March 2019, Week 1, Winter Weather Dragging On in Oklahoma

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

I'd say welcome to March, but what is so welcome about it this year?

If you've only been gardening in OK for 3 or 4 years, this week's cold weather likely is the coldest weather you've encountered in March since you started gardening here.

I think, for my specific location in state, the Sunday night/Morning morning low temperature will be the coldest March temperature we've had since 2015 and, as I recall, 2014 was even colder, so this is not necessarily real common, but it does happen. We can't let the recent warm March weather of the last 2 or 3 years make us think that every March will have the same weather because it will not.

I'm going to skip the usual weekly list of gardening chores we could/should and would be doing in the first week of a typical March because we are so far behind where we are in a more typical season. After we see what sort of a hard hit our plants take from this cold spell, then we can talk about, um, maybe where do we go from here and how do we get back on track, garden-wise. Or, do we? I know we're all beginning to wonder when we can return somewhat to normalcy again. Who has any idea?

So, please check in over the next couple of days and let everyone know how much snow and sleet are burying your garden plants. How about the wind? Those awful wind chills are hard on the gardener, but remember plants do not feel wind chills like we do. They can, however, be damaged by cold temperatures and by strong wind.

I saw more fruit trees (this time, somebody else's, not mine) in bloom yesterday and today here in our neighborhood. Not all fruit trees are blooming---it is hit or miss, but many are budded. Hopefully the buds are small enough to make it through the early Monday and early Tuesday morning lows.

I just noticed a moth flying around the living room. I don't have the heart to catch it and toss it back outdoors tonight. I wonder if it would survive indoors until warmer weather returns midweek? Probably not. I guess we'll have to catch it and send it back outdoors tomorrow morning. It probably flew in when Tim let the dogs out and in again this last time tonight.

Stay warm, friends!

Dawn

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dbarron

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

I put small piles of pine mulch over a few emerging perennials though I'm not sure it will help, but most will just have to take their chances...I expect great heartbreak when things thaw.

I should make my dogs get out of my bed (yes they're spoiled) and go outside in the snow. I've been up an hour...they haven't.

They've been in bed for 10 hours and show no signs of leaving my bed.

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dbarron
6 years ago
Dawn, I usually get up by 5 am, but the dogs certainly do not. They wait till breakfast is mostly over (scraps) or I otherwise tell them it's time to go out. I think I'm lucky there...two dogs back I had one that would pretty much demand to outside at his own schedule. These are like plush animals that stay on the bed (if allowed). Always ready to go out, but always ready to sleep too.
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Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
I was thinking way way back and seemed to me jonquils were okay with some snow and cold in Wyoming--asked and friends in WY said I remembered right. So didn't worry about the jonquils to the south and the ones on the east. And they do look fine.

Prayers for Tim and all the rest of you, Dawn; and for Ron. I hope the recovery time is fast for defib placements--we all need to get together very soon to trade seeds! And for Rebecca, as always, and for Kim, and for, oh heck, oh for ALL of y'all.

Looks like you got a bit more snow than we did, Rebecca.

I wasn't ready for the conversation to be over yesterday. First, thanks so much for your reminder words about blueberries, Dawn. As you know I bought and planted them before knowing about them in OK. This is the third year for the six I planted. They did grow well last year. But I am prepared to mourn a tiny bit when they fade out and will get blackberries in there. :)

And then I was kind of drooling over Lauren's pesto and HJ's, too. Nothing at all bad about pine nuts OR cashews, and will be happily trying pesto again.

Oh here's a good laugh--remember I was freaking about TT's tomatoes since that was nearly my only source this year. So I heavily sowed the seeds; I had said here that it was going to be funny if they all sprouted. This is Day 6 after sowing, and 15 of 36 cups have sprouted so far, and of those 15, looks like all the seeds are sprouting. Best be nipping some of the many out sooner rather than later, so their roots don't all intertwine.

But! I didn't think about the rosemary and lavender. Thank you, Dawn!

Yay, forecast revised to lows of 13 or so tonight and tomorrow night. No more precipitation, though. So my thinking was, "Desperate times call for desperate measures." I headed out armed with more "row covers." Garry said, "Don't forget you have them out there." I laughed, and you will see why by these photos.

Ho hum. . . I feel a Sunday nap coming on, maybe. XOXO
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(Not that I use them any other time of the year either.) It was real hit-and-miss. There were some organic products outdoors on the garden center shelves, some patio furniture and outdoor throw pillows (because people buy those in January?) If I ran a garden center, I'd have seeds and seed-starting supplies on the shelves first, not pesticides and herbicides. There's still a ton of unsold Christmas merchandise, but quite a bit less than a few days ago. Even at 75% off, most people walk right by and don't even look at it. Everybody's clearly over Christmas and moving on. Nancy, I hope you hit that button and ordered your seeds. I did quite a bit of that yesterday, but I really did try to show 'some' restraint. Maybe not enough restraint, but I tried. Then, this morning I went to the websites of Hazzard's Seeds and Eden Brothers and both boggled my mind, as always, with the huge selection and huge quantities available in bulk. I didn't order anything, but I am pondering doing so. It is 69 degrees, gorgeous, clear and sunny with blue skies galore here. I just love it! Cats and dogs are happy although the ground still is terribly waterlogged and covered with big puddles. I am excited we will have more days like this over the next few days. Both the 6-10 day and 8-14 day outlooks give us an above average chance of rain. No, no, no. This is supposed to be our driest month historically. Can the rain please stay away for at least a couple of weeks? Why doesn't this rain fall in July and August when we need it? dbarron, Trowels? Ha ha ha ha ha. I'll admit to having at least 6 or 7. I swear ....somebody here (and it must be me because I am the only gardener here) leaves them lying in a bed in the summer and then they get lost beneath plants or mulch. By the end of the season, I'm down to 1 or 2 trowels being visible and usable. Then, in the winter or early spring I find them all again, gather them up, clean them off and put them in the garden shell. It is the same thing every year. At least I finally have more trowels than I can manage to lose in one growing season so I no longer actually run out of trowels and have to go buy another one. For years, it seemed like I had to buy one more per year. In fact, I have to resist the urge to buy another one "just in case" when they hit the store shelves. Amy, Believe it or not, my seed hoarding has improved a lot and I am getting better about using them up before they lose their viability. Well, I still hoard too many tomato seeds, but you never know when you'll want to add another 10 or 20 varieties to the Grow List. This year, I put the seeds I want in the shopping cart online. Then I go back and delete at least half of them before I order. So far that is working out pretty well. My storage tote seed crate is emptier than it has been in at least 10 years. Lisa, Wow! You sure have taken on a lot of responsibility with MOW. I am so proud of you---that is such an awesome thing that y'all do for your community and I know that y'all are making them really yummy food. They are so lucky to have people like you who care about them. You might not be behind....it might be that we are getting ahead of ourselves just a little bit, but what else can a bunch of gardeners do in the winter time? Talking, planning and dreaming about gardening isn't really the same as being able to do it, but it does help pass the time until gardening time rolls around again. This afternoon a yellow jacket tried to come into the house with Tim. It made it into the mudroom and there it died. It now resides in the trash can. Will somebody please tell the yellow jackets that it is winter time and we don't need their company in January? We feed the deer every day, of course, and this morning or perhaps overnight, one of them left me a small present at the deer feeding area---one small antler probably from a 6-pt buck, since this antler had 3 points. I picked it up and brought it indoors and will let it dry for a while. The grandkids will love seeing it...they are at the age where seeing and collecting anything natural like bird feathers, pretty rocks, dandelions, etc. just thrills them. Dawn
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Jennifer, It is crazy what the wind can do! I hate our windy March weather and always look forward to the calmer weather of April. Let's hope that we get calmer weather in April this year. Jen, There's a dog like that in every crowd, isn't there! I am laughing so hard, and I bet the doggy parents were too. We have had an occasional mud-loving dog too. Larry, I've lost my light shelf in the garage before, so it can be done. Luckily it was just behind and underneath a lot of junk and I dug it out. I hope you can find yours and don't have to build a new one. Nancy, I find zone 7 a bit harder than zone 8 even though we only moved 80 miles north....it is the way the cold nights just keep coming back after a relatively long period of warmer nights. I can look at our temperatures for this week and feel like I could put tomato plants in the ground by the end of the week, and it might work, but then April could arrive and bring back cold nights like it did last year. 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Their house was redone in the 2005-06 time frame, and I'm not sure what all that involved but suspect it did involved total modernization that include putting up new drywall everywhere, which wouldn't have been easy in a house with 11' ceilings. I know it included a kitchen remodel with a sincere attempt to keep the old charm (successfully too) and new double-paned custom windows in the old Victorian style (very tall windows---about 7'-8' tall and thinner than modern day windows), and this probably also is when the central HVAC system was installed. However, there remains a huge attic fan that I cannot even describe (I'll try to on some boring rainy day) that likely dates back to the early days. While most of the house somewhat makes sense, the closet in the master bedroom has been a odd looking thing all along that I had believed was not always a closet. It does have drywall but had carpet whereas the rest of the house had hardwood except for tile in the kitchen and bathrooms. 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Nancy, We all seem like we have cold symptoms down here, but it is just the standard spring allergy crap we have every year when the trees are pollinating. I'll be so glad when it is over! The funny thing about frost blankets....when I first read about them in Dr. Sam Cotner's book, which I guess was around the mid to late 1980s, I scoffed at the thought of buying any sort of special textile to cover up plants to protect them from the cold. I thought it was a ridiculous idea, and they were so new (and we didn't have the internet for research) that you couldn't find any info about them from people who actually had used them. To be fair, I lived in zone 8 and we really didn't have that much cold weather after February, so late cold weather really wasn't much of an issue. Then we moved here.....and now I think they are essential. Jennifer, A blanket or sheet would be less damaging. Plastic conducts cold to any plant part that touches it, so I'd only use plastic if it was the only option and if I could wrap it around a cage or stakes or something so that no part of it touched the plants. I don't cover up cool-season anything....only warm-season stuff. Rebecca, I'm glad the tax refund will cover the car repairs. Nancy, I saved the plant shopping for tomorrow. Today the wind was blowing so hard down here as and after the cold front rolled through, and the wind chill was in the 30s, which is not conducive to walking around in outside garden centers looking at plants. We ran a bunch of errands and I hated getting out of the vehicle every time we stopped somewhere. I would have plant shopped (and frozen and then regretted it) but Tim said it was too cold and couldn't we just do it tomorrow, so I said OK. Larry, Hang in there. The cold and the wet soil have to clear up eventually, though it is hard to guess when it will happen. Moni, It sounds like you're staying really busy! Jennifer, I only covered up the tomato plants, and did most of that prep work yesterday. Late this afternoon, I went out to the garden, picked up the fence poles that were lying flat on the ground to hold down the row covers, pulled the row covers over the hoops to completely cover the beds, and then laid fence posts on the southern edges of the row covers to hold them down. I attached the row covers to the hoops on the south side of the beds with zip ties so they wouldn't blow away in the strong late afternoon wind. I was so relieved I had gotten the hoops and row covers in place yesterday when there was substantially less wind because it would have been hard to wrestle with those row covers in today's wind. I don't cover up cool-season stuff or any of the perennials....they all have endured much colder weather than the 32 degrees in the forecast for us for tomorrow morning, so I know they can handle it. Most chickens start laying before they are 6 months old, and a lot start at 5 months, so it seems like Stormy actually is a bit late, but blame that on winter and daylength. I doubt this weekend is the last gasp of cold weather and I just want to get through it, get it over with, and get on with planting more warm-season stuff. Warm season volunteers are sprouting in the garden again, so I know our soil is plenty warm---it has been hitting the 70s by about noon every day so technically I can direct-sow any seeds and expect them to sprout pretty quickly. It is annoying to have to cover up anything, but I had it so much worse before I invested in row covers and started using them. I used to have to gather up every bucket, flower pot, basket, box, etc. that I could find and then I'd through old textiles over them....blankets, quilts, sheets, table cloths, curtains, etc. My garden always looked like an odd redneck yard sale was going on by the time I got everything covered up. Now, at least when I have to cover up plants, the row covers go over the low tunnel hoops and it is easy to put those things out, and then to put them away. And, it no longer looks like I am hosting a yard sale in the garden. This year when I was getting out the heavy Dewitt row covers to use, I came across what was left of my Reemay and Agribon from many years ago...old, shredded, literally falling apart in my hands, so I bagged it up for the trash. It all lasted much longer than its stated life but it all was in poor shape and it was time to dispose of it. I won't miss it---the heavier weight stuff is so much stronger and I won't miss that lighter stuff. Our younger granddaughter is at her dad's house this weekend, but the older one is with us, so we took her shopping and out to eat lunch at her favorite restaurant and then tonight we went to see the movie, "Dumbo", which she absolutely adored. She said she can't wait to go back to see it next weekend with her mom and little sister, which means she really did like it a lot. I am not a huge fan of going and seeing a movie again after I just saw it, but some people like watching them multiple times, and she surely does. The bluebonnets are gorgeous in Texas right now and mine are substantially behind them, but that's okay---mine are still early, it is just that theirs were even earlier. I cannot get over how many trees are leafing out. It is happening in the blink of an eye---except for the pecan trees. Mother Nature rarely fools the pecan trees, and this year is no exception. We'll see if they start leafing out after this weekend cold spell ends, or if they're holding out a bit longer. I cannot believe all our fruit trees are done blooming already and it isn't even April yet. I hope all our plants come through tonight and the next two chilly nights with no damage. Dawn
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April 2019, Week 3, Spring or Winter or Summer? Who Knows?
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Y'all, I'm working my way backwards as I try to catch up. After 2 days of trying to keep up with 2 healthy, active grandkids, I am brain-dead and my body is not much better off either. Jennifer, We enjoyed the weather with the grandkids and later had a nice visit with Jana at their house. It was our first time there since they began unpacking and I'm impressed with the progress they have made in one week's time. The outdoor tour was the most fun. They had brought photos of their rose tree (more on that in a second) in bloom when they brought the girls over and I identified it as a Peace Rose and told them this variety has a beautiful history that they needed to Google and read. So, I knew it was a tall rose as you could see it through the 8' tall windows in the master bedroom and the rose went taller than the window.....yesterday we went outside and looked at it, sitting there on the south side of their house, and that thing has to be 12-15' tall, and part of it crawls sideways along the house's eaves. It's main trunk looks like a tree trunk. Sadly it is long neglected and we are not sure how much it can be rejuvenated without killing it. Chris wanted to move it, but I nixed that idea as it grows directly adjacent to a medium sized tree (I think that one is a hackberry) and the roots undoubtedly are entwined. So, he is going to take cuttings and raise some. Then, probably each Jan or Feb of the next three years, we'll cut back one of the three long main canes by a large percentage to see if we can spur new growth on that cane. Actually, if it fails with the first cane, I don't know if they'll try again the next year with another cane. I suppose the good news is that the Climbing Peace Rose is not old enough to be original to the period when their home was built in 1932, so they could take it out if they choose without feeling like they were stripping the home of its original plant heritage. I also noticed yesterday that an otherwise weed-filled front bed that runs alongside the covered front porch has three volunteer petunias in it. That entire bed is destined to have the soil amended and small mounded shrubs planted there as it is a pretty narrow bed that could have small mounded shrubs or a ground cover or shorter types of blooming annuals or perennials, but it really doesn't have space for all 3 types of plants between the porch and the sidewalk. With the Peace Rose, I believe they would prefer a new location, so if the cuttings work out and give them plants they may end up taking out both the hackberry tree and the overgrown rose later on. The whole landscape needs work on all 4 sides, so they are busy making plans for that now that their interior is finished and they've moved in. I didn't really find anything of historical interest in their yard, plant-wise, but the back yard has a lovely crop of clover and dandelions for the bees, and that area was being visited by bees, butterflies and one dragonfly yesterday afternoon. Mammy, It is sad but true that at the end of every beautiful day (and some not so beautiful ones as well), we gardeners end up sore and achy and in need of serious pain relief. Jen, I love reseeding zinnias. Mine have reseeded in the same spot for almost 20 years, but every few years I add some new ones to the mix just to keep it all from getting too monotonous. After quite a few years of reseeding, we ended up with mostly pinks and yellows, so I had to sow reds, purples, greens, etc. to get more color back into that bed. Nothing much attracts butterflies all summer long like the zinnias do. Do you have a house full of furbabies this weekend? And, the question is, do the dogs get to hunt for Easter Eggs (or something more dog-like)? Being pooped means a great day, right? Mammy, Welcome to the group and thanks for your kind words. Zinnias were one of the first things I planted here....in 1998 in a raised bed I built behind the area where our home would be built in 1999. Sure, why not plant a garden in the middle of a field a year before construction started on the house? We came up from Texas every weekend to clear overgrown brush and trees and to put up a barbed wire fence around our 14.4 acres. With decades of overgrown vegetation that included heavy woodland, it took us forever just to clear a narrow corridor and fence the land, but coming up every weekend meant I could water my plants (I hauled water up in here cat litter jugs because we hadn't even joined the water co-op and put in our water line yet). Those first two small raised beds had tomato plants, pepper plants, a couple of herbs, hollyhocks and zinnias. What impresses me most now is that the wildlife never bothered them because they've bothered everything we've planted since moving here. I remember the first zinnias I chose were Oklahoma and Will Rogers because, why not? Try as we all might to plan, to amend soil, to do things 'just right', I tend to plunge into planting projects with great enthusiasm and joy, not with a lot of deliberate planning. I just plant stuff and wait to see how it does. How it mostly did in the beginning was that it fed a lot of deer. Nowadays I confine my vast growing experiments to areas within two fenced garden plots with 8' fences, and sometimes one other plot with only a 4' fence, to exclude the deer. More plants survive that way. While I love growing edibles, I mix in flowers and herbs in every bed, which drives my old farmer/old rancher friends absolutely start raving mad because they don't understand why I 'waste' space on anything non-edible. I can tell them until I'm blue in the face that growing food feeds our bodies but growing herbs and flowers helps feed our souls, and they just won't concede I'm right about that. Apparently by planting it all mixed when we moved here 2 decades ago, I violated some unwritten neighborhood rule that the men tended large row gardens with nothing but veggies in them (narrow rows, wide dirt spaces between them to allow the tractor to travel through the garden) and the women were relegated to herbs and flowers in pots on the porch and in a couple of flower beds near the house. I caught hell for that, but just kept on being me and doing my thing. My husband isn't a gardener anyway and works long days that include a 3 hour round-trip commute to Dallas from southern OK every work day, so we would have been in trouble if we chose to garden in the traditional neighborhood style, as we wouldn't have had veggies or fruits grown here on our property I guess. It doesn't matter what mulch you use, just use something. Mine varies from grass clippings (we mow a couple of acres and use absolutely no chemicals on our grassy areas) to chopped/shredded autumn leaves collected in the fall to purchased wood mulch. For many years, several farming/ranching friends gave us bales of old spoiled hay and I mulched like mad with those, but stopped accepting all the kind offers of mulch hay (and livestock manure) in 2010 (after friends gave us 220 square bales of hay) because of the risk of herbicide carryover. It is a lot harder to come up with enough mulch nowadays, but I am glad we have avoided contaminating our garden areas with persistent herbicides. I have had friends, including some right in my own neighborhood, accidentally contaminate their own garden soil with herbicide carryover and kill their own garden plants. They didn't even imagine this was a possibility because they choose not to use that specific class of herbicide on their property, but they forgot they purchased hay in drought years, including in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014, so when they added composted cow manure and horse manure from their own barn to their garden, there was enough herbicide carryover to kill their tomato and bean plants, among other things that year. I am sure that if they'd thought about it in advance, they would have tested their composted manure by doing a bioassay, but they didn't. Luckily, being rural, they just went a little distance away on their large property and built a new garden, but it was a shame that had to abandon the well-amended soil in the original garden plot. Several years ago someone traveling down our rural road in a large spray rig apparently had some sort of accident and apparently lost several gallons of herbicide that ran into our bar ditch. We weren't home at the time, but as soon as I noticed the dying, splotchy grass and wildflowers, we stopped using grass clippings from that area, leaving them there on the ground when we mowed instead of gathering them in the grass catcher. Here we are three years later and the area that took the biggest concentration of that herbicide still remains largely weed-free, and even grass struggles to grow there. I am amazed at how long that spill has contaminated that area, even though I know that it is technically possible. Go ahead and plant those zinnias. My volunteers from past plants are sprouting in a pathway and have been for over a week now, and I have a flat of lemon-colored Profusion Zinnias to plant in the front garden today, and then I'll sow that flat with seeds of the same thing to plant in the back garden in a few weeks. The back garden is the little stepchild on our property---it is vole-infested and I don't plant it until the front garden is full because voles tend to eat anything planted too close to wintery type cold weather, making cool-season crops a no-go back there. Usually if I wait and plant the back garden in May (made easy this year by rain keeping it too wet to plant any earlier), the voles don't start eating plants until we get hot and dry in July, so at least everything back there has a chance for a while. Nancy, I know you've been busy with the family gathering and loved seeing the group photos on FB. What a large clan y'all have here! Kim, I am thinking of your mom, you, your sister (was she okay after that trip to the ER?) and the rest of your family. I hope this weekend is filled more with joy, peace and comfort than tears as y'all are traveling down a tough road right now. Sharon, I hope the service brought y'all comfort and joy yesterday as you all shared your memories of your mom. I smile when I think of her in heaven, reunited with your dad, and I see both of your parents in you and your girls. Larry, Did you get more rain? Did it freeze? George, I am sorry about your plants. I hate surprise freezes and am glad you had backups. Jacob, Can you start planting in earnest now or is the weather still too dicey? Rebecca, Sorry about the car repair bill. I hope that plant therapy helped. Amy, Is your dad doing alright? I know y'all must be busy getting ready for another wedding---this seems to be your family's year for weddings. Okay, see there...I have been paying attention and trying to stay caught up with everyone here in the group, both on FB and here on the forum, even though the girls have kept me running. Why does God give you crazy-active and crazy-busy grandkids after your body is old, exhausted and cannot run, jump and climb like it once did? We should have had the grandkids first when we were younger. I need to go start this week's thread as the weather takes aim at us yet once again, but enjoy today y'all. I intend to spend at least half of the day in the garden today. However, we did have three fire calls yesterday, and one was an All-Page, and I am concerned the All-Page fire will rekindle and ruin our Easter plans. It is odd for us to have a forest fire and not a pasture fire anyway, and our relative greenness is 89%, so that All-Page fire never should have happened. Somebody started that fire on purpose. We weren't even here....we were up at the kids' house in Ardmore, and by the time we stopped in at three stores, picked up dinner and headed home, they didn't need us at the fire. I guess we would have gone after we got home but we got lucky, and I was relieved because I felt too tired to deal with it. Dawn
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hazelinok
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Just finished reading at the other thread. So sorry you lost your post twice, Dawn. How annoying. Also, thanks for the advice about blueberries. I'm stubborn enough to want to try them anyway--just to see. I'll have to bring in water, probably. I'm sure our well water is very alkaline. Sounds like a tricky thing to grow for sure. Organic blueberries aren't really that expensive compared to organic strawberries. I can't afford organic strawberries right now. They are ridiculous. Ethan loves them, so I just buy the non-organic (cringe) and soak them and clean them real well. Hopefully that helps somewhat. My own strawberry patch needs some help, I think. I'm very sure I've never fertilized it. I have a real problem with forgetting to fertilize. It has been doing well despite my neglect. BUT, maybe it will do even better with a little care, right?

Okay. I'm going to read backwards starting with Nancy's post. I like your row covers, Nancy! :D So happy your TT plants are sprouting. I just noticed that my TT peppers are just barely starting to push up. Phew. They were started last Monday...so 6 days ago? That's about right, right?

I took a long nap this afternoon. Went to work, went to lunch, came home and slept. It felt so nice that I laid in bed for another hour doing nothing, wide awake...but knowing that the animals needed attention.

I put Marjorie with the other hens about an hour ago. She didn't eat any of the food I gave her this morning in the brooder. I'll probably put her back in the brooder in about an hour. I know the brooder is staying above freezing because her water didn't freeze.

dbarron, your dogs are so cute. I love that they like to sleep in. My dogs sleep in the utility room and they are always ready to go out early. They don't whine when my husband wakes up at 5 am to get ready for work, but as soon as they think they hear me--even if it's rolling over in bed--they start whining.

Dawn, when did you start tomatoes? I sure hope the rest of your family stays well. Sometimes that happens--only one person gets sick. Adults are usually better at keeping germs to themselves. Unlike kids.

Rebecca, sorry you're not feeling well. AND glad you can stay in, cozy down and rest.

Amy, I sure hope Ron recovers quickly from surgery. Mutter away. This weather makes anyone want to mutter.

Megan, how do you make your kale chips. I've never made them.

Hailey, thanks. I'm going to try to be better at fertilizing my beds this year.

My onions should be here tomorrow or Tuesday. They are short day varieties. I'm pretty sure I've started these varieties in March in the past, though. I looked back on FB to see if there were pictures with dates, but weren't. Last year was the first year I planted them in February. OH! I could look at my past orders from Dixondale. I didn't take onion-planting pictures in 2016/2017. We were dealing with Tom's Mom's death and a remodel in 2016...and 2017, I'm not sure. Maybe planning a trip to DC. I don't know why I didn't keep better records.

Maybe...maybe, I can get the onion bed prepared on Thursday and planted on Friday.

Watching the weather now. Guy just said that other than this week, he thinks March is mostly going to be highs in the 40s and 50s. *sigh* How about highs in the 50's and 60's? That would be okay. Unfortunately, I don't get to choose.

Tom just came in from the shop and said it's lightly snowing. I wonder if school will be cancelled tomorrow. The roads weren't awful this morning, but very few people were out driving around...and Monday morning is a different thing--people racing to work, teenagers driving to school, school buses moving around. There's still a chance that we get more (rain? snow? sleet?) overnight and into the morning.

So...I will start tomatoes tonight. The moment I've been waiting for. SO excited. I'm also hoping to get the little greenhouse set up this week.

But, now, I'm going to clean the kitchen. Tom smoked meat over night for a vision team group...and there's a mess. And my house smells like pulled pork. Not my favorite smell.
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luvncannin
6 years ago
I will try again and sesee if this posts.
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Patti Johnston
6 years ago
Night all. Going to bed with it 8 degrees outside at midnight ☹️
dbarron
6 years ago
Awake (hours ago) with 5F
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Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Only got to 9 here. It's 10 now.
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Macmex
6 years ago
I'm so glad I didn't start tomatoes any earlier.. I started two flats on February 24. They're up about an inch now, and it's all I can do to keep them alive and healthy. We don't have a place in our home which is both warm and light, and I got rid of my planter after years of failures with it. These two flats are looking good. I'll start more when this cold snap goes away.

This morning it was 9 F. at our lowest point. At 4 am we had HEAVY snow, which only fell for about 1/2 hour.

Our pastures have started to green up, which is immensely welcome, but this polar blast will probably set things back a bit.
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Megan Huntley
6 years ago
Sounds like I shouldn't complain because we only got down to about 11. I need to check the high/low thermometer when I get home since it's in a low spot but I don't expect it to be much off of that. I was the only one who had to get up and go anywhere today so that made it difficult to find the motivation to roll out of bed and do my physical therapy + walk on the treadmill, but I did it. Yea me! My mom and Ben are usually off on Mondays but Ben is usually up getting the kiddo ready for school about 1/2 an hour before I leave. However, since she didn't have school, no one was up except for Jill (aka Cutie), who was whining about being in her crate instead of being in my face giving me kisses while I did floor exercises. She'd been outside to do her business but didn't find it very considerate to be taken back to her crate. We're in the process of crate training/house breaking so if she's not actively being watched she has to go in there. She had a couple of accidents last night while we blinked so she wasn't getting any leeway this morning.

I caught up on some Margaret Roach podcasts this morning while on the treadmill. She's now sponsored by High Mowing Seeds - has anyone ordered from them? I feel like Joe Lamp'l of Growing A Greener World may have done an episode about them recently too but the episode of A Way To Garden (Roach's podcast) that featured them, well I wasn't convinced and don't plan to order from them anytime soon. I think it would be a lot like SSE where the seeds aren't adapted to us. Anywho. It was a bit puzzling at first - a "what's different" kind of puzzle - when the sponsorship promo aired at the top of the podcast. I finally put it together and was able to go on with my life. LOL. In case you're wondering, Timber Press has been her podcast sponsor for as long as I've been listening. She's working on a revised edition of her book "A Way to Garden," which was published by Timber Press originally so it seems odd that they wouldn't sponsor her podcast anymore.

While on the treadmill and listening to the podcasts, I was also reviewing the weather forecast over and over, thinking about which mornings have the potential to be warm enough to walk the dogs instead of being on the treadmill. My rule is 40* outside, but I much prefer walking the dogs to the treadmill. Time just drags on while staying in one place. Like you Dawn, I was also looking at which days have the potential to give the plants some outdoor time. I'd like to have the kale and peas hardened to put in the ground this weekend but I don't think they will be... close though. In case you're wondering - yes, I've fallen off the treadmill due to too many distractions before. I had treadmill rash all over my face - which taught me to keep one hand on the rail and only juggle my phone while at a slower pace.

HJ - I just wing it with the kale chips, as I do with so many things I make. I typically toss them in grapeseed oil with salt, pepper and parmesan. You can make them to your taste though. If you need a recipe, I've had good luck with most things I've tried from Minimalist Baker. Here's a link to her recipe.

Those of you talking about pestos - have you tried arugula pesto? I had arugula self-seed and go bonkers a couple of seasons back and couldn't use it all because most of my family found it too peppery. I stumbled on an arugula pesto recipe after the fact but due to its unpopularity haven't grown arugula since. I've been tempted to grow it just to make arugula pesto though because I LOVE pesto.

I'm going to gamble on this being the last of the hard freezes and begin direct sowing some cool season stuff like spinach. I'm at that point where I'm gonna do it knowing there's a chance of stuff getting nipped back while it's still little. I also feel like if I don't try it now, I'll be waiting for fall and I'm not entirely convinced I'll do fall vegetables this year with the other projects, like the rain garden, that will be consuming quite a bit of my time.
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Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
Megan, I’ve had great luck with High Mowing seeds. I especially love their lettuces.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
It is bad here this morning, but not any worse than what the forecast called for....16 degrees for the early morning low, and I think our lowest wind chill was around 0. We've warmed up all the way to 22 degrees now and I'd like to say it feels so much better, but honestly, it still feels just plain old too cold to me. We didn't get any snow or anything so I still feel cheated of that. Oh well, it should be spring-like and I'm moving on from my dreams of a pretty, snowy landscape outdoors. Our puddles in the driveway froze, so we have ice, but not enough (lol) for ice skating or anything similar.

After they raised our forecast low from 15 to 17, I decided to leave all the plants alone and uncovered. We've already been down to 16, 17, 18 and 19 degrees this winter, though not very often, so the plants should have had enough prior cold conditioning. If anything is damaged, I expect it will recover.

The birds are crazy hungry and feeding like mad, except for the robins, who are just sitting and looking around. I can hear the wheels turning in their brains as they ask themselves if maybe they came back a couple of weeks too early. Some years they stay here all winter, but I don't think they overwintered here this year.

I have grown High Mowing seeds for years. Some stores here have their seed racks in the stores and I like their varieties. I also like the company's philosophy. If you like varieties from Johnny's, they have a lot of varieties that seem to be about the equivalent. They are one of the few companies (along with Johnny's) who still have their own active seed-breeding programs.

Megan, It sucks to be the only one who had to get up early and go to work this morning. We got up early and took Lillie to school. Her longer commute is probably the least convenient part of them living here as they paint their new house and prepare to move into it, but we tag team it and make sure someone's always available to take her to and from school and her after-school activities. We're trying to ensure her routine continues on as normally as possible, and I think she's really enjoying learning how to prep walls for painting, do all the painting, and then do all the clean-up after. Her room is the first one finished and she's very proud of and excited about how pretty it is.

I remember all of Margaret's books and my heart is still broken over the loss of her cat, Jack, which she covered in one of the books. I don't believe she ever replaced him....some pets are just irreplaceable, and I cannot believe how many years it has been now since the books originally were published. Time marches on, dragging all of us along with it.

I want to see what next week's weather looks like before I get too excited about the warm-up at the end of this week, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited about the prospects of having highs in the 60s. Yesterday they said the 70s, but they've backed off now from a high of 75 to 68. On a day when we've only made it up to 23 degrees so far, 68 still sounds heavenly.

George, I have to have seedlings growing indoors at this time of the year or I lose my mind. It is one way to combat the winter doldrums. I don't have a lot of homestead animals to keep me busy outdoors like you do though.

dbarron, So the forecasters were right on the money with your forecast low. I hope all the time you spent covering up plants pays off and that the plants pull through. Our two younger dogs don't seem bothered by the cold and are very much creatures of habit, so they insist on going out at 5 a.m. even if it is raining, and Jersey goes along with them because she's afraid she'll miss something if she stays indoors while they are out. It didn't take them any time at all this morning in the cold to do their business and come back to the door, barking to come in. This was not the sort of morning where you meander around the yard. Then they went right back upstairs and back to sleep.

Patti, Y'all were awfully cold awfully early. I think we still were in the low to mid-20s at midnight when I went to sleep.

I had about a half hour there in the middle of the night when I felt like I was going to throw up and never did. Whew! I was getting that sinking feeling of dread like "Oh no, I've caught Tim's horrible virus", but that moment passed so I think maybe it tried to get me and my body fought it off. He is not supposed to be contagious any more, so we're all crossing our fingers and hoping that is true---we have tried really hard to not pick up the norovirus from him or from any hard surfaces he might have touched. As a funny side story, he called the Asst Chief who is covering for him while he's out sick and told him that he wasn't coming in to work today, and that AC told him to stay home, stay home, stay home all week...like "I've got your group covered, you just stay home and get well". Iol lol lol. They do not want Tim coming back to work too soon and spreading that virus to any of them, though he probably caught it there in the first place. He has no energy and will be up for an hour doing something and then lie back down to sleep. I think I've convinced him to stay home a couple more days after today so he can regain his energy again. When he is at work, he is just a constant whirlwind of activity and I think that, deep in his heart, he knows he doesn't have the strength and energy to go back to work yet, which is a good thing because he isn't good at taking it easy and recovering from anything.

Jennifer, I hope that Marjorie is okay. I kept our chickens cooped up yesterday since there was a slim chance of freezing drizzle or snow, but today they are out, happily roaming around everywhere and acting like they don't even know it is cold. I will have to refill their waterer multiple times today as it freezes quickly.

I started my tomato seeds on Super Bowl Sunday. This is one of "those" years that ought to be considered great---I had germination of the first seeds in 24 hours, and the rest were not far behind, and they grew rapidly. Maybe it is that I have a lot of fresh seed this year--I am not sure. So, when they were two weeks old and had two true leaves, I potted them up into individual paper cups and they've been growing like gangbusters ever since. It is like they are on growth hormones but I haven't given them anything. I could put them in the ground now if (a) the ground were warm enough, (b) the air were warm enough, and (c) they were hardened off, but neither a, b or c is true, so I'm just trying to keep them happy indoors until they can go back outdoors again. I think I can start over with the 1 hour per day either tomorrow afternoon or the next day, and then build from there. I really like to spend a slow two weeks hardening them off gradually to ever-increasing doses of sunlight and wind, and often the wind is more of a problem than the sunlight, but I can control their wind exposure by keeping them inside the greenhouse. Last week, with just 6 hours of sunlight and wind, mostly filtered through clouds, they doubled in height and width which just goes to show how quickly they can grow when they have real sun on a warm day. Some years the tomato seedlings are much more slow and pokey. Now I'm wondering if this is just an extra-good year, or if the having the light shelf downstairs gives them better natural light near one south window and two west windows than it gave them upstairs with two east windows and one south window.

Nancy, I hope the row covers worked. Y'all are so much colder up there than we are here. The mix-max thermometer sitting here on the table beside me shows we're up to 24 degrees so far. At best we are expected to make it up to freezing.

Is it spring yet? (grin) I know, I know, I know....don't throw things at me. I just had to ask.

Dawn
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jlhart76
6 years ago
The oldest (Snuggle, 17 year old mini poodle) has the uncanny knack of whining to go out 42 minutes before I have to be up. Seriously, around 5:17-5:18 he starts whining. The 2 younger will go out any time the door opens, but our older boy Whiplash (pitty lab mix)will stay in bed until we finish coffee and I go in to get dressed. Then he's ready for drink, bite of food, outside, then snuggle back under the blanket until the afternoon.

Then we had 2 sisters over the weekend, plus my brother has 2 bulldogs (they don't get along with anyone else so they have to stay in solitary confinement), and the woman he's dating has 2 dachshunds that glommed on to Cliff. So our house was full of yappers over the weekend.

The girlfriend (sounds funny to call a 50 year old a girlfriend) was shopping yesrerday and bought me an african violet and an orchid. Her thinking was: they're by the door, they look pretty, and they're on sale. I told her they both needed warm sunny locations, and she demanded "so why do the idiots have them by the front door where it's cold???" LOL, poor girl doesn't understands the gardening intelligence of box stores. So now I have to keep them alive. I warned her they were finicky plants (the orchid especially) and I've killed more than my share.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
I had like four things to talk about here. . . my brain is fried, with seed stuff. I'll have to make a "things to ask or talk about" list. :) Later.
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hazelinok
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
It's cold. You all know that.

Last night I brought the waterers in and let them thaw in the sink. They so needed a good cleaning anyway. I knew they would quickly freeze and made the decision to clip a heat lamp to the outside of the pen and aim it towards the waterers. It seemed to work for the most part. It eventually got slushy and now it's starting to freeze. Lamp is off now. Chickens got plenty to drink, though. They were thirsty this morning. Probably didn't get enough to drink yesterday. Normally I wouldn't leave a heat lamp on like that, but I was home all day and zip tied it too.

So, just a bit ago, I went to the coop to put Marjorie back in the brooder. (I put her out at 3 this afternoon) She was in a nesting box, so I grabbed her up and put her in the brooder and turned on the light. (Her water was getting slushy too as the light had been off since 3. It's just a lightbulb, but it does keep it a little warmer. ) Then, went back to the main coop area to move Jean-Luc Picard to the upper roost bar to cuddle with the others. He tends to stay alone on the lowest bar. While I'm doing that, I heard a ruckus from the brooder. Looked in and Marjorie is trying to catch a little mouse. Freaked me out. I do not want her to eat a mouse. So, I grabbed her out and tucked her under one arm and caught the mouse with my other hand. Threw it outside. Poor little thing probably thought it had found the perfect place to sleep--all cozy in the pine shavings.

In gardening news, the tomatoes are sowed in their little peat pellets. There's 10 of them and I was only going to have 8 tomatoes this year, but now I'm thinking I need to start 1 more of each. The thing is, TT sent me a trial package of Lime Green Salad tomato. It's thrown off my plan.

So, I have 5 varieties started--2 each.

The zinnias have sprouted already! I love fresh seed. And the lettuce too.

I had to clear off and prepare another shelf on the light shelving unit. The onions didn't come today. Friday will be the day to plant those. Oh, and I checked my past purchases. They were all purchased in February and even January! Wow, My memory is wrong. I do know my first year of planting onions was done on Spring Break (2015). It was cold and wet. Snow had been on the ground just a week before. My garden soil hadn't been amended and the onions didn't do very well, although they did slightly less than fair, which isn't bad considering all the factors. They were not Dixondale--just some I picked up at a store. So....all of that to say, I am getting a late start on the onions after all. Even if they only grow to medium sized, I'm okay with that. Recipes often call for a medium sized onion.

What do y'all do for garden soil that has been used as a litter box?
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
I'm trying to think of great flowering vines. . . I have coral honeysuckle, thunbergia, Blue Star morning glory (not for me! LOL), hyacinth beans, coral honeysuckle, maybe cypress vine, moon vine. What would your favorites be for a 4-foot chain link fence? Full sun, not particularly great soil, tending toward alkaline.

Not only are my seed packets in total disarray, but so is the grow cart. I spent today potting some up, and getting the same plant or variety grouped together. My problem with succession sowing some of them were that they were scattered amongst three different flats. I'm also growing a few for the school, and had ordered some seeds specifically for them (they're the full sun folks.) So THAT's a little problematic. I was just dizzy today, really.

Jen! Oh NO. LOL. Just what you want--two finicky indoor plants that you'll be praying the dogs don't knock over and praying that you don't kill!!! LOL

Thanks, Megan, another pesto to look up. I had no idea there were so many different ways to make pesto.

Have any of you heard of Eloheh Seeds? I fell in love with them when I found out who they were and their mission. The only way I happened upon them was looking for Amy's Screaming Peach Nicotiana. ROTFL. They don't have a lot of seeds; I think they are just basically another small operation, mainly a couple. I had to write and tell them how I "found" them. I was sad to have found them so late in my ordering season, because by the time I found them, I'd already ordered most of what I needed.

Okay, I am SURE Tim will feel next to normal tomorrow. Certainly hope so. And Amy a little prayer for Ron tomorrow.

Eileen and I had a lot of fun on FB today, playing make-believe. Was fun, Eileen! We saw a meme on FB of a Swedish couple who actually build a greenhouse around their house and off we went.

We're having the same kind of getting up at the crack of dawn occurrences because of a naughty dog or cat(s), or all. Or barking dogs across the street. Animals--who needs em!

I had an "Oh NO" moment today. When I'd posted the photos of my polar fleece
"row covers" on FB--one of those was made by one of my Mpls friends as a memory, when I quit work and was preparing to move. I quick sent her a private message hoping her feelings weren't hurt, and assured her that 2 weeks earlier that throw had been on my LAP since December, and that not only did it help keep me warm, but the cats love it too. (She loves cats.) (And it was a true story from me.) She wrote back soon after and said quite the contrary--she was so touched that I still had it and hadn't ditched it; that it made her heart happy to see it. Sweet, huh!
luvncannin
6 years ago
Well I had the cutest picture of little man helping plant seeds but it will not let me post it here. He made the labels, clothespin, planted and watered. He was very happy to get done and we oonly ly did 2 trays with 3" pots. Loved having him help me. I hadn't seen him since my birthday December 2727th. On the way to restaurant Friday night he told me he thought I had went to heaven since I hadn't seen him in so long

:(
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
HJ, we were posting at the same time, I guess. First, some reassurance, I hope. I had a friend with about 10 chickens in Mpls and they managed to survive the winters just fine. Oh! And WE had them, on the ranch--about 20 of them. So I'm sure yours will be just fine, also. I truly cannot remember how we watered them. But look at this link! https://www.thehappychickencoop.com/the-definitive-guide-to-keeping-chickens-in-winter-chapter-four/

But we also had a milk cow and 12 horses and 120-140 Charolais cows. We were lucky. Had swiftly running shallow spots in the river that was only 1/4 mi from the house.

And. Loved the photos of you and Marjorie!!!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Kim. . . . that is heartbreakingly sweet! Can you send him cards via USPS? You certainly have created a gardener. How old is he now? I think I created a gardener, too, but it's one of those latent things. She was passionate about it until 7 or so--and by then, I wasn't living next door to them--plus, was so busy at work wasn't growing many things in the summer. But we never know the influence we have on the little critters. For example, I received a little essay she wrote about me when she was like a sophomore in HS. It was about spending sleepovers with me and the beautiful classical music that often played in the background when she quilted with me. She a bit later asked me if I had any extras of some of that music, and of course, I nearly had a car wreck dashing a special box of CDs to the post office. How we all love the little grandbabies, right?
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hazelinok
6 years ago
Super sweet, Kim. Can you post the pic on FB so we can see?

Nancy, thank you for the link.

My other chickens are doing just fine in the cold. They don't like the wind, but had a normal day today--taking dust baths and such. Luckily it wasn't so windy like yesterday. Marjorie isn't a very strong chicken, I think. She was only about 6 months old when she got sick and stopped laying. Most people--including my ancestors--would have culled her by now. She laid our first "homegrown" egg and she is sweet. I will keep her comfortable for as long as possible. She is a pet. For whatever reason, the cold bothers her this year.

So ready for a sunny, warm day.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Jen, We have had dogs like that at various points. I think they really try to adapt to human schedules but some of them just can't "hold it" any longer and have to go out. Our dogs wanted to go out around 4 a.m. so here I am alive, awake, alert and enthusiastic. Okay, maybe not so alert and enthusiastic, but once I'm awake enough to stumble down the stairs and open the door for the dogs, I'm too awake to go back to sleep no matter how hard I try, so there's no point in trying.

Whiplash sounds like he has the right idea! Jersey is like that nowadays more than she used to be--once she has gone out in the morning, it's back to bed to sleep and loll around all day until late afternoon.

Of course stores prey on people who know nothing about plants and are prone to impulse shop.. It is what they do. Good luck keeping the plants alive. Do you have a sunny window the dogs and cats cannot reach?

Jennifer, I am completely horrified that you touched a mouse with your hand. lol. That's just never gonna happen here....not on purpose. I did put my hand in my garden tool bucket once when it was in my old garden shed in very early spring and touched what was apparently a newborn rat. Yuck. I was so grossed out. I washed and bleached my hand, dumped everything out of the tool bucket and washed and bleached it too. I quit keeping anything in the old, rickety garden shed after that and am happy it now has been replaced with the new shed which so far, at least, remains rodent-free.

I placed my chicken waterers in full sun yesterday morning when I filled them up with lukewarm water that I carried from inside the house, and they never froze up even though we only went up to 32 degrees. I think the sunshine kept them from freezing. I poured out the water last evening so they wouldn't freeze up overnight. The waterer inside the coop was frozen, but I just poured another layer of water on top of the ice. I'm sure this morning I'll have to get the block of ice out of that coop waterer and refill it.

I have found onions perform equally well, for the most part, whether they are planted in mid-February or mid-March, so I don't worry about planting them late. In fact, when I plant them slightly late, they're less exposed to cold most years and less likely to bolt later on, so at least there's that. I still would rather plant them in mid-February, but with the heavily saturated soils that just wasn't an option this year.

How heavily has the garden soil been used as a litterbox? Time and watering will dilute whatever is in it so I just don't worry about it. Honestly, since I mulch so heavily year-round and plant my plants so close together, the cats rarely, if ever, use the garden as a litter box because it is not convenient for them to do so. Having them fenced out by the 8' tall fence helps a lot, though of course they will follow me into the garden when I open the gate, and I don't mind that. For the most part, they are great garden companions. They do not like chunky wood mulch, which is one reason why I love it, so they tend to not even attempt to use any area with chunky wood mulch...which is pretty much my entire garden. They prefer to use the soft sandy soil under the nearby pecan tree and four o'clocks, and I don't worry about that since I'm not growing edibles there. Well, the pecans are edibles but are in the tree high above that sandy soil. In some earlier years when the cats wanted to/tried to use the garden as a litter box, I put bird netting over everything and that trained them to go elsewhere. You have to break the cats of using your garden as a litter box, or it will become an ingrained habit and then you'll forever be finding little clumps of cat poop in your garden beds which absolutely grosses me out---when I would find something like that years ago before the cats were so well-trained, I'd dig it up with a trowel and toss it into the pasture just to get it out of my garden soil.

Nancy, For only a 4' tall garden fence? Yikes. That is a short fence. The vines I like would outgrow that and tumble back down to the ground and then creep and crawl across the ground until they found other plants to climb or something. Thunbergia and asarina are probably going to be easiest to control on such a short fence. Maybe love-in-a-puff, cypress vine or cardinal climber, or maybe even canary creeper. If this is for our climate, the vining nasturtiums wouldn't be happy in hot weather, but would do well and look great until the heat burned them up. In a cooler summer climate they might last all summer.

Tim is slowly regaining his strength. He felt somewhat better yesterday, but still really tired and drained. He was able to keep all the food he ate down with no violent expelling of it from his body, so I think the actual stomach virus is a done deal. He just needs to rest for a couple more days and get stronger. He took several naps yesterday and that seemed to help. So, basically, this illness pushed him back to an infant state....eat, sleep, eat sleep, drink, sleep, drink, sleep. lol. He keeps telling us "I never have been this violently ill before" and I agree with him. His body wouldn't even keep water inside of it when the virus was at his worst. Jana's patients at the hospital with norovirus had to stay on IVs for a few days, so we've just tried to push lots of water and Gatorade into his body to make up for all the fluids he was losing. After seeing how sick he was, I feel like I have a much better understanding of how bad the norovirus is now. I had absolutely no clue before, other than knowing it is really bad and spreads very rapidly. I hope none of us ever have to deal with it again. One way I know he really is sick? He isn't even trying to go back to work yet, which is rare. Usually he pops up out of bed the minute he feels somewhat better and wild horses cannot keep him away from the office, and it is like he knows this time that his usual behavior just isn't going to fly. He is staying home today, and I wish he'd stay at home tomorrow too and get a little stronger, but I bet he'll tell me today that he's going back to work tomorrow, unless he has some sort of relapse today. I'm just really relieved that the rest of us didn't come down with it.

I've seen that greenhouse before and it absolutely would not work here even in winter because of our sunlight and latitude. Our 12' x' 20' greenhouse can reach 140 degrees on a sunny winter morning by 9 or 10 a.m. if I forget to open the doors and 4 vents, even with 50% aluminet shade cloth on it, so can you imagine what a large glasshouse would do? I think in order for this to work, it would have to be at a high latitude with a lot less winter sunlight and heat that we have here. It's fun to dream about it though.

We need our animals! We don't have much trouble with neighbors' dogs barking because they're too far away from us for us to hear them at night when we're indoors. Our closest neighbors' house is probably at least 300' away, with heavy woodland in between us that tends to block noise, and the next closest neighbor's home is probably, oh I don't even know how to guess....maybe 900' away? Their cattle dogs sleep in a very nice kennel facility on their property and are trained to keep the barking to a minimum unless they are working cattle or keeping an intruder away. I can hear more dogs from various other properties when outside during the day, but not when indoors at night. I hear a lot more cows and horses (and sometimes goats and sheep) carrying on 24/7 than dogs and cats, but that's because we're surrounded by a lot of ranches

That was sweet about your friend and the fleece

Kim, I am glad you had such a good day with your little man. I bet he was thinking something was wrong when he hadn't been able to spend time with you for such a long while. Sometimes life, illnesses and busy schedules just get in the way.

I've had so much fun with the kids and grandkids lately that I'm going to have withdrawal when they move into their new home and I'm not seeing them here at our house daily. Jana has joked that they'll have to drive back down here a couple of days a week to visit with us so we won't get too lonely and I love her for thinking of how this impacts us all after things get back to normal. (I'd love to see them a couple of times a week after they move into the new house, but I'm realistic and know their busy schedules will make two visits a week unlikely....maybe one visit a week or a couple of times a month is more doable.) I'd love it if we could keep seeing them on a daily basis, but know it isn't going to happen once they are in their new house 30 or 35 miles from us. They have to go live their daily lives and we have to live ours, but we've been enjoying spending all this extra time together too. Furniture they ordered is beginning to arrive since they scheduled deliveries beginning the first week in March, so it is going to be fun seeing their vision for furnishing their home coming together too.

The older granddaughter's birthday party is Saturday, so I doubt I'll get to work out in the garden any that day, but I might be out in the garden on Thursday and Friday if we warm up like the say we will. The younger granddaughter returns from vacation with her dad's family on Sunday, and it sure will be good to have her home again. It has been a quiet week with no one bringing me baby dolls to burp, dress and change. No, I'm not going to drag out her three Baby Alive baby dolls and play with them alone.......

We are supposed to get above freezing today (yay!) but just by a few degrees. Beginning tomorrow there is a rapid warm-up though, and I'm looking forward to that. We were supposed to stay warmer overnight than the previous night, but right now we are at the same morning low we had yesterday---16 degrees. It doesn't feel as cold, likely because there's less wind.

Amy, I'm thinking of you and Ron today and hoping his surgery goes well with absolutely no complications.

Dawn
0
hazelinok
6 years ago
Nancy, I haven't heard of Eloheh seeds. I want to go look them up now. Their name is intriguing. It's familiar.

Dawn, I'll have to see how bad it is--the litter box/raised beds. I've caught him using my half-whiskey barrels mostly. There were some perennials in those, but I'm sure he's scratched them out. With Charlotte, if the beds were full of plants, she didn't use them. Until the plants grew large, I would put down hardware cloth over the beds. Often a tomato cage that I opened up and stretched across.

The front flowerbed--the new one--is covered with chicken wire until I can get it planted IF it ever warms up.

About the mouse...I was wearing gloves. I'm not afraid of mice. Don't want them running loose in my house/coop/shop, though. It would not have freaked me out to touch it barehanded, but I wouldn't risk being bitten...just because it's a wild animal. It was actually very cute. It was dark with larger ears. I grew up in the city and wanted many animals--horses included. Obviously, couldn't have that on 61st street OKC, so I had a room full of small animals; gerbils, hamsters, pet mice, fish. Remember Habitrails in the 70's and 80's? The habitats for small rodent type of animals that connected together with tunnels, etc.? Had those all over my room. And aquariums full of critters. Honestly, I had them until I was around 16. I was a late bloomer--still very much a little girl until 15 or so.

Amy, let us know how Ron is doing if you get a chance.

Guess I should work now.
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Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Eloheh, Cherokee for "a way of harmony, or righteousness, a shalom-type construct. https://elohehseeds.com/store/c9/Books

I like the "open up a tomato cage and spread out" idea. The cats haven't thought to climb up posts to be in veggie beds, but I will do it for the bed next to the carport.

I laughed at the mouse story. Yeah, gloves would be mandatory for me to pick one up. When I was 10, I went on a pack trip in the mountains with a friend of my parents and maybe 6 adult tourists I didn't know. They all were on the trip to fish one of the high mountain lakes. I got bored with it so decided I'd trap a chipmunk--they are so cute. So I had a gunnysack set up with a stick propped up in the opening with a long string tied to it, and had a little trail of something. . . can't remember, leading up to the opening. It worked! I was so excited, and I reached into the sack to get my new little pet. No one ever told me how hard those little guys could bite. Pulled my hand out of there very fast with the chipmunk attached to my thumb.

Ahh, the good ole days. :)

Yes, Dawn, I'm thrilled at the "warm-up." Show mid 50s for the next 10 days (that is after Thursday.

Actually not sure about the height of the fence--it COULD be 5 feet. But it's just a yard fence to separate this "school" from the public park area behind the property. Love in a puff--I will check that out. I'm seeding a bunch of black-eyed Susan vines, cypress vines, and am going to order the early-blooming blue MGs. for that fence of for another area.

Wow--Tim DID have a nasty time of it. So hoping the rest of you don't get it.

Hahaha re burping baby dolls and changing their clothes.

And yes, your house is going to feel mighty empty when the kids leave. I hope it's warm enough by then that you'll be able to fill your time with working outdoors!

I am in trouble now. I just used the last of my 100 3 oz cups. And there are a few large red solo cups with asparagus ferns in them, and several more 8-oz foam cups, and a few larger foil containers. The cart is nearly out of room, unless I put some things on the floor under the other 3 shelves. (The bottom shelf has lights under it, too.) I got that plastic cover for the cart last year. It was expensive, but I thought It would keep the cats out. It did, but got way way too warm, so I cut holes in it all the way around the cart, except at the bottom. It worked last year, and so if I put stuff on the floor this year, will have to keep it zipped shut--which will be a pain when watering, but really not THAT much of a pain.
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Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
I always worry about my cats when they're outdoors. My main worries about them are neighborhood gang dogs, and wild critters. Our cats LOVE to be outdoors, cept when it's super cold. Up til now, these 3 cats of ours, these individuals have been careful and safe. But this evening, Jerry was not. I check on them very often in the late afternoon/evening if they are outside. And this evening, I was out calling them--Tiny and Tom came trotting in--but no Jerry. Finally, Jerry showed up and beat up. I didn't see blood, but saw obvious bite marks on him, and he limped into the house. He was a very subdued cat. Tom and Tiny made over him like crazy, sniffing him and licking him. He's limping, has many bite marks on his back. I made a nest for him on the couch, he curled up and cleaned himself up a bit and there he stayed, next to me. GDW and I were both out investigating, but couldn't figure it out. What kind of critter. Disinclined to think a cat, because usually that brings out loud squalls and screams. Both GDW and I kinda are thinking one of many thug dogs and now we will be even more alert.
0
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Jennifer, My whole thing with mice is that they carry and spread diseases, some of which can seriously impact and kill humans, so I never, ever want to touch a rodent, not even with gloves. i am extremely paranoid about this. Since we moved here, I have read news articles about several people---maybe 5 or 6---in this state dying from hanta virus, contracted somehow from mice (generally present in their urine and droppings, so a person cleaning a building where an infected mouse has been might get it just by sweeping and stirring up dust into the air and then inhaling it, etc.). The deer mice common in OK carry it, though it seems more common in western or SW OK than in the rest of the state. We have tons of deer mice in our woods. This particular type of disease strikes a nerve with me because I lost an uncle in the 1980s after he inhaled some undefined disease into his lungs and then developed pneumonia type symptoms from it while working with his cattle---maybe in the barn, maybe in the fields. He died a horrible, painful death in a hospital on antibiotics that seemed to not help him at all and that probably contributed to how paranoid I am about rodents and the diseases they carry. So, when someone mentions rodents, all I can think of is all the diseases they carry (salmonella is another one, but there's plenty of others) that can spread to humans and I want nothing to do with them....not gonna touch them, don't like seeing them, don't even like the thought of them being in our outbuildings. I had a hamster or two when I was a kid, and loved them, but I don't like rodents in general and never will. I don't even like seeing our cats catching a field mouse and playing with it outdoors, though I appreciate the fact they eventually kill it. When Pumpkin proudly brings me a mouse, vole or gopher he has killed, I praise him for being a killer, and then tell him to get that nasty thing away from me. : ) Yes, I am sending him mixed messages, aren't I?

It is going to warm up rapidly now, but I'm not convinced we're really done with the winter cold now. I hope we are. At least we will be warm for the next few days. After tonight, my forecast doesn't even show lows in the 30s.

Speaking of rodents like gophers (in general they are not on our place, but they are right next door in what must be some sandier soil a few hundred feet from our place), I noticed gopher mounds everywhere yesterday....we're talking about mound after mound after mound in close quarters....in places with sandy soil down in the Thackerville area, which has deep sandy soil that runs hundreds of feet deep. if I had to define how many gopher mounds you can see down there, I'd say hundreds, if not thousands, per acre in the worst spots. Apparently the spring gopher season has begun. I'm not sure why they pop up out of the ground in the Spring, perhaps to find one another for mating (?) but those mounds everywhere are a sure sign of spring. The cats keep the gophers off our property for the most part, though one or two gophers infiltrated the garden in 2010, and kept pulling herb plants down into the ground.....once, as I watched it disappear, which is the oddest thing to see happen. When we see the gopher mounds popping up like dandelions, that's a sure sign of spring.

Nancy, I was bitten once by my pet hamster, who in general was pretty easy-going. I was maybe 10 years old at the time. It hurt, it bled and bled and bled, and it left a visible scar on my finger that didn't completely fade away until I was in my 30s. I've never forgotten how much it hurt to be bitten by that tiny little animal. When I was a kid, my brother's baseball league played in ball fields adjacent to a city golf course. There always were chipmunks running on that golf course, and if they saw you watching them, they'd run to the nearest green and disappear down the hole. I always wondered if they'd stick around and bite a golfer reaching into the hole to get his golf ball. I liked seeing them, but never tried to catch one.

I could tell Tim felt better yesterday, and he told me last night that he was going back to work today. It really is a miracle he stayed home as long as he did. His appetite was better yesterday and his skin had returned to its normal color and he didn't seem pale and washed out. I'm still just ever so grateful the rest of us didn't catch what he had. I fully expected we all would despite our best efforts to avoid it.

Since Tim felt so much stronger yesterday, we decided to go to CostCo. For him, I kind of think he was using the trip to the store as a test of his stamina. We had our annual CostCo rebate certificate to spend, and I love getting to spend "free money" there once a year. (grin...okay, it isn't free....we earned it with all our other spending there all year, but it feels free....). Actually, not being able to go to CostCo over the weekend that the rebates came out might have been a blessing in disguise because the store is always a total zoo on that first weekend after the rebates arrive and yesterday the store was not that busy and not that crazy. So, while we focused on stocking up on all the household basics, my eyes kept straying to the disposable aluminum baking/roaster pans (I use them as plant flats) and the huge packages of paper cups and plastic cups. I really didn't need any cups....I have them in absolutely all sizes in my garden shed, but I bought another package of aluminum baking pans because I always seem to need more of them. I also bought one roll of weedblock fabric. I already have it down in all the pathways in my front garden where it surely makes keeping weeds out a lot easier, but I always like having a roll in my shed in case problem spots erupt anywhere. I otherwise kept myself off the lawn, garden and patio aisle because I could have spent the whole rebate there, which wasn't actually a part of our plan. After Tim survived the trip to CostCo without going upstairs to take a nap to recover, I knew he was well enough to go back to work today. It took me a couple of hours to bring inside and stash away everything we bought, but we won't have to buy things like laundry detergent, dishwashing detergent, cat food, dog food or paper towels for a few months. The fridge in the house is stuffed with food and the fridge and deep freeze in the garage caught the overflow. I love stocking up with our rebate as garden season is beginning because that means fewer regular trips to CostCo that take me away from the garden for a few hours during the critically important smonths of the spring planting season.

Starting today, the tomato plants start over again with the trips outside, so only an hour today but then two hours tomorrow. They need the sunlight and they also need wind exposure although I hope they don't get too much wind too early. I've been running a fan on them here and there to help strengthen their main stalks, but only at low speed, and our outdoor air, if the wind is blowing, tends to be blowing at a rate higher than my fan's low speed. I think on Saturday I'll have to put the plants in the greenhouse, despite the shade cloth on it which means less light for them, because the wind is supposed to be pretty strong. It is so easy for tender plants grown indoors to get windburn when they first move out, even when being hardened off for appropriately short time periods early on, so I really have to watch out for that every March.

I'm still debating how much space to give cool-season plants in the garden. Probably I won't give them much space. I am worried we'll go too quickly from too cold to too hot, which is a very common issue this far south. While at CostCo yesterday, it seemed so odd to be seeing oak trees and the like all leafing out. Their trees down there are definitely way ahead of ours here, although our trees are beginning to leaf out too. My daffodils looked pretty pathetic yesterday morning, all sad and drooping with their heads down on the ground, but I am hoping they'll perk up again in the warmer weather and I expect they will. All the foolish little volunteer plants that popped up in the garden in January are dead and gone now except for the chamomile plants that were protected by taller plants nearby. Some of them were close to blooming before this last cold spell.

At our place, it is not rogue dogs that bother the cats so much as it is other cats and wild things. Of course, since we have free-range chickens, any stray or wandering dog that pops up at our place promptly gets chased off by Tim or I. I do worry about some dogs wandering onto our property when we aren't home and getting a chicken, but I have no control over that. Of course, the ranchers here have a very short fuse when stray dogs wander onto their places, especially if the dogs are after their calves, foals, kids or lambs, so we are not particularly plagued by roaming dogs in general.

Our biggest cat issues are other cats, especially at this time of the year when intact males are roaming around trying to establish and maintain their territory as they search for receptive females. We've had a black cat (Big Boy, I've nicknamed him) who comes somewhere from our south fighting with a big yellow cat (Yellow Cat, I've nicknamed him, as he reminds me of our old Yellow Cat, now deceased) who comes from our north. I guess both of them hit the outer limits of their geographical territory when they reach our land, so they fight on the edge of our woodland. Big Boy wins (I usually go out and yell at them until they break it up) and then Yellow Cat slinks off through the woods and head north, while Big Boy acts offended that I interfered in his business. Tiny Baby and Pumpkin usually chase off Big Boy if he ventures anywhere close to our house, so he usually hangs around the woods, or maybe ventures way out back to the deer feeding area. If a stray or wandering cat attacks one of our cats, I usually break it up by turning on the water hose. I can hear them fighting if they are on our place, but if our cats wander off next door and pick a fight over there, I may not hear it.

The wild animals that really go after cats are coyotes, and this is their mating season so they seem to be out in the daylight a lot more and are very aggressive in February and March. They'll climb a fence to come into a yard to go after cats or small dogs. We also have had bobcats go after our cats, but never foxes. We see the foxes around, but they seem more shy and retiring and take off if they see you watching them. Coons are vicious fighters and they bother cats, and a possum will fight with a cat if cornered, although of course, the possum likes to end the fight by dropping to the ground and playing possum. Skunks usually don't engage in warfare like fighting, they just use their scent glands. However, rabid skunks out in daylight will and do attack pets. Occasionally a hawk will try to pick up a cat, though most hawks cannot carry the weight of larger cats and end up dropping them. This happened to my cousin's cat in the late 1980s or early 1990s. She saw the hawk pick it up, couldn't prevent it (she was too far away) and thought the cat was a goner. A few hours later, a sore, torn up, limping cat came home, so she assumed the hawk had dropped it. The cat lived many more years.

We were supposed to be warmer last night. Sometimes the weather just doesn't do what the forecasters say. They said we'd have an overnight low of 24 degrees (insert laughter sound track here). Our Mesonet station dropped all the way down to 18 by about 4:30 a.m. and our Min-Max thermometer shows a low of 21. It already is warming up now. Our dewpoint has been very low and dry air both warms up and cools off very quickly, so perhaps we can blame the dry air for the really cold night. Now I'm wondering if we'll even stay above freezing tonight, though the forecast is for 38 degrees. I'm really excited about our soil moisture level because it finally is down below 100%+ again. On our Fire Management page the soil moisture is showing up as only 93%, which is the lowest it has been in a long time. At this rate, maybe our driveway and yard puddles all will dry up. I hope so. I'm sick of the endless mud. Yes, I know rain is in the forecast for Friday and Saturday, but I'm trying to ignore that.

Despite these cold nights, the moths still flock to the outside lighting each evening, and if you aren't careful when you open an exterior door, they'll fly right in.

Yesterday, our TV meteorologists weren't talking about the freezing weather being over yet, because of course, our average last freeze date still is a couple of weeks away, but they did say that after last night, we might have seen our last hard freeze. I think they classify hard freezes as 25 degrees and below for a significant amount of time, or maybe it is 28 degrees. Regardless, I hope the worst of the winter weather is behind us now.

Some of us in south-central, eastern and south-eastern OK have a slim chance of severe weather on Sat. I've looked at the maps and the models and I really think the risk will be higher east of us than it will be here. On the other hand, it we're going to have a hail storm this spring, I'd rather it happen now while there's not much up and growing in the garden. The chance of hail is very slight though, certainly not nearly as high as it will be a few weeks from now.

Here's the Day 3 (Saturday) SPC Convective Outlook and it shows only a Marginal risk of severe weather.

Day 3 Convective Outlook

I plan to be out in the garden this afternoon and probably a significant part of tomorrow, but on Sat we have other things to do.

My least favorite part of the late winter/early spring season arrived in force yesterday, with ranchers, conservation and research groups (like the Noble Foundation) and others conducting controlled burns of their property to burn out brush and keep the grasslands in good shape. I understand why this is necessary and know they need to do it, but I hate it. I am allergic to smoke, so absolutely. positively hate this time of the year. The smoke makes the air quality so bad, and if it blows directly over us, it makes my eyes water endlessly to the point that I get red chapped areas on my cheeks from the constant watering of my eyes. The only solution is to stay indoors, which conflicts with my desire to be outdoors working in the garden. I hope they won't be burning as much today. I know many of them chose yesterday because of the relatively low wind speeds compared to the wind we'll have the rest of the week. I guess if there is an upside to the windy March weather it is that sometimes it is too windy to burn grassland areas safely, but often people will try to do it anyway.

Our cat, Lucky, discovered that when Tim assembled the larger light shelf unit a couple of days ago, he put the bottom shelf about a foot above the floor. I don't know why and I didn't notice he'd done it until he was finished and had gone upstairs to take a nap. So, now she stays under the bottom plant shelf and swats anyone else, animal or human, who ventures close to the light shelf. This may become an issue, though I usually wear shoes indoors anyway. She especially takes exception to the dogs getting anywhere near her light shelf. Perhaps she has made herself the protector of the tomato plants. I hope we don't end up with dogs and a cat fighting and destroying the tomato plants on that lower shelf.

It has warmed up all the way to 23 degrees now. I wish it would warm up more, but it is time to venture out into the cold to feed the chickens and the wild things, so off I go!

Dawn
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Megan Huntley
6 years ago
Dawn, my instincts agree with the assessment that we've had our last hard freeze - not to say that we won't have additional freezes, as I see at least one in the 14-day forecast but I feel like we'll stay above 28, or even 30 if I'm feeling bold. At least that's my assessment for my spot.

There's road construction on my route to work - road work has plagued me my adult life... every. time. I. move... Anywho, there is a water line that comes out of the ground in one spot along the road - painted bright red so I assume it's related to fire hydrants in some way but I don't know anything about that. It was gushing water today. The road crew had taken measures to stack square bales around the base but the top of the pipe extended above the hay, soo.... I laughed though and thought "Today? It's 22 degrees. It only got as high as 22 degrees on Monday but today it bursts." I realize that the cold weather earlier in the week is probably what did the damage and today was either the final blow or it started to thaw allowing water to reach the breaks, but I still laughed at the irony. There was a crewman staring at it - looking like he had just arrive - who I imagine thought early this week that they were in the clear to now be dealing with this.

I'm knocking on wood that the flu virus has departed our house without getting me or Ben sick. It wasn't without a lot of laundry and hand washing though. My hands became so chapped from so much washing that I have a couple pinhead sized scabs where they were so rough they started flaking. Last night, Ben was awakened during the night by someone's serious coughing jag, not sure if it was my mom or Keegan, but it was loud enough to wake him through closed doors from the other side of the house. I'll be watching both of them closely for signs of a lingering lung infection.

Dawn, your description of Norovirus has made me realize that must be what Keegan's bio dad had when she was an infant. He couldn't quit vomiting and on my birthday called me to come home early from work to take him to the hospital. He got IV fluids in the emergency room and when he didn't start vomiting again after a couple hours of observation was sent home. They told him that once he was able to keep water down he could slowly introduce BRATs. I dropped him at home then rushed to daycare to pick up Keegan. He went inside and ate a banana - "They said BRATs" - so he was hugging the toilet when we got back. Once the heaving stopped I sent him to bed and wouldn't let him have anything, even water. After 2 hours without vomiting, I gave him an ice chip. When that stayed down for an hour, I gave him 1 ice chip every 1/2 hour. Then after a period of time introduced sips of water the same way... then BRATs that way too. I was nicknamed The Water Nazi for a while after that. Sorry, not sorry. Somehow Keegan and I avoided it too but I was as diligent as you were about sanitizing everything.

HJ - I have the Lime Green Salad tomatoes started - they're one of the two from the order that I'm having trouble getting to germinate. The LGSs were behind everything else but eventually, they sprouted at about 50% success. I reseeded the Egg Yolk tomatoes on Thursday and there's still no sign of them so I'm not holding out on having those this year. I'm pretty disappointed.

Good to know Dawn and Rebecca about High Mowing Seeds. I won't be as shy about them with your endorsements. :)

I'll be setting up shelves on the patio this weekend to start hardening off seeds so I can move the cool season stuff to the garden. Because I'm not able to grow enough to completely replace grocery store produce in our house I have a little bit of a survival of the fittest mentality when it comes to the cool season stuff. I try to set everything up for success but if they don't take off on their own, I don't baby them. I can get it at the farmers market or grocery store. I'll baby the warm season stuff, but not stuff that will burn up in a few weeks anyway. Because of my work schedule, I have a very Okie way of hardening seeds. The shelf I use is lightweight and easy to move around. It's also short enough that I don't worry about wind tipping it. I move it around the patio adjusting it for the position of the shadow of the house so that things only get as much light as I want. In the past when I've done this, I've had more mature plants, so I'm nervous how it will go for me this year. If it goes south, you'll know why I'm taking all the things at SF. I suspect my mom will realize quickly that by living with us and going to work a little later, when it's warmed up enough to put plants out, that she unwittingly signed up to be a gardening assistant. Puppy wrangler dawned on her yesterday when it was the first day she was responsible for Jill after we left for work.

I've been at this - catching up reading and now typing my own post - far longer than I intended so one last thing...

Nancy - have you thought about Luffa gourd? I haven't grown it so you'll need to ask others about how it does, but I know I've seen it grown on chain link fences in this area and it is so pretty with bright yellow flowers. It also offers the advantage of the sponges the kids could later make into gifts (Christmas gifts, maybe). Just a thought.
luvncannin
6 years ago
I am off tomorrow and hope to get my very large soil into a container so I can sow some more seeds. And I need to set up my light shelf. I should have had my son help me move furniture but when he was here I didn't think about it. I do not think I will try to move it myself under the circumstances. My limit went from 50 pounds to about 15 until ththis thing is over.

It is so debilitating. Doc said it was worst he'd ever seen. My mom said why do you always do things to the fullest extent.

Hmmmph

I only have 2 lights so I cant grow much. I sold everything last spring so when I get where I am going I will buy new.
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jlhart76
6 years ago
I grow luffa most years, and last year it grew on the fence (and mulberry bush I'm trying to kill). It seemed to do pretty well, and our youngest would tell you that the gourds are delicious when small (the brat ate anything that grew through on HER side of the fence)
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Ron's surgery went well yesterday. His wound is sore, but he has pain pills and antibiotics to take. We were home around 2, so it was quick. We even went out to eat last night. He is bored and chafing at the fact he can't drive (the seat belt would go right over the incision.) He's not thrilled with my driving, and he makes me nervous. AND he's watching day time TV. Aaarrrgg!

I have tomato sprouts! If the ones sprouted survive I will have a good representation. I am having a problem with mold on the cups. :(

I need to start another tray of seeds. I'm trying to pace myself.

There were a couple of bad waterline breaks in Tulsa today. Road construction is the bane of my existance! We ran into it on the expressway on the way to the hospital yesterday (in rush hour traffic) and on the route I chose to go home. Mutter, mutter, mutter. Ron's not used to listening to me cuss while I drive. He was amused.

Nancy, I'm sorry about Jerry. I hope he heals quickly. Another hazard to outdoor cats is getting shut in peoples sheds and garages. I had a cat I believed went through a trash truck. She was gone for like 10 days, I don't know how she made it home.

Time to get busy around here.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
I primarily came here to share the awful 8-14 Day Temperature Outlook as soon as I saw it.

The Darker The Blue, The Worse The Temperatures Will Be

So, I think we're all okay to go ahead and plant cool-season crops (now that OSU's standard recommended planting time of Feb 15 - Mar 10 is about over) but we need to be really careful about watching for late freezes and also careful not to rush warm-season plants into the ground. This weather is so vexing. Our fire danger has made it up to at least High today in many areas, due to the combination of many factors, including the low dewpoints and low relative humidity, stronger winds, and lots of dry winter vegetation. There's been some fires around the state today.

Amy, I'm so glad Ron is doing so well and understand his frustration at being unable to just hop in a vehicle and drive where he wants to go. How long before his incision heals enough that he can do his own thing and how long before he goes back to work?

I assume the water main breaks are related to the recent cold weather? Sometimes they freeze up and then break as they thaw. There's been some water main breaks in the D-FW metro after they had temperatures that are fairly cold, but not record cold, for them.

Your poor kitty. It is amazing she made it back home again.

Jen, All our dogs ate gourds when I grew them on the dog yard fence. They didn't always intend to eat them, but they'd pull one, bat it around the ground, then start chewing on it, etc. On the other hand, I only had to plant gourds once or twice and then they reseeded every year because the dogs scattered seeds everywhere when they destroyed mature gourds.

Kim, I've known people who shingles in or near their eyes....and it was so much worse than I ever could have imagined. It is amazing how shingles will hit each person differently and your case seems to have been particularly bad.

Megan, I hope you're right about the cold. The map I linked above really only shows us the chances of our temperatures going lower than forecast, but I've noticed that the darker the shade of blue on the map, the lower we go than average. So, the dark colors are somewhat scary. I'm only about 3 weeks from my average last freeze date, so I want for the law of averages to hold true, but I bet we have cold weather even later than that. I don't care. Once the soil temperatures hit 50 degrees and stays there a few days, if the 7-day or 10-day forecast looks pretty good, I'll put tomato plants in the ground anyway. OR, I'll plant them in containers. I don't really care. I can plant in the soil out back if we don't get a lot more rain because it finally is drying up....our puddles are almost gone. As long as I don't see anything in the forecast that makes me think that 10-degree frost blankets won't protect the plants, then I feel comfortable putting plants out sometime in March.

You know, what little knowledge I had of norovirus was that it spreads like crazy, especially when people are confined in close quarters like cruise ships or school buildings, and that it made people violently ill. I had no idea how violently ill though. It hit Tim as he was driving to work, and he had to stop every few miles and throw up alongside the highway. I would have turned around and headed home right then, but no.....my work-a-holic husband had to go on to work and spend the next couple of hours throwing up into the trash can in his office or go running to the nearest men's room.....and only then did he finally head home, pulling off the highway to throw up every few miles just like he did on the way to work. If he even drank water after throwing up, he soon would start throwing up the water too. No wonder so many people who get it end up in the hospital on IVs. His perfectly blunt explanation after a couple of days was very succinct and on-point "projectile vomiting and projectile diarrhea". Sorry. Yes, I went there so y'all could hear the words directly from him. I tried BRATs with Tim and he wasn't having any of it, but he did eat chicken noodle soup and chicken pot pies along with drinking lots of Gatorade. He's stubborn that way, and if he had eaten BRATs, I think he might not have thrown up for as long.

After he got to work, he said one of his co-workers from the Patrol/Rescue division came over to see him and said he had the exact same thing last week, further reinforcing my belief that they caught it at work. I don't even think they are in the same building, or maybe they are in the same building, but pretty much at opposite ends of it.

Don't give up on LGS. Some varieties are just slow. I've grown LGS before and I think it was slow for me, and that was many years ago. I've had some tomato seeds inexplicably sprout after 2-4 weeks, though I do not know why it will take some of them that long.

Today was a real mixed bag, weather-wise. It sounds better than it was because, despite warming all the way up to 56 degrees, that was with sunshine and then the clouds kept coming back and hiding the sun and making it feel cooler, plus the wind chill keeps you from thinking it is 56 degrees anyway. I had tomato plants out for 55 minutes this morning. The wind, blowing in the teens and gusting into the 20s, was out of the SE and was beating the tar out of them, so I brought them in 5 minutes early, and a few leaves look wind-burned. I'll have to be more careful about where I put them tomorrow and try to get them a bit more blocking from the wind. I want them to have some wind exposure but not too much. It always is so hard to protect them well enough on their first few days out.

We're supposed to be in the 70s tomorrow. I hope the wind backs off and lets it feel like the 70s because, otherwise, what's the point?

The 4 year old has tons of snow in Colorado and visited and rode a train that climbs a mountain somewhere and a train museum (she adores trains) so she is having a ball. Today is the 10-year-old's birthday, although her actual birthday party won't be until Saturday. I need to go start dinner soon so at least we'll have a nice dinner for her tonight. Of course, last night I made tacos and everyone was thrilled, but especially her. I'm about to decide they all could eat tacos seven nights a week. Chris and Jana have been working so hard to get their house painted. If I have stayed caught up on this week's progress, and I think I have, then two bedrooms are complete except for the trim and the third bedroom is halfway done. I think they have the first coat of paint on the walls of the large living room, so they're about halfway done. They aren't painting the kitchen, and maybe not the hallway, so they have to finish the living room, paint the trim in all the rooms and paint both bathrooms. One thing that surprises me is how long it takes to paint walls that are 11' tall. None of us particularly like climbing to the top of the 10' ladder (thoughtfully left behind for them by the previous owner) to paint the upper portion of the wall, but we've all done our share of it already.

When I go into their room here and ask the Shaker parrots where they are, the smartest of the 4 tells me "Christopher is at work...." He must get that from Jana saying that to him when Chris is at work and she is at home because in the past he would tell me "Daddy's at work". lol. Oh, and then he chatters on endlessly apparently telling me something, but I can't make sense out of what he is saying. The odd thing is that he mimics Chris' voice, so it is very eerie to hear your son's voice coming out of a bird's mouth.

Cats.....sometimes cats climb into the engine of a warm vehicle seeking warmth, and then become injured if someone starts up the engine. We had that happen to one of our cats our first or second winter here. She had a lot of cuts from the fan thing in the engine of the truck and a head injury that she could not overcome because it must have caused brain damage. We had her euthanized so she wouldn't continue to suffer. To prevent any recurrence of that, we always pound on the hood of a vehicle before we start it up in cold weather. It wouldn't necessarily be our cat or our vehicle...any cat could climb up into any vehicle. We think Pumpkin came to us by falling out of the engine of a vehicle, and about a decade ago, Chris rescued a tiny kitten in the middle of an intersection in Ardmore that also apparently had climbed up into the engine of a vehicle, ridden along for a while and then fell out. He was a great cat too and lived many years after that. He was so small that he'd climb into a drawer in my antique Singer sewing machine cabinet or in an antique vanity I had at the time to hide from the other cats because they were so much bigger than him that he felt really intimidated. It took him a long time to loosen up.

The sun came out, now it is gone again. I'm going to stop hoping for spring and start hoping for summer. I need sunshine and so do all the plants.

Dawn
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hazelinok
6 years ago
OMG! This has been the longest flippin' day of my life. I had plans to catch up--I did read everything, but 14 hours later, I'm home from work. And I'm an introvert, so not being home for that long is exhausting. Anyway, I have stuff to say, but I can't right now because I need to eat dinner at 11:30 pm and go to bed.

I think it was sunny today. I don't really know because I was stuck in a building. And remind me to tell you about the 12 chicks I almost fostered but didn't and now I look like a flake...as well as getting up extra early to pull out my chick "equipment" and clean it.

Yes, sunshine please. (I can see Dawn's last sentence on her last post)
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Jennifer, That was a really, really long day. I hope you weren't at work the whole time.

It was sunny on and off here, but the sunshine didn't feel that great because the wind kept the air cold. The sunshine did look great if you were indoors and warm, looking out the window at it.

I'm afraid to look at our weather forecast as it changes every 5 minutes, and some versions of it look pretty good, and others look not so good. Today now looks to be the best day of the next 7 days because at least it is going to fairly warm for early March and there's no rain in today's forecast. Saturday should be slightly warmer, but also rainy, and then the nice warmth goes away, which isn't even the worst of it----that would be the rain. Beginning Friday night we have a chance of rain down here in our forecast for pretty much every day and also for most nights in the 7-day forecast. We don't need no stinkin' rain. Our months-long puddles and mud should dry up today, so why wouldn't it promptly rain again?

If you've been hoping for some rain for your area, the odds seem likely you're going to get it over the course of the next week. Here's the 7-day QPF, but it is not engraved in stone as it updates several times daily. Right now, I'm not liking how much rain it is showing for my area. I'd prefer to have no rain, so I can get the garden planted so that I then have plants in the ground to worry about on all those cold days and nights that lie ahead in our forecast.

7-Day QPF

If all this rain falls, it is just going to get harder to plant much of anything, especially with the cold weather lingering until at least after Spring Break has occurred for most school districts. The combination of lots of rain and lingering cold is what we'd expect based on the winter we've been having, which seems to be carrying over into meteorological Spring as well. I"ll admit that while it is to be expected under the current El Nino conditions, it certainly isn't the weather we've been hoping for.

The daffodils that looked so pathetic lying sprawled on the ground after the very cold weather are starting to perk up again. I"d say about 5 to 10% of the blooms are still lying prostrate on the ground and are not going to perk up, rise up and look normal again this year. The rest are in various stages of lifting themselves up, holding up their little yellow heads to look at the sun, and are looking pretty good again. I'm relieved to see that most of them will be fine. Some have been blooming for so long now that they are past their peak and will begin fading away soon anyhow.

I cannot even come up with a list of chores to do out in the garden today, though I'll likely do something, because it seems pointless to do much of anything when we're about to go through another cycle of rain and cold.

The tomato plants get to go outdoors for 2 hours today, and I hope I can shield them well enough from the wind. It is essential to get them more wind exposure so they can learn to tolerate the wind, but of course, too much wind too soon can be very damaging and can even kill plants, so I'm not even sure I'll leave them out for the whole 2 hours.

I'm thinking that we'll remember the garden season of 2019 as the year the garden had to be planted late. There seems no way around that at this point. Hopefully we won't have any worse weather later on that makes us forget the misery of late February and most of March. After two fairly quiet springs in 2018 and 2017 with relatively low tornado numbers and such, it seems like the law of averages might catch up with us this year....with greater odds of damaging hail, twisters, downbursts, microbursts, straight-line wind damage, etc. Since we're getting so much rain, it seems like there would be a greater likelihood that some of it will be accompanied by severe weather.

I guess I can start potting up the tomato plants into their red Solo cups any time now, because it isn't like they are going to go into the ground any time soon....so I might as well have them growing in larger containers so they can develop nice root systems. Potting up this many tomato plants will take quite a while, and the larger cups will make it a challenge to keep everything under lights as the Solo cups take up a lot more space in flats than the smaller paper cups do, so there's that to consider as well. I'd like to start some other things indoors, but the light shelf is full. I guess I could be about to have a two light shelf Spring, which isn't common except in the years when the cold weather hangs on and on and on. Sound familiar?

In other news, I thought the announcement by Alex Trebec of his diagnosis of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer was so brave....he seems so determined to survive as long as possible, but we all know that Stage 4 pancreatic cancer has incredibly low survival rates. Still, there's always some people who fight it pretty well for quite a while and maybe he'll be one of them.

Just a couple of hours after we heard the news about Mr. Trebec, a very dear friend of ours stopped by the house for a few minutes. He had been back at his wife's family's old home place, which happens to be the property due west of us that lies directly adjacent to our back property line. This is the place that lies between us and the river. His father-in-law passed away shortly before we moved here (or maybe just after we moved here, as we really didn't know them very well then and I am a little fuzzy on the timing of his death) and the 4 adult children since then had sub-divided the old home place between the 4 of them. Our friend's wife, who we call MeMaw, has one portion of it and her 3 brothers have/had equal portions of it. MeMaw and PePaw are two of our friends who have long given us their old, spoiled hay to use for mulch, until I just got too paranoid about their neighbors possibly spraying with persistent herbicides, so stopped using the hay after 2010. Tragedy and early death has struck this family hard over the last 10 or 12 years and MeMaw lost 2 brothers, both unexpectedly, and one sister in law, to a chronic terminal illness, in about a 2 year span from late 2007 to late 2009, and she lost them far too young. So, it is MeMaw and her one brother left, now in their late 70s, and her health has deteriorated a lot in recent years and I worry about her so much. Her brother lives in the DFW metro, but retained the portion of the old home place with the house on it, and he and his large, extended family and their dogs often spend weekends and holidays up here. He is gardener and a dog lover, so of course, we have had many, many long conversations over the years about our gardens, our tomato plants, the deer (they come up from the river and jump the 4' fence into his garden often), the kids, the grandkids and our dogs. So, last night PePaw told us that MeMaw's last surviving brother recently has been diagnosed with some form of (I think) adrenal cancer. The way PePaw said it was "it started in his glands" so I interpreted that as adrenal cancer. Anyhow, he was diagnosed a couple of months ago, and has been having all sorts of tests and issues. Apparently he is at Stage 4 as the cancer has spread to his lungs and bones. I asked if he was planning on coming up anytime over the next few weeks, and PePaw told me sadly that no, he isn't well enough. I was SO hoping maybe he could at least have one last weekend at the beloved family farm with his kids, grandkids and dogs), but it appears his next trip up here will be his final trip, to be laid to rest beside his beloved wife in our local cemetery. I am so completely devastated by this news.

As we lose so many of our beloved neighbors we find that we are becoming the old folks now. Just think....when someone new in their late 30s or early 40s moves here into our neighborhood now, Tim and I are about the same age now that all of MeMaw and PePaw's siblings and cousins were when we first moved here and we were the young whippersnappers fleeing the city life for the peace and quiet of the country. We're becoming the old ones by default, and that feels sort of odd. It doesn't seem so odd when I look at our aging, aching bodies, at the middle-aged (or old-aged) spread and the graying hair though, or when I contemplate the fact that many of our friends who were grandparents when we moved here now are great-grandparents and even great-great-grandparents. I know we are grateful to have lived long enough to become old ourselves, because we've buried friends here who didn't live long enough to become as old as we are now. That is a sobering thought.

Okay, I've rambled on long enough. Today, when I am out in my garden, I know I will not be out there alone. I'll be thinking of our dear friend and know he'll be there with me, at least in the memories I carry in my heart, and I'll be thinking of all the times we've prepped our gardens for planting and have worried through the spring planting, the hail storms and the cold nights, and the constant intrusions of the wildlife, always hoping to feed our families with the bounty produced by our gardens. I'll be smiling as I remember all the times we'd all be out mowing together...him mowing his bar ditch (his property is to our west but ten acres of it wraps around our north property line and comes up to the road) and front pasture and us mowing ours, and all of us stopping to sit, rest, drink a little water or Gatorade, and chit-chat, catching up on the latest news. They say that getting old is hell, and in some ways it is, but it still beats the alternative.

Y'all have a good day. I hope the sun shines on you all and you can make it outside to your gardens or yards if that is what you have in mind for today, tomorrow or the weekend. I really need some garden therapy today.

Dawn
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luvncannin
6 years ago
I cleaned up 2 sets of shop lights and found all the chains and s hooks and got them hung. BokBok choy is sprouting and I will plant 2 more flats. It felt good but so tiring. I am officially produce assistant manager as of yesterday and full 8 hour days. I pray I can keep up. The pain still takes my breath away and occasionally causes tears. I pray I never endure another
hazelinok
6 years ago
I'm trying to remember all that I wanted to comment on yesterday...

Dawn, I don't want mice/rodents in my house or coop or shop. I think they are cute (I really do!) and I'm not scared of them, but I realize they are diseasey and germy.

Yesterday I thought, "oh no! I'm getting the flu!" I felt that type of achy and tired that comes with the flu. Then got concerned about how maybe I'm sick from cleaning the chicken coop last Friday. It was so dusty and my lungs actually hurt after cleaning it. Maybe I got a disease from that??? That was my thought. (Over the weekend we purchased dust masks to use in the future.) All I had at work was yarrow tincture, so took 2 doses of that and then echinacea when I got home last night and this morning. I don't feel sick, just achy and tired. Normally I feel this way in May. It always makes me think that I do have lupus after all. But, it's March. I have no idea why I feel like that each May. Maybe busyness.

Megan, it was YOU who also got the free trial packet of Lime Green Salad. I knew someone else had gotten them too.

Amy, glad Ron's surgery went well.

Jen, my neighbor grew luffa on her fence last year. I am SUCH a dork that I thought it was some type of zucchini. We borrowed their (very nice) pool while they were out of town and I picked one (and was jealously thinking how unfair it was that she could grow zucchini like that and why wasn't the squash bugs bothering her enormous plants!) I texted her and told her that I took one and she was so confused that she still had zucchini in the garden and finally said, "do you mean those things growing on the fence?" Anyway...we had a good laugh.

Nancy, I'm so sorry about your kitty. It makes me sick to my stomach when one of our pets gets hurt.

Dawn, I did work that long yesterday. We had a late meeting and while it was very good and productive, it was so late. Then we had another 3 hour meeting today. Just need a nap now.

It's sad about Alex Trebec. And I'm very sorry about your friends and neighbors. I enjoyed your memories of them.

My onions came today. Dixondale was generous this year. They sent 148 Red Creole and 111 Texas Legend. I was able to plant 91 of the Texas Legend this afternoon.

You know, every year since I've been a member here, we've always had an onion thread starting in January or so. We didn't this year.

I'm not so good at planting onions the "dixondale" way. Making a trench, adding fertilizer, covering with 2 inches of soil and planting the onions a few inches from the trench. For one, I don't do straight rows well at all. In the future, once we have the garden fully built, I'll do the more hodge podge style for sure. A few onions here, a few onions there. And the same with the rest of the plants.

So...new issue. The neighbors' puppy likes to visit our property. I had the hardest time keeping her off the onions. Josi and Kane were barking their heads off. Finbar was taunting the puppy and, while it was all very cute, my garden might suffer if this type of thing continues. We can't afford to fence my garden right now.

Tuesday night I got a message from my daughter's friend who is a first year teacher (and very excellent teacher too). She was loaned an incubator and given eggs. Two weekends ago, she went to the school to check on the eggs and none had hatched so she went to Atwoods and purchased 4 chicks and removed 4 eggs because she was worried the kids would be disappointed if the eggs didn't hatch. They all hatched. I had asked her at the beginning if she had a place for the chicks. She said yes. ANYWAY, the message was somewhat panicked and she asked if I could take the chicks. I don't want new chicks right now, but have a friend who would take them. And my friend doesn't care the ratio of male/female because they butcher their males other than keeping one rooster. I drug out the chick equipment, cleaned it, set it up because I would keep them until this weekend (and it's possible I would have kept a couple because I'm dumb.) I made arrangements for Tom to pick them up after work because I couldn't. She gave them to someone else! I was so frustrated. And I look like a flake to my friend. She will take any chicks that we hatch this summer. I'm sure we'll have a couple of broodys again...and hatching chicks last summer was so fun. We will have our own fertilized eggs! I'll probably keep a couple of those chicks too.

Well, I should do my exercises, clean up the kitchen and close the coop. Hope everyone enjoyed the warmer weather today.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Kim, Good luck with the new position in the store. I hope that your body is ready for 8 hour days after you've been so sick for the last few weeks. Are you taking anything for the pain?

Jennifer, Could the feeling you usually get in May and this year have in March be related to some sort of allergy issue? The cedars here pollinated 3 months early and our allergies have been going nuts. I've noticed that after being outdoors like I was today, I have tons of sinus drainage and feel like crap---and I don't feel like that on days I stay indoors. Well, I cannot stay indoors the whole allergy season so I just put up with it. March usually is the worst.

I have planted onions the Dixondale way and they did great. I have planted them other ways, usually more crowded together in solid blocks with no trench left for fertilizer and they did great. As long as I put them in well-enriched soil, they perform well no matter what. Well, the caveat is that they need lots of water, spaced out well over their whole growing period, in order to produce large bulbs. I think it takes 21" of rainfall and/or irrigation over their life in the ground to produce the maximum number of leaves and, hence, large bulbs eventually. My objection to the Dixondale method is it does take up a lot of space, and I like to pack plants in more tightly so I can grow more things in the space I have. Onions are heavy feeders so I usually like to work in blood meal or some form of organic fertilizer higher in nitrogen before planting, but more conventional farmer type gardeners often use a high-nitrogen lawn fertilizer (nitrogen only, no P or K) to get big onions. I am pretty sure one of my old farmer neighbors raised his onions using some sort of urea fertilizer that was 46-0-0, which I found hard to imagine. He had great onions though so who am I to quibble with his method. He may have fed the same stuff to his corn.

I think maybe we weren't talking about onions much because it has been too wet to plant them for ages and ages. Otherwise, I don't know why weren't talking much about them.

A scarecrow sprinkler that comes on when an animal passes the electric eye might keep a puppy away from your garden, but it really just depends. Some dogs love to play in sprinklers so for those sorts of dogs, the scarecrow is less effective. Google Critter Ritter Hydro Spray Away Animal Repelling Sprinkler and that one is about half the cost of the original Scarecrow. I assume it works as well. Without a fence, I cannot keep anything out of my garden---I tried that and found it just didn't work here. It it wasn't our pets or wildlife, it was someone else's pets or strays or, once, a big herd of cows (by then I had a 4' fence, but they were running straight at me and I thought they were going to run right through the fence....they didn't). We also have had goats make it only our property (they are the ultimate destroyer of both landscaping and edible gardens) but we turned them around and herded them back up the road to their property before they reached the garden. I have a huge appreciation for my garden fences because I remember life before them, without them and with shorter, weaker, less effective fences that animals often squeezed under or dug under.

It is not your fault the chicken thing fell through. We were in Atwood's recently and they had chicks. I quickly dragged Tim in the opposite direction because if he has to walk by chicks, he'll usually buy some. Chris is the same way and that's how we ended up with a batch of straight run black Australorps a couple of years back that gave us 10 roosters and 2 hens. I can tell the men until I'm blue in the face to never ever buy straight runs and it just goes in one ear and out the other. Nobody needs that many roosters and all they do is fight with each other. The coyotes eventually got them all and I didn't miss the roosters at all, but surely did miss the hens.

When the four year old gets back from vacation I know Tim will take her to the feed store the next chance he gets and they'll come home with chicks. She just adores chicks, chickens, turkeys, guineas...whatever....any and all of them. I used to be that way before coyotes broke my heart 1,001 times by repeatedly killing everything.

Today I took the tomato plants out for two hours of sunlight. I would like to say they are happy....deliriously happy....from the sunshine, and perhaps that part of it would be true. However, the wind beat the living daylights out of them and they look so sad. I carried them out as soon as the tables where I place the flats were in full sun, knowing that our forecast said the wind would be highest in the afternoon. So, of course, while I was expecting wind in the teens gusting into the low 20s, the poor plants received wind in the 20s gusting as high as 32. I would look at them out there swaying in the wind and just shudder. I left them out the whole 2 hours though because they won't get hardened off to the sun and wind if I wimp out and bring them indoors at the first sign of adverse weather. I don't want to be a helicopter mom to my sweet baby plants. And, of course, this afternoon late in the day our wind had dropped to practically nothing and I was wishing I had waited until then to carry out the plants. Tomorrow we'll try for 3 hours and see what happens....I need to just keep telling the plants that whatever doesn't kill them will make them stronger.

The sand plums had a few limbs in early bloom when the cold hit last week, so we lost those blossoms. No new branches bloomed after the first cold night, but today it was like they felt they'd been waiting long enough and every single tree in the thicket was blooming by late afternoon. The air smells heavenly but I cannot help thinking they are blooming too early for sure. By late afternoon, the daffodils had returned to normal except for that small percentage with severe cold damage, and they looked so lovely. Bees were out everywhere, mostly visiting the dove's cracked corn early in the day to feed on corn dust and a lot of the tiny blooming wildflowers, but by late afternoon, the plum blossoms had become the big attraction. Tiny wasps (of the beneficial kind and the pollinator kind, not the big ones that sting us) were out by mid-afternoon and I saw a few butterflies by late afternoon.

This is the first day it really felt like springtime, and it wasn't just the warmth. A lot of it was that higher dewpoints and higher RH values coming up with the Gulf moisture made the air moist and so much more pleasant than what we had with the dry wind out of the north.

I made it a point to carefully listen to the weather on the 5 and 6 pm newscasts and it is so disheartening. Our local TV mets talked at each newscast today about us possibly getting 3-4" of rain over the next few days, especially early next week. No, no, no. I am hoping for as much as possible of this rain to miss us. We are just starting to dry up and we do not need that sort of rain. At least we will stay fairly warm, even when the cold comes back, although fairly warm still will be roughly 20 degrees colder than we were today.

Everyone who has to get up early in the morning has long ago gone to bed, so that is everyone in the house except me. I don't know why I stay up later. I just pay for it the next day because Tim's alarm doesn't care that I stayed up later and wakes me up the same time it wakes him. Actually, it wakes me up instantly when it starts ringing whereas he can lie there and sleep through a minute or two of it. Of course, I'm pounding him on the back telling him to wake up because the alarm is going off. I wonder how late I could sleep if there was nothing like an alarm, dogs or sleepy husband stumbling around the bedroom waking me up at 5 a.m. Maybe I could sleep until 6 or 7 a.m. That would be heavenly.

I really need to start potting up tomato plants to larger cups. I was thinking I'd start than tomorrow, but then I remembered rain is likely on most days next week, so think I'll save it to use as a rainy day task.

Our forecast low for tonight is 50 degrees, so our heater probably won't even come on at all, which is pretty incredible. I love spring days where it is too warm for the heater to come on and too cool for the A/C to come on, and some years we have surprisingly few days like that.

I know the cold weather is coming back, but I'm trying to pretend it isn't. I can worry about it coming back when that day or those days arrive later on.

Dawn
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hazelinok
6 years ago
Are people busy? Or is Houzz not showing posts? I see Kim's post this morning, but didn't see it earlier this morning or last night...
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Megan Huntley
6 years ago
Well, y'all probably won't see me on here much for the next few days as I expect to be very busy.

Dawn - I'm so sorry about your friend and for MeMaw. I rambled on and on about all the things I'm feeling for MeMaw and deleted it. No need to bear one's soul and tears when we're here to talk about plants. Just know that I'm holding all of you in my heart right now.

I put the few plants I have started outside on the patio before I left for work. They're in a spot where if the sun does happen to come out - which it doesn't look likely to do - they won't really get any direct sun and they're very sheltered from the wind if that happens to pick up today. Since it is so cloudy and dreary today and expected to be so windy tomorrow, I'll probably leave them in the same spot tomorrow. On a sunny day they would get 1 hour of direct sun at most so it'll be a good spot for a couple of days assuming my mom doesn't burn them with cigarettes and Jill doesn't decide they're a doggy treat.

This weekend, I'm putting an Okie fence made from welded wire and rebar posts around my huglekultur/berm thing where I grow my kale and plan to put sunflowers and okra later. Jill just doesn't know to stay out of it and she and Jack are tearing it up! I don't have anything growing there right now and there isn't mulch down so it's fair game I guess. Jack knows to stay off mulch and Jill - who I still call Cutie as much as I remember to call her Jill - is still learning but getting the idea about mulch. I expect to have it planted so heavily that I won't need mulch, but they don't care about all that. For them, it's as good a spot as any to wrestle over who gets to bark at the dogs on the other side of the fence.

Also this weekend, I'll set up the shelves that I use to harden off plants. I may set up one of those covered greenhouse shelves but I'm undecided on that. The parts have gotten scattered and I don't plan to buy a new one so it's contingent on whether or not I want to attempt to locate the parts from hither and thither. I also plan to climb into the kitchen cabinets to see if I can get to the outside faucet from inside the wall so we don't have to bust out the brick from the outside. Ben thinks I'm a nut for even trying and I think he's hoping I'll get busy and forget about it - or he'll try to distract me - so I'll make sure to do that on Saturday while he's at work. I won't do any plumbing just yet. Right now I only want to see if I can get to it. Of course, if I get to it, I might be tempted to just fix it. I'll decide when I see how complicated it looks.

Also this weekend, I've promised Keegan a trip to the donut shop where we'll hang out until she finishes the schoolwork she missed. She's been asking for donuts for a couple weeks and we talked about getting donuts this weekend as a reward for finishing the work. I remembered being in college at the donut shop in the middle of the night catching up on work or studying, so we're going to do that... but in the daytime. She thought that sounded pretty cool and I've had several magazines arrive recently that I can take and get caught up on, so it will be a great morning if she can stay focused on her work. I think she wants to follow it with a hike so hopefully the wind on Saturday won't be too gusty.

May everyone get some dirt under their nails this weekend!
jlhart76
6 years ago
HJ, if your daughter's friend is a teacher in Oklahoma, suggest she join the Oklahoma Educations Need/Donations group on facebook. It's an amazing group that connects teachers with people who want to help provide needed supplies.

We have a meet & greet with a potential client tomorrow afternoon, so I think we're going to the dog park in the morning if the weather cooperates. Then hopefully I can go play in the dirt a bit later in the afternoon. Peppers are about ready to pot up, tomatoes are starting to get their third leaves, and some of the flowers are getting leggy. I need to pick up some more lights before I have to scrap all these & start over.
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Megan, I love MeMaw and all her family. When we moved here I bet 45 of the first 50 people we met were members of her extended clan....they lived (and still do) all around us in all directions. It sort of amazes me still to see so many people related to one another living in such close proximity to each other....and they almost all get along, lol. And, losing them one by one over the years has been really hard because they feel like family to us now.

I hope you and Keegan have a lovely morning hanging out at the doughnut shop. That sounds like so much fun and just the sort of activity that I think you both will look back as a favorite memory many years from now. I thought of your family yesterday when Damon Lane posted the flu map that showed the flu is widespread in every state in the continental US. It might be widespread in Alaska and Hawaii too, for all we know, but they weren't shown on the map at all. It is amazing to me that flu season seems to be peaking nationwide right now. I think we've all had enough of it here in OK and are ready to move on! I said something to Jana about the map and she said she's had at least one patient this week that tested positive for both type A and type B. That would really suck....as if having one type of flu isn't bad enough.

Jen, It is just toohard to keep plants happy under lights. I've been growing them indoors for decades and still struggle to keep them from getting too leggy despite having good lighting that I can adjust and all that.

Today I gave the tomato plants 3 hours outdoors in the morning hours and the wind stayed really low. They have great color and don't look tired and beat up like they did yesterday, but the flats definitely are too crowded. So, I did some thinning, and that is really hard for me because I hate to discard plants. I had potted up two seedlings to each paper cup when I pricked them out of the flat. In some cases, they were 3 or 4 plants now, so some of them must have had seeds in the soil when I potted up that hadn't germinated yet and then those seeds germinated later. So, after I removed (via cutting) the excess seedlings so that there's now only one per cup, the plants now have some breathing space. Then I re-organized them by size, putting the smallest ones in a flat together, the biggest ones in a flat together, etc. This helps any that have been slow to grow by getting them out of flats where faster-growing varieties loomed tall over them and have begun shading them. I have a few plants that look pitiful---just staying small, looking sickly, etc. Coincidentally, these same varieties germinated slowly and poorly, and perhaps not even coincidentally at all, they all are from Totally Tomatoes. Hmmm. That may be the nail in TT's coffin for me because I had similar trouble a few years back and ignored it, thinking any company can have a bad year with their seeds....but two bad years in close proximity is something else. So, I may not buy any seeds from them in the future.

Everything is outside today....dogs, cats, bees, ants, butterflies, ants, lady bugs, mosquitoes, lady bugs, moths, lady bugs, ants, airplanes flying low (maybe checking oil pipelines or something), gnats, farmers or ranchers driving tractors up the road. Did I mention the 1,000,001 lady bugs? it just really feels like spring again and we made it up to 69 degrees under mostly cloudy skies. Hmmm. Spring for two days in a row. I'm sure we'll pay for this later.

I'm looking forward to springing forward to DST this weekend. I'd rather have that hour of sunlight at the end of the day instead of the beginning.

We have a low chance of severe weather overnight. Usually when that happens, it really isn't too bad---not like severe weather in the middle of a hot afternoon. I really think strong wind gusts and hail up to the size of half dollars are the worst risk as the risk of tornadoes is incredibly low.

That's about all the news from here. It is a granddaughter night tonight so I'm prepared for dinner, movies and popcorn at the very least. Probably some sort of craft project. TGIF.

Dawn
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Nancy RW (zone 7)
6 years ago
Hi all. . . we went to our Friday morning volunteer deal, and that's where we heard about the temperature and the pounding storm that sounds like it could go through. I hope they're all wrong!

Jerry got through his accident fine. He's barely limping and is back to his snoopy naughty ways.

My budget for March is busted. I just bought deck paint for the deck, the front pillars, and whatever other wood trim out there needs it. We did not NEED a deck this large! I just stained half of it 2 (3?) years ago. It was no easy job, especially since I decided the lattice had to be painted, too--I have to do the entire deck this time, but at least no lattices, so it probably will take about the same amount of time--that is to say, ForrrrrrreVVVerrrrrr. I'd checked online and say it ran between $30-$40 a gallon. Oofta! (You have now been introduced to a Minnesota saying. LOL I'd never heard it before I moved there.) I had figured the square footage and knew I needed 6-7 gallons. I saw the 5-gallon cans had a pretty good break for the buck, so instead of getting the 5-gallon plus two extra gallons, to two five-gallon cans. Expensive, but I like the idea of having plenty for touch-ups.

The last time, I used all that I had, and was going to do the other half of the deck the next year--only to find they had discontinued the 5-gallon cans and the color that I was using. So I told GDW I was just going to wait. Now the whole affair REALLY needs painting. GDW will power wash for me, but he really hates painting and I really kinda love it. So he's off the hook for that. Dawn, it was so bittersweet hearing about your dear friends. My eyes got misty. We'll all be there way too soon. In fact, I'm not sure Garry will ever see Buffalo WY again. We're joining the oldsters. I am denial and play to stay there.

Thank you thank you, Jen, for the link! I'm super glad you thought to share it! Since Wagoner is so poor, I think I'll start with that local group.

Speaking of poor, I plan to get a Scarecrow sprinkler--but for maximum effectiveness, I''ll try to get a couple more. I suppose some of you have them, right? Do they work well with critters and dogs?

But not THIS month. Garry just had his old 94 Ford truck worked on--had three different problems HE couldn't fix. He loves that truck. It cost close to $700 and GDW could not have been more delighted to have it all fixed up! Just shaking my head. I get it, though.

I'm quite aways behind you, Jen, and WAY behind Dawn--on planting, and I am just FINE with that after the big nightmare last year in the late frosts.

Continued prayers, Kim! Are you at all better?

I am so far behind. . . . need to get busy. But have to try to stay up with posts.
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luvncannin
6 years ago
I am not ready for 8 hour days. I spend too much time hiding and crying. I will get ththrough this. I take ibuprofen and it helps for an hour or two. Then I wait til next dose. Tramadol did me no favors so I am praying for relief. Its ridiculous how pain can stop your world suddenly
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farmgardener
6 years ago
Ok, I admit it. I cheated! I still haven’t planted any seeds, but today at Atwoods they had the healthiest plants for .79 each. So I bought a couple of Porters, a small red cherry, and a Super Fantastic. I can repot them and keep them in the greenhouse. Also bought a 6 pack of broccolini - purchased some last year and was super impressed. They are long and skinny - perfect for salads or stir fry and they make a lot longer than regular broccoli.

A friend gave me an air fryer and I’m learning to fix squash, onions, peppers and okra in it. Can’t wait till have all that fresh from the garden. My seed potatoes that I’ve had in the pantry have nice strong sprouts so will cut them into pieces this week and let them cure. Hopefully by St Patrick’s Day the weather will be more cooperative. I’m so ready for Spring!!
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hazelinok
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Kim, I'm so, so sorry you're feeling so poorly. I hope you feel better very soon. Hugs to you.

Nancy, glad Jerry is better. What a relief. Painting a deck sounds so...difficult. Keeping everyone and everything off of it the hardest part.

Dawn, I hope you are having a great night with your granddaughter.

Seems like there's been a lot of talk about TT this year! My tomatoes were only started last Monday. I can see two just barely coming up. I have no idea which variety--will need to look at the chart. It's only been 5 days so I can't judge yet.

All of my TT jalapenos have sprouted.

Hey, do bell peppers germinate more slowly? Compared to jalapenos. It seems like I've noticed that in the past, but I'm not sure. None of my bells have sprouted. What is y'all's experience? My bell seeds are a couple of years old.

Jen, I hope you get to play outside tomorrow! Or maybe you can play in the dirt indoors?

Megan, I hope your and Keegan have a great time at the donut shop. Sounds so relaxing.

Dawn, it's possible my weird May feelings could be allergy related. It's an exhausted feeling with aches in my joints. Allergies can affect people in different ways. I sure wish I felt good, but just don't. I'm so tired and achy, especially one of my knees. I don't like to admit that at all. I keep going though because I have stuff to do...stuff I want to do. The cold is making it harder though. I just can't get warm except by taking a hot Epsom salt bath. That warms me up for a couple of hours. It all makes me feel like an old lady. Dumb.

We did our shopping tonight. We are working the concession stand for the HS musical tomorrow night. We have a dinner on Sunday night. I work Sunday until noon (and Tom works on Sunday too). He is smoking meat for some friends tomorrow and I am going to lunch with my daughter and mom. Tonight was the only time. Do y'all like Torchey's Tacos? We had it for dinner. One of my favorite places.

We did NG, Walmart and went to Lowes to pick up a few more peat pellets. I also grabbed a couple of packs of cabbage plants. Red cabbage and something else...maybe early cabbage. I did not start cabbage seed this year so bought the plants. Had a nice chat with the garden worker about tomatoes. She is just starting her seed too.

Oh! They had tomato plants sitting outside next to the broccoli, cabbage, and herbs. Crazy.
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AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
6 years ago
Grandma Suzy sprouted! I'm still going to TMD for a second plant, but I was so excited. Gary 'O Sena has not come up. The other unsprouted cups either have mates that did sprout, or I can live without them.

My dogs needed comforting at 3 AM because a loud thunderstorm rolled through. I posted on FB and Dawn liked it, but don't know why she was up. It is windy as all get out today.

I guess I'm chauffeuring my husband around today. I'm not used to driving this much, LOL.

Have a lovely weekend my friends.
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Nancy, I've thought long and hard about how we're becoming the oldsters. It is what it is, right? I try to tell myself that what this means is that we have experience, we no longer put up with crap, we have (hopefully) gained the wisdom that comes with living for many decades and we now choose to prioritize our activities and how we spend our time based on what matters to us....not on what society says should matter to us. We are the old wise ones, and I'm good with that. I try really hard to not drive the kids crazy by saying "back in our day, we walked to school barefoot in the winter in the snow 2 miles each way and it was uphill both coming and going". lol I'm afraid I still do too much of that at times, but try to do it in a fun, humorous way. When they start telling me old I'm just going to remind them that they just bought a house that is 27 years older than me, so old must be good, great or terrific!

I hate when spendy months hit like that, and sometimes it is just unavoidable. I'm glad GDW's truck is all fixed and, you know, it could have been a lot worse than $700.

I feel so behind and wish I was spending today out in the garden. Instead, we just delivered a tool to the kids at the house that the kids need for this weekend, so got to see all the progress they made this week since we last were there. They're really getting the painting done. I think they only have 3 rooms left to go and all three are partially painted, and then the trim in most rooms still needs to be painted. We dropped off the tool, grabbed lunch, brought in the tomato plants that had been outdoors for 4 hours (more on that in a minute), let the dogs and cats out to frolic in the wind and sun, and have to leave in about 45 minutes to go to the 9-year-old's 10th birthday party. By the time we get finished there, it will be too late to do any gardening. Maybe tomorrow....

Kim, Be kind to your body and let it heal. I know you're really stuck in a hard place right now---trying to work after the big promotion and having to deal with the residual pain. I hope things get better quickly.

Jennifer, We had fun. Ate dinner out, came home, watched the movie Paddington 2, told silly jokes, loved on the dogs and cats (every night they act like they haven't seen Lillie in 100 years instead of just the typical school day hours), etc. She was worn out and went to bed after the movie ended, and was up, dressed and out of here around 7 a.m. to go work on painting her bathroom at the new house. Her best friend came over to help her, and they were having fun when we were there, and getting some painting done as well.

I wish I were out buying plants today! I am so jealous! Or, as the 10 year-old would say, "I'm jelly...." I am going to find a way (somehow, somewhere, or else) to buy some plants this weekend. I need to feed my desire to plant shop.

Amy, The thunder woke the dogs, the dogs woke us. The dogs decided they had to go out (it wasn't raining yet) and by the time they came in that little storm had run right past us, so they calmed down and went back to sleep quickly. Then, the weather radio went off a little later for a Severe Tstorm thing about the same time the storm arrived with huge crashing thunder and big lightning bolts. We put the young dogs in their safe place (a gigantic dog crate they love to share) and Jersey went into her safe place (our master bathroom), and we settled back down to sleep. The rain was brief. There was no more thunder. I still was awake, so I let the dogs out of their safe places and we all went back to sleep and slept maybe 3 or 4 more hours. Honestly, on nights like that I don't know why we even think we are going to be allowed to sleep, but we go to bed believing it is going to happen.

I'm glad your Grandma Suzy's came up.

This morning I ventured outdoors to check conditions for hardening off tomatoes so I can stay on schedule. The wind was raging out of the W/SW and the greenhouse doors and vents are on the W and E ends, and must be open to prevent heat build up, so the greenhouse would have been a wind tunnel today with our winds gusting as high as 44 mph. So, I moved the folding tables to the front porch, put the tomato plants there and left them out for 4 hours. It was not ideal. Between the porch roof and the trees, the plants probably got only 2.5 to 3 hours of sun at most before they found themselves shaded again, but the house blocked most of the wind, so they got a little wind movement, and probably more than I think and more than they needed. Still, it was nowhere near the wind movement they'd have been subjected to in the greenhouse or out in the yard. As Tim pointed out, full exposure to today's wind likely would have killed them so I had to choose the lesser of all the evils. Their color is really great---a much deeper, darker green. You really can tell they are getting a lot of sun.

It is SPRING here. All the trees are bursting out into blooms and leafing out and everything else. I mean, all the plants are going nuts, like the severe cold was the only thing holding them back and now that it is gone, everything is full speed ahead. The stores have all the plants, but I haven't had time to look at them. I'm not saying we won't have more freezing nights, but rather that Mother Nature is moving on and doing her thing and will pay the consequences, if any. Bees and butterflies are out, moths and mosquitoes, blah, blah, blah.

Gotta run to the birthday party because a swim party (indoors!) with a bunch of 9-11 year olds is the only acceptable substitute for a very windy day (wind vicious today!) spent in the garden.

Dawn
Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago

Wintersowing in progress. I spent 3 & 1/2 hours out today, and I’m certain I’ll hurt tomorrow. But pretty flowers and yummy tomatoes are worth it. Just ordered Chinese food via Door Dash, because I can’t fathom cooking right now. Audrey is stretched out in the sun, snoring. The only thing I like about daylight savings time is more lig to be outside after work.
Rebecca (7a)
6 years ago
Oh, and I have my first tiny little green sprout in a jug. You’d think it’s a cool season flower like snapdragons or carnations or calendula, right? Nope. SS 100. Something I’m still not sure I’m going to grow or give away yet.
slowpoke_gardener
6 years ago
Radishes and lettuce planted on 2 - 18 are coming up.

Got plenty of rain and wind, and my lawn is all cut up from trying to use the tractor in the back yard to build my shed. I wish that I had not told Madge and my daughter that I would build it without climbing.

Madge picked up a pound of giant California mix zinnia seeds in Mena AR. today, sure looks like a lot of seeds to plant in my wildlife garden. I dont know if I have ever grown this mix before, but I expect the bees will like them.

I got a flat (72 cell ) ready to plant, most will be tomatoes and peppers, and maybe a few zinnias. My neighbor gave ne a 4' heat mat so I should get 3 more flats of something to place on it. i bough (2) two strip LED light fixtures that I will try to use with the seeds, but I also dont have a shelf ready yet.

Madge and I have running our wheels off trying to help others. My neighbor that I brought home from the hospital to live with me until I could get him in a nursing home, called thur. night and ask me to take him to the ER.. I went to the nursing home and had the send him to the ER., he is still in the hosp.

I know I an bouncing around and making no sense, but I am tired and my brain is fried.

Dawn, I thing I saw some of your Oklahoma Mud blowing over my house today.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Larry, I wish you'd seen today's Sunshine and 76 degrees blowing over your house today. The wind was sort of vicious today, wasn't it? Friends of ours lost a trampoline today to the wind....it went flying and rolling and was bent so badly that it isn't salvageable. The max wind gust by the OK Mesonet station near them was 52 mph.

I hope you keep your word and don't climb anything to build that shed. Yes, I know it will drive you crazy and slow you down, but it sure beats the prospect of maybe slipping off a ladder and breaking ribs, your pelvis, a hip or anything else. We run many medical calls a year as first responders, and a lot of them involve people (of all ages) falling. You don't want to be one of those people.

You're always so kind and take care of everyone around you and I know that you have been that way for as long as I've known you here. I hope your neighbor is doing as well as can be expected. I hope you had a nice visit with your mom and that she is doing well.

Spring is busting out all over here today. That makes me nervous. When we go from really cold to instant spring, how can you even trust the spring weather is going to stay? I really expect another freezing night or two still, but I'm okay if I'm wrong about that.

Today was all about family and the granddaughter's birthday so I did not do a single thing related to gardening, other than taking out tomato plants and carrying them in again. It wasn't enough. I was longing to play in the dirt in my garden. I might get to do that tomorrow, but then we're expecting a lot of rain from Monday through Wednesday so I have to be careful that I don't spend time doing anything that the rain can undo. I'm completely over all this wacky weather and just want for things to stabilize and stay the same for a few days instead of swinging back and forth from cold to hot to cold to hot. At least the wind has died down for today. That is a big improvement over the last couple of days.

Don't forget y'all, we turn the clocks forward tonight and lose an hour of sleep.

Dawn
luvncannin
6 years ago
Our wind gusted up to 85 today. Or.Or.last night. My house is full of dirt. AND not the planting kind.
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
6 years ago
Oh Kim, that is truly awful. I knew y'all were expecting wind but maybe not that much wind. What a mess! We only gusted to 44 here, and it gusted to 52 where our son lives. I thought that was a lot of wind. I cannot even imagine 85. I think the highest wind we ever have experienced at our home, as far as I know, since moving here was in the 70s or maybe the low 80s, and it was very brief as it was just the leading edge of a derecho, but when it hit our house, it was like a semi had struck the building. Thankfully, it moved on through quickly and seems like the wind was only in the 40s afterwards.
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March 2019, Week 1, Winter Weather Dragging On in Oklahoma

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