it was moving my way, so I started watching, but I still wasn't really believing because it always seems to veer east of us. This time it didn't veer east until it had gone south of us, so we got almost an inch of desperately needed rain. I was so thrilled. So, the garden will be happy for a few days, but I suspect the moisture won't last long in the high temperatures. This really was our first good rainfall since around May 3rd or 4th, and for once, we got more rain than our Mesonet station instead of getting a lot less than was recorded there. Lillie helped snap beans and string beans for a couple of hours. She's a hard worker and loves gardening (she has a great-grandfather with a huge garden and always has helped with the garden since she was very small). We had 4 varieties of beans all harvested together, and she was fascinated with the purple ones and loved the Provider beans, which are more flat like Romas than round, because the Providers have very obvious strings and she loves pulling the strings. She'd pick those out of the pile to string and then snap. Catmint makes me think of Yellow Cat, who we lost a few months ago at a very old age, because he was the only cat we've ever had who liked catmint more than catnip. I can hardly bear to look at the catmint right now because it makes me miss him so, but we'll always have it in the garden because some of the little beneficial insects love it. Paula, I'm sorry to hear about the seizure. I'm so glad you're okay. Did they figure out what caused it? That must have been frightening. Take that Short Term Disability and live it up in the garden! God has a plan, and maybe his plan is for you to have a few months of gardening and grandkids without any other distractions. As far as gardening in one's PJs, my experience with that is that if I venture into my garden for just a minute in my PJs, I end up staying out there in them and that will be the day the mailman brings me a package that won't fit in the mailbox and there I stand at the garden gate accepting that package while wishing a hole in the earth would open up and swallow me right up. I'm always thinking "maybe he won't think these are pajamas" but who am I kidding? Melissa, I'd been wondering where you were. You poor mama! She'll come back, you know, even if only to visit and she's very young still so they might move back here at some point. Or, their relationship might not last anyhow. Often, what you think you want at 18 is not what you discover you really want later on as you continue to mature. Chris was the same age the first time he left home (for Georgia) and he was back home in a few months. Congrats on getting through to your son about the importance of living at home for at least the first year since he lives so close to school and congrats on his scholarship. I think college is such a huge adjustment anyway, and I think he has no idea how lucky he is to be able to live at home. I am glad that you and Sassy Pants will at least have the butterfly garden. You didn't mention how your mother-in-law is doing. I hope she is okay and is in remission. Mostly we're just excited to have 3 weekend days together because Tim's workdays are so long during the week. We're going out to the dinner tonight with our son and his girlfriend at their favorite restaurant in Ardmore. That's about it for our big weekend plans. Other than that, I suppose our big plans are grocery shopping and mowing a couple of acres. It doesn't sound very exciting, but I like having all the supplies bought and put up so we don't have to make little trips to the store during the week and there's nothing like mowing the grass to help make it easier to avoid stepping on snakes at this time of the year. Rebecca, I hope the next round of rain doesn't miss you. I know exactly how it feels to watch the rain fall everywhere else except at your own place, and it isn't encouraging at all. Jennifer, Your hen sounds okay then. Her broodiness should pass and she'd get back to normal soon I imagine. I probably won't be working in the garden this weekend, y'all, because I feel like I worked so hard all week getting that pallet of mulch into the garden that I deserve a break today....and tomorrow...and maybe the next day. I weeded and mulched until I couldn't see straight any more, and the last thing I want to do for the next three days is any weeding and/or mulching. Well, I'll have to harvest so that requires going into the garden, but except for that, I'll get a break. Actually, going into the garden is dangerous because if I see new weeds sprouting, which is so common in May after rainfall, that then I feel compelled to weed. It is sort of sad to see all the cool-season stuff coming out of the garden, but it is late May, so it is time. I've already got most of the hot season crops planted, so the succession crops to fill in empty spots left by the harvest of the remaining cool-season plants (onions and potatoes) will be mostly melons of all kinds (muskmelons, watermelons, Crane melons.....) and probably some zinnias. I am working so hard, lol, to have an easier summer that I'm being very careful to not plant too many succession crops of edibles. This is hard for me to do because I have to fight my usual pattern of just planting more edibles. I'll probably plant more zinnias over time, and maybe some cosmos. You never can have too many zinnias for the butterflies in the hot summer months. The heat and general lack of adequate rainfall are encouraging me to stay on my quest for an easier summer with less time spent processing and putting up the harvest. I still have 5 large containers to fill, or maybe six, and will be plant shopping for plants for those containers either today or tomorrow. I do not understand how this tomato problem keeps happening. We have so many tomatoes piling up on the kitchen counter that we either need to eat a ton of tomatoes for three meals a day all weekend long, or I need to make some salsa or sauce or something to use them up. I cut back so much on how many tomato plants I planted that I didn't think we'd hit the 'too many tomatoes' point until at least June. I think the heat is speeding up the ripening of the tomatoes too much. I'm not complaining about having tomatoes, but just about how they all seem to ripen together at one time instead of spreading themselves out better over a longer period of time. I need to have a talk with them about that. Last night, I awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of a bunch of coyotes that sounded like they were sitting right outside our bedroom window. It was at least one adult with a bunch of babies yipping and yapping, and it was close enough to be scary. I was glad all our animals sleep indoors at night. It is more typical to hear the coyotes howling further off, though not always very far away. I don't like it when I know they're in the yard. The cottontail bunnies are very plentiful at this time of the year, so I expect Mama was teaching the babies how to hunt for their meal. Something has been roaming through the woods all day and our dogs are barking at it nonstop. I never see anything when I look for whatever they're barking at, but Princess and Ace just have a conniption fit constantly. Now I'm wondering if that mama coyote is raising her young ones in there and if our dogs are hitting on their scent. I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend, whether inside of or outside of the garden. Dawn
...See More
luvncannin
5 years ago
Yes Rebecca it is weed whacker.
haileybub(7a)
5 years ago
Hello all! And as Pooh would say, Happy Windsday!

This week my beans, cukes and okra have seen the light of day! They look great so far. This is my first ever go at okra, any secrets I should know? My container tomato and pepper plants are doing so much better than the ones I've planted in my garden bed, could it have anything to do with the 7.6 pH in my soil in the bed? I had it tested by OSU and the report came back as not needing anything and a thumbs up on that high (to me) pH. I've noticed a spot where those containers can be moved to get full sun until about 4pm when the blistering heat would hit them. My second round of spinach has sprouted but it may just be too hot for them to succeed. I had the thought of planting some squash in a couple of containers, I don't know. All of the squash bugs think they have been specially invited to my house every year and I need to weigh the joy of harvesting yellow and zucchini against the frustration of seeing the armies of squash bugs. I put up a pretty good fight but it's a battle I know I will never win. Question: has any of you planted squash in a container and trained them up a cage? I saw my first zinnia sprout this morning, I hope to see many more in the coming days. Someone mentioned in their post something Dawn had said about zinnias and mildew and I need to scroll to find that. Another question. How much water does an asparagus bed need after it quits producing and I let it fern out? I'm talking through the winter as well. This post is all over the place but now I need to suit up for work! Hope everyone's day is a great one!
jlhart76
5 years ago
Okra: harvest often. They can go from "just a little small" to "way too big" almost overnight.

We still have our "5 year plan" to move out of the city (quickly turning into a 10 year+ plan), so I have to keep a thought to resale value. Plus living in the city means dealing with ridiculous city ordinances and annoying neighbors who complain. Otherwise, I'd be tempted to cover the entire front yard with garden. But as long as i keep it tidy, they can't do anything (I already checked the ordinance).

And I agree that it's a weed whacker.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
I am enamored with the oxalis I got at SF. It sounds like some are hard to get rid of weeds (the yellow flowered sheep shire of my child hood, also called wood sorrel). The article was from someone who lived in Florida. Not sure how they do here? And really full sun, or a cooler spot? Oh, and edible. You know how I love edible ornamentals. I know the yellow flowered ones I ate as a kid are edible (I'm still here). Not sure about pink flowered ones. In New Zealand they eat the bulbs/rhizomes. They have oxalic acid, like spinach and chard, so not for people prone to kidney stones. But a few leaves tossed in a salad, or cooked, I guess.

My friend who's husband is with NWS says chance of severe weather is more likely north and west of us (Tulsa) today and more likely Tulsa area tomorrow. I saw they had put us as "slight" chance of severe weather today and tomorrow, I thought they might be backing off, but he still is nervous. And so...what do I do with the plants. Considering putting everything UNDER the table. Bad hail would break the glass. I could put a blanket on it.

Wipper snipper is hysterical. We call it a weed wacker or string trimmer. I also like strimmer!

Dawn, I wondered if that snake was eating eggs. Maybe you need a mongoose? Definitely need something that would at least alert you to snakes! Must be SOME option for that, other than kevlar clothes. There must be some predator missing from your area.

Babysitting today. Today it was run from one end of the house to the other, with the dog close behind...over and over.

We turned on the A/C last night. DH thought it was too humid.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Me too re oxalis! Time out for fishing this afternoon.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
I popped in to say that the NWS has issued the Tornado Watch for most all of western OK. It includes the counties west of I-35, but not those counties like mine that are intersected down the middle by I-35. It is in effect through 10 p.m. Most of us here are east of the watch area, so far, so let's knock on wood. The first severe storms already have fired up in the panhandle and in Kansas.

Now, back out to the garden to work for as long as possible before any sort of inclement weather arrives here....or darkness....whichever comes first.
jacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
5 years ago
I'm not excited for the severe weather. I certainly hope we don't get it here. Where we live it's very unusual to have a tornado just because of how hilly it is, but being only in the foothills here, places very close to us can easily be hit by a tornado, and often do. Luckily it seems we're out of the way for the nasty stuff.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
Hailey, if you plant a parthenocarpic (self pollinating) squash variety or are willing to hand pollinate, you can cover your squash with tulle or row cover to keep the squash bugs out. Partenon from Johnny's is parthenocarpic, and while it's not a long vine, it was a pretty big footprint, 3x3?

Okra likes it hot. I can't think of any pests or diseases that bother it.

What kind of soil are your container plants in? How new is your bed? I suspect when it gets hot the bed plants will do better than the containers. That's been my experience. I also found my new beds didn't have enough organic matter (or maybe microbes) the first couple of years, which slowed things down. I used Espoma Tomato Tone and Garden Tone.

I don't know how much water asparagus needs. In winter, I water mine when I water garlic, if there's been no rain. Unfortunately, that's just when I think about it, LOL.
Megan Huntley
5 years ago
Dawn, my heart was racing just reading about the snake. I don't know how yours didn't jump out of your chest and run out of the coop 5 feet ahead of you!

Haileybub - my Ph runs in that range and I don't have trouble. The wind has been taking its toll for sure though. Jen couldn't be more right about okra. I love it. My family loves it and my brother lives close enough that all I have to do is text that I'm frying it and he's at my door. The only thing that gets him over faster is my hubby texting that he's making a beer run. LOL Anywho, even with a bunch of okra loving lunatics around, I tossed as much as I cooked/pickled because if I wasn't out there every evening trimming anything shorter than my index finger, it was too tough to use the next day. And let's be honest, I wasn't out there every night. Also, get some long gardening gloves for harvesting. The leaves can irritate your skin.

Jen, I love that you've checked the ordinance on growing vegetables in your front yard, because I have too! LOL I was reading a book about edible landscaping last year that reminded not to put edibles within leash range of your sidewalk because they'll be contaminated by dog pee, and that changed my mind. I can't remember what I was thinking of planting next to my mailbox - but I've instead decided it will become a butterfly garden. Also, I've told my husband the next time I move will be to the cemetery, but realistically, I think it will have to happen in the next 10-15 years due to industrial development near us. As a result, when I add beds to the property they are shaped like ornamental beds and could be easily and cheaply planted that way. I'll just use them as vegetable gardens in the meantime. I mix my plantings anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Before I go, I'll provide everyone with a laugh at my expense. Last night I was geared up for my nightly 3-mile walk/jog with the dog and remembered that I needed to water some of the newly planted things. Being duded up for the run, I was wearing my headphones so I turned on some music and began watering. As I'm working on one area and trying not to get soaked by the blowback spray caused by the wind, I'm holding the hose shoulder high with my arm out straight and shaking my hips along to the music - when I realized I was quite literally doing the sprinkler! If you're not familiar, this video should help. For the record, I didn't add the hand behind my head, but that's all that was missing.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
Megan made me remember something I intended to say about okra. I really like Green Velvet. I feel it stays tender to a larger size than others I've grown. It is not as productive as Heavy Hitter or Stewarts Zeebest. Its pods are velvety, I could break them off the plant, while the others have to be cut. Just my 2 cents. Maybe I should grow some of each this year and compare side by side.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
Oh and Megan that video cracked me up.
hazelinok
5 years ago
Work was cancelled tonight! Yay. I don't like the reason, but did enjoy an hour in the garden.

Six onions are bolting. Lots of weeds in the onion bed.

I see what you mean, Dawn, about the asparagus sending up very thin ferny stalks. Mine has reached that point, but it's still making thicker ones too.

The beans are popping up now. I've had a hard time with beans for some reason. My neighbor always has great luck with them. I hope this is my year. Last year, there was a volunteer pole bean that grew all over the tomato cages--it was the only bean plant that did well. It was probably a Kentucky Wonder because that is the only pole beans I've ever grown.

I'm already planning (in my head) for Garden 2019. Silly.

Sure wish we would have made the salad and greens garden bigger.

For some reason I was expecting rain last night/this morning. We didn't get any so I had to water before work.

Does anyone grow sorrel?

Hoping the power stays on.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Good Evening Y'all,

I'm going to go backwards and respond because my memory is short.

Okra---I'm growning Stewart's Zeebest because when I space it properly, it produces its head off and doesn't really mind our near-constant summer droughts. Green Velvet is a great one though! Really, I don't think I've ever grown an okra that wasn't good. I really loved the tiny dwarf one that had red-tinted foliage, Little Lucy, because you could blend it in to flower borders so, of course, they discontinued it long ago.

Megan, It must be entertaining to be your neighbor and watch the show you put on. (grin)

Venomous snakes scare me, but I've had so many close calls that I don't totally freak out any more. That doesn't mean I take it in stride---just that I know enough to back away quickly and make sure I don't make a snake feel cornered or threatened. My heart always is racing when that happens and I'm just grateful I see one before I step on it. One of these days I'm likely to not be quite so lucky. The one yesterday was cornered, but not on purpose, so as soon as I saw it, I got the heck out of there. I'm still not over it. I'll be seeing copperheads in my mind every time I walk into that chicken coop for the next six months, but that is not a bad thing---it means I will be alert and paying attention at least. This explains why, when I walk anywhere, including across paved parking lots, I have my head down watching my feet....it is a habit, even when we are in a civilized place.

Those of you interested in front yard veggie gardening need to read Rosalind Creasy's book, "Edible Landscaping"---the later edition, which I think was published in 2010. It is awesome and there's so many inspiring photos in there of homes with the most incredible edible landscaping.

Here's a place you can see her book:

Rosalind Creasy's Website

Amy, I think that sharpshooters occasionally bother okra, but I've never had them on my plants here. We had them in Texas. Oh, and root knot nematodes can be a problem in sandy soil but, again, I've never had them on the okra in the back garden's sandy soil. Perhaps stink bugs and fire ants, but they don't do enough damage to ruin the pods. As a bonus, voles will eat most roots of most things, but they've never bothered the okra either. As far as diseases, if a person has cotton root rot in their soil, it might kill the plants, but cotton root rot isn't that common anymore, though it can lie dormant in the soil for decades. We had cotton root rot issues in our early years here (the farmer who once owned this land apparently raised cotton at some point) but haven't lost okra plants since the second or third year. Other than the above, nothing bothers okra. Except deer. (grin) Okay, except for that, nothing bothers okra.

I think asparagus is pretty tough. I probably watered it on purpose the first year or two, but mine is long-established---about a decade old---and never appears to need water, not even in drought. I think the roots must go down pretty deep and find the water they need.

Jacob, We often have warnings as tornadoes approach from our SW in Texas, but we rarely have actual tornadoes touch down. We did have one touch down literally in the bed of the Red River near us a few years back, but it went back up into the air and did a sort of hop, skip and jump across our county where it touched down in a couple of fields but went back into the air and flew over residences. We've probably been luckier than we deserve to be. On that day, storm chasers were on our street and the next road to our south, and were literally on the road right in front of our house, and I was in the storm shelter trying to wish them away. That's close enough for me and I hope we never see storm chasers close to our house ever again.

I've got The Weather Channel on, tracking the storms as they move towards central OK. I hope that no one gets hit. I thought about trying to cover plants, but the temperature is in the 80s and I was more worried about heat buildup underneath the row covers than hail, so I didn't do it. The wind has blown all day long. I'm ready for it to go away, but it actually should get stronger as storms get closer. Unless they all miss us, which would be okay with me. The risk here runs overnight (storms are supposed to finally reach us here sometime around 10-11 p.m.) and into tomorrow, so I was a good gardener and put up all my tools and supplies in the shed, including my table and chair, so that there wasn't anything loose that could blow around in the garden and tear up the plants.

We call it a weedeater or a weedwhacker, and when we are using the weedeater we say we are weedeating. We aren't fancy folks here, otherwise I guess we would say that we are using the string trimmer. Weedeating just sounds more brutal than using the string trimmer. Right?

This snake was a young copperhead, only about 18" long and not very wide so I don't know about it eating eggs....maybe banty eggs, Amy. It might have been searching for a mouse, though I haven't seen any sign of them. Of course, today Pumpkin went into the little coop and caught a mouse and ran to me in the garden with his 'catch' in his mouth to show it up. I shrieked at him to "Get that mouse out of my garden!" and he either understood the words or the tone of voice because he turned and ran right out of the garden with his precious mouse. Then he sat underneath the peach tree and played with it. I had closed the garden gate behind him so he couldn't bring me his catch a second time. He constantly disappears into the woods and brings me rats, mice, voles, gophers....you name it, if he can catch it, he brings it to me. He does not bring birds. He leaves birds alone because I yell at him if he messes with them and he does not like being yelled at.

Hailey, Container plants do better for me in Spring, but once the summer temperatures got hot, the plants seem to lag behind their in-ground counterparts. Your soil pH is fine. I grow tomatoes in soil around the same pH and they even did well here in our early years when the soil pH was 8+ before I had amended the heck out of the soil to lower the pH. Your tomato plants won't mind 7.6 at all. Mine didn't really seem to mind 8.2.

Zinnias can be prone to powdery mildew in hot dry weather, or hot humid weather. It is not necessarily real common but it happens. Some of the newer hybrids that supposedly are resistant to PM also get it in the years when it is bad. Most years, we are hot and dry enough that mine don't get it, but I do take care to water them at the ground level and keep the moisture off their foliage. I think that makes a big difference.

Jennifer, Snake encounters of the venomous kind make me extremely nervous for the rest of the day, and then it very slowly wears off. Of course, if you start having them every day (even here in Snakeville daily encounters are not common), your adrenalin rush lasts and lasts and lasts.

Amy, The main snake predator missing seems to be king snakes. Our snake thing is just a function of living in a very rural area with homes spaced widely apart on acreage and tons and tons and tons of grassland and woodland with only tiny parcels of 'civilized' land that is kept mowed and all right around people's homes. I also blame the Red River bottom lands for a lot of it....because, when the Red River floods, the snakes disappear. We had that massive flooding in 2007 and didn't see a single snake for the rest of 2007 or most all of 2008---it was a common topic of local conversation that no one was seeing snakes at all. Red River bottom land is all sand. Even in the town of Thackerville, for example, the sand beneath the town goes down almost 300'. Know that sandy soil encourages? Tons and tons and tons of gophers, voles and moles. So, maybe that plentiful food supply helps the snake population stay so large.

Before I run outside to close up the chicken coops, I'll mention the highlights of the day in the garden briefly: the first spined soldier bug showed up (yay), and I planted more flowers (zinnias and calendulas) and also planted southern peas. Every day I make a little progress. I found a clump of bermuda grass in the southern pea area and dug it up. Victory comes in small bits too.

Dawn
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Tornado Warnings popping up as storms approach OKC metro from the SW....one near Alex, one near Amber. The cities, not the people with those names. KFOR has video and the skies looked black and menacing. The Weather Channel is showing it on radar. A lot of us who did not previously have a Tornado Warning now have been placed under one. Our county's is through 3 a.m. I don't know if the timing is the same for all areas.
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
UPS guy tossed my Amazon packages on top of the seedlings I'm babying on the back porch. Seriously?

Squirrel dug up the Big Brandy from Eileen, that I was babying along.

Flowers on the peas, finally.

Is it normal to have to hill up potatoes every couple days? I just did it on Sunday, and now they're huge again.

I'm having a heck of a time starting tithonia seeds this year. Have two planted, and another one in a jug that's finally almost big enough to plant.

Dawn, one of the cotton plants disappeared out of the ground. I can see where I planted it, and the second one near it, but that one is just gone. It's in a place where the squirrels don't usually bother anything, too.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
I had to bite on the video, too. LOL, Megan!

I decided today that plants DO grow just like weeds. They're making up for lost time, and frankly, I'm stunned. Unfortunately, the weeds also grow like weeds. I spent about 3 hours in the center bed, weeding, putting down mulch, arranging and putting in some stuff. That bed will hold a LOT of stuff.

I visited with Utah people today who call weed trimmers "weed trimmers." How very civilized. I told them some of the names I found, and they both thought a weed wacker was a scythe--they had never heard weed whipper, either; and they modified whipper snipper to whipper snapper. I kinda like THAT, too. I DO understand weedeater, weed whacker, and weed trimmer. I don't know how I latched on to weed whipper. I'll have to ask my son about that. :)

I'm so tired I'm not tired. I'm sure you know about that, all. I planted all my grow cart zinnias, and there were a bunch. Then I sowed some, too. Had to rearrange some of the Cape daisies. . . thank you Rebecca. They looked so healthy and robust, I think I expected them to be taller. So I had to dig up and move them more toward the front of beds, or at least in a concentrated cluster. And by the way, Rebecca, I do have Cape daisies EVERYWHERE! LOL

Dawn, I like your snake mentions. It keeps me constantly on the alert. Keep them coming. I laughed about your eyes on the ground comment. When I was a teenager, my best friend (to this day) was always finding money. One day she spotted and recovered a $20 bill on our way home from school. I asked her why SHE always found the money, and she said, "Because your head's always in the clouds. MY eyes are always on the ground." You know what else keeping one's eyes on the ground is good for. . . not stepping into holes or iron plant stands (ask me about that one.) Being out in the yard, however, has helped, and I'm much better now about it. . . especially because of snakes.

The two "flowers" that cracked me up today were bee balms and the nicotiana. Oh my gosh, if we didn't like bee balm or nicotiana, I would have had my work cut out for me. I actually was ripping nicotiana out of the center bed. But I LOVED that they were hogging perfect weed growing space.

In the wonderful wonderful shop bed (the 30-36 x 6-4 foot bed), I see all these great plants I planted last year back in force. But I can't remember what half of them are. LOL. . . no worries, I'll figure it out eventually. I kinda like that I can't remember what some look like. . . makes it a game. I do spot coreopsis that got mildewed out last year; echinacea that the DEER got, annoyingly enough. I remember the hibiscus I tried. . . it's back. Lots of nicotiana I passed off as rose campion to Lisa, the ACTUAL rose campion, which never DID die over the winter; this sage plant that is 3x3 FEET now and is getting ready to bloom--I hope the rooting I gave you, Bruce, survives, because this is an amazing sage plant. I frankly am in awe. I do NOT see any datura, Dawn, and that's a little disappointing. Maybe they'll show up. On the other hand, the bed is so full now, maybe it would be just as well if they didn't. I have two different settings of iris in there, probably two too many, but they're awfully pretty. Two clumps of mums. I added verbena bonariensis, ammi majus, Cape daisies, The catmint is going to bloom in the next couple days, and that clump is huge. Dawn, when I put it in last year after SF, it was with a hope and a prayer. By the end of summer, it was huge. Also the blasted asclepias tuberosa. The oleander aphids killed its growth but not its spirit, obviously. And now, there is one glorious robust plant that can only be salvia (which I didn't think I had) and it is beginning to bloom and my goodness is it nice! Can hardly wait til I figure out what it is.

AND. I ate four sugar snap peas out of the veggie beds this evening. They were SO delicious. Why did I plant so few of them! Is it too late to plant more?

Little peppers are putting on little peppers. Actually, they're only little because I chopped em all off. They are very fat and healthy peppers.

No tomatoes yet, Dawn. . . but they are so handsome. Again, very healthy plants I stuck in there.

The garlic is obscenely huge--in the raised beds and in the "flower" beds. The onions are better than they were last year. There are potatoes everywhere. I swear I didn't think I planted them too close, but I did plant many with several eyes. And I planted them a month later than everyone else did (because of the freezes and rain and dilemma of whether to chit or not, and opted to half-chit.

I planted one of those monster hostas 3 years ago. Knew they didn't show themselves for 3 years. It did this year. I think it's an Empress Wu. Have any of you noticed I don't pay very good attention to specific names when I'm growing stuff? Well, I have learned to pay very close attention with regard to tomatoes and peppers. But not much else. I digressed. The whole point I wanted to make was that 3 years ago, I wanted asparagus, but thought I could be dead before I have it. And so I didn't. And yet I love asparagus, it may be my favorite vegetable. And now 3 years later, I have a giant hosta (which the deer might find, even though it's behind a fishing line fence and has a cage in front of it.) And two years later, I believe I may actually harvest a blueberry.

WHY did I not start asparagus last year or 3 years ago!!! This year, there will be a place for asparagus.

After I'd worked putting in stuff and weeding, I noted that GDW was restless. He loves fishing with a passion, and frankly I adore being out there on the water, too. Just not as much as gardening, and don't like adverse winds or weather. I watch the forecasts. Just assumed it was too windy today. And this has been a zero year for fishing with the late spring and cold waters. But sensed his restlessness, and he admitted he'd been thinking about spoonbills. So I promptly quit gardening and off we went. And it was a bust, but was fun just being out on the water. First time this year, and likely we'll miss spoonbills this year. And we had an absolute blast, in the meantime. SO much fun.

And that fishing trip didn't last more than 3 hours. We got back home, and I weeded and put a bunch of wood chips in a couple places. Didn't have to fix dinner, because we had a giant burger and fries at Mazie's, just dinner for spoiled-rotten kitties and Titan.

If we were talking one on one, we could all probably talk far into the night. Love you all!
hazelinok
5 years ago
Our sirens have been going for awhile now. Still have power. *crosses fingers*

Glad Ethan is at my Mom's.
MiaOKC
5 years ago
Here in NW OKC just lots of rain, thunder and lighting. No hail yet *knocks wood.* I started planting some of our patio pots today, dragged everything else still in nursery pots under the pergola with hopes the shade cloth would mitigate any possible hail. It was so hot and windy I didn't even try to cover my tomatoes in the vegetable garden.
MiaOKC
5 years ago
Oh, did have Mike vacuum the tornado shelter just in case... coordinated a plan with him to run up and each grab a kid if the sirens go off (OKC only sounds sirens for an immediate vicinity rotation rather than blowing for the whole county now).
soonergrandmom
5 years ago
We got lightening and thunder and a very nice rain in Yukon and all is quite for now.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Carol, Nice rain is nice. So much better than a wicked storm!

Mia, I'm glad y'all had a plan. I never thought about how hard it could be to get two young children to a storm shelter. When we lived in Fort Worth, we didn't have a storm shelter, and never really needed one and then by the time we moved up here and put one in, our son was all grown up.

I didn't even try to cover tomatoes either for the exact same reasons as yours. When I thought about it, it still was 83 degrees here so there was no way I could have done it between fighting the wind and then worrying about a heat buildup.

Jennifer, I assume y'all made it through the storm.

Nancy, Reading about your day just wore me out. I agree that the plants are growing like mad, including the weeds, but it is a good thing they can make up for lost time due to the endless recurring cold nights. I believe all those cold nights are well behind us now and the temperatures are climbing quickly. Before we know it, it will be June and we'll be wondering how it got here so quickly.

Rebecca, Some caterpillars eat cotton plants, but I cannot believe a whole plant disappeared just like that. How crazy! I'd suspect the squirrels since we already know they are living the Thug Life in your yard and garden. I'm beginning to think of your squirrels as The Evil Squirrels. Have you tried giving them a cookie? Maybe if they became your friends, they'd leave your plants alone.

It is hard to say what is normal with potatoes, but yes, when the weather is ideal and to their liking, they can grow very quickly.

Jennifer, Trouble with beans often means cutworms are getting them as soon as they begin to germinate. Lots of other garden pests like to dig up bean seeds and eat them, or pull up the plants almost as soon as they germinate. I don't know why, but corn is the same way. I am not sure why else you'd have bean issues unless the ground crusts over and they cannot break through, or you're planting when soil temperatures are too low.

We haven't had the weather arrive here yet, though it is in other parts of our county. I know a lot of you probably just went through a bad storm, but I am still just sitting here hoping for a storm of some sort just so we can have rain. Rain, not hail! I can hear the thunder and see the lightning from the storm to our northwest but here.....so far.....nothing.

Dawn
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Love ya Dawn and how you're tracking us all. Thank you. Thank you so much!
haileybub(7a)
5 years ago
Just got home from a day in Waynoka, there was fear of bad storms and I think that kept many people away from our blood drive but we never even saw a sprinkle of rain while there or on the drive home. There must have been quite a nice rain back home in Enid, though! Everything looks wet and lots of huge puddles at intersections on the way home. I feel regret that I didn't take the lids off of my rain barrels, I know they would have filled up but I've decided not to leave them uncovered while I'm away, one day a couple of weeks ago I happened to be home and heard a wild commotion outside. Ran out to check and a big bird had fallen into the water in my barrel, there was only about 4 inches and I was easily able to tip it over and let the poor thing go. It must have been pretty scared! Tomorrow when it's light I'll go around and check on everything but righ now I am just having the best time sitting on my back patio watching an awesome lightning show in the distance and the breeze feels lovely!

Dawn, glad to hear about your tomatoes doing well with he pH that high. It was worrying me a bit, I read everywhere that veggies do best with a reading of 6.5-7. Go figure.

Nancy, I dug two trenches for asparagus 2 years ago so am counting this spring's harvest as the third year. I consider that the hardest work I had done in my garden as it was previously unworked hard clay soil. Let me tell you though, I'm cutting several daily and they are absolutely worth that back breaking chore! I think I read also you were asking what materials people are using for tomato cages, I use wire panels I bought at Atwood's and formed them into cages, also I use them for trellises for beans and cukes. In the fall and winter I place them around my asparagus ferns to protect them from this terrible wind. I'm sure they will outlast me!
Lisa_H OK
5 years ago
Grrr. Houzz ate my post. Nancy... nicotania makes sense. It didn't quite look like rose campion. I left the SF with grand plans of where all my goodies were going to go. Sunday afternoon I decided the best plan was to stick them in the ground willy-nilly in one bed because 'it would be easier to water them.' Sure.... my conscience said. Of course. I ran out tonight before the storm and there were fresh holes next to most of the seedlings and a number of seedlings were MIA. Grrr. Nasty squirrels. I have a few tiny seedlings from Megan to plant up still.

Dawn I am sorry. I can't be your neighbor. My snakes only belong in delis in 22 story buildings...
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Nancy, With every storm, I follow that radar like a hawk and worry about our friends who are in the path of these storms. We all try to look out for each other. Last night was scary for a lot of people but the news so far this morning doesn't sound too awful. Going way way back in time, when Diane (who posted here then as OwieBrain) and Steve lived in LeFlore County in the early 2000s, they were blocked from all weather radio transmissions and most social media by higher hills/mountains around them and really couldn't get weather info in real time---only after the fact on the TV news. However, she could get Gardenweb, so when a bad storm was headed her way, I posted the info here for her to see. They've moved to another area now but we stay in touch via FB.

Hailey, I've never had any trouble getting great production from tomatoes. In fact, in recent years I've cut back and cut back and cut back on how many I grow because we get too many tomatoes and I get tired of spending the whole summer canning. Know what? Despite cutting back tremendously on how many we grow, we still get far too many tomatoes. If the higher pH soil were going to deter them, it would have. It simply does not. There's no doubt in my mind that they'd produce even better if I could lower the soil pH even more---but it is not likely to happen because our water tests in the low 8s---usually around 8.2, so every time I water the plants the water is working to raise the soil pH again.

My asparagus is living the thug life, growing and spreading ridiculously far and wide and driving me mad now by sending up spears in the pathways around the bed. Asparagus also has popped up in another location a good 6 or 8' from the asparagus bed, but I'm thinking it was spread by seed (even though I planted a so-called mostly sterile male variety). I'm trying to keep the asparagus in its proper place but it doesn't listen to me and does as it chooses. Since I planted too much to begin with, having it spread and spread and spread even more is not really what I want. I'm kinda starting to hate that asparagus bed. If it died tomorrow, I wouldn't replant it, but of course it is never going to die and I'm going to have to fight to keep it from taking over the pathways for the rest of my life. I've considered just getting rid of it even though I like asparagus, but we have clay and it is very firmly embedded in that soil and I probably couldn't get rid of it if I tried. You certainly cannot dig it out. I do all sorts of stuff to attempt to weaken it----I cut it back at midsummer when the spears are falling over and blocking pathways, I let self-seeding volunteers of flowers and herbs grow in there with it, I never feed it, etc. All it does is grow, grow, grow. That bed is about 10 years old and has driven me mad with its obvious drive to rule the world for at least the last 5 years. It is in a raised bed, so I cannot just roll the mower over it and cut it repeatedly until it dies. Otherwise, I'm at the point where I would do that.

Lisa, Clearly you have city snakes there who prefer high rise delis. We have country snakes here who appear to prefer chicken coops.

You could be my neighbor but, like me, you'd be scared out of your wits by the snakes most of the summer. You'd have to give up wearing cute shoes too in favor of heavy leather work boots. I'm not sure the heavy leather will prevent a snakebite but it has worked so far.

Now I have to whine about all the rain missing us. It. is. missing. us. My garden is dry. Our mesonet station has recorded 1.22" so far and we have had 0.07". The garden and yard are very dry and I was hoping for decent rainfall. We have a chance of rain all day today and even tonight, so there still is some hope, but the rain continues this morning to stay well to our west. We have had plenty of thunder and lightning and wind, for whatever good those things do for the garden. I'd rather have the rain.

Dawn
jacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
5 years ago
We got some thunderstorms and are currently getting some, but nothing crazy last night.

Last night was a LONG night. My brother and I got sick at the exact same time, and were up all night with it. Feeling better this morning. At least it's a rainy day that we get sick on.
luvncannin
5 years ago
I was praying for rain since we need it and I am sick too. Some sort of allergy storm in response to the horrible winds the other day. Must have blown in some serious chemicals. Hopefully I can get out and about soon. I have many things to do for our first market Saturday.
Megan Huntley
5 years ago
Paula I just received a Twitter update from the NWS that they confirmed an EF1 in your area. Hope you guys are okay.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
Pretty sure the GW gnomes were hiding posts from me yesterday. There seem to be posts I missed. Maybe it was having a 5 yo to distract me. I didn't see Nancy's posts, or Dawn and Jacob, between my posts. Anyway.

Another okra thought. I was given okra seeds for my birthday. My friend went to some gardening event last year where they gave each person 6 okra seeds. She planted them and saved seeds. I got the impression they are supposed to be something special, but she didn't pay attention to any name. I guess I have magic okra seeds to plant, will they grow into the clouds to a giant's home?

The plants are under the table. I was really hoping it would be dry today and rain tonight. Still hearing thunder. I think I'll go to Big Lots or some place and look for a pot to put at the front door. Ooo, I got a Lowes card for my birthday. Also invited by WWO (Wild Women of Owasso) to make Mothers Day cards this afternoon.

H/J, I've been saying "Next year" about a lot of stuff, so planning next years garden, too. It seems really early for onions to bolt! I have grown sorrel. It is not a pretty plant. You know the weed known as Dock? It looks like that. I suppose if you kept it trimmed and cut off the seed stalks it would be tidier. Obviously I didn't. I believe it's perennial. It had a bigger footprint than I expected, so I would put it someplace in the back of a bed with plenty of room.

Sharpshooter Dawn? Really, must we mention a new insect I had to google? Now they will show up here and ruin the okra trials.

Rebecca, can't believe UPS put packages on your plants. I'm starting to wonder if something bigger than squirrels is messing with you.

Dawn says reading about Nancy's day wore her out, and Nancy was complaining about being old and tired last night. A 3 hour fishing trip would have done me in. Nancy, you need to pace yourself!

Hailey, I went to college in Enid. Back before earthquakes. Now I will worry about you out there!

I wanted to plant today. Too wet now. I shouldn't complain. Except all the stuff DH mowed will be 2 feet tall again. I don't dare use these grass clippings, too many weed seeds in them.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Haha, Amy. I'm pacing myself. Haven't done a darned thing today, except spent maybe 2 exasperating hours online trying to find THE perfect new Bible for GDW. It was nearly impossible to find one that met all his requirements. I'd rather be weeding than do this kind of stuff. lol

Why do you need a pot by the front door? Also, I not only had to google sharpshooter, but also dock and sorrel.

I agree that UPS person was an idiot. Wait. YOU didn't say that--but he/she was, nevertheless.

I just called my son in Mpls. Asked him what he calls a weed trimmer. "Weed whipper." I asked him if that was just him or if it was a MN thing. He went over to the Menards clerk and asked HIM what he called a weed trimmer. They guy said, "Weed whipper." lol Would have been funnier if it had been just Wade.

Hailey, I think I can do asparagus the easy way. . . I think I can dedicate a portion of my largest "raised" veggie bed to it. Can someone tell me why this would be a bad idea? (I'm thinking the borders would be good for the thug factor.) Well, frankly, that's my only option, since there is no way to dig a trench here. Not without heavy equipment.

I like the wire panel assembly idea. I will have to check them out, if I can find ones that are the right size.

The rain was glorious but I forgot it means no gardening for a day or two.

Hope you're all better now, Jacob and Kim.

Dawn--seriously, the rain missed you? Did you ever get any more? I can think of worse thugs to have than asparagus. I am so envious. NEED asparagus! Will HAVE asparagus!
jacoblockcuff (z5b/6a CNTRL Missouri
5 years ago
Nancy, I want to be outside too. Again, at least it's a rainy day. I should be better by tomorrow. It must be some sort of stomach virus. First the toddler (Zeke) got it, and it's been a few days since he had it. It only lasted a day or so for him. Then I woke up with it last night at the literal same time my other brother did. Then we were up all night, and we slept until about 3 this afternoon. After having gotten the sleep, I'm feeling no nausea anymore, only a really bad headache and sore body. Bad thing is my parents caught it just this afternoon shortly after I woke up, so they've both been down for the day. Zeke is pretty healthy at least, so I'm helping keep an eye on him since I'm feeling better.

I still like whipper-snipper best lol.

Rebecca, they seriously threw packages on your plants?! How do you even do that? He can't say he didn't see them.

Dawn, I can't believe the rain missed you. We got quite a lot, but we didn't seem to get anything like I expected. I was expecting an actual severe thunderstorm, so I prepared for it! Waste of time. I'm not complaining though.

Our leaves are really starting to come on all the sudden, overnight. I've missed them. It's been over 6 months since we've seen them.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Me too, re tithonia, Rebecca. I planted them a couple weeks ago (direct sowed), and a couple days later someone rifled through the bed (dog? squirrels?) I see there aren't any up at one end of the bed, and I'm out of seeds. May have to order some more seeds ASAP..
hazelinok
5 years ago
There's some weird black boxes on this forum...so I can't see everyone's posts completely. It's so weird. I wonder if it's my computer or this forum.

Hailey, if I remember correctly, you and I were putting asparagus beds in at the same time. And I'm still new with asparagus and enjoying it very much. Maybe ten years from now, I won't. I hope so though.

Dawn, my beans in the past were stunted...they grew into small plants and stalled. Then pests got them--aphids, I think. There was something about that particular raised bed--the soil. I took it in for testing and it was so chunky it had to be tested as compost rather than soil. That could have been one issue. This year, peppers are going in that bed, so we will see.

I was happy to not have any events tonight, but didn't get much done. Took a trip to Lowe's to get stuff to build the temporary fence for the chickens. They need some outdoor time. A couple of the hens are getting pecked at--this has started since limiting their outdoor time. It's the Easter Eggers that are getting pecked. And I'm about to add three more hens to the group--just as soon as I can get this pen built, the 3 little ones will be added. Maizey--I'm worried about that one. She can fly high and fast. Also got hardware cloth to wrap around the lower parts of the pen to prevent chicken beaks from eating the plants that will go there soon.

Can you believe that I still have tomatoes sitting on the shop porch?

I really should spend Saturday morning planting, but Dale needs help at the Myriad Gardens and it does sound fun. Maybe Saturday evening.

It's been an awful week to start the hardening off process for eggplant and peppers.

If I can just get those tomatoes and tomatillos planted...and the herbs and flowers around the chicken pen...

Dawn and Nancy, how long does it take for coral honeysuckle to grow? I would like to take the tarp down soon, but don't know how long it will take for the honeysuckle to fill in that side of the pen.

Hey, anyone that took tomatillos...how are they doing? Did they make the trip home? lol
haileybub(7a)
5 years ago
Had to do a last read before lights out! Yes, Hazel! We planted asparagus at the same time, I remember you said you picked just a few last year, I waited till this year. Funny, I can't remember if many even came up last year! I pick several spears daily and oven roast them brushed with olive oil and s & p. Delish!!! Also before work I'll sauté them in a pan on my stove with seasonings and eat them at lunch or dinner, I can't imagine I will ever tire of it but that's easy to say in this honeymoon period! I would like chickens very much but I probably just like the idea of having chickens more than actually having them. I don't know if I would have the time to devote to them. I had my daughter's dog for a couple of years but didn't have the time to give him the attention he deserved, he started escaping right after I would drive off to work and he also started chewing on things. I drove him down to my brother's home in Dallas where he lives happily with 5 or 6 of his other dogs. It surprises me how much I miss him!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Here's a picture of the tiny little sprig of coral honeysuckle that ended up accidentally in the pot of tradescantia Bruce brought me last year at SF, Hazel. It's a little blurry, but you get the idea, and actually this photo doesn't capture the entire thing. In my mind, THAT is fast-growing! :)
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Dawn, don't you hate it when the wifi quits working! GRRR. It's a major inconvenience for many of us--not just for visiting, but for so many things. I hope you're back soon. I have important questions, or may have! Probably. Call them and get scared-out-of-your-wits about it, you have family emergencies. (And you do! We're family, aren't we?) I haven't actually tried this yet, but I have told them recently that I KNOW all the drills, unplugging, plugging back in. . . blah blah blah, and just fix it. It has helped, actually.

HJ, you know when you rave on about stuff like this, I'll have to do it, don't you know? And now you have Hailey doing it too. Ordering me some asparagus! Jacob, do you have asparagus going? You better get it in.

What about the rest of you? Do you all have it? Better get it.

SO sorry the entire family has had that crud! When the kids up in Mpls were out of one house that sold but hadn't been able to close on the new one, they stayed with me for a month. There was really plenty of room in the 2 bedroom house I was renting and it was kind of fun. Except the weekend we all got exactly what your family is going through. The five of us all had it within three days. Makes for a lot of laundry! The grandkids were 5 and 9 at the time. We have laughed about it a lot since then, and frankly, as miserable as we all were, it was kind of laughable even then. Y'know? Well, I hope you're all back up to speed now or tomorrow! And, trust me, you'll all laugh about it in a couple years.

I was out taking pictures of all the garden beds in the yard today to post on the FB OK gardening. I was marveling, on the one hand, at the plants that are here now; on the other, I was a little frightened about keeping them up if I'm still here in five years. I will say that getting David's grow cart made THE difference in what I had in the ground before, and what I've got in the ground now. I'm not sure how Garry really feels about it all. But he is tremendously supportive and helpful. And those seedlings on the grow cart take an enormous amount of time. First, researching them all, each and every one, to find out their specific peculiarities with germination (the prima donna flowers, especially), and then the watering. Every. Single. Day. And this year every single day for a long long long time! I just kept praying that no one in Buffalo, WY, or Minneapolis MN was going to die during that time, and that Scotty would be here to take over if that happened. And praying I wouldn't have to ask that of him. Whew. (And now HE will owe ME, because I have two gloriously healthy brugmansia cuttings to give him, when his all froze cuz of his greenhouse failure when it was cold.)

I just told GDW tonight that I didn't like that empty grow cart sitting there without lights on and so naked looking. Thought I better start some more stuff. He never glares, but he came as close to it tonight as I've seen. He suggested I go round up all those plants in glass jars in the art room and on the kitchen sink window sill to put in there since I apparently didn't plan on planting them outside. Ouch. I deserved that. (Coleus, sweet potato vines. Really, gotta get those guys out of here.)

I am so thrilled this year with all those "what was I thinking flower/plant beds in the 'yard.'" We lasagna-bedded the heck out of all of them, since there were rocks everywhere underneath. And now, in virtually ALL of them, I can dig at least 6" down without a rock. And it is GOOD GOOD soil. And, further, there is very much less weeding needed with the heavy layer of leaf mulch we applied last fall. Except for the grow cart watering, which isn't by any stretch of the imagination, labor, we've not had to do THAT much work in the "yard." Two beds to operate on for Bermuda, but otherwise, looking good.

Blessings to you all. It is not about gardening, but gardening sure does help us remember what It IS about.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
I had a lovely afternoon with the WWO (Wild Women of Owasso). I liked The Deep Enders (referring to the deep end of the pool, where we met.) But somehow it became WWO. At any rate we made Mother's day cards. My friend has paper and equipment to die cut paper. I don't know if this is a scrap booking thing or what. She has all these things like I have seeds. (This sounds like a really "wild" activity, huh.) We then went to dinner at Bricktown Brewery. I returned to find the dog had gotten through the fencing to the plants. She was chewing up empty solo cups. I THOUGHT I fixed the fence, but later she got in again. In a little while I will go out and survey the damage. I may make a trip to TMD yet. Actually, 2 of the WWOs were there Sat afternoon and brought me a Pink Bumblebee plant. They said they would drive me down there.

Nancy, glad you took a day off! I want a new pot by the front door, just in case coleus would crowd my beautiful violas. I should get a pic of them one is deep purple and the other dark yellow. Is it possible to have DARK yellow? Maybe it is gold. In my mind I heard the clerk say "weed whipper" with a Minnesota nasal twang.

I am concerned about you planting asparagus in your bed. It gets tall. And wide, and falls across pathways. So keep this in mind when you choose a spot.

Jacob, I am so sorry your family has been sick! I'm glad you're feeling better and can look after your little brother.

H/J reminded me, coral honeysuckle is one of the dog's victims. Dawn were these cuttings? Or did she break off the roots?

Nancy I can imagine the look GDW gave you about the grow cart. I get looks like that. Usually when seeds turn up in the mail.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
Sasquatch must not like tomato plants, they all survived. The worst damage was to the honeysuckle. I stuck it in a new cup. We will see. I found things I forgot I had gotten at the Fling, so that was nice.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Our internet service is back (it was the service provider, not us, who had technical issues after the storms) so I'm playing catchup and working my way backwards from the most recent posts.

Amy, They all were rooted....they were branches that were creeping and crawling along on top of the mulch and putting down roots. So, yours should have had roots somewhere. Our dogs and chickens never have bothered tomato plants, so I suspect the plant parts taste bad---deer will eat them though.

It sounds like you and your Wild Women of Owasso had fun.

That dog needs the biggest most gigantic rawhide bone y'all can find---something the size of a tractor tire perhaps---so she'll have something to chew and maybe, just maybe, then she'll leave your plants alone.

I haven't seen a true golden viola, but...California has a native viola that is golden, so it seems to me like someone could have bred a golden viola out of it. Also, there are some pansies that are golden yellow and the violas are close cousins to pansies, so it seems reasonable to think you could have a golden yellow viola. All the yellow violas I've grown have been more of a lemon or pale lemon yellow though.

Nancy, We're so rural that I actually am amazed that the WiFi works 99.5% of the time. Typically, if we are forecast to get severe weather, I'm not extremely worried about hail, wind or tornadoes because they are only slim possibilities that might occur. The sure things that will occur if we have a severe thunderstorm? First, the Satellite TV will freeze and then go out. That will last until the storm has moved on. After the TV goes out, it is somewhat likely that the internet will go out too. It doesn't always, but when it does, we always have to wait a day or two to get it back. At some point, the power will flicker off and then come back on. This is only a minor annoyance. Only once in the 19 years we've been here have we lost power for even 4 hours, and that was just last year. Prior to that, our longest power outage had been only 2.5 hours. So, it is briefly annoying, but our local electric co-op guys are awesome and are out there working to fix things the very minute they know something is wrong.

This morning, while we were at CostCo, Tim called our internet service provider to check on the outage and they said it was them and not us and that they had fixed it this morning. Sure enough, when we got home, it was working again.

Long, long ago--probably 2001 or 2002, Tim figured out that as soon as I had empty plant flats, I'd start more seeds. Still, I think it took him a couple more years to realize that I constantly start more seeds from February through June no matter what. It wasn't as obvious when we had a smaller light shelf with only three shelves that only held 3 flats. Now that we have a larger one that holds a lot more flats, it is a bit more obvious when more plantless flats appear on the shelves that I have started a new round of seed-starting. I have a lot of flats sitting in the garden waiting to be planted. Then, I have a few more flats on the table outside the sunroom---mostly waiting to go into the back garden when I get the front one finished. Then, on the baker's rack in the mudroom, I have 3 or 4 more flats of flower seeds I just started yesterday, also for the back garden. I'll move those outside tomorrow so the flowers can sprout and grow in full sun from day one. I just don't want to move them out until today's rain has ended. Even after I have planted every square inch of space that is safely fenced off from the deer, I'll have succession crops of one sort or another started in flats. It is what I do. When I yank out a crop that is at the end of its productive life, I have small seedlings in flats ready to put into that space, so we have bare space for just hours, not days. Eventually, at some point, it gets too hot for me to care, so I rarely start new seeds in flats after June. Until then, it is just a seed-starting merry-go-round here.

Jennifer, I see those strange black boxes sporadically, but they always go away quickly, so I think it is Houzz/GW and not your computer or mine.

Coral honeysuckle grows fast in good soil and with good moisture. Mine doesn't grow much in bad drought years, but I planted it in unimproved clay....though I think that years of decomposing mulch should have improved the soil a lot by now. Still, it holds its own even with temperatures well above 100 degrees and no rain for 4-6 weeks straight. I only water it if it wilts, which it seldom does. A year from now, you won't believe how big yours has grown.

Jacob, It is very common for our part of our county to get caught in a dry slot (I don't know why) and to have rain falling to our west and east simultaneously and completely missing us. I've learned to live with it. Once, when I met the spouse of a forum member at one of the Spring Flings, he asked which part of this county we lived in. I started to describe it in general terms and he said "Oh, you're in that dry area that the rain always misses" and he could describe our area right down to the road names. Turns out he worked for several years on a custom wheat harvesting crew and had been in our county fairly often.

At least while other parts of our county had flooding roadways and power outages on Wednesday, we were fine---albeit dry. When it finally rained here yesterday, the same folks that had heavy rain the day before got heavy rain again....and more flooding, etc. Some of them had small hail on Wednesday and I was relieved that missed us too. We didn't even have enough rain for our part of the county to flood---though some roads a mile or two north of us did flood. It is hard to be patient and wait for the rain to find us, but yesterday it finally found us. Now we're wet and muddy, but at least we didn't have storm damage.

Nancy, I wanted asparagus until I had it. I really, really wanted it and knew it needed great soil as it is a long-lived crop, so I waited until I had improved the heck out of the soil for almost 10 years before I planted it. This was especially important because it is at the northern end of a sloping garden, so the runoff all runs from the higher southern end of the garden to the lower northern end. So, now we have it and I am starting to think of it as a garden thug and starting to hate it. It grows like mad. I really think a lot of the irritation is a timing issue. In late winter/early spring when I am busy with wildfires and trying to plant and torn in two by the need to try to find time to do both, there that asparagus is, sprouting and growing like mad daily and demanding that I must drop everything right that minute and harvest it before it gets too tall. Once you harvest it, you must eat it, preserve it, etc. and then the next day there's a whole new crop of spears saying "Harvest me, harvest me....". The other irritant is that once you've harvested for a couple of months, there it sits, blowing around in the wind, flopping over into pathways, providing a natural trellis for bindweed to climb and just taking up space for the rest of the year......so, in some future year, if my asparagus mysteriously disappears, no one should be shocked. The only thing that will kill it is to cut it down to the ground repeatedly over months or sometimes years so it cannot grow and store energy for the next year. If I get tired enough of it, I'll do that. I'd just dig it out, but it has been there a long time and all the roots are grown together in one gigantic mass---it would take a backhoe to dig it out, and I'm not letting a backhoe get near my garden. I keep hoping the voles will eat it, but nope, they only want to eat things that I do not want them to eat.

It is too late to plant more edible podded peas. They perform best at cooler temperatures---say when highs are lower than 75. The higher you go above 75 degrees, the more they begin to fade. Mine seem to stay fine as long as the highs are only through the mid-80s, but once we start hitting the 90s (usually that happens here in May), they begin to get powdery mildew and, no matter what you try for the PM, the pea pods are diseased and not fit to eat. So, when PM hits, I harvest all I can, yank out the plants and replace them with something that loves the heat. For years, I tried to fight the PM and keep the peas growing, but the PM hits the pods almost before it hits the foliage, so that was pointless. Often, since the edible podded peas are trellised, I plant icebox melons in their place when I remove them because the icebox melons can climb the trellis and produce marvelously on it. That is a space saver for me. You also could replace your peas when the time comes with a vining form of cucumbers, Armenian cucumbers, southern peas, lima beans (produce better in the heat for me than regular pole beans), yard-long beans, malabar spinach, vining types of squash or gourds or mini-pumpkins. or the vining annual flower of your choice.

You can plant a fall crop of peas in late summer for an autumn harvest. Generally you'll get a great harvest of fall peas if you plant them about 10 weeks before the date of your average first frost of autumn. They will produce until your temperatures hit the mid-20s, at which time the plants do not necessarily die---but the cold can make the flowers abort, which sort of wrecks your chance of getting a harvest.

Amy, Not to burst your okra bubble, but every single person I know who grows okra thinks that their variety is the absolute best and absolute most special okra in the world---far better than everyone else's. I don't know why. Perhaps because okra, when it is happy, can outcompete, outlast and outproduce everything else in the garden in the heat and the drought conditions. (Although it will do better with regular water.) So, folks who grow cowhorn okra think it is the best and the most special. Folks who grow green velvet think the same thing about that variety. Folks who grow one of the orange or red varieties (they all look red to me, regardless of the fact that at least one of them has orange in its name) think they are far superior to others, etc. People who grow Heavy Hitter are sure it is the best, and folks who grow Stewart's Zeebest think it is the best. I have grown a lot of okra varieties some years in order to compare them to one another, and they all did well enough.

For what it is worth, I haven't had sharpshooters in OK. Maybe they are more of a TX thing.

Kim, I hope you're feeling better and I hope the first market tomorrow is a big success!

Tim is back from Salt Lake City, y'all, and I 'think' that was his last work-related trip for the next few months. The dogs were delirious with job when he walked into the house and wouldn't give him a moment of peace last night. One dog or another had to be almost in his lap or leaning against him for the rest of the evening. Thinking about how many times he has had to travel lately, I asked him 'do any of y'all ever work a week in the office?' (referring to him and the other three assistant chiefs), and he thought about it and said "not really". lol. Even when they are in town, they're constantly at multi-agency meetings, planning sessions, conferences, police academy graduation ceremonies, legislative lobbying sessions, FBI Academy classes, etc. I told him today that "while the men are gone away to play, it is the women (their administrative assistants) who are in the office running the show", and he was forced by his own honesty to agree with me. It is good to have him home. We went out for breakfast today and did our usual CostCo shopping run on Friday instead of Saturday, and we did it in the rain. There was a method to my madness, though, because I figured if we did all the errands and shopping chores today (and we did) in the rain, then tomorrow on a beautiful sunny day with highs in the 80s, we could (and will) go plant shopping. That is called planning ahead! Had the rain stopped, I would have dragged him and the carload full of supplies and groceries to a few favorite nurseries, but the rain didn't stop until we were almost home, so tomorrow I get to go plant shopping with an empty car trunk. I'm not looking for normal stuff tomorrow like run-of-the-mill bedding plants, but more for special accent plants for the containers or for perennials for the hummingbirds. There is not a lot of extra space left to fill in the front garden, except for the area currently overrun with native dewberries, and I'm going to take them out, rototill that soil, rake out all the roots I can and fill up that semi-shady area with flowers. Native dewberries are the bermuda grass of the native fruit world, so they just need to be completely gone from the garden. There is one thing in the dewberries' favor---they are attempting to take over the asparagus bed. It might be interesting to see them slug it out, but two garden thugs like them is simply one to many.

Today Damon Lane and NWS-Norman both posted maps showing the path of the Norman tornado the other night.......it traveled alongside and crossed Paula's road (no wonder they were in the storm shelter!), though I couldn't tell from the map how close it came to Ken's and Paula's on its 8-mile journey.

Dawn
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
I got to do a little work outside after work. Planted some flowers, a couple peppers, and a couple tomatoes, hilled up the potatoes AGAIN. Generally getting ready for the kids to clean up and mow the yard over the weekend. Fence goes in Tuesday, then I can build the new trellis and finish planting.

Y'all, I have big, fat, happy EARTHWORMS in all my grow bags from last year. , Worms! So THAT is what I was working towards.

I'm having a heck of a time getting morning glories to sprout this year. None of them reseeded from last year, and WSing them isn't working.

It is possible that my mini sunflowers reseeded, though. I think that's what they are.
hazelinok
5 years ago
This is the season of very long and busy days, huh?

Hailey, actually this is the first year I've harvested asparagus. I made myself wait. I do remember talking to someone else that they were harvesting a few on their second year, but I can't remember who. It's so yummy. I've made an asparagus frittata and it is a great way to use it up...along with my eggs.

So, Nancy, that is the growth (on the honeysuckle) from this year so far? I'm looking for something that will grow fast and cover that side of the fence to give the hens some shade. My coral honeysuckle has some yellowed leaves since transplanting--I hope it will do okay there. I really want to take that tarp down. But the hens really need shade.

My peas are looking so good. I hope it doesn't get too hot for them this month.

Today was my perfect day weather-wise. My favorite weather is high's in the 70's and lows in the 50's. No wind.

After work, we fixed the back of the old coop which is where the pullets will stay until they are introduced to the flock. No more carrying them to the brooder. They look so cute on the roost. I tried to take a pic, but it was too dark.

We also got the hardware cloth around the bottom of the pen so it's safe to plant herbs in that bed now.

Tomorrow, I will help Dale and then help Ethan get around for prom. And then, hopefully, will plant some tomatoes and tomatillos. The tomatoes already in the garden look rough but are growing...so I'll see it as a positive. And that means I'll need to get the tomato cages built on Monday.

So fun. Can't wait for my staycation...or homecation.
Megan Huntley
5 years ago
I know I’ve been silent but I’ve been following along. I’ve just been down with my first experience with a kidney stone. All day Wednesday I was exhausted without good reason and my back was tight. Cooking dinner I noticed it was more than tight especially around my right kidney. It woke me up at 4a.m. Around 5 a.m. I cried uncle and told DH to get DD ready for school in the morning because I was going to the ER. Thankfully, I passed the thing last night and with meds had been able to go to sleep, but I was still quite fatigued today. I had already planned to take today off work to get ready for DDs birthday party and plant peppers if time allowed. I was ready for the party - until 3 more RSVPs came today - but didn’t have the energy for the peppers. Glad my mom is coming down tmrw to help with the party. Almost 40 years old and I still call momma! Crossing my fingers that I have energy for the peppers before the weekend is over.

Btw - tomatoes and related are toxic to dogs, so they probably find something about their scent repulsive.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
That honeysuckle, HJ, came from SF a year ago. So it's a year old. But still fast. I transplanted it to the lattice about 2 months ago from a neglected spot under adverse conditions against one of the rock borders and under a bunch of leaf mulch. I think it's growing phenomenally fast now, and has begun climbing the lattice to the deck.

Can you grow tithonia or sunflowers where the honeysuckle will eventually climb? Over the past four days, I've put in most of the stuff from the deck. . . . between 90-120 plants, I'd guess. A LOT of little nursery pots.

Scott dropped by this evening to pick up his brugs I had for him and we all had fun visiting garden stuff for a couple hours. He relieved me of some of the peppers I had left, tomatoes for another friend, and various coleus, sweet potato vines, and stuff. We were trying to figure out where the Goji berry bush/vine would go. Found the perfect place out in back.

JUST about all I have left are convolvulus, NG impatiens, cynoglossum amabile and ornamental peppers, probably about 4 dozen in number; and a very few others. Felt really good to have almost everything out of here.

The artichokes, little Joe Pyes, heliotropes, pineapple sage, clary sage, Tuscan blue rosemary, sweet grass came yesterday and were in such excellent shape, I put them all in today. I had 8 good Red Spike amaranths and had to do a little strategizing about them, since I hear deer like them a lot. So have them scattered--a couple within the fenced veggie area, and some in cages in other beds. Those are beautiful plants even without flowers. And frankly, I have little idea tonight about what plants are planted and where. Too funny.

I always am impressed and astonished by folks who actually plant their planned landscaped yards and plants. So beyond me. I have no idea what drives me in building beds the size and shape they are or afterwards, what plants are going to go in them (possibly to be transplanted 2-3 times before they find their forever home.) I have a general idea of where any certain plant might do well and sometimes am wrong. I planted so many new things--herbs and plants/flowers this year, that I have little comprehension about their eventual sizes or placement. But this I can say for a certainty. If half the plants I put in the various beds this year do well, I will have plants bursting out everywhere next year. I already do this year from last. Although I can scarcely believe it, the shop bed, raised full-sun flower bed, huge everything center bed are nearly full.

I still have a space saved for corn. . . that should be going in soon. What can you all tell me about pests or worms in corn?

And thank you, Dawn, for the word on peas. I am gonna plant a bunch of fall peas! Please let us know what kind of cool plants you find to plant!!! I have heavenly dreams of pineapple sage, because of you. So thrilled I got mine.

Words fail me, Rebecca, about the morning glories. What color/variety are you wanting to grow? But yay for earthworms! :) If I have any of the ones you want, I'll bring to you when I see you.

What kind of flowers did you plant? Ears always perked up for new ones to try.

KIM. . . GOOD LUCK WITH MARKET TOMORROW!!!! Let us know how it goes.

And, Amy and Dawn, I do believe YOU have managed to talk me out of my lifelong dream of asparagus. I can live without. Do you all remember me telling you we grew acres of wild (same as tame) asparagus when I lived on the ranch, and all the townspeople came out to pick it, as we had more than we could eat or preserve. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven back then. But it was down by the river in kinda sandy soil, and what folks didn't take, grew back in force. I think that was my asparagus dream-come-true, actually, back then. And perhaps it's time to let the dream go, now. Thank you. First time you haven't egged me on, enablers extraordinaire, and I believe I will heed your words of caution.

Kitties and dogs. Titan. Wow did we ever choose a good dog when we were looking for him nearly 3 years ago. He doesn't bark unless some suspicious person is around and then he is SCARY. We taught him sit and shake and stay and all the regular stuff, but then we always forgot to implement the commands, as they weren't needed. Deer, squirrels? Fun time for him, but he's not interested in killing them, just seeing them run. He is a great companion and we thank our lucky stars for him. He understands our language far more than we might think. He observes our movements and knows what we're about to do any minute of any day. He adores us and we adore him.

The new cats? They make us laugh every day. I never in my life thought I'd love any cat as much as I loved Kitty and Daff, and yet here they are. These two gray tabbies are hysterical. NEVER have had two such loving and obnoxiously loving cats as these two characters. And they have conquered the challenge of being outdoors now. NOW there are THREE animals driving us crazy. In. Out. In. Out. We are the slaves. We watched, first, Jerry, zoom up a tree about 10 feet, then drop off. Half an hour later, Tom zoomed 20 feet up a tree. GDW and I saw him, he did it in the blink of an eye, and then dropped off. Jerry reminded me of Pumpkin, Dawn, today, as he was on my tail while I was planting stuff. He wanted to observe every plant going into the ground, and I was watching to see if he might be tempted to pull them out. . . he wasn't, just wanted to help me plant.

Love the critters, don't we?
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Megan, so sorry about the kidney stone!! I actually think you passed through the ordeal heroically! What's the deal. WOMEN don't get those! What's the deal!
jlhart76
5 years ago
Only fellow gardeners understand your joy when you say "I have worms". I found a bunch in my containers as I was dumping them, so they got moved into the penthouse (aka my compost bin).

Almost done planting, the rest is still pretty small to plant out & I'm out of nice pots. And my peppers that looked so horrible now have grown several inches. So now I need more ppots.

Nancy, I do like you. Plunk things down and rearrange a few times before being satisfied. These people who plan everything out and follow through baffle me!
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Rebecca, Congratulations on the earthworms! We've always had them to some degree--even when we first broke up what I believe is the most horrible red clay in the world, we would find an occasional earthworm---not many, but enough to give us hope. Every year, as the soil got better, the earthworm population grew. Then, after we went no-till, it exploded. So, as much as the earthworms love the no-till beds, I can understand why they'd love to live in your containers. Hopefully squirrels don't eat earthworms. Surely they do not!

The morning glories not sprouting might be a function of the cold nights, but it is hard to guess. My favorite way to sprout them is to soak them in water for 24 hours, wrap them up in a paper towel, stick them in a zip-lock bag and leave them lying on the kitchen counter (out of direct sun). I check daily for sprouting, and when they sprout, I take them out and stick them in the soil, and they're off to the races in no time. I mostly do this to get a specific color that I want, like Heavenly Blue for example, because my Grandpa Ott's reseeds all over creation every year, but I like to have Heavenly Blue too and it just won't reseed....or the seeds wash downhill into the pasture or something eats them or whatever. I've seen harvester ants carrying seeds out of the garden and have wondered if they're stealing the Heavenly Blue seeds after they drop in autumn, but why would they take only those?

Jennifer, Yes it is, and it is the planting/gardening season we waited for endlessly through uncooperative weather. I'm so glad we finally have decent gardening weather, and now I just hope it lasts a while before it gets too hot.

We all know the mosquitoes are about to hatch out big time over the next few weeks and drive us all batty.

The tomatoes in the ground will be fine. They always tend to look a little rough for the first couple of weeks after they're transplanted and then one day you notice that their color has improved and their growth is taking off and all is well.

Megan, I'm sorry to hear about the kidney stone. I've never had one, but the people I know who've had them have described the pain as equaling childbirth (though how men can think they know what childbirth really feels like is just beyond me).

You're never too old to need your mother! I'm glad yours will be in town. I hope your daughter's party is perfect and that she has a great birthday.

Nancy, The main thing I have left to plant in the front garden is tons of Balsam plants, which are intended to go into the area currently invaded by dewberries and an odd assortment of weeds (including asparagus). I have a couple of flats of Balsam, and the plants are getting big, so I need to get with it and clear out that space for them. Other than that, I just have some odds and ends....some Texas hummingbird sage and Cuphea 'Diablo', both for the hummingbirds, that are likely to end up planted between the garden shed and the coral honeysuckle-covered garden entry arbor. The biggest challenge the next few days, I suppose, will be all the mud.

By mid-week, I should be in the back garden planting, about a week later than hoped, but given that we had a long cool April with recurring freezing nights, I'm not surprised to be a little bit behind.

Dogs and cats add so much to our lives. The girls were here today and Jersey is by far their favorite dog because she just stands still and lets them pet her, hug her, love all over her, brush her hair, etc. She eats up that attention and they love having a calm, patient dog (the other three dogs are not so willing to stand still). We were out in the yard feeding the chickens (if having two young girls chasing chickens, pelting the with henscratch and making chicken-like noises at them counts as feeding the cihckens) when Chris came to get the girls and.....the girls couldn't leave until they'd run back indoors to hug Jersey's neck and tell her good-bye. For the other dogs, they yelled a collective "Good-bye, dogs?" and that was that. We are trying to teach better chicken feeding skills, but the three year old gets excited and shrieks, the chickens get scared and run and hide, and the whole thing turns into a fiasco. In the midst of it all, a wild turkey showed up as if to ask "where's my grain?". It received hen scratch as well.

Obviously there are no new plants because I traded in the plan to go plant shopping for a day spent with the girls. I was talking to our son last night and asked how the girls were and if they were available for a play date....and one thing led to another so we had the girls here with us all day. We went to the gigantic community playground at the park in Gainesville, and then to the Frank Buck Zoo located alongside it and then we rode the miniature train. That was followed by lunch at CiCi's Pizza followed by a trip to the mall in Denton so the girls could shop for and buy Mother's Day presents for their mom. By the time we made it back home this afternoon, the girls were well-rested (having fallen asleep in the car) but Tim and I are exhausted. I'd rather spend a day with the girls than to go plant shopping any day of the week, and it is fairly rare we get to see both of them the same day because, generally, on the weekends one or the other of them is at their dad's house. So, maybe we'll squeeze in plant shopping tomorrow. I don't know. It may take us a week to recover from a morning at the playground with two highly energetic kids. I'm not necessarily searching for any specific plant---just for something that's different from what we have. I'll probably pick up some salvias for the perennial beds. The only salvias in there now are three or four autumn sage plants, 3 meadow sage plants and salvia farinacea, which technically is either a short-lived perennial or a reseeding annual here. I don't need much---the two Russian sage plants take up quite a bit of space, and I don't want to crowd them or the Texas star hibiscus. I mostly need a few mid-height plants to fit in between the taller pineapple sage plants (six of them this year) growing alongside the fence to the west of the Russian sage, and the shorter zinnias growing closer to the pathway. In between the short flowers near the path and the taller ones by the fence alongside the driveway, there's some taller zinnias (the Benary's Giant Lime, the Art Deco Mix and Pinca Mix) but I still need to fill in that area a bit more....I like the flowers dense and thick to help shade out any weeds that might sprout.

You shouldn't decided against asparagus just because it is thuggish. If you like it and it is worth the space, then you should grow it. I do think, however, I'd plant it completely on its own away from everything else because it really does not play well with other plants. In your soil and partial shade, it does have the potential to be a big thug plant. That might be a valid reason to not plant it. I also have a love-hate relationship with tansy for the same reason. If tansy would stay where I put it, we'd get along great, but it moves around, reseeds by the billions, and gets so tall (even in my worst soil) that it falls over on top of adjacent plants at some point and then I have to take it out...or cut it back hard, or stare at it, give it the evil eye and mutter Italian curses at it (under my breath, of course).

Big news from the garden today---the first Cherokee Purple tomato fruit is breaking color. It probably broke color yesterday or the day before and I didn't notice because of the rain. I picked it and brought it indoors to finish ripening. Once they break color, their flavor is already fully developed and they'll actually color up and finish ripening more quickly off the plant than on it. I think we'll likely be eating the first BLT of the season in another 2 or 3 days. There's a ton of other tomatoes on that CP plant---almost more fruit than foliage, so there will be others following closely behind. It was not a very big CP fruit, but that doesn't matter because it is the first one....making it special for that reason alone. It also was developing a small radial crack because of the 2" of rainfall, so I wanted to get it indoors before that crack could get any bigger.

Sometime tonight I'll start next week's thread so we can pick up the gardening news on it tomorrow....on time!

Dawn
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
I should have been in the garden today, but I wasn't. I have basically demanded fencing. Think I'll get it? In time? Went to the Owasso Garden Festival today. Of all the vendors there, 4 were selling plants and one of those was a commercial parking lot tent seller that has been there all spring. I think this is unfair to smaller, farmers market type vendors. I noticed after the first year, many plant vendors did not return. This makes it kind of a ridiculous to call it a GARDEN festival. Just say it's another part of Trail Days (Owasso's spring celebration). But, I got 2 sweet peppers, oddly called Elephant Ear and Tomato. Who could resist. I then lost Ron a couple of times at Tractor Supply, and it was hot in there.

Oh, Dawn, I buy big rawhides for Honey, and toys. But when she gets bored all bets are off. And somehow the time right after she eats at 10 pm and the time I finish cleaning up the kitchen after that seems to be the very worst time for her. I have to put her outside to clean the kitchen, or in her kennel. In the house she will destroy something. Outside, she finds MY things to destroy. Sigh. She will grow up, she will. I'm not sure the honeysuckle will survive.

These are my violas.

Asparagus. I am wondering if a whole 4x8 bed of it is worth the footprint. Yes it is wonderful. Both of us love it. But there has NOT been enough to get tired of it. It is starting to fern now. If it had been a warmer spring, would we have gotten more? Oh well. A few more years we'll want it to all be perennials.

How scary that the tornado was so close to Paula!

Megan, I'm so sorry you went through the kidney stone thing!

Nancy, Titan really is a great dog.

Dawn glad you had fun with the girls.

And, did y'all see, Larry posted on the mulch thread?
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Hi Amy,

I did see that Larry posted! I was so excited to see him there. I miss his regular postings so much.

Your violas are pretty and they are about the most golden yellow color I've ever seen in violas too, but we do see that sort of gold in some pansies, and the pansies and violas are close relatives, so I am not really surprised to see it in the violas.

I do think that if April had been warmer, you would have had more asparagus. This year, for a lot of folks with asparagus, it was late/slow to start growing because of the cold nights in April and then we got so hot so quickly that it really began to fern out more quickly than usual. This is typical of what happens when we go from too cold to too hot too quickly. Wow, could I possibly use the word 'too' any more times than that in a sentence? Next year probably will be better for the asparagus since we rarely get the same winter weather two consecutive years.

I forgot to report on a few things around the place. Milkweed was very slow to sprout in the pastures. Like, very, very, very slow. Then it sprouted, grew and bloomed literally overnight. The milkweed is blooming now and monarchs are around, so the timing is more or less perfect.

The autumn sage is blooming in the garden along with meadow sage, salvia farinacea and the tall form of red lobelia, (aka cardinal flower). The purple coneflowers are about to bloom--maybe tomorrow or the next day. The zinnias I grew from seed and transplanted while still pretty small during the past two weeks have at least doubled in size and will be blooming before we know it. I'm surprised at how quickly they're growing with virtually no sign of transplant shock.

There is a huge cottontail rabbit population explosion that's been going on for about six weeks. Since they're all fenced out of our gardens, I love seeing them all over the yard.

A volunteer tomato plant has sprouted right beside the back porch outside the mudroom door. It cannot stay there. I'm assuming this one was planted by a chicken, likely from eating a cherry tomato.

Our forecast for the next week has us with high temperatures in the upper 80s every day. I am really getting worried we are going to get too hot too quickly. All the tomato plants in the garden are in bloom, but many are smaller than usual for this time of the year due to all those April cool nights stalling their growth.

The beans I planted in late March and nursed through the cold nights have gone crazy. They're all bush beans, but some that are about a foot tall now are putting out 18-24" runners that are trying to reach and climb up the tomato cages in the adjacent row.

The first mustard plant bolted today. That's probably a bad sign for the other mustards, and all the brassicas in general. I pulled it up and tossed it to the chickens. It was a golden streaks mustard plant. The broccoli plants are forming heads and the heads look like they are going to be normal, full-sized heads. I had been concerned we might have buttonheads because of the late cold, but that concern appears unwarranted. We usually have a major broccoli harvest going on around Mother's Day from broccoli that was planted in late Feb or early Mar, so the broccoli is right on scheduled despite the weather.

I have seen where a lot of people have mentioned bolting onions on FB so I've been watching mine closely---they are fine, no sign of bolting yet. The TX1015Ys are bulbing up.

The edible podded peas grew about a foot in height over the last 3 days. They really benefitted from the rain. The flowering sweet peas are just sitting there looking dazed and confused. They aren't doing anything,.

I haven't worked in the garden in several days due to all the rain and to today's time spent with the grandkids, so I noticed quite a few weeds sprouting in the beds. I'll work on them on Monday.

Several days ago several tomato plants looked ever so slightly unhappy or irritated. Their top foliage looked a little curled......I was hoping it wasn't herbicide drift, but it appears it was. Really, when I noticed it, I knew in my heart that it was herbicide damage, but I wanted to pretend it wasn't. (Pretending doesn't work.) It appears the county road workers went along the road and sprayed a herbicide alongside the roadway by everybody's tinhorns and creek banks/bridges where it is hard for them to mow the roadside right-of-way with their tractors. I don't think we'll lose any of the plants, but I'm not happy this happened. It makes me want to build a solid wall along the east fence line of the garden. Tim saw the herbicide damage to the sprayed areas yesterday and said "they sprayed? when?" and I just laughed and said "Yes, about 2 or 3 days before I saw damage on the tomato plants...." It doesn't do any good to fuss and whine about it because they use herbicides every year and aren't going to stop. There's just no other way for them to manage those areas they cannot cut in a cost-effective way. Herbicide drift can be a problem no matter where you live. It is a problem we experience to some degree almost every year.

That's all. This week is done. I'm getting sleepy. Need to go start next week's weekly thread.

Dawn

May 2018, Week 1......Finally Safe To Plant it All?

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Original Author