Megan, Whoever said adulting would be fun must have been a kid. It is hard. It is expensive. It sometimes is painful. We do it anyway though because it beats the alternative. I wish I had paid more attention when I was in middle school and high school and all my relatives kept telling us to enjoy those carefree years because they were the best years. They were right, but at the time we thought they were nuts and let their words go in one ear and out the other.

Our son stopped by HD yesterday morning on his way home from his 24-hour shift to buy a Shop Vac and discovered it was 50% because of the Spring Black Friday sale so he was a very happy camper indeed. If I had been coming home from working 24 hours, shopping would have been the last thing on my mind but I think his intent was to cross off that item on his To Do list so that once he got home maybe he could sleep for a while.

Kim, I'm sorry about your mom. Mine has progressed from the hospital to the rehab facility but remains very frail and probably will not go home to live again. It really is time for her to either move in with family or go into a nursing home, and at this point the nursing home seems like the better option. Of course, she wants to go home and not go to a nursing home, so there is a bit of a standoff right now. Too much drama.

Jen, The soil really was too wet yesterday---I tried, but really could only work on weeding, pruning and planting in containers. Maybe by the time you can take off those days to plant, the ground will be in better shape.

Jennifer, The mystery plant is definitely a nasturtium. I've grown tons of them in my lifetime and they have a very distinct leaf. Salvia leaves are different.

I am not sure how many tomato plants I'd plant in a 20' by 3' bed. Maybe six of them. I would have put all 9 of them in it if it were 20' x 4' or 20' x 5'. If you put them all in the one bed, they likely will grow into one big wall of foliage that may lack proper air flow. It that is the only space for them though, then do what you have to do.

Jacob, I am so glad y'all received the blessing of abundant rainfall when you needed it. That is awesome news!

With tomato plants it is the combination of high temperatures and high humidity that impedes fruit set. In general, once day time highs are exceeding 90-92 degrees regularly and night time lows are exceeding 70-72 degrees regularly, fruit set slows down drastically. If the humidity is high, things are exponentially worse. When the humidity is high the pollen gets sticky and clumps together within the flower, making pollination and fertilization less likely to occur. You can help the flowers by thumping them to make sure the pollen get shaken up and moves around a bit. In a very dry year when relative humidity is extremely low (think single digits to low teens), you can get fruit set even if temperatures are over 100 degrees. I had tomato fruit set in these very conditions in 2011 when the highs were in the 110-115 degree range and relative humidity bottomed out in the single digits daily. I didn't have a lot of fruit set, but I had some. All of the above applies to all tomatoes except the small ones---any and all of the bite-sized tomatoes (and a few that are maybe two bites, like Porter, or just slightly larger like 4th of July) set fruit well in the heat up to and sometimes above 100 degrees. This is one reason I push my poor baby tomato plants into the ground so early---to beat the heat.

dbarron, Those flowers are gorgeous!

Jennifer, It still is a nasturtium whether you planted it or not. Sorry. Biology doesn't lie and those are nasturtium leaves. Some are more green, some are more bluish-green and some are variegated with cream/off-white, but nothing else looks like nasturtium leaves. Impatiens leaves do not look like that. You clearly had a stray nasturtium seed or two lying around somewhere. They look like small rocks before they are planted and soften up and germinate. If you don't want to take the word of experienced gardeners, then Goggle nasturtium seedling images and see for yourself.

The garden looks great though soggy and muddy. The plants are happy. The bees and butterflies are happy, so I'm happy too. No real garden pests have shown up yet. There still is far too much mud and too many puddles. There also is way too much pollen in the air, but it is springtime so that's normal. The grass is growing too fast and I should mow it tomorrow before more rain falls, unless rain falls too early in the day, which is not expected.

Tomorrow's forecast is really bad. A significant portion of our region is likely to have severe thunderstorms with the main risk being hail that is larger than baseballs---more in the softball to grapefruit sized range. I imagine some people will get that extra-large hail, but hopefully it won't be really widespread and hopefully it won't hit our gardens. We've never had any hail hit our house here that has been any larger than ping pong ball sized, and every year I worry that our luck is running out. There simply is no way to cover up plants with anything sturdy enough to stop extra-large hail, so I won't even try. I went through baseball sized hail multiple times in Fort Worth and it is so incredibly destructive that your mind cannot even comprehend that the damage is only from hail and not from something else. The Enhanced Risk area (level 3 out of 5) from the SPC has moved farther west and perhaps a smidgen south on the latest map:

SPC Convective Outlook Day 2-Categorical

Then, for a slightly different way of looking at it, here it is with the statistical probability added. The black hatched area is the one I'm watching most closely:

You can click on the word Probabilistic in the box beside the word categorical to see the probabilities. It is the black hatched area that I watch most closely.

I guess it is too much to hope that somehow all the storms and extra-large hail miss all of us, but that's what I'll be hoping for.

Dawn

I hope the hail misses. I've seen truly devastating hail where everything green was destroyed..including all leaves and new branches on trees. Horrible!

I know! I thought "nasturtium" immediately. But how would those big nasturtium seeds get into those tiny pellets?! I don't even have nasturtium seeds this year. It was one of the first things I ever planted in my life (but none this year) so I'm familiar with them. It's so strange. Then I looked up impatien sprouts...I see if I can link a picture here....

Nevermind. My work computer is being SO difficult. And I have to leave to do something else in 4 minutes. However, if anyone gets a chance to look up "impatiens" sprouts--like when they first sprout, let me know and let me know what you think. The very first impatiens leaves are very similar to a nasturtium leaf.

Impatiens are absolutely tiny (at least the commercial impatiens are) when they sprout, there is no resemblance (imo) to nasturtium newly sprouted seedlings which are huge.

I know, dbarron! That's what is so weird. I guess it's a great mystery and one I will obsess over for awhile and maybe for the rest of my life. These pellets were "duds" and originally had either impatiens or spinach in them. Then they were discarded with all the other duds outdoors on the back porch still in the tray.

THEN, I saw those sprouts and thought, Nasturtium! Because they do have recognizable leaves...but I didn't start nasturtium seed. How the heck did that seed get into those pellets? A prankster neighbor???

Anyway...I have more going on than my mystery seedlings in my garden. I will be back.

Squirrels? (lol...I blame squirrels for everything)

https://www.google.com/search?q=impatiens+seedlings&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS763US763&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiCvITxw9XhAhXHc98KHZB4Bl0Q_AUIDigB&biw=1845&bih=977#imgrc=m4Fd0efm_hzeqM:

I was getting ready to plant out more tomatoes this afternoon, but something told me to wait. Not sure why whoever it was thought it would be ok to plant zinnias and painted daisies, and not tomatoes, but I listened. I’ll do it Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. Itching to start cucumbers and green beans, but I’m making myself wait a bit longer. I need yet more compost anyway. Lowe’s was even busier today than it was Sunday. They have MG potting mix 2/12, btw.

Last year my Porter and Heidi tomatoes never missed a beat setting fruit in the high heat. It’s like they didn’t even notice it. Early Girl set some, but not as many. Creole usually does ok too.

Maybe that something that told you to wait is the instinct that maybe tomorrow's weather will be a bit wicked? I don't know if it will be bad up there in NE OK but it is supposed to be pretty bad down here in SC OK. I will work tomorrow to set up interior rooms with no windows for the dogs and cats (separate room for dogs and for cats) to go into if the big hail starts falling.

I only planted in containers today, and they're on the patio under the cover just in case tomorrow's weather sucks as much as they are saying it will. It didn't make any sense to put anything into the ground today with extra-large hail in the forecast.

I weeded the lower end of the garden a little, but stopped because it was so wet that each weed was bringing up a big clump of mud with it. I'll have to wait for the soil to dry out some more before I finish that chore.

I saw Nancy's image of some impatiens sprouts, but mine never looked as much like nasturtiums as Jennifer's do plus Jennifer's has a true leaf coming out that still looks like a nasturtium and not like an impatiens leaf. Who knows what planted them---maybe it was garden fairies. When the unexplainable thing happens in the garden, blame the squirrels or the garden fairies....or the gnomes.

dbarron, Big hail is crazy. I've been through baseball to softball sized hail twice---once out in my car on the highway when I was 19 years old, and once at my parents home probably 18 months later...it knocked holes right through their roof, ceiling, walls and windows on the north side of the house. It was like Swiss cheese. Except for their hardwood floors, they got pretty much a whole new house (it basically was gutted to down to the framing) out of that storm--the obvious things like a new roof and exterior walls, insulation and drywall....and new windows and storm doors, but then also replacement of furniture, bedding, drapes, carpeting, etc. that was ruined by the hail and the rain. We won't even discuss what it did to the veggie garden or the cars. At least cars were made of steel back then and the major worry was the windshield, mirrors and windows---just last week I saw some hail photos where the large hail punched holes in the hood, roof, trunk and side panels of the cars as well as in all the windows.

Being out on the highway when the hail hit, I knew I wasn't supposed to stop so I kept driving until I got to work. My boss stood at the office's back door, gesturing for me to get out of the car and run inside. I was petrified of getting hit in the head by a gigantic hail stone, so I kept yelling "No!" back at him. You can only argue with your boss long-distance via yelling for so long, so finally I got out and ran for it while he held the back door open for me. A hailstone never hit me, but my umbrella was destroyed. Of course, as soon as I got inside, the hail stopped. I hope never to see hail that big again.

The forecasters, including the storm chasers, are pretty full of dire warnings for south-central OK. Usually we just sit and watch as central OK gets hit, but I think tomorrow has the potential to be pretty bad over a pretty large area that includes us and reaches way down into Texas. There's only so much we can do to try to protect plants from hail, and if the hail is big enough, nothing will keep it from getting the plants anyway. Honestly, based on past experience with big hail in Texas, if we get big hail, I won't have time to worry about the garden because I'll be worrying about the house.....how's that for perspective?

I've been pondering what, if anything, I can do to keep the tomato plants safe. I'm not worried so much about them as a large group----I just don't want for the ones that have set fruit to be destroyed. I know from experienced that well-rooted plants (and mine should be well-rooted since they've been in the ground for so long now) can recover from hail damage pretty quickly, but you do tend to lose all the fruit and blossoms. You can park your car in the garage, but you cannot park your garden in the garage, unfortunately. Pretty much everything in the garden is expendable, but the tomato plants are not. Well, that might be because I doubt there is anyway to shield them from hail once it reaches a certain size.

After tomorrow's weather, we should have a few nice days, including a lovely and warm Easter weekend. That will be nice.

Dawn

Y'all I know bad weather is coming because I've caught bits of the news here and there. I'm pretty sure I saw something about tennis ball sized hail! In my area! Maybe I misheard. I'll be at work when the storms are supposed to roll in. I think. I need to watch the news tonight.

Ethan will be coming back from State, which is in Stillwater, at that time.

Thanks, Nancy, for providing that link. The impatiens are similar when they first sprout, but the leaves are not quite as wavy...and as they are now putting out their second set of leaves, there's no doubt they are nasturtium. So odd. And there's two of them. Oh well. I was wishing I had purchased nasturtium seed and was just thinking about that a few days ago. I was sorta sad that I wouldn't have any this year. Well, I guess Mother Nature found a way to gift me with a couple. Not sure how she did it, but...okay.

I hadn't been to Pilates in a couple of weeks until tonight because...life. It kicked my butt tonight, but I got home as quickly as I could so that I could plant the pole beans.

If someone has an extra Heidi tomato, I would like to try one. I've never tried Porter or Heidi, Rebecca.

Speaking of gifting plants, I have Mia, Nancy, Rebecca, and Moni down for coleus. Did I miss anyone? (This is probably the wrong thread for this). I went back and looked at the old SF thread to see what is being gifted to me and who I'm gifting the coleus to. The coleus is all different colors. I'll put everyone's name on 3 plants each (different colored ones) and then put the others on the "free for all" table. And, of course, if the 4 of you want more than three plants each you may have them.

The wind beat up my zinnias pretty bad yesterday. I left them indoors to recover.

I have a friend from HS who has some health issues but she wants to garden so badly. Her funds are very limited. I've been collecting plants for her. And am helping her with a container garden and pallet bed. I was able to deliver her plants today. Just a container of onions, some herbs, and some of the red bee balm that came from you, Nancy. It is loosing it's mind in the back garden. I LOVE the smell of it. It will forever remind me of you.

Just like the one coneflower that Lisa gave me made so many babies and they will forever remind me of her. Just like the coral honeysuckle will always remind me of Dawn. And my shamrocks will always remind me of Megan. haha! Y'all get the point. I feel like I need to mention everyone else now. But I'll stop. I do want to come back with a picture of the shamrocks.

Dawn it is way too much drama down here. I am handling everything by text and a few phone calls the problem is my mom is living with my little sister and my little sister apparently didn't realize that she was going to be mom caretaker and she doesn't want to be her caretaker she just wants to collect rent and not do anything and now that my mom needs many things my sister told her that she can't handle it she didn't sign up for this and now what so I am going down this weekend to try to figure something out if I can't find a place to live quickly then she'll end up in a nursing home.

My mom is scared to go back to my sisters because she can't fend for herself and my sister said that she has to be able to dress bathe and make her own meals and she can't do any of those things at this poin. We'll see what the weekend holds

I am unsure as to how bad the storms will be here. The Weather Channel says we won’t be in the heart of it, so that gives me hope. Ouch, it’s going to be a nasty storm setup for those west of us. Looks like it could be bad up towards Jack as well.

Dawn, why don’t you ever post pictures of your garden?

Thanks for the explanation on fruit set. I would be interested to see if fruit set is an issue in areas that stay relatively cool during the summer but hold an extremely high humidity. I don’t blame tomatoes, because I don’t like humidity either. It’s always said to work in the morning, avoid the afternoon. Personally I prefer the afternoon because it’s drier!! I’d take heat over humidity any day. Even visiting Arizona desert in 110+ degrees felt absolutely comfortable for me, because there was no humidity! I bet it’s hard on the skin though, for those living in a dry area.

It was a pretty busy day here. I had a pretty tall stack of flapjacks with 3 eggs and a small pile of bacon for breakfast. After I finished school, I worked 5 hours for a lady in town, doing yard work. Also went to Atwoods (yes I found one locally) and got a pair of overalls. I treated myself to a Cane Cola (which interestingly is made from figs?). I haven’t had a soda in a long time. Interestingly I don’t find myself craving sodas like I used to. I just have one as a treat now and again, and it’s simply fine like that. Atwoods is a great store, and it has become a favorite of mine.

Our neighbor’s dog got a hen that has been fairly sickly yesterday. I was not too disappointed, because I’ve been meaning to cull her, but he didn’t kill her!! It was a chihuahua, and it wasn’t very strong. It struggled to drag her, screeching, across our yard. I couldn’t stand seeing that (I don’t like them to suffer, I know, crazy), so I went down and chased the dog off, then culled the chicken (which I do with a sharp hatchet). Unfortunately, I’m afraid to eat sick hens, so it feels sort of wasteful. But it’s for the better good of the flock.

I am finding that having 2 roosters, as I now have, is really useful for managing 30 hens. They keep them all rounded up in a group (other than the occasional loner), and having both for defense is very effective. This batch of Plymouth Rocks produced some very nice roosters. The hens are now giving at least a dozen eggs a day, more and more as they’re finally beginning to lay their first eggs (they’re still quite young).

I’m off to bed. Have a good night everyone, and a good Wednesday, I hope.

Jennifer, The wind was brutal yesterday, and I think it will be a lot worse (at least down here, don't know about up there) on Thursday, and in between we have a chance of severe thunderstorms with extra large hail. April weather is annoying, but it is pretty much the same every year. Really, the last couple of Aprils have seemed fairly mild in terms of severe weather and I hope this isn't the year we're going to pay the price for that. Originally, they were saying softball to grapefruit sized was a possibility, but I noticed they began hedging a bit yesterday and saying tennis ball/baseball sized or possibly larger. (sigh) Hopefully the hailstorms will be widely scattered and miss most everyone. Honestly, even hail that is only ping pong ball sized to half-dollar sized can totally destroy garden plants if it is falling at high speed/velocity so anything bigger than that just adds insult to injury. On the other hand, anything larger than ping pong ball sized hail will do so much damage to vehicles and buildings that we don't have time to fret over our destroyed gardens, so there's that. The shamrocks are so pretty.

Kim, It is hard being stuck in the generational sandwich---with aging parents (and aunts and uncles and such) on the older side of us and needing increased care and attention, and then kids/grandkids on the younger side, also needing time and attention. We middle-agers get squeezed hard from both sides sometimes.

I feel bad for your mom and your sister owes all of you an explanation for why she'll happily collect the rent but expects a woman your mother's age and who is in poor health to be self-sufficient. Perhaps having a home health care aid come in daily to attend to your mom's needs would be a feasible idea. We've had neighbors who did that---I'm not sure if Medicare was paying for it or what.

I hate family drama.

Jacob, My reasons for not posting photos are long and complex, and include having once been stalked by a crazy person and developing, long ago, a strong tendency towards maintaining my privacy to prevent such a thing (whether that person or anyone else) from ever happening again. It was not someone I knew, and was a very long time ago (before I met Tim, so way, way back in history) but that person made me his target, or one of his targets, and I'll skip all the boring details and just say that I am lucky to be alive. A friend of mine, later on in her life, was not so lucky and her death at the hands of the man who stalked her probably reinforced my perceived need to keep my private life private.

Once you become fiercely protective of your own privacy and maintain that for decades, it becomes a big part of who you are and it is hard to let go of that. Because our garden sits between the house and road, I always feared that posting photos of it could reveal my location to somebody that I did not want to find me, so I just don't do it. I'm also completely inept at using technology, no matter how much Tim and Chris show me how to do things---they will show me, for example, how to transfer a photo from the phone to the computer and how to post it, and I'll think "okay, I can do this". Then they walk out of the room and everything they said just flies out of my head. I call it technological dyslexia and I am convinced it is a real thing.

Finally, when I joined FB, I thought I'd post photos there all the time. I did. For a day or so. Then I got busy with harvesting and canning and forgot about it and never seem to have time to do it. I just think that maybe photos aren't a priority with me, not compared to the massive To Do list that maintaining acreage and several large garden plots involve, as well as the house and all the animals. I enjoy seeing other people's photos, but I just give them a quick glance and move on. Never enough time.

Dawn

Just got a 4 part tweet from the NWS Norman about today's severe weather - Northwestern OK - Woodward, Enid, Ponca City and northwest of that line - is the only area they're certain will have storms. In what they've labeled as "Area 2" they put an emphasis on IF storms develop they will be severe with large hail. Similar for "Area 3" which includes you Dawn. It's posted on their Facebook page as well if you want to take a look at where you fall in the map. I can't link to it or I would.

I sowed some green beans after work on Monday but last night spent my evening getting the garage cleaned up enough that we could get the cars in. Yes, they already have hail damage and a pending claim so one could say what's the difference but the damage is minimal and only to the hood and roof. In addition to concerns about a windshield being busted, both cars have sunroofs. We were lucky the first time that the damage wasn't enough to affect the seals and neither of them leaked following. I feel like leaving them in the driveway again would be like painting a big target for Mother Nature!

I'm thinking about putting empty pots/buckets over my tomatoes tonight. Anything else I wouldn't sob over loosing but my toms would be heartbreaking. Even if we didn't get huge hail, if we got similar size and intensity as last month it would wreck them. I was lucky to have only planted lettuce and kale at that point. Yes, I know should the worst happen I could get more in a week at SF, which is reassuring, but who wants to have their garden smashed!?!

I have one tough little snow pea that is up to a challenge. All of them were beaten to a pulp in the hail storm last month, but last night I saw that one has tried to make a comeback and put on 2 leaves! I should have known something was going on because a robin was hanging around. In past years, I've had a robin that was a snow pea hound and ate all the ones I had left on the vine to dry for seed! I wonder if it's the same bird or if they all know snow peas are delicious.

A couple of weeks ago I got some bamboo from Mia to use as plant stakes, but nothing is big enough to stake yet so it was in the garage. I staked it into the mud puddle just outside the doggy door to block Jill from running through the mud before running in the door. Jack loves the path we just put down. Jill does not. It just slows her down, so she runs through the mud beside it. <facepalm> So I used the bamboo to block that area and my extra tomato cages to block another muddy spot. She looked annoyed with this, but she's getting too big to wrestle with to get her paws clean when she comes in muddy. When the hubs saw the bamboo he was concerned - rightfully - that I was trying to grow bamboo there... exact words "umm, if you're trying to grow bamboo, I have a problem with this." Mia says it's the bamboo that grows from rhizome not the kind that will root if staked in the ground. If anyone has an experience that says otherwise, please give me a heads up.

Hi all, it took me three years of gardening to finally figure why my seedlings are always smaller and slower than everyone else’s. Nancy was showing me the soil mix she used for her plants when I was at her place after I told her that Megan mentioned here that Jiffy mix seems to be doing better than Black Gold for her.

I didn’t know that Black Gold seedling mix isn’t enough for my seedlings, and that’s all I have used the last three years until it’s time for them to be in the raised beds. Somehow it didn’t occur to be that I should use some potting mix or fertilizer when I repot my seedlings.

Hopefully everything will work out better next year. I am not sure if I should put all of my tiny plants in the raised bed now, or repot them for a little longer.

Also, I can’t keep track of the plants I got from Spring Fling last year. If anyone brought dark-colored aguja last year, thank you! They are blooming right now beside my mailbox.

Hi everyone,. ,. . I'm dizzy with plants. And it was like Christmas today, as my order from Almost Eden came. Garry thinks I've gone off the deep end. I think so, too. Not good. Now all I have left are the aster tataricus and Sweet Autumn clematis. . . I warned Garry there were two more shipments coming.. Hi Jacob--it's grand seeing you with the advent of gardening.

I have lots of new plants again this year, AND, this is the year I'm finally gonna do it. For sure, for real. I'm going to grow okra. Oops. I totally take that back. I'm going to grow Chinese Okra, so it's not even okra.

The weather is looking very strange. There is virtually no wind. . . it's like the quiet before the storm. I have no idea what's going to happen, but chance of rains steadily increases and peaks at 95% by 1 a.m.

Oops. . . dinner time. Later!

We just went under a Severe Thunderstorm Watch here thru 2 a.m. I can see the storms out west/southwest of us in TX that should arrive here in about an hour. Of course, I've been watching the storms in Texas for a couple of hours now....tornadoes and hail that moved from the TX panhandle into OK. Chris keeps sending me screenshots of a map showing where the storm chasers are setting up. I told him I didn't like how many were lurking on the TX side of the river not too far from us.

Nancy, We got really still just before the clouds started popping up. We'd had sunny, clear, blue skies until then, and our wind stopped about 90 minutes before the clouds started popping. The dryline is approaching from the west, and probably more quickly than we want it to. I've got all the cats in. Guess I need to go fetch the dogs and try to encourage the chickens to go up.

There's nothing wrong with being dizzy with plants....that is normal for this time of the year, isn't it?

Eileen, You can just feed the seedlings something if you are concerned about their growth. I like to feed young seedlings either liquid seaweed or fish emulsion. If I use fish emulsion I cannot leave the flats of seedlings out because coons will dig through them looking for the fish. So will some dogs and cats.

Megan, I've been watching the weather and forecasts since 4 a.m. I am prepared. Thanks for the alert though.

Mia has given bamboo to tons of people over the years and I've never heard one complaint about it rooting, if that helps any.

Well, I need to catch up later. Gotta go get all the animals in and fed and locked down in their storm-safe area away from windows. I hope the big hail misses us, but want to be ready in case it doesn't.

I did not cover up most of the garden. It is too big, there's too many plants and it would have taken a full 8-10 hours to even begin to cover it all. Since the two big tomato beds had hoops up for row covers, I put the Aluminet shade cloth from the greenhouse over those two beds and the pathway between them. Lucky the cat thought I had built her a circus tent and had fun running under it all afternoon long. The shadecloth wasn't long enough to do the whole length of both beds, but I probably got 75% of the 49 plants in those two combined beds covered, and I made sure to cover up all the ones that had tomatoes on them.

Ugh. Our TV met is showing our storm on the radar. I hope it slides by us and misses us. It isn't severe yet.....but if it goes severe, I can go into the tornado shelter or the walk-in pantry downstairs depending on how severe it seems. I dread the next few hours---the anxious dogs are about as worrisome as the storms. I get weather alerts on my phone, computer, TV (of course), the NOAA All-Hazards radio, and my fire radios. Plus, Tim and Chris send them to me. All those alerts make the dogs shake and quiver.

Okie-dokie, I just got an alert for all Skywarn storm spotters in our county to prepare to be activated--not being activated yet, but being on standby to go spot storms at a moment's notice. Adjacent county spotters also on standby. Things getting busy fast.

Dawn

Dawn, check in when you can. I just got home and settled in and saw the warnings for Love County, Madill, Kingfisher, etc. (all the places where my people used to live). Is Tim home?

It was actually delightful when I came home about an hour ago. Thankfully got to leave about an hour early. I sat outside and harvested asparagus (again). Love being home.

Nancy, I laughed out loud when you said the thing about Garry and going off the "deep end". LOL

Eileen, I hope to get to know you better some day. I can tell that I like you very much.

Kim, I'm so sorry about your Mom and sister. What a mess.

Jacob, sorry about your hen. How awful. I need to learn how to take care of situations like that. When the neighbors' dog got my hen, Jolene, I made Tom deal with it. It wasn't a bloody mess--the dog just grabbed her in his mouth and broke her neck. And she wasn't quite dead. He wasn't even being violent....just a dog not trained to live with chickens.

Your roos get along okay, Jacob? I'm sure I'll let my hens hatch some babies this summer and am wondering what to do with the baby roos.

The severe storms passed through. Hail fell in several places in the county, but not real big hail, and not here at our house. Our wind maxed out around 50 mph. It sounded worse than it actually was I think. It is all over now, except for the pouting.....I made the pets go to their safe places (interior rooms and closets with no windows) and now all the animals are mad at me. I think I will survive the wrath of the pets.

HEY, HJ! She likes you, too. She asked our Tulsa crew if we could come visit you! LOLOLOL. I told her I thought you'd love that. You would love it, right?

Well the weather is still quiet, and NOW I am beginning to think it's much ado about nothing. I sure sure hope so.

I'm so thankful for Eileen and Amy. Eileen's hubby Larry love to fish and Eileen loves fish. . . So I look forward to our new fishing buddies. AND Garry Dean is beside himself knowing that Larry is ready to go at the drop of the hat if he can get off work.

And we also love Amy's hubby Ron. How rare it is when 3 couples alll like each other. GDW's only problem is that he can't hear anything. OH--So maybe some of YOU know expert information about hearing aids???? It's not that he/we aren't willing to spend the $$--it's that we don't trust any of em. ? Advice?

Because we absolutely, positively did not need more rain, another line of storms came through around midnight and dumped some more on us. The dogs and I were sleeping so well until that big loud mess arrived. I am sure that it will be impossible to do anything in the garden today unless I am willing to wade around in mud and puddles, so I'll find other projects to work on. This line of storms had tons and tons more lightning and thunder than the earlier storms, but I didn't hear any hail. I can see reports on my emergency management GroupMe page this morning that the second wave of storms brought down an entire row of trees alongside one roadway at least, but if that happened here I didn't hear any trees come down. I guess I'll find out when I go outdoors later on to set the chickens free from their coops.

Any day you have a forecast as ominous as yesterday's was and come through it relatively unscathed is a good day. Y'all know a tornado never will sneak up on me because Chris is watching all his storm chaser websites and sending me live radar and video and such. He sent me radar last night showing a mid-level to low-level rotation less than a half-mile from our house, so I went into the pantry closet beneath the staircase and sat in there for about 5 minutes until that rotation had stopped rotating. Before I even could get into the closet, he was calling me to make sure I knew to take shelter. I told him I was going to shelter indoors because I didn't want to run out through the rain to the tornado shelter when we weren't even tornado-warned. I think that frustrated him a little bit. If I had thought that little rotation was going to do something worrisome, I would have been in the tornado shelter in a heartbeat though.

Today's cooler weather won't be as nice as yesterday's but we'll warm up again by the weekend. I don't know how I'm ever going to get the back garden planted if it keeps raining like this once or twice a week. There are no raised beds back there, and since it is sandy-silty soil, you really cannot even walk on the ground while it is excessively wet or you find yourself up to your ankles (or shins) in a quicksand-like mess. I might plant more tomato plants in containers. I don't need more, but with the way our neighbors spray and send herbicide drift through the air and then it lands on and kills tomato plants, I always like having plenty. This year does hold the record for most tomato plants killed by somebody else's careless spraying---22 tomato plants dead, 2 barely alive and limping along--thanks to someone's careless application of glyphosate almost 3 weeks ago, and the big spraying season hasn't even begun yet. I left the two because they seemed the least affected and replacing caged plants is time-consuming. One plant has recovered well after first appearing completely dead. It is putting out new growth that seems unharmed. The second one seemed less affected early on, but has barely put on any new growth and what new growth there is remains extra small and looks pitiful. I just need to go ahead and replace that one because I doubt it is going to be productive---just surviving glyphosate drift doesn't mean that the plants necessarily are worth saving and this one probably is not.

I believe that for the sake of my sanity, and for the sake of future plants, we are just going to have to go ahead and plant a hedge of something around 100% of the garden fence in the hope that the hedge will grow tall enough to block all the drift. It isn't like people here are using less herbicides---if anything, they are using them more and more as the years go on. I lose more plants each year to herbicide drift, not less.

Even though we have been shrinking down the size of the front garden for the last 10 years, largely due to encroachment of the woods on two sides of it, that's still going to be a huge amount of fenceline to be planted with something hedge-like. I kinda get a headache just thinking about doing it.

We had some pretty nasty thunderstorms overnight, but it seems they’re mostly done now. We have a high of 60 today, and tomorrow has a high of 61, possible frost tomorrow night.

I saw some deer yesterday out by the road, and boy are they looking scruffy. They looked healthy last year, but this year they all look very sickly.

My tomatoes are getting big. They’ve grown a lot quicker this year since the weather has been warmer, and I’m thinking they need started later next year. Will need to put them in bigger pot soon...

When does everybody seed their zinnias? I am considering seeding them just a bit early for earlier blooms. Really, after next week, our forecast shows mostly mid 70’s by day with low 50’s by night. I may try it.

Hazel, the roosters fought a lot as they “asserted their dominance” for a few weeks (once they hit a certain age), but now that it is done and over with they get along quite well. I have had trouble in the past with them fighting more than they should, but it has not been the case this time around.

I have noticed that culling older hens is just not necessary for mine, since they free range, so I don’t. Predators tend to pick them off pretty well, which sounds mean, but I’d rather something get a decent meal out of them. Meat seems to get really tough at that age. It’s primarily when I get a sick hen (which is rare) that I have to cull. It’s hard at first, but it gets easier. I tie a rope around their neck (not too tight as to strangle them), put them on top of a tree stump, step on the rope overhanging the stump with my foot to hold their neck down, and then use a sharp hatchet to quickly cut their heads off. It’s quick and any pain doesn’t last for more than a few seconds, which I prefer. Again, I don’t like them to suffer too much. Some people I know avoid the rope and swing their heads against a tree as hard as possible to knock them out, but I have yet to try this, and I’m not sure if I can hahaha. What if they don’t pass out?!?!

I would like to experiment more with making broth. I have seen many people on YouTube making chicken broth out of all of the bones, the FEET, and even the heads!! It sounds nasty, but many seem to say that it makes the best broth. If anyone has experience with this, do chime in.

Nancy, the only way I found that I like okra is fried okra, and even that is debatable. It seems very popular around here; I just can’t bring myself to eat it, let alone grow it.

Hazel...you are so sweet. I have more, LOTS more coneflower seedlings! They love to make babies in my garden path.

I got just a little over an inch of rain in OKC last night. The rain in my yard has been "just right" so far this year. Plenty, but not flooding. I've been doing a little weeding here and there, but I need to get busy. The tall sock destroyers need to be destroyed right now :)

Jacob, I made broth out of the bones. I throw all the (cooked) skin and bones in my crockpot, along with any limp veggies in my fridge and let it cook all night. It does make the best broth. I strain it out in the morning and toss all the debris in the compost pile (shhhh). I think I draw the line at other parts in my broth! Despite growing up on a small farm, raising chickens, and having to clean them after my dad butchered them, I'm squeamish about feet and heads :)

I was just out for a walk around. It is COLD! Okay it's not COLD, but too cold to garden. 55 with wind up to 20. Dawn, not only did we come through the storm unscathed, there wasn't a storm!

Which was what I was hoping for. I'll take rain anytime here, but the school has standing water. Not good AT all. Any input you can provide will be appreciated. J wants to build a trench or French drain. I can't wrap my head around it. . . seems like the garden area IS the low spot. Ahh. . . just spent another half hour reading up on solutions. I love learning stuff from internet. That is, learning good stuff. I understand better now.

I get rotisserie chickens every month or so and make broth with the carcass of those, adding celery, carrots, onions.

Lisa, I need to get busy out there, but the weather hasn't been fully cooperating. Yesterday was good for getting some plants in the ground and a bunch of weeding done. May not get a chance today. It's spitting rain. . . windy.

Jacob. . . I'm a little squeamish about okra. I DID like the pickled okra I tried. But this Chinese stuff-- it's a vining plant. The fellow I'm gardening with at our "school" talked me into it. Any my thinking is that it serves various purposes. Apparently it is a rambunctious grower and has beautiful flowers. And if I don't like it, I can leave it and get luffa sponges in the fall! LOL So we're going to grow it for the school and I'll grow one here, too.

Angled luffa is also called Chinese okra or ridged gourd. This excellent open pollinated variety is cultivated for the tenderness and sweet flavor of its fruit. The vigorous plant has a heavy fruit set of ridged, dark green, club-shaped fruits that are best harvested about 18” long and 2” in diameter.

https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/climbing-okra-edible-gourd-zmaz85mjzraw

Listening to chicken friends. . . yes, I would have a difficult time killing chickens--in fact did. The smell of the boiling water made me sick to my stomach. Embarrassed to say I flunked that exercise in self-sufficiency.

Speaking of zinnias, I need to get some of those going next week. . . . but I tend to start them throughout the spring and summer; sometimes as I find empty spaces, or as I pull other things out.

Dawn, I am absolutely horrified to hear about your tomatoes! How far away do you suppose the spraying is? I would be SO angry!! And I am also glad we don't experience it.

Dbarron, those arilbred iris are gorgeous! I better check into them. . . :) MY iris are just now beginning to think about flowering. They always put on such a pretty show!

Do any of you grow love lies bleeding? I had some seeds, so planted a few. Last year the amaranths I planted were so raggedy, I ended up pulling them out. We'll see how these do.

And since I grew so many new plants that were unfamiliar to me, I have a few IDK's out there for now, and I expect more as we go. Most are pleasant surprises, thankfully.

I am so flabbergasted by how fast the tomatoes get upright after I planted them in trenches. I planted them on Tuesday and they are upright today. It's a small planting compared to many of you. I only have 12 in the raised beds, and one in the herb bed. I kinda think I'll end up with lots more peppers than I planned, as in addition to my planned ones, I have many Pretty n Sweet AND Midnight (hot), that are edible/ornamentals. So plunk, into the ground they'll go.

Since I failed at my red salvia-sowing this year, I just picked them up from Lowe's, and will sprinkle them through the bed. I seem to be gung ho about red this year--and Amy's peach colors. And blue. And white and purple! LOL

Okay, I must get busy. Have a good day, all of you!

Soon as it began storming, we went to bed. Yes, we're weird. If anything, out younger boy will alert us if the alarms go off. He doesn't like loud noises.

We have a service at church tonight & I'm hosting, so I have to go over early to set up. Didn't make sense to go in for half a day, so I'm playing hookey. As I told Cliff, heaven is not having to set an alarm.

Jacob, I plant zinnia seed late April, but this year it looks like I have a ton of self-seeders. I started a few seeds for specific varieties, but I don't think I'll need them.

I can't stand okra, but I think it's a pretty plant, so I just grow it as an ornamental.

I make broth in the crock pot, too. I either use rotisserie chicken remnants or my favorite is to roast leg quarters in the oven, debone and skin. Then I have cooked chicken for stirfry, chicken salad, etc and the rest goes in the crock pot for 48 hours. A splash of white wine or cider vinegar (acid) to de mineralize the bones (putting more minerals in the broth. I have frozen the broth (good in ice cube trays for small amounts for cooking), and I have pressure canned. This winter it all went to chicken and dumplings, LOL. I like to cook southern peas in it.

I am tired of adulting, too, Kim. Trying to get all the paperwork squared away so my dad can get a stipend from the VA so he can continue to live in his retirement home. He's 92. Mother passed last November. I am dealing with legal stuff for her. FYI everyone, put beneficiaries - PODs (Pay on death) on all your accounts, so your heirs don't have to go through probate to get the money. Mother has a savings account we will have to pay a lawyer to get the money. Not sure it's worth it, but ticked off at the credit union because they "don't honor wills".

Gardening....not much getting done. Only got .01" of rain out of the weather yesterday. It all stayed west or southeast of us. Today I hope to go thin the spinach, lettuce, beets, turnips and maybe carrots. I think a couple of beds need fertilized, but I have seen my dog try to lick it out of a pot, so not sure what kind to use.

Oh, Jacob, okra is so nutritious. You can eat baby ones raw in salads. I also like them roasted. I don't like stewed okra or in soup.

Chuckling about bamboo in mud puddles. Have you seen the little cups with brushes for washing paws. If my sasquatch was well enough behaved to do that why would I need it?

Nancy, pm me about hearing aids.

I hope no one was adversely effected by last nights storms.

XOXO

Regarding 'vining okra', just call it gourds/squash. It's not okra in the least, nor does it taste like okra (to me). I prefer real okra, but can eat either.

I'm so disgusted. I am a new gardener. Got the garden tilled up two weeks ago and it looked so pretty and weed free. I set out cabbage and onion plants. We keep getting rain (Why can't this it just come in July when I need it?) and got 2 1/4 inches just last night. Garden looks like a swamp and weeds are beginning to emerge. Meanwhile, I have packets of squash, cucumbers, okra, corn, cantaloupe, watermelon and zinnias laying on the kitchen cabinet. How warm does it have to be before I can plant the okra, corn, cantaloupe and watermelon?

Jacob, I love the plow, my dad had one much like that when I was a child.

It rained last night and is raining now. I have a ton of work to do if the weather will ever permit. I have no warm weather crops planted yet.

Elleen, I used Black Gold for the first and last time this year. It seems to work ok when I pot up because I put compost under it. I have pepper plants that I need to pot up now before they starve to death.

As you can see, I have no shortage of compost.

Nancy, my neighbor grew that “Chinese okra” last year. He planted in June to try and grow sponges out of it, but unfortunately it frosted on Oct. 12 and killed them, if I recall correctly. They hadn’t had time. I’ve always wanted to try those as well.

Larry, I’m a little jealous of all that compost!! I really don’t know what I’d do with all of it though, at least in my garden. I think I like to make large amounts of compost just for fun. Last year I made more than I needed, but I enjoyed it. This year I won’t make so much. I think I can get by with chicken manure piled on in the fall and plant debris dug in throughout the year.

HU + a bunch of numbers (you need to give us a nick name for you!) I have searched my bookmarks and cannot find the chart that shows the soil temperatures where vegetables germinate best. Dawn, or someone will link it. My notes say melons germinate in a soil temperature range of 60-90 degrees and can be direct sown (in Tulsa area) between 5/1 and 5/20. I assume if the days to maturity is short enough, you can plant after that, but a 120 DTM means you might not get fruit for 4 months, which would be a long time to wait. Okra's soil temp range is 60-95. You can plant in April, but it is a heat lover, so waiting a little won't hurt. Sometimes I plant it after onions. Cucumber is also 60-95 range. Safe to plant a couple of weeks after last frost. Corn is a range of 50-95. My notes say 3/25-4/30. Once again, you should be able to plant corn later than that.

You can either take a meat thermometer out and check your soil temps (or buy an expensive fancy soil thermometer) or check your closest Mesonet site for soil temps. You can find them on the state maps or check the graph that lists bare soil, vegetated soil at various depths. Also, a member here has developed an app for gardeners called From Seed to Spoon. You might want to check that out on google play or it's apple counterpart.

Well, bummer. I have a night free and it's raining.

I was able to plant two more tomatoes; a Cherokee Purple and a pink Brandywine. A friend brought them to me today along with a single eggplant. It was planted too.

Spent about 20 minutes weeding the onion bed before the rain started. Dumb ragweed loves that particular bed.

Speaking of onions, what's everyone's onion status? It seems like most of us were a little late getting them in this year. Mine that are "farthest along" have 5 leaves. Some only have 2.

Tom has a work friend with rabbits. He sent me a big garbage bag of rabbit poo and bedding. It has some Timothy Grass mixed in. Does anyone know of a problem with using this mixture as a mulch? The bedding is pine shavings which I use all the time...just uncertain about the Timothy Grass.

Lisa, I have plenty of your gift's babies in my pathways too! And in their designated garden. The one you gave me is now a tincture. It's roots were dug last fall. It's offspring continue to thrive!

I used to make chicken stock and then condensed cream of chicken soup from chicken carcass. I would freeze the cream of chicken soup. It was so tasty. This was back when I ate meat and lived in our other house. I should do that again. Make those items more often. Time is a factor now. Back then, I didn't have the chickens or a garden to care for.

I have started eating meat again. Some. I really am trying to like it. The boys love my homemade meatballs. I made them on Monday. I ate a half of one. Then, on Saturday night I made white chicken chili. I ate some of it too. I picked out most of the meat, but ate some of it. Then, two Mondays ago, I made salmon. Used the morels mushrooms in that recipe.

I have thought about raising meat birds. I know! Can you believe I'm saying that?! I just feel like I can get a healthier meat if I raise it myself. Tom does not want to do that. I have a friend who lives in town with a big backyard garden. He has mentioned wanting to raise meat...but obviously can't where he and his family live. I've thought about this...what if I raise them. He harvests them and we share the processing and meat. Honestly, I don't really want to eat it, but would rather my family eat a healthier meat. Anyway...

Dawn, I am so sorry about your tomato plants. I would be furious! I have been a little worried because my tomatoes are in the back garden. Hopefully no one will do anything stupid back there at the fence line.

I would love a visit, Nancy. Not in the next month or so, though...haha!

Maybe it stopped raining now...

Dawn, I am sorry about you plants also, but at least you did not do it. A few days ago I thought I should spray around the garden and yard fence before I planted my garden. I have pump-up sprayers from 2 liter to 2 gal. , the 1 gal. is the one I use most often because that is all I am supposed to lift. Because I try to limit my walking I decided to use the small tractor and just spray some of the fence line also. I have a 25 gal. power sprayer that I use with the small tractor. As I was coming around the house and along the deck spraying I happened to think about my tomato plants being on the deck in the sun. I was about 10 feet from the plants when I thought about them. I got the water hose and washed them off very quick, but I am not sure yet if I did them any damage. At this point the plants look okay.

Jacob, I cant get to much compost, I am working on my wildlife garden also and all my extra stuff goes into that garden (food plot). I potted up 74 more plants this afternoon, most of which will go into the wildlife garden. I also stopped at the Farmers Co-op this afternoon and bought 50# of Red Ripper peas to plant over there. I wanted to buy Iron Clay cowpeas but they told me that they cant get any for at least another month. After last falls flop on the wheat and grain rye I am going to try my luck with legumes. I am even going to try winter peas and clover as a living mulch, I may flop on that also.

Hazel, that is ROTTEN luck. Raining on a free night. Hahaha, that was really funny re come visit but not now. We're all in the same position right now. . . 24/7 busy busy busy! Wanna hear more rotten luck? I had a flat with your stuff in it. You said you wanted or would take any and all. So I was fixin' you up with a flat of any and all. . . .Later today I was out throwing plants into beds, even though it was quite windy. . . and I groaned cuz some of what I planted were YOUR plants. ROTFL!

I just finished working--major organization in the everything room, and it hardly looks any better at all! I think I don't need an everything room. I need 2 more rooms! A glassed in gardening room, a new art room with windows everywhere and then this library every other thing room. They don't even have to be fancy. This room was the other half of our double car garage. And it is rudimentary.. . but I LOVE it. And one of the best things about it is that it has 2 outlets on one wall and two on the other side--an embarrassment of riches! AND four 8' long fluorescent bulbs overhead!! THE one room in the entire house where I can see everything. Which isn't really good. I'd like to see more in all the rooms and it's too dark. Here it's like a mandatory "keep the lights low if you want to hide some of the junk," Not possible. On the other hand, it is the ONE place where I can winter some of my plants. AND it is the ONE place where I made the wonderful discovery of 7 tiny tiny heucheras who sprouted. I'd NEVER have seen that in the dining room, and in fact, nearly threw them out this morning!

In our one room kitchen/dining and living room (30x30), we have four--FOUR outlets total. one on each wall. Lights were apparently not a priority for the man (think man cave) who built this house. However, in his defense, he DID at least provide plenty of closet space, at least for US.

And then if I live another 20 years (unlikely) but even if I live another 10, I'll probably be 2 inches shorter than I am now, and I'll have to get a booster chair for my bar stool to eat dinner. The guy apparently wanted a counter/bar that was really LIKE a bar. Oh. Guess we could just get higher bar stools, and get a step stool to get up on them.

I had warned Garry that I had three more shipments of plants coming. . . I think he was in shock. Two came today. And the next one that comes is going to be the biggest. price-wise, but GDW won't know that since my account is for art and gardening life necessities (I don't buy clothes.) (I don't buy anything hardly. Cept gardening nowadays. Have way more than enough art supplies for now. And I give probably about half of them away. . .half of one of these shipments today was for Brighter Futures, our "school." Our friend John (at Brighter Futures) was telling me how wonderful coral honeysuckle would be on the fence (I didn't tell HIM I agreed. Just rolled my eyes.) And then the other day he was telling me he was visiting with a guy and this guy told him about this super duper fantastic bush. . . that is smelled good and was beautiful and that the school should have some. John told me he couldn't remember the exact name. . . . Trebek, maybe??? I'm thinking. . . John is full of it. But the way he described it. I said, I've never heard of a large bush called that. . . . I said, "John. . . Could it have been, by any chance, Vitex?" He said, "YES!!!!!! Nancy, it WAS VITEX!" Now wasn't that good, guys? Getting Vitex out of Trebek? LOLOL

Today was chaos, here is the visual documentary.

Jacob, I've grown luffa gourds several years, and actually prefer harvesting them when they're still green. The fibers seem softer that way to me. The trick is letting them grow long enough to start forming the fibers. Speaking of, I need to add them to my list for this year. I'm out of kitchen sponges.

Dawn, thank you for explaining why you don't take photos of your garden. I always wish I can see your garden (it must be incredible), but I totally understand why you are wary about revealing your location. Sorry about the herbicide drift from your neighbors! I wish they are more careful.

HJ, what do you think of morels? You are so lucky to have such a nice neighbor to give you some. I bought some last year, and we thought it taste kind of like meat. Haha. Feel free to talk to me on FB messenger any time! I love to know you better too. :)

Jacob, you can look at Asian/Chinese bone broth recipes too. I usually freeze my excess vegetables (stems of broccoli, celery, Asian greens, etc) until I have a big bag of it, and cook it with some chicken/pork bones. Lots of Asians/Chinese eat chicken feet, but I have never cooked them before. Is it weird that I enjoy more food as I get older? I would never eat okra as a kid, but I have started to enjoy eating it the last few years.

Nancy, I need to figure out if I have eaten the gourd/squash, and see if the Asian supermarkets here sell it.

We have had the grandkids since yesterday afternoon, so I have maybe 5 minutes on the computer to catch up....

Larry, We don't use herbicides on our property, but it barely matters because everyone, and I mean absolutely everyone around us uses them, so we lose a ton of plants to them every year. It drives me mad, but I refuse to let it drive me out of gardening. I hope that your plants are okay. It seems to be that the formulations of some herbicides drift more than they used to.

It was incredibly windy here yesterday....just crazy wind all day long....so I stayed inside and potted up tomato plants for the Spring Fling. They've been growing so well, but should have been in the ground by now, so a lot of them are gigantic monsters up to 2' tall. I never top plants of any kind, but I topped a bunch of them yesterday because they won't sit upright any more and they can't just lie on their sides in the flats and on the tables because it turns them into a big tangle mess. I have no doubt they'll regrow quickly, but I felt bad cutting off half of each plant. For the ones that already have fruit, it is hard to top those, so I moved them to another flat and pushed that decision out into the future....probably tomorrow afternoon after we take the girls back to their house. I believe Sunday will have crazy wind again.

A quick line of thunderstorms rushed through here last evening after dinner...we had noticed the line of them to our north and were hoping they wouldn't make it this far south, but they did.

Jennifer, After 20 years of this herbicide drift, I just don't get furious any more. What good would it do? I can live life upset or I can accept that this is going to happen and just let it go. I refuse to let other peoples' carelessness send me into a tizzy or send my blood pressure sky high. I cannot control what they do, but I can control my reaction to it. So many people spray, and often on the same day, that you cannot even say definitely who did it....though I usually have a perfectly good idea because sometimes I am working in the garden, watching them spray and sometimes feeling the mist in the air. Do I get that panicky feeling when I see spray rigs driving up the road? Yes. Do I hate hearing them going back and forth in the fields all day? Yes. Do I sometimes stand in my front pasture, hands on my hips, watching them spray and glaring at them hoping someone will notice that I'm not happy? Well, yes. None of this changes the outcome though. The herbicides are going to drift and some plants are going to die. It is inevitable, and it isn't worth picking a fight with all your neighbors, their teenage grandchildren who are doing the spraying for them (my pet peeve) at too high of a rate and on too windy of a day (as evidenced by my dead plants), the county road workers spraying alongside the road, and the railroad workers and utility workers doing the same. I've just accepted that people don't follow the rules regarding the size of the mist they spray, the wind speed or anything else. They are only focused on themselves and their goals, and I'm not going to change that. I could complain to the state government every time someone does it, and just create a lot more drama and still probably not change everyone's behavior, so I just let it go. I hate it, but it isn't worth the battle it would involve on a personal level to try to stop it. I just grow extra plants that I can plug in to replace the ones they kill. It isn't ideal, but it beats not having any plants to use to replace the ones they kill.

Would I like to erect a large billboard facing the road that says "Stop Killing My Organic Garden With the Herbicides You Spray"? Y'all know that I would, but again, it isn't worth the drama that would ensue.

Jennifer, I planted my onions extremely late because of wet soil and they are extremely behind where they'd usually be at this point in time. I expect small onions this year as a result, and think planting them may have been a waste of time more or less. It is just one of those years.

Here's the Tom Clothier seed germination vs. temperature chart:

Tom Clothier's Data base

New gardener....because this is Oklahoma and rainfall only comes in two types here....too much at once or absolutely nothing. It is what it is and we all learn to deal with it. This is an El Nino year and typically in an El Nino year we still cooler than average in Spring (which generally is welcome as it makes up for the years when we get too hot too early) and wetter than average. I expect this Spring will remain exactly the way it has been so far....too wet to plant most of the time. We just work around it and do the best we can.

I don't usually plant cucumbers, squash, melons and the like until early May in an El Nino year because the soil stays so wet and often too cool. Our soil temperatures have been fluctuating like crazy this Spring, so I haven't got into a hurry with anything, except tomatoes and peppers which I always plant as early as possible (as soon as soil temperatures allow) in order to get an early harvest and to get great fruit set before the heat arrives. Often, plants in the cucurbit family that were planted early just do not do as well as those planted a bit later, so I just wait until the soil temperatures and air temperatures both are warm and stable. That works most years, but we had to wait forever and forever to plant cucurbits in May 2002 when we kept having nights in the 40s far later in the Spring than usual. The harvest was later than usual that year, but some years are that way.

Oops, out of time and gotta get off this computer.

One thing I'll say about the cool weather and excessively wet autumn and winter is that it really knocked down the grasshopper population. I am seeing no grasshoppers at all, making this a better April than 90% of the Aprils we've been through here in OK.

Just checking in for Nancy. It appears to be working...

What, Nancy?! You planted my flat?! Sob! How sweet that you were making a flat for me, though.

Vitex? Trebek? LOL

The morels were good, Eileen. They were sautéed up with some garlic and something else, I think. They topped off the salmon. And on top of the them, a few panko bread crumbs and a splash of lemon. The mushrooms, lemon, and fish worked very well together. Taste explosion.

How's everyone else's onions doing? Did anyone else plant onions?

I had an overwhelmed moment earlier. There is just so much to do. Weeds are going crazy...and I won't have a free weekend until nearly June. That freaks me out. I mean, I always work on Sunday, but I don't have a free Saturday in forever!

I had to calm myself. This is why I only have 11 tomato plants. This is why I only have 12 pepper plants. I planned for this. I knew I would be busy. So, it's okay. It was planned to be this way. Remember, Jennifer?

As far as this weekend, one event down. Two more to go.

Thanks so much, Amy in Owasso and others who shared info on planting with me. I live in southeastern Oklahoma and am pretty clueless about gardening but I am excited (Does enthusiasm trump experience?). I've got zinnia seeds to plant because I love flowers indoors and zinnias are easy. Is it too early to plant them too? P-L-E-A-S-E! It's a beautiful day and I just wanna plant something! BTW, I am no long "H with a bunch of numbers behind it." Just call me Mammy. My grandkids do!

Here's another dumb question for you. When you say you put mulch around your plants to conserve water, slow weeds do you mean you use hay, pine needles etc? I told you I don't know how to do this! Explain please and thank you.

I am in Tulsa, and my zinnias are in! Plant away! Dawn is in south central OK, so her climate is much like yours, and she will have lots of advice for you. You can search for her posts in past threads and just start reading. She’s a wealth of information.

Thanks, Rebecca! I have already discovered OkieDawn. She's a gardening whiz, isn't she?! Going to my garden to plant a row of zinnias. Yes, I love vegetables but zinnias make me smile too!

Welcome, Mammy! Yes, enthusiasm ALWAYS trumps experience (at least for me it does).

My zinnias came up on their own. Hundreds of them. Like, half the bed full of zinnias. So I guess I'll be growing them as companions to everything this year. I also have...something...coming up. It's concentrated in one spot so I think it's a volunteer from last year. It gets to grow for now, until I realize it's actuall some invasive, noxious weed and need to pull it.

Spent most of yesterday afternoon at the dog park, then most of this morning playing in the garden. Everything got a nice long drink and some fertilizer, bunch of things potted up for next weekend, and moved a few that are in the way. Now I'm pooped!

Beautiful day to be outside. I will def have sore muscles tomorrow!

Hi Mammy.

Just stopping in to say "hi". Great day to spend some time outdoors today.

Hope everyone had the opportunity to enjoy the weather.

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

One current guest, but he's been here so often that he thinks he's part of the herd. And we have a daycare coming this morning. They're coming in from out of town so it screws up my plans for church. But between Tigger and the guest, Cliff can't manage the introductions on his own. So once everyone's settled I'm going to run out and get some mulch and a new weedeater, then spend the rest of the day playing in dirt.

And according to my mom and several other grandmas I know, grandchildren are your reward for not surviving your own children, and your way of paying them back.

I think I've decided what to do with this strip of ground between the sidewalk and the fence. The strip is about 2ft wide at the end, then widens to 5ft or so up by the gate. It's a pain to mow, so Ive been wanting to plant something there to compete with the weeds. So this fall I'm going to scalp the grass, then move all my daylilies over there. Then come spring broadcast some cosmos and zinnia seed, maybe some others. If it's thick enough, I shouldn't have to mow. The other side just inside the fenceline is packed dirt from the dogs running back and forth, so I don't have to worry about grass coming through on that side.

I can comment! Yay. Maybe they gave me a time out yesterday.