Spring 2019, Week 4, Planting Madly Yet? And, Here Comes Rain/Flooding

5 years ago

Well, I just typed a really long thread to kick off this week and then lost it before I could hit submit, so this one will be short.

Happy Easter everyone!

The next couple of days should be great to catch up on planting, especially if you are having to work in between rainstorms and deal with excessively muddy soil. Note that the rain returns soon though.

Here's the QPF showing the projected 7-day rainfall totals:

7-Day Qualitative Precipitation Forecast

My plans for this week are pretty simple---just to try to finish getting the front garden planted so I can start on the back garden as soon as possible. If we get excess rainfall, the back garden will have to sit a while longer and dry out. It still is excessively wet right now, and our local TV met is talking about the possibility this week of excess rainfall and potential flooding. We just got the Lake Murray spillway road reopened yesterday once water stopped flowing over the road, and now I feel like it is likely to close again soon.

I believe all our trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials have leafed out or are in the process of leafing out now.

Pest levels are not too bad yet, and mostly I've just been seeing and killing Southern Green Stink Bugs and brown stink bugs. I am not seeing many cool-season pests and wondered if we skipped them this year or if they'll show up late.

Today's wind is going to be brutal and I am contemplating moving the tomato plants I'm holding for the Spring Fling into the greenhouse to keep them out of today's gusty winds. It just dries out their soil-less mix so quickly since the plants really are too big. That's not their fault---it just has been the kind of year where they have grown like gangbusters and ought to be in the ground already.

Speaking of the greenhouse, we turned it into a grandkids' haven a few days ago by putting the kids' inflatable wading pool in the west side of the greenhouse. On Friday afternoon, it was 99 degrees in there and the pool water was warm enough that they got to spend a couple of hours splashing, squealing with laughter and playing. That's a nice way to use a too-hot and mostly empty greenhouse, and I still have plenty of room at the east end to move flats of plants back inside if I choose to do that.

The first tomato plants to produce a harvest will be Cherokee Purple and Bush Early Girl, which were 2 of the first 3 plants I put in the ground. They had flowers and a couple of small fruit on them when I transplanted them into the ground in March. They are in a race to produce the first ripe fruit. Due to the excessively cloudy, cool, rainy weather, the first tomatoes harvested will not be very large, but they still will be home-grown tomatoes and may be harvested before the end of April.

Cool season crops are doing really well and some of the ones planted earliest are being harvested now.

Warm season crops mostly aren't even in the ground yet due to persistent rainfall and very wet soil, but I'll be working on getting more of them planted this week. The tomatoes (around 80 or 85 are either in the ground or in large containers) are going great, and the 7 jalapeno pepper plants in the great are growing well too. Some of them are flowering and setting fruit.

We need to mow today (sigh) as the grass and weeds are growing like gangbusters. The wildflowers look great though.

Watch for tent caterpillars. They are everywhere here now.

What's new with everyone else? What are you working on this week?

Dawn

Featured Answer

Nancy RW (zone 7)

5 years ago

I've wondered that many times, Jennifer! The first year here when I grew zucchini. No one else around even HAS a garden. How did SVBs know? ??? How did oleander aphids find my little stand of milkweed??

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (37)

okoutdrsman
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I’m hoping to get in the garden this evening after all the Easter festivities and then hit it hard tomorrow before the rains move in!

Since I am running low on compost, I opted to spread about 40lbs of rabbit manure over another 4’x45’ bed and worked it in and started planting. Managed 14 of what I thought was 60 to go. Wrong! I went back through my list and even after cutting back on a few I still lack 61. That fills out the rest of the planned beds in the main garden along with 3 rows of 12 in the new area.

I haven’t had a soil test done in it, so I may just wing it with a home test? Or I may just throw on as much compost as I can get and feed based on what the plants tell.

I‘m kicking around working up a portion of one of my old garden spots that is covered in vetch. It‘s been left idle for 2 years, but the last 2 years I planted it, I applied several yards of compost and a massive amount of wood chips. Depending on how much time I have, I may just chop and drop the vetch and start planting. Then start piling on the wood chips!

I have a couple of bags of Espoma tomato tone, but it’s going to take more just to get tomatoes in. I’m also using some organic fertilizer from Walmart. Expert gardener and it’s about a third of the cost of Espoma. Whether it’s all the label says it is or not remains to be seen? If may come back and post pics of the ingredient from my phone.

My original pepper grow list is being reduced after I revised my final tomato list. It’s still going to be a bunch! Trying to keep it to around 80ish. Let’s just say, I’ll be bring several to SF.

Well, I guess I’ll try posting the pics later. Houzz is being a little extra cantankerous at the moment.
dbarron
5 years ago
I'm completely overwhelmed even planting some of my annuals..*sigh* Will they get planted this year?
Related Discussions
February 2018, Week 3, Planting and....Rain, Sleet, Snow
Q
Comments (135)
Kim, Sophie has my sympathy. Our dogs hate it too when the neighbors are shooting. I usually let them stay in, but sometimes they just have to go out at least for a couple of minutes, and then they are at the back door barking and carrying on and wanting back in within 60 seconds. I'm glad Sophie did so well getting her pins out. Nice score on all the seeds! You CAN teach a class. Just pretend you are talking to Ryder or to any of us instead of a larger crowd. You can do this! Sorry about the wind. I wish it would blow hard here---it would help dry up some of this excess moisture, but I know you don't need it there. March is coming and you live in a very windy part of Texas, so I'm guessing the wind is going to be an issue for quite a while yet. Is there any sort of windbreak anywhere near your new garden plot? Nancy, That sounds like a wedding miracle to me! Of course you cried---seeing one of your kids so happy on their special day is going to lead to tears, and rightfully so. Kim, Most of the seeds you got should do just fine with direct sowing. I am a little worried about the wind, but we have wind here too (usually not quite on the scale you have it there) and it doesn't seem to blow away my seeds. Everything you listed except ice plant and delphinium should be fine from seed sown directly in the ground. Ice plant---it might do okay. Do you have clay there? It needs well-drained sand or sandy loam and it does not tolerate staying overly wet for long periods of time. Delphinium is very iffy. They are beautiful flowers but they like prolonged, cool weather so your luck with them in any given year will depend more on the weather than anything else. Think of them as something that would like the weather in the cool, wet parts of the Pacific Northwest more than the west Texas plains, and don't get your hopes up too high. I simply grow the closely-related larkspur instead, and even the larkspur sometimes rots off at the ground when we are too wet for too long, but it tolerates the heat a lot better than delphiniums do. I have had the best luck with delphiniums when sowing them in the fall. They will germinate and remain as small plants down close to the ground all winter, but then when it warms up they'll grow pretty quickly. Sometimes I have managed to get blooms before the heat kills them, and sometimes not. Our Spring weather is so variable that the results were all over the place when I tried to grow them here. Whenever I see them in bloom in gallon pots in the stores in the Spring, I want to buy them and bring them home and plant them....but I don't.....because they'd basically be expensive annuals here in our hot climate. Jennifer, Three sounds like a nice number. Another 100 might be a bit much, you know, and that's doubly true of the straight runs, which tend to lean very heavily towards being roosters and not pullets. It sounds like yesterday was fun, and I hope you're outdoors enjoying your free afternoon now. Nancy, Well, 10 minutes of plant shopping squeezed in at the end of a day with the girls was enough to hold me another week. We saw ladybugs all over the garden center flying around, and then saw some outside Wal-mart so they certainly are swarming and enjoying this lovely day too. Rudbeckia is a large family with many members and some do great here for me, and others do not. I think some are more finicky about drainage (and powdery mildew) than others, but they're not the hardest things to grow if you choose the right ones. In my garden, most rudbeckias are happier with morning sun/afternoon shade than with full sun all day long. Kim, That's crazy about your friend's Dodge pickup. Try explaining that one to your insurance agent! We do try to be careful which way we park on really windy days, but it is more to keep the wind from slamming the car or truck door shut on someone who's attempting to get in or out in strong wind. I never once thought about the wind being able to break a door off a vehicle. It still is sunny and warm outside, so Tim's got ribeye steaks (our standard Sunday dinner) cooking on the grill and I have everything else cooking indoors. I suspect he'd have been out there grilling even if rain was pouring down, but I'm grateful he didn't have to do that. It only took one week of nonstop rain and cloudy skies to make us tired of the rain. I'm not wishing for another month or two with no rain, but I'm hoping whatever rain we get over the next couple of weeks at least will come in smaller, more manageable amounts. Dawn
...See More
March 2019, Week 4.....Finally Spring and We're Loving It!
Q
Comments (51)
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
...See More
April 2019, Week 2, Spring and Not Winter, Right?
Q
Comments (45)
Nancy, I expect it will take a while for the house to feel normal again. We had gotten used to the screeching of the tropical birds, the sounds of a lot more feet going up and down the staircase, etc. Yesterday I came into the living room and automatically turned the TV on to Nickelodeon just out of habit because I'm so used to having it on for the kids to watch the cartoons. It was on for a minute or two before I realized there were no children here and switched it to The Weather Channel to see what was going on weatherwise. lol. We had a lot of rain considering it rarely rained hard but was mostly just a steady light to moderate rain that came in waves as the storm rotated around the low pressure center. We're back to being a colossal mud pit again, but I have high hopes that maybe it will dry up fairly quickly in the drier, warmer weather we're expected to have for the next few days. I believe rain and the chance of severe weather return mid-week. Centaureas in general don't like our clay, especially when it is wet, so I don't grow them much. I think I've grown Sweet Sultan only once, and it was in a very wet and cold Spring and didn't do well here. Mullein does fine but tends to be invasive when happy so, believe it or not, I avoid it because I do not want for every single plant in my garden to be an invasive one, and I have too many of those types already. I have no issues with tropical milkweeds and think it mostly is just a pawn in some sort of power struggle between different factions in the gardening-for-monarchs segment of the gardening world. When I have grown it, the monarchs seem to ignore it for the most part---perhaps because we have fields and fields around us with wall-to-wall (or maybe I should say fence-to-fence) native milkweeds in season. The monarchs always seem to prefer the natives, so those are the ones I try to grow for them. I do love the colors of the tropical milkweeds as they seem to blend nicely with a lot of the hot-colored flowers we have in bloom in our garden in summer, including Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima), Cape Honeysuckle (Tecoma capensis), Texas lantana (Lantana horrida, a name that always makes me laugh), miscellaneous other forms of lantana, and Yellow Bells (Tecoma stans). Because of our heat, our summer plants tend towards flowers in hot summer colors of yellow, orange, red, coral, etc. I might feel differently about tropical milkweed if I lived in a coastal area where it undoubtedly is overplanted and probably in bloom far too late in the season. I can understand why it probably should be cut back near the end of their migratory period so the monarchs will keep on heading towards their overwintering grounds in Mexico. If disease builds up on it, then obviously that is an issue we don't see as much with the native milkweeds that are not as long-lasting each season. Jennifer, Oh those cages and sheets sound like a mess! I would imagine the trees would have been fine uncovered. Our cats finally have calmed down and stopped nibbling plants so much, but to some extent, it always has been a problem. It is just as they get older, the prefer sleeping in the sunroom to devouring my plants. When they are outdoors it is not such a big deal, maybe because there's a large area to roam and they don't focus overly much on the garden, other than coming in there meowing to find me when they need to be petted or to have their tummy rubbed or whatever. After they get a little loving attention, they run off to play again. It might help that we grow catnip, catmint and catgrass in the garden for them. I don't know. One thing they've never outgrown is nipping the bean sprouts and eating them, so when beans are sprouting I try to keep the cats away from them until they've leafed out a bit more and no longer are so appealing as cat snacks. Our chickens lack the sense to come in out of the rain too. We combat that somewhat by only opening their door to go out into their chicken run instead of letting them free-range. They'll get bored if they aren't free-ranging and often decide to just go back into the coop after a while, thereby staying dry more of the time. Yesterday while we were covering up plants, the winds rose into the 40s and the trees were waving and the wind was sort of roaring and it scared the rooster. He started having a big fit...the sort of loud screaming he'll do when there's a coyote, a hawk or some other perceived danger. We couldn't find any reason for his distress, other than the loud wind, so Tim just herded the chickens into their coop and closed the door leading out to the chicken run so they would feel safe and sound. It was only a couple of hours earlier than they usually would put themselves up, and it probably was good for them to get inside out of the moisture. I think the most frustrating thing yesterday was that we are so used to being outdoors and being busy on the weekends. It was really hard to stay indoors. We rarely have days like that where it literally rains all day, and I'm glad. The weather news is just so dismal this morning. The Franklin TX tornado and the others that hit about 100 miles from Franklin killed several people and the one near Alto tore up the Caddoan Mounds museum there during some sort of festival. Then there were more tornadoes last night and this morning, all of them destructive and some of them deadly. I hate severe thunderstorm and tornado season. It doesn't even take a tornado to do massive damage---large hail stones and strong winds do a lot of damage too. The propensity for severe weather makes April and May less enjoyable, weather-wise, than they otherwise would be. Last night's weather was odd. We were down to 40 degrees by around 9 p.m. with an overnight forecast low of 39. Then, before midnight the temperatures begin rising again and didn't drop again, so the time we spent covering plants was in essence wasted time. Oh well, that probably was it for this year and I'm glad. We just as easily could have gone colder than forecast, so it probably always is better to be safe than sorry. Last night a cardinal was perched on a little ledge up underneath the roof of the back porch when the dogs went outdoors one last time before bedtime. Poor thing. I think it was just trying to stay warm and dry. I imagine all the songbirds would like for the cold to back off a bit too. It just seems so bizarre (yet it happens every Spring) to have highs in the upper 80s or lower 90s and lows in the 30s all in the same week. Maybe the new week's weather will be kinder, but I do see possible severe weather in our forecast for mid-week so maybe it won't be. Dawn
...See More
May 2019, Week 4
Q
Comments (40)
Nancy, I saw where they were advising some folks in Wagoner to evacuate, and that kind of surprised me, but then when you look at the rainfall map for the month of May, maybe the big surprise is that the whole northeastern quarter of OK isn't evacuated already. Yes, there's so many good people doing so many things to help the people, livestock, pets, wildlife, etc. It is touching....like fire stations offering their use of their 1 or 2 showers to people whose homes have lost power and/or water....and people who are just showing up with cases of bottled water, figuring somebody needs it for drinking water. Shelters popping up, volunteers coming to staff them, restaurants feeding the first responders, and on and on and on. That's the Oklahoma Standard, isn't it? Like you, we're on high ground, so while the Red River is on three sides of us, it never could flood enough to reach us. I had a few doubts in 2015 when we got 80" of rainfall and the river seriously flooded (including washing away two homes not that far from us--but at a much lower elevation--but water never got close to us. We could drive a couple of miles and sit in the parking lot of the McGeehee Catfish Restaurant and watch the incredibly high water go by, but then we drove back uphill to get back home. Everyone said the creeks might back up because they couldn't drain into the river, but they really didn't. They ran high after heavy rainfall, but they always do, and even then, the water would have had to rise 12-15' to make it up the hill to our yard. There was never any chance of that happening. Our road never has flooded at the creek, but there's been flooding to our south and to our north, so we might temporarily be trapped at home for merely a few hours. We almost bought riverside land at a much lower elevation, and I am so grateful we didn't---although we would have had incredible neighbors. (We also have incredibly wonderful neighbors here.) I paint that way....forgetting myself and ending up with a new set of painting clothes too. I don't think it is that I don't know I'll get paint on me, just that in my excitement about getting it done, I forget to go put on clothes that already are dotted with paint. Thanks for sharing the story about Russ. I'm glad he had the chance to get to know his father better. Jennifer, First, congrats on Ethan's high school graduation! That's such a monumental point in a young adult's life (and in the parents' lives as well). Everything eats seedlings. Caterpillars, snails, slugs, flea beetles, army worms, pill bugs and sow bugs (they are decomposers but I find them eating plenty of green plants as well), and I could go on and on and on. Most plants outgrow it, but the brassica family plants need to be treated or the cabbage loopers and cabbage worms will destroy them. There's just too many of the little caterpillars and they munch until they become big caterpillars. Bt 'kurstaki' is the answer. Many of the pests that will eat kale, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower really, really prefer collard greens or mustard greens, so often I grow those on the edge of the garden so the pests will flock to them and not bother my other crops so much. That works pretty well. The non-organic gardeners spray with synthetic pesticides. I have friends who do that. Their plants always look perfect. They use stuff like Bug-B-Gone and Liquid Sevin, and in the olden days used all sorts of heavy-duty stuff like organophosphates like diazinon and malathion. I'd probably give up gardening before I'd ever use those, but using them doesn't bother some people. Guess what is missing from their gardens though? Lady bugs, green lacewings, butterflies, dragonflies, hover flies, flower flies, bees, and often....anything that anyone would consider a pollinator, so they end up having pollination issues. The organic gardeners often spray with organic broad-spectrum pesticides too. I'm not going to fault people for doing that because it is their garden and their choice, but I just do not like spraying a broad spectrum pesticide all over everything. I feel like it isn't worth (to me) the risk of running off or killing all the beneficial insects. Still, I'll never say that I absolutely, positively never would use these products because some day something might happen that pushes me to that point. There are many broad-spectrum organic pesticides available---Spinosad, Neem, Organocide (soybean extract, fish oil and sesame oil), PyGanic (pyrethrins, so can be deadly to felines), Safer Insecticidal Soap (Potassium Salts of Fatty Acids), Safer Tomato and Vegetable Spray (Potassium Salts of Fatty Acids + botanical pyrethrins), Take Down spray (Pyrethrins and canola oil), Hot Pepper Wax (more of a repellent) and Garlic Barrier (also a repellent), Zero Tolerance (herbal oils like rosemary, thyme, cinnamon and other oils), and Beauveria Bassiana (when you need to bring in the big guns---it is a mycoinsecticide that is a fungus in a Liquid Emulsifiable Suspension used to kill soft bodied insects and a few hard-bodies ones as well). I bought Beauveria bassiana last year when I felt like the grasshoppers were winning the war over who was going to harvest from the garden, but then they disappeared (I think birds were eating them) and I never used it. I probably wouldn't have sprayed it on my garden plants but was going to spray it in a 10-12' wide band all around the exterior of the garden fence in the hopes that the grasshoppers would make contact with it there and would get sick and die. Every time that I think that I could and would and will and am going to use a broad-spectrum pesticide to combat some horrible thing in my garden (hmmm....leaf footed bugs or squash bugs or stink bugs, for example), I think about all the living creatures in my garden that I like seeing there, and I just cannot do it. I guess I am a total failure as an organic pesticide user because I cannot use the above products. I will use some narrow-spectrum ones---like sometimes Bt on the brassicas or Semaspore for grasshoppers (it is a bait) or Slug-Go/Slug-Go Plus (a life saver when you have a heavily-mulched garden full of pill bugs and sow bugs), but cannot bring myself to use the broad-spectrum ones. If holes in your kale or cabbage or whatever do bother you that much, then why not find the right product and spray them? Bt should take care of most. Little tiny grasshoppers are just now beginning to hatch out here, though I have not yet seen that many, and they eat holes in everything. I don't think I'm seeing enough of them to make me worry though. Not yet. I usually have a bottle of Take Down spray in my shed so I can spray it directly on hard to catch things like leaf-footed bugs, but I've been out for a couple of years and just haven't bought another bottle yet. It is your garden. If the thought of holes in things bother you, spray with whatever pesticide you're comfortable using. I've just gotten away from doing that and hardly notice the holes in leaves any more. dbarron, Ha! I have had to water my containers the last 4 days. That's what we get for having a combination of strong winds all day long and temperatures in the upper 80s, sunshine (finally) and no rain (oddly). I won't complain and say the rain is missing us, but we aren't getting anything close to what everyone else is getting and May is barely above average rainfall at all compared to other months over the last year. Our ground is starting to dry up some (woo hoo!) and there's no rain in our forecast until Tuesday. I'm glad you're safe from flooding. That's one less thing to worry about anyhow. Eileen, With regards to your pepper seedlings, yes, birds will do that sometimes. Usually it is mockingbirds and they do it only to tomatoes and peppers. I have no idea why. They don't eat them. They just cut them off and leave them lying on the ground. It could be something else---there are some climbing cutworms that will climb a plant stem a couple of inches and then cut it off. I have no idea why. They always seem worse in wet years. I hope your house will be okay. There are some limited 100-year flood zones directly alongside some of the creeks in our neighborhood, but I've only ever seen the creek come up into the yard of one house on our street, and it sits quite a bit lower than us---I think they are actually in the 100-year flood plain while we're well above it. Of course, we had the good sense to build on the highest point of our land, not down in a low area beside the creek, and that helps too. Out closest neighbor to the north put a mobile home way back in the woods right beside the creek. Perhaps they should have taken a clue from the fact that the old farmhouse on that property was built on its highest point of ground but apparently they did not. Still, that house didn't flood in 2015 either. I am sure that if I lived up there in your general area, I'd be feeling anxious about all the rain too. The images of all that water everywhere is mind-boggling. So is the forecast. Rain keeps falling and falling and falling, mostly over the watersheds that can least handle more rain. I feel pretty good about the Red River near us and Lake Texoma right now. They've been releasing water from Texoma for several weeks now, and it is to the point where they're finally releasing water from it faster then new inflow is coming in, so the lake held steady yesterday and should be dropping beginning today. The Red River is high and running fast, and absolutely wall-to-wall (i.e. bank to bank is full) which is not all that common here, where it often is so low you can pretty much walk across it---and, sometimes, in the summer you can walk across it without touching water, but as of this morning, it still was within its banks. We had the unexpected pleasure of a weekend with our oldest granddaughter, so today was kid stuff--shopping for summer clothes, going to the playground, to the movies (Aladdin) and then home for pizza night, playing games and watching some TV. We tortured her by forcing her to watch two episodes of Gunsmoke (in black and white) with us. She thought it was funny---especially because it was in black and white. One guest star was Kurt Russell, playing a kid about 12-13 years old, and she asked me if he was Elvis. I told her no, but that later on, after he grew up, Kurt Russell played Elvis in a movie about his life. She thought it was cool that she picked up on his resemblance to The King. Everyone has gone to bed now except me and one cat, and she's lying here beside me trying to sleep. The house is quiet. It is a nice time to reflect, and Nancy's beautiful description of how Russ reconnected with his dad has me thinking about cancer. A few weeks ago we lost one of our neighbors to stage 4 cancer of the nervous system. He went so quickly after his diagnosis that it was mind-blowing. Today, we found out that a family member of his to whom we are quite close was diagnosed with stage four cancer in his spine. This is such devastating news. He soon will begin a very long chemo regimen. It is hard to understand, sometimes, why some families get hit again and again by diseases like cancer. I didn't work in the garden today, but expect to be able to do a little work out there tomorrow afternoon, and possibly on Monday. It has been so wet that I've largely stayed out of there, except to water stuff in containers. I did a little deadheading and weeding the other day, but not nearly enough. I am keeping up on harvesting. We are very far behind on mowing. Neil Sperry had a great reminder in his newsletter this week that it is chigger time. I'm glad he reminded me. I've been walking through the taller grass in the yard without insect repellent on (I hate spraying it on my skin!) and am sort of surprised the chiggers haven't gotten me already. Am I the only one wondering what happens to the insects in the heavily flooded areas? Like the areas along the Arkansas River where floodwaters are 3 or 4 or 5' deep in neighborhoods, cities and homes? Do the insects get swept away in the floodwaters? Do they die? Do they fly away or crawl up high into trees and survive? What about the earthworms? How about the crawdads? Did they get enough warning to flee to higher ground like they did here in 2015? I mean, I have no idea what does or doesn't survive in this sort of flooding. I do know that mosquitoes become a huge problem even before all the water recedes, but what about everything else? It is something to ponder, is it not? Dawn
...See More
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
For some reason the little Gardenweb hobgoblins have vacated my Houzz and I can comment again. But now I have to go back and read everyone's posts from yesterday.
slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago
I am overwhelmed also. I dont have any warmed veggies planted yet, dont even have a place to plant them yet. I have room for 24 plants, max.

We had a large Easter group here yesterday. I placed nearly all my plants in the back of my pickup and parked in the pasture to keep the kids out of them. We had a great time, it was good to see all, but we need a rest now.

A great grandson wanted to shell bean again, like the last time when he was here. I was able to find some beans and okra that had fallen behind a rack on the deck and we were able to get some more seed ready to plant, I REALLY enjoyed that. The older great grand kids were in the creek swimming, some were trying to build a campfire (which I was not happy about). They had what they thought was flint, trying to start the fire. I just let them keep pounding on that shale, I will dig it out this summer and put on the driveway when the creek goes down.

I went to the nursing home this morning and attended church with mom. She cant remember what she had for breakfast, but she still remembers all those old hymns she sang from 50 years ago.

I have had a great day, but need to get up and get something done....Happy Easter, everyone.
mammyjames
5 years ago
I haven't bought tomato plants yet. Varieties are limited in SE Oklahoma. If you could only choose a couple of kinds, what would you choose? And I want a patio tomato. Which variety? I don't want little bitty tomatoes. Can I plant squash and cucumber yet? Corn? Help!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Larry/dbarron. I am feeling overwhelmed with all the plants!

Larry, Boy oh boy, can I relate to your hiding your plants in the truck and parking in the pasture! Laughed with empathy. I doubt we had the crowd you did, but we did have 8 rowdy grandchildren or great grandchildren between 2 1/2 and 14. I have a big mess of plants and seedlings on the deck and had no barbed wire to put around them. I prayed. Only one near casualty when the 10 yr old girl twin was hugging/shoving her male counterpart and he almost went over backwards into one of my large containers. She grabbed him, which saved both of them from a possible life ban. And then all 8 of them plus a 26-yr old aunt of the two littlest ones and the neighbor's granddaughter we playing hide and seek, and I happened to glance over just in time to see four of them bale INTO the boat, so had to go tell them the boat was off limits. And then, the 26-yr old(!!!!) had to cut short the night because she was having a mighty allergy reaction. I found some Allegra for her right away--she really does have an extreme reaction to cats. She had been hiding in our closet when she began sneezing and was immediately congested, then she remembered we have three cats. I laughed so hard! I said, "Bobbi!! We vacuumed the entire house; we vacuumed it really well. But we forgot to vacuum the closets! Who knew we'd have people crawling through our closets!

Oh so so funny. WHO would go into someone's closet! Only a grandchild.

I am so astonished our grand kids haven't thought to build a camp fire yet.

And then your Mom story. That's us. Already!

We were exhausted when everyone left but the best part was that it wasn't a formal dinner--and it was pot luck--all paper plates, no dishes to wash, hardly. And since everyone was out on the deck, the house is still clean!

Our pastor delivered a powerful and moving message this morning. I need to remember to carry kleenex.

Just for Jesus and Garry, I guess: our first iris bloomed this morning. I suppose the rest will not be far behing. I'm going to call this one Garry's Easter iris (since it's Garry's birthday AND Easter.) (I don't know the real name of it. . .)

And my Empress Wu hosta is three years old this spring. It's 4 1/2 feet wide and about close to 3 feet high. The largest leaves are 18-20" long and 12-14" wide this year. It's finally beginning to hit its stride. Guess a picture's kind of useless since there is no frame of reference.

I think of our yard coming out just in the past 1-2 weeks, and remembering that yes, we truly are about a month behind Dawn, although everything's trying hard to catch up all of a sudden. Peonies are right on track for blooming maybe a week or so--behind last year by a couple weeks. Likewise with the hydrangeas. The hydrangeas must have learned a lesson last year. LOL No, it has just been that much cooler (and normal) this year.

Nothing in the veggie bed. . . cilantro is finally bolting. This is the stuff I planted end of October. LOVED the cilantro all winter! Potatoes are growing like weeds, as is everything else. Chives finally just began blooming. How long have yours been in bloom, Dawn? I think my onions aren't going to work out well. I planted them THE very worst day they could have been planted. COLD AND RAINING. I hope I'm wrong, of course.

Well, Happy Easter everyone. Blessings to you all.

Oh,PS: Welcome, Mammy! Aren't you glad you found all our experts' excellent help? I certainly was!
jlhart76
5 years ago
Uh oh, you asked for it! Dawn will be on here sometime to give her novel length, detailed account of why she can't pick just a couple (I kid, Dawn! I enjoy your posts because they're such a wealth of information.) But since I don't have a lot of room available, I'm going to have to limit my tom choices this year, so I feel your pain. If I had to choose, Sungold because they're delicious and they produced amazingly well for me last year, and Black Krim or Cherokee purple because I love the flavor and they're delicious on sandwiches.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
Mammy, you need to make the trip to Norman next Saturday and then you could have all the cool tomatoes you wanted! It's a 3 hour trip for us. . . so fun to get to know everyone.
hazelinok
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Y'all I'm tired. I know I say that often. I'm SO glad this weekend is over. It was fun, but, other than one melt down as I was still cooking at 10 pm last night, I made it through with a good attitude really. Along with notes of what-not-to-do next year...and what-to-do.

Now...I have to clean the house completely because Christmas with the In-Laws is this coming weekend. Seriously, should I drag the tree out?!

Moving along because I don't want to be gripey.

After everyone left my house, I went out and planted the jalapenos.

(Yes, I was forced to host Easter even though I worked until noon today, as well as yesterday.) The back garden is planted now. It's a little garden, so don't be that impressed. It currently holds 6 jalapenos and 10 tomatoes. Oh, and the center bed is a delightful mess of red bee balm.

The first green bean popped up. It's Black-Seeded Kentucky Wonder. I'm excited about this pole bean. I hope they look pretty on my new trellis.

My asparagus is very...crooked this year. Anyone know why? It tastes great and is plentiful. But they are thick and crooked.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone this Saturday, even though it will be quick.

(I don't mean to be a gritch. I love hosting parties...this is just the worst weekend for me to be a hostess.)

Okay. Lent is over so I'm having a glass of wine and a hot bath.

Happy Easter!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
You'd be a Marvel comic book hero not to be tired, HJ. You have the perfect way to unwind. Only thing better than a hot bath (filled with scented Epsom salts or an herbal bubbly stuff) is a hot bath and a glass of wine.

Oh! I have a photo to show you! Lisa--Dawn--anyone! Look at Garry's new friend. He went weed whipping with Garry and also was with him for his breaks. He stayed with Garry for about 90 minutes! Too funny! What is he/she?
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Happy Earth Day, y'all!

Bruce, I am hitting the garden hard today, all day, and anyone who shows up at my house and tries to keep me from gardening will be run off quickly. lol. No one is going to interfere in me getting things done today. It sort of is desperation time now---as we are desperate to finish things up before we get 2 or 3 days of rain, and supposedly heavy rain at that.

dbarron, They'll get planted. I have faith. When? Well, who knows....maybe when the moon is in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligns with Mars....if any of y'all don't get that reference, you're too young and I can explain it if necessary because I'm old. Between persistent rain, soggy soil and some cold nights, planting has been hard to achieve this year. I feel like the harder I work, the more behind I get, and it shouldn't be that way. Good luck getting your annuals planted.

Larry, It sounds like y'all had a perfectly wonderful Easter gathering and I'm glad the kids had so much fun.

I think we all feel overwhelmed by the way rain and soggy soil are interfering with our planting. I keep reminding myself that the rain and mud can't last forever and eventually I'll catch up, but I worry that when that time comes we'll go from mild and soaking wet to hot and dry instantly. I'd worry less if I could know that was not going to be the case. I am feeling sort of hopeful today as the driveway puddles are almost all dried up but all that means is that we are about to get rain dumped on us again. All our ponds are full already, so the water will just run off down into the woodland and fill up the 3 seasonal and 1 year-round creek there. The beavers on the year-round creek should be happy anyway.

My dad's memory was the same as your mom's...it is like the most recent memories faded progressively away in his later years until what he was left with was his memories from his childhood and young adult years.

Mammyjames, Jen's right, I usually write a book about all the great tomato varieties, but I don't have time to list my usual favorite 150 varieties since I must plant today, so here's a quick list:

Hybrid slicers: JetStar, Supersonic, Better Boy, Early Girl, Big Beef, Beefmaster Cherokee Carbon and for heat-producing varieties that will produce slightly later in the season, there's Phoenix and Tuxedo.

Heirloom slicers: Arkansas Traveler, Cherokee Purple, JD's Special C-Tex, Pruden's Purple, Caspian Pink, Atkinson, Marion and Bradley Pink.

For a patio type, just grow Patio or any other determinate variety, usually marked with the phrase Det. on the plant tag. They're all about the same.

Yes, you can plant the veggies you listed now, but I'd wait until this week's rain has fallen and moved on if you're sowing seeds. Too much heavy rain might wash away your seeds. If you have transplants, you can put them in the ground now and they'll benefit from the rain.

I don't know what plant sources you have in SE OK, but here in SC OK, everyone pretty much carries plants from Bonnie Plants nowadays. Here is their tomato list from their website. You may not find all varieties at all stores, but I have found that the Home Depot nearest me, which actually is across the river in Gainesville, TX, usually has a huge selection of Bonnie Plants in April and the Wal-Mart across the street from it has almost as many. If you have an Atwood's Store in your area, they usually have a large selection of plants from Red Dirt, based in Guthrie, and also from Chef Jeff. I generally grow all my own plants from seed, but have seen plenty of the same ones I grow available either from Bonnie Plants, Red Dirt or Chef Jeff.

Nancy, The chaos of grandkids is the best kind of chaos though, isn't it? We had that on Saturday.

I have so many plants awaiting planting and so many seeds to sow, and the rain just won't leave us alone. It is what it is and I know we all just have to work around it however we can. The plants I have planted at the lower, and hence the more wet end, of the garden are not looking good. They are just staying too wet. I cannot do anything about it except hope that the rain eventually will stop and those plants will bounce back.

Jennifer, Overworked working women are allowed to have meltdowns....so I am glad you had yours and got it out of your system. You're really stretched to the max lately. I hope things get better soon. (I realize that with May full of Ethan's final high school activities, it probably is not the month you get to rest and relax and just garden and hang out with your chickens.)

For Christmas in May, I would not drag out the tree. I love Christmas, but I'd hope no one expects a Christmas tree in May. If they want to see a Christmas tree in your house, why can't they come at Christmas time?

Crooked asparagus spears normally are the result of mechanical injury. It can be something as simple as wind damage on whatever side of the plant received the strongest wind, or it can be from twigs or sand blowing and hitting the young spears....or small hail. That minor mechanical injury that most gardeners never even realize occurred will cause the damaged side of the asparagus to grow more slowly than the undamaged side, and that is when you get the crooked spears. It is just one of those little odd things that you see happen with asparagus.

You know that it is okay to vent here. We all do it from time to time and it is essential to our mental health to be able to do so. You have had such a lot on your plate lately. I hope this is a better week, even with Christmas-in-April coming (whose idea was this? Theirs and not yours, right?)

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone Saturday too, and we are supposed to have perfect weather. Luckily we can enjoy Smores just as much in hot weather as in cold weather. (grin)

Today's garden report from when I was out there first thing this morning is that our first red poppy is blooming today on Earth Day. More should soon follow.

What's better than a flock of 7 wild turkeys roaming your property? A flock of seven followed by a separate flock of five. The seven may be living here as they always come from a specific area of the property where we always have wild turkeys each year. The flock of 5 comes and goes from the adjacent pasture south of us. I love seeing them every morning, and sometimes I hear them quite a bit all day long and see them on and off all day.

I need to get out to the garden. I was out working earlier, came in to eat breakfast and got onto my computer. If I don't get off this computer and get back out there, the items on my To Do list will not get done. It was sunny earlier and has clouded up quite heavily now. I hope this does not mean a surprise rain shower is going to pop up. We aren't supposed to get rain until tonight.

Oh, there is a Flood Watch up for SW OK through Central OK in case y'all haven't noticed!

Dawn
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
We babysat the grandsons Sat. Went to Bartlesville Sunday to go to service with Dad and sister in my childhood church. We then took him to lunch. I was melancholy all morning, tired, and completely exhausted when we got home. The church made me sad. The membership has declined and most of the congregation is older than me. The lady who sat in front of us turned 100 in Oct. I don't think there are any children at all. It was a large, active church when I was growing up. I was married there. Anyway, nothing accomplished this weekend.

Tomatoes. You might find Cherokee Purple. Of hybrids, I like Early Girl. Arkansas Traveler. Black cherry is more commonly seen than it once was. Got any farmers markets near you?

Got company, must go.
Megan Huntley
5 years ago
Amy - I was baptized in the Methodist Church in Bartlesville on Easter Sunday - we won't talk about what year. The building isn't a church anymore which makes me sad but life moves on.

I am sunburned to a crisp and not for a lack of trying to be sensible. I did my big garden/backyard overhaul on Saturday and got the majority of things done. I kept a t-shirt and leggings on until the heat prohibited and switched to shorts and a tank. I put on sunscreen and reapplied and tried to be smart about spending as much time in the shade as in the sun. Bottom line the spray sunscreen let me down and I have a speckle painted sunburn on both shoulder blades that as of this morning was still very red. I know people who say they've never had a sunburn and I don't know how that's possible because even when I try to avoid it, I still burn. I guess I need to set a timer so I don't go longer than I meant between applying sunscreen.

Excluding some pepper plants I expect to get from Bruce on Saturday, all my vegetables are planted now. Well, everything that should be planted right now. I'll still have sweet potatoes and okra, but those won't go in for a bit yet. It's a good thing too because late April/early May are always a scramble for me and this year will be no exception.

I'll work to get some flowers planted or sowed as the case may be in the evenings provided weather and time permit. However, for the most part anything not done at this point probably won't get done until Mother's Day or later. That said, I'll still be grabbing too many things this Saturday and wondering why, how and when I dreamed I'd have a chance to deal with them. LOL

Every year I have one plant that is an inexplicable challenge for me. Last year it was lettuce. This year it will either be radishes or beans. I'm hoping it's not both because my family has taken to eating a TON of them - so Murphy's Law means they'll both be a problem.

I found a small snake skin in the garden which has me pretty excited. I'm taking it as a sign that some natural balance is coming back to my yard now that we've driven out the pest control people. I showed the hubs and got the impression that he was a little creeped out by the find but playing it off. It was found in the bed directly below the kiddo's window so I intentionally kept it hidden from her.

This post has been a little train of thought but I don't have time for prettying it up. Not sure how much time I'll have to check in so everyone have a happy and safe week.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Amy, Something was accomplished this weekend....it is just that it was stuff that involved family, not gardening.

It can be so painfully hard to go back to places from our childhood that are not the same now as we remember them....whether it is that everyone got older and most of the ones we remember as 'old' are long gone, or the buildings seem smaller and perhaps a bit shabby, or whatever. I always feel that way when we are back in the Fort Worth suburb where I grew up. What makes me even sadder, though, is that we drive through miles and miles of housing subdivisions, strip malls, fast food joints, etc., that I remember as beautiful farmland and woodland, ponds you could swim in and stables where city folks could keep their horses within easy driving distance of their homes. Seeing it so drastically changed makes me sad for all the wildlife, big and small, that have lost their homes.

Isn't it funny how churches and schools that seemed so large and spacious when we were kids now seem smaller and just not as big as we remember them being?

I've noticed when we go to funerals too, especially for anyone our age or older, that we're the older mourners now---even if the person is in their 90s, for example, there's not many, if any, left from their generation to mourn for them. Then you see the people you remember from your school years and you wonder who that bunch of old people are, and then you're laughing because you know they are looking back at you and thinking the same thing: this is us....older, grayer, with different body shapes and wrinkly faces, bad hips and bad backs and bad knees and, in the case of the men, a lot of baldness. You drive by houses where your friends once lived and they don't even look the same---maybe some of the majestic old trees have been cut down or whatever. They say you can't go home again, and I'm beginning to understand what that saying really means.

Megan, There is nothing wrong with a post that is sort of a stream-of-consciousness chat with nothing cleaned up. I enjoyed reading every word.

I am sorry you sunburned. That is so frustrating. I try hard to not burn during early to mid-Spring, but I almost always do. It is so easy to get distracted and not realize it is time to reapply the sunscreen. Wearing a very broad-brimmed gardening hat helps my face, ears and neck, but my arms and legs still get it.

I am only happy seeing a snakeskin in the garden if I can recognize it as the skin of a non-venomous snake, but I go agree with you that finding one means your garden ecosystem is becoming the sort of ecosystem you want that attracts a wide variety of wild things.

And, to be honest, I have had the least snake encounters this Spring that I've had in ages and ages, probably dating back to 2008, which was a year in which I don't think I ever saw a snake, likely because the massive flooding of 2007 wiped out such a large part of the population. I hope the low-snake-sighting trend continues. I've only had one snake, and he was a venomous one, within striking distance of me before I saw it, but it was a cool day.....and that is what I get for disturbed a compost pile with a snake curled up in the middle of it underneath a layer of cardboard and leave. A few minutes later I found what likely was its skin. I wish I'd seen the shed skin first.

I worked so hard in the garden today that my body already is killing me but I do feel like I accomplished about as much as I expected to, so I'm a fairly happy camper. It was a very long day out there and I am worn out. I probably could have stayed out a couple more hours, but it is almost dinner time and all that, so I put away all my tools in the shed and trudged up to the house, my body moving like I am about 90 years old. I think I'll be okay as long as I don't try to bend over or lift anything with much weight to it. The soil still is so tremendously wet in the garden that I feel very disheartened just thinking of the 2-3" of rain they say will fall over the next couple of days. We certainly don't need it, but we're going to get it anyway. I came in to catch the 5 pm news, hoping our TV met would assure us that the models are overestimating rainfall totals. He did not do that. Instead he talked about potential flooding and the possibility of a few embedded hail cores.

The garden has so many things in it now that are blooming for the wild things, but comfrey remains the favorite of the bees and hummingbirds, while the dianthus is the current favorite of the butterflies. Other plants in bloom include these: Cape Honeysuckle, coral honeysuckle, Spanish lavender, white Irises (about done, though), onion chives, chamomile, culinary sage, meadow sage 'Lyrical', snapdragons, pansies, red corn poppies, autumn sage in shades of red and raspberry, Malva sylvestris 'Magic Merlin', salvia farinacea, salvia splendens, petunias, ageratum, Profusion zinnias, and marigolds, I am glad there is so much in there for them.

Early Girl is going to produce the first ripe tomato.

Because it is cool and rainy and humid, I'm seeing peach leaf curl on the peach and plum trees. It is just one of those years.

Another bunch of wild turkeys showed up. This is the third or fourth afternoon in a row that I've seen two of them around 3 pm. I am not sure if they are part of the flock of 7 or the flock of 5, or if they are their own little flock. Both are females though.

Dawn
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
Dawn, the wild turkeys are there to wait for water puddles to pay their respects to Augustus.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
That was so much fun, Dawn, seeing what is blooming! We had the first iris bloom Easter morning . . . today there were 4 more on that plant and one in the back. The chives are JUST beginning to form small blooms. Comfrey has been blooming for a few days; That's it. Both clematis will begin blooming any day. Forget-me-nots have been blooming for at least a couple weeks. The cilantro I planted last October is beginning to bolt, so if that counts, ITS blooming. :) I planted a few of the Magic Merlins and one precocious 8" plant had four flowers on it yesterday. I pinched them off, to encourage it to branch out, but see several more little buds I can't get. Oh well. Malva sylvestris is the most amazing flower, don't you agree?? I have most of the rest of your plants, and NONE of the rest are anywhere NEAR thinking about blooming. Yep a month behind you. So fun to hear what lies ahead just a month. Please keep doing that. Oh. We have little coreopsis in the back bed that are blooming. They ARE little. . . have no business being in a back bed. I'm gonna dig them up and put them as border plants in the center bed.

In fact, I realized that I planted our back yard absolutely backwards! I should have herbs in the beds against the deck. . . Yes, I love them, but they aren't as spectacular to see from the deck as the flowers. Duh. I have a huge remodeling job ahead of me! Story of my life with plants. SO. New plan. . . begin tearing out the daylilies that are in the south bed directly next to the deck, so as to make room for herbs that tolerate quite a bit of shade--lemon balm, spearmint, oregano, parsley, lemon balm lemon balm. Ooooooooooo I'm lovin' this. They'll be sharing the bed the huge monster hosta's in. First time I've every grown one of the monster ones. They certainly are showstoppers, considering they don't even have flowers! (Well they do, but you know what I mean.) I have security guards 24/7 in front of it to protect from deer. First a chicken wire barrier, then my fishing line fences. And neither distract much from the view of it. People who drive by at the back of our property (the next road/street east of us) can't see much of our yard because though it's uphill from that road, not uphill enough, unless plants are really tall, or vines. So I need to move my giant hosta to one of the medium back beds--aha! The prayer garden.

Thank you, by the way, friends, for being my garden remodeling crew.

I know this is probably over-the-line effusively enthusiastic. . . . but, I just had a true epiphany with all this garden arrangement stuff. Perhaps it came because I worked from 10-5 at BFF in town, putting in plants.

(BFF--isn't that just a genius brand??? Brighter Futures Foundation, which is housed at the Lincoln Enrichment Center ---the "school." Oh those kids. They are like heart candy. All of them!

There are two adorable little brothers, 5 and 8. They are SO loving and SO inquisitive and so smart and so curious. . .and of course, so charming and they know it. And every other kid there is equally enchanting if not as outgoing. But they are a group of winners. They melt one's heart. So these two brothers. They visited my church (Methodist) with another BFF friend of mine who goes to my church) a couple weeks ago and they were sitting right behind us. I was delighted to see them of course, and we smiled and hugged and exchanged words when it was visitor time. These two guys had already captured my heart 1-2 months ago. So this morning when I arrived carting in tote containers of plants, the youngest one was in the hallway. He ran up to me and I leaned down and hugged him, and he said, "So when are you going to come visit MY church?" Oh my gosh!!! I am in love! I said, "Well I'm gonna come as soon as you invite me." He said, "I'm inviting you!" (Remember, this guy is 5 years old.) I said, "When do you want me to come?" He said, "Next time." I said, "Garry and I will be there with big smiles because you invited us!"

I often digress. LOLOL

So I was in at Lincoln Enrichment Center, which we hope is going to become a Boys and Girls Club. . . .it's in the works. . ., and I put in 4 dozen tomatoes, peppers, herbs, flowers today. Doesn't sound difficult. Except that I drive a tiny car and can only fit two large totes in and maybe a flat. And Garry had gone in earlier because I was selecting plants and watering. So I had to make two trips. Took the first load in, planted em, came back home (a 22-minute drive to and from) loaded up again with more plants and went back in.

We planted on THE most perfect day ever. . . considering. I was nervous. I in fact prayed to God about it. It was too windy to be in paradise but not too windy to survive. But otherwise absoLUTEly perfect. Cool, cloudy and no sun.
hazelinok
5 years ago
I'm sorry for being so grumpy last night. I am better today. Working outdoors in nice weather always helps the mood improve.

Accomplished today:

1. Finished the small flowerbed area next to the patio. It's a bit crooked, but it is what it is. The zinnias are planted in that bed. Any flowers I get from SF will go there too. I'm so happy to have a flowerbed in the backyard now. The bed will be extended at some point so it runs the entire length of the house.

2. The fig tree is finally planted. I'm afraid it may be a little close to the elders. Not sure how big a fig tree gets...

3. The bush beans are planted. They are Fowler, a new one for me. Hopefully heavy rains won't wash the seed away, along with the pole beans that were planted last week.

4. All peppers are now in their beds.

Amy, traditional types of churches are declining...it's not just your home church. People enjoy the "lifechurch" types now. Our society is consumeristic really...and busy. Those types of churches offer more options for "experience" times including Saturdays. People can slip in and slip out. They don't want to sacrifice their time or leisure activities, which is understandable. Youth sports have changed too. Someday, maybe more traditional, family-type of churches might come back. It's funny because the people who have left our church to go to Life (or something similar) still want to come back for special events: Legacy Sunday-Baby Dedication, Senior Sunday, Mile Marker Sunday. They want our Church to host baby/wedding showers for them--stuff like that. Because they really do miss the family atmosphere, I think. When someone is sick, food is taken. Or other major life events. And a lot of people just don't go any longer. They are still spiritual/love Jesus, but just don't feel the need to attend a church regularly. Times are changing. Anyway...I'm rambling.

The chicken yard fence has an issue. Who has time to deal with that? Not me. But, I better find time, right?

Asparagus beetles have arrived. I had them last year, but after they had already "ferned". They seem pretty easy to deal with so far. Just squish them. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with them. That's the trick probably--keeping up with it. Squishing them everyday.

You know, it's so funny how insects specific to a type of plant just happen onto your garden. How did they get here? Did they sniff out my asparagus from miles away? And what did they eat on their journey to my asparagus plants? I wonder about that with other pests like squash bugs. How did they know I had squash in my garden? No one planted squash on this property ever before.
slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago
Look at the nitrogen nodules on this winter pea root. This may be the covercrop of my future.
slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago

Could not get picture to post.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Larry, Winter peas are a very popular winter cover crop, and for good reason.

Nancy, I always have wondered that myself, but then, we do have a native cucurbit or two, and I suspect they have long flown all over everywhere just searching for those....and then it is a bonus if they find an actual garden with squash in it. I removed all our native cucurbits for years until they finally stopped coming back in the hope that having fewer of them would mean fewer squash bugs and fewer SVBs. I'm not sure if it makes a difference though.

I have a deeper question about oleander aphids. Why the heck are they even here in OK where very few of us (it would take a perfect, warm microclimate) even have a slim chance of keeping oleander plants alive. Why aren't they oleander aphids down in south Texas where the oleander plants grow? Why are they called oleander aphids instead of milkweed aphids? I have many questions....

Jennifer, With the asparagus beetles, I don't know how they do it, but they always seem to show up promptly at asparagus plantings, even brand-new ones. When I planted asparagus, the closest asparagus planting I was aware of was over 5 miles away, but the pests still showed up and found mine. Of course, asparagus can escape into the wild, but I've never seen any wild ones here.

Fig trees can get big if in the right microclimate, but here in OK they tend to freeze back to the ground most years. They regrow quickly, but will stay more like a shrubby, wider tree than a big, tall, hulking monster. If grown in a warm-microclimate on the south side of the house, they got taller than a house down in zone 8 Texas, but all the ones I've seen here, including my own, rarely get taller than 8-9'.

Nancy, I'm glad you had a perfect day for planting tomatoes, even though it required making that drive twice. Every now and then we do get a perfect day. (Today obviously is not one of them.)

Your sweet story about the 5-year-old's invitation to attend his church is just so precious! There's nothing sweeter than little kids. Well, maybe puppies, kittens, lambs and kids (baby goats) rank at the same level of sweetness.

Today was the worst garden day of the year, at least from my point of view as a person with a garden I'd like to see survive and thrive. Today I heard that horrible sound....the gigantic twin-arm sprayer rambling across the ranch pastures across the street. Y'all know what tends to happen after this----dead tomato plants from herbicide drift. If I am lucky, it only is tomato plants. Last year, after several rounds of spraying from several different persons or entities, I'd lost tons of veggies of all kinds and a bunch of ornamental plants as well, and I'm hoping this year will not be a repeat of that. From the moment I heard that spray rig come in the ranch gate, I was running around for 5-10 minutes like a chicken with my head cut off. I hurriedly dragged 200' of water hose into place and set up a sprinkler at the southeast corner of the garden and turned on a sprinkler, hoping I could wash off any herbicide drift that made it into that area, where I just had transplants 2 flats of annual flowers yesterday afternoon. I grabbed every large bucket, storage tote (just dumped their contents on the shed floor in a hurry) and still-empty molasses feed tub and covered up whatever tomato plants I could. I only got about a dozen covered, largely because they are fruiting and, therefore, smaller than plants that haven't fruited yet since the fruiting plants are putting some of their energy into the fruit instead of putting all of it into foliage and branches. The plants that aren't fruiting yet are too tall to cover with buckets or molasses feed tubs. At that point I just had to stop because the spray rig was already in the front pasture that is closest to us so there wasn't time to do more. Then I paced around like a caged tiger, sat in my chair and tried to pretend I didn't hear the spray rig, and either stood and stared a laser-like death stare at the spray rig or, alternately, tried to pretend I didn't see it. In a few days I'll know the outcome of this round of spraying. At least the wind was light and out of the south, so I should see less damage than I see when the wind is stronger and out of the east (which it always seems to be, when they spray, since they are east of us). I'm hoping for the best, but that whole morning adventure pretty much ruined my day. Of course, I lost 24 tomato plants to somebody's glyphosate drift 2 or 3 weeks ago and already had replanted replacements for those, so I'm hoping I don't lose those plants because some of those backup plants were the final plant I had of that given variety. I have other backup plants, but not of the same varieties as those I've already lost once.

I know people have a right to spray herbicides if they so choose, but they also have an obligation to spray responsibly so their herbicide drift doesn't harm other people's plants, and in our neighborhood, there seems to be far too much herbicide drift every year. The amount of it occurring seems to increase every year too. It makes me crazy.

Other than that, it was lovely in the garden, with lots of bumblebees, honeybees, tiger swallowtails and hummingbirds visiting the flowers while I did what little work I could after the distraction of having that spray rig spewing possible death fumes into the air. Of course, they could have been only fertilizing, but I don't think so. Everyone I know here who sprays pastures uses herbicides and I have 20 years worth of plants killed by herbicide drift (we do not use herbicides, period) to prove it.

Light rain has fallen on and off all afternoon, but it hasn't amounted to much in the rain gauge, and I'm okay with that. Our main rainfall is supposed to be tonight and tomorrow. The big storms that dumped lots of rain in SW OK stayed well west of us, and the big ones that will dump lots of rain in TX tonight and tomorrow should stay a bit south of us, so we no longer are expecting nearly as much rain as the 7-Day QPF had predicted just a couple of days ago. The exception would be if a particularly heavy thunderstorm just stood over us and dumped rain for a while, but that sort of thing is really hit and miss.

I'm watching our weather forecast on TV and can see the storms that are headed our way. They're still a long way off and have the potential to drop large hail, but our local TV met says they should be greatly diminished in strength and especially in the size of the hail by the time they make it to us. I hope so because I am not running outside to cover up anything.

Today we have had 3 flocks of wild turkeys again, so I think they must be staging a wild turkey convention down by our big pond, while they eat the bird seed I put out for the songbirds. I don't blame them for coming here to eat---everyone likes fast food and, for the wild turkeys, I suppose commercial hen scratch, cracked corn and sunflower seeds must be the equivalent of fast food. One curious turkey hen came almost all the way to the front garden to see what was going on, but then she saw me, and turned and ran for the pond. I was just laughing. If she knew me, she'd know I wouldn't hurt a flea.

Dawn
slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago
Dawn, I doubt that the sprayer had glyphoate in it, but you would be better off it it did. I think the 24D of Grazon type of spray is worse to drift than the glyphosate. I only use a spot sprayer, altho I may have to go to a boom sprayer to try to keep the weeds from taking over the pasture. I want to try build a wick type sprayer to experiment with, my thoughts are that there would be less herbicide drift.

I want to build up the pastures, but there is no need when you have them leased out because most people treat rented pasture like most people treat a rented house. If a person wants to try to build up the land, he has to have some control over the cattle using it.

Yes, Dawn, I am happy with the winter peas, but so far I have been unable to use them as a living mulch. I still want to try to use a legume as a living mulch, but I think I need to collect some cardboard first. I have soybean, red ripper, hairy vetch and winter peas left to play with, but most of the soil in the wildlife garden is too wet to work.

I dont want to work the soil where I have clover, both the Ladino clove and the red clover are in bloom now. I also have a pound of Zinnia seed I want to plant in the wildlife garden.

I have 22 tomatoes and 12 pepper plants in the ground now. That will be enough for us, but I plan on planting more.

I wish I had some advise about protecting your property from the herbicide, but I dont. Most of the protection will have to come from the guy doing the spraying.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
I know, Larry, regarding help for Dawn. Makes me a little nauseous, Dawn.

By the way, Larry. I am enchanted by your farming approach to gardening. A long time ago, when married to a rancher, We thought in your terms. I had so much fun "gardening" at the ranch. The garden was 50' wide by 100' long. I remember that specifically. . . because it's easy to remember! LOL

I had the same problem then that I have now. LOVE growing the stuff; not so much, harvesting. But then and there, was virtually impossible to grow flowers unless they were grown in the vegetable garden. The clay was SO bad, I could not get it amended enough in 6 years. A couple of the funny fun things. . . then husband was down plowing in one of the alfalfa fields and came across a strange weed. He stopped the tractor and investigated. It was horseradish! Or at least he thought it was. He tasted it! Brave man. Horseradish everywhere! Well, not everywhere, but in a community. So we went down and harvested horseradish. We then made horseradish sauce for everyone--relatives and friends, for Christmas presents. NOTE TO EVERYONE. IF you are going to do this, do it outside!!!! We didn't, and all of us--2 adults and four kids had to stay outside until the fumes subsided 3 hours later.

The other fun thing was the asparagus. The main river coming down from the mountains (Powder River in Wyoming) ran through our property. It was wide enough and deep enough that we had to cross it by horseback, and sometimes the horses swimming. But on the other side of that river (only probably 30-50 feet wide), was this oddly un-clayey area. . . more almost sandy. . . and it was probably 1/2-1 acre of magic asparagus. When I spied it my first year there, we picked it until we were sick of asparagus, and early on it occurred to me to invite all our friends and relatives over to pick it. Thereafter, we had our asparagus-picking parties every year.

AND, Larry, what do Madge and you do with 22 tomato plants???? I limited mine to 10 this year and ended up with 13 so far. I have probably 12 pepper plants in the raised veggie beds area and a couple of everything beds. I might even add some more, just for the heck of it. . .

Dawn, you said something earlier that I've been thinking about ever since. . . that everyone has a right to use herbicides. . . . I'm not sure I agree with that. Human beings are charged with being the stewards of God's garden. When we use herbicides, we are not only killing your tomatoes, we are killing those precious pollinators. . . .I do believe in laws that prohibit behavior that harms society and nature.

All the rain that was forecast for here has disappeared; thank you, God, thank you. I have only a few days between here and the school to be plunking plants in. They have heavy clay. . . I have drain-fast rocky soil. MY BFF friends at the school are putting in a French drain--yay. I got the opposite problem. . so funny!
hazelinok
5 years ago
We only got a little over half an inch of rain. I'm okay with that. Everything got a good drink and my beans didn't wash away.

Other than that, I didn't get to see much in the garden. Got home around 8:30 and took a flashlight to the asparagus beds. Found three bugs and squished them.

Ethan's last NHS ceremony was tonight. The seniors were honored. Before that, we went out to the college and got him enrolled in classes after school/work.

That's my exciting day.

I'm sorry for the herbicide stress, Dawn. It makes my stomach hurt.

Actually, I'm so tired tonight that the sound of rain would be lovely and cozy. Maybe I can find something on Spotify.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Jennifer, We have a little sound machine for the girls that has all sorts of lovely sounds...they like the beach one, the rain forest one and then some other one that has crickets chirping or something that sounds like crickets. I do like the sound of rain (without a lot of thunder) and should check and see if the sound machine has that one for myself.

Isn't it crazy how high school is ending and college is beginning? The years fly by so quickly.

Nancy, Well, it is true. In this country, people have a legal right to use herbicide---I wasn't talking about it in a moral sense. The herbicides are allowed....they are manufactured, they are sold, and for the super strong ones, you can take a class and become certified as a pesticide applicator who then can apply RUPs (restricted use pesticides). That's probably not the right name but it is close.... it is late and I am tired and I can't think of the right name. During a particularly horrendous grasshopper year (2003 in which less than 19" of rain fell here in the whole year), Fred tried to get me to go take the pesticide applicator class so I could use Dimlin or some other pesticide he thought would kill grasshoppers. I told him I'd rather lose all the garden than poison our property. Sure enough, he and the other ranchers went nuts spraying heavy-duty pesticides to kill the grasshoppers. We still had huge migrating swarms of grasshoppers, but guess what we lost? We lost the bluebirds. All of them. We'd had plenty, and suddenly there were none. I bet it was 5 years before I saw one single bluebird after that. Prior to that we had tons of them, and now we still have very, very few....but, I digress. Back to herbicides....I don't care for the free and sometimes wanton use of herbicides myself, but that's the way it is. You know, in a recent medical test, every single person they tested for glyphosate had it in their blood. Think about that. In their blood. It is showing up in vaccines. It is in our water. It is in the food we buy at grocery stores. If they banned it tomorrow, we'd never get rid of it because it now contaminates everything possible on this earth....and people wonder why cancer rates are so awful? Everyone is so dependent on herbicides (which is just what the manufacturers want) that they cannot farm or ranch without them. Yet, somehow, on our property we never ever use them. It doesn't matter that we rigorously avoid the use of all herbicides, does it? My plants die of herbicide drift anyway. There are people in our OK gardening FB groups who said two summers ago that they finally gave up growing tomatoes because there was so much herbicide drift in their rural communities that they lost all their plants to herbicides every year, so it got to where there was no point in planting. That makes me sad. I'll never give up growing tomatoes, but the heavy herbicide use makes it hard. If you don't get the drift from the ranchers, you get it from neighbors spraying their fencelines, utility workers spraying beneath the utility lines or precinct road workers spraying the roadside areas too steep to mow. It is endless.

Larry, This probably was a 2, 4-D type product. That is what the ranchers here normally use---something like Grazon. The Roundup damage was 2 or 3 weeks ago and I have no idea why anyone was using it that early other than to spray fence lines.....but it seems so early and lots of stuff probably hadn't even sprouted yet. Yet, there the Roundup damage was on two full rows of tomato plants and, actually, on 5 or 6 other plants in the other 2 rows, but those 5 or 6 other plants only had a very small amount of damage and they are outgrowing it. There is a property a little north of us up the road that went on the market around that same time, and somebody came out and mowed it (the owner lives on the East Coast) so maybe they sprayed the Round-up. I don't know, but I was very unhappy about that drift. One problem with drift is that unless you are out and see someone who lives near you spraying, you don't even know where it came from. You just notice one day that there's dying plants and obvious signs of herbicide damage and you wonder who caused it this time. Another is that often multiple people spray on the same day.....and it shocks me how often they spray when the wind is too high. Those hired guys that run those big spray rigs know all the rules, but generally don't follow them. You can get damage just as bad though when neighbors send a teenaged kid or grandkid out to spray the fence line without proper training, and the next thing you have is a bunch of dead garden plants. Short of building a tall solid wall, I don't know what to do either. I just replant, replant, replant and hope I can keep replanting longer than they keep respraying.

At least nobody near me is using the newer dicamba-ready crops because that dicamba stuff drifts really badly, especially if they are using the old formulation of it instead of the new one. Really, there's a lot less farming here than there used to be....so many farms now have become ranches, so the Grazon type products are used all over the place, and then in between that, some of them use Round-up or something similar to spray the ground along the fence lines so no one has to weed-eat those constantly. I probably won't ever get any real relief from the spraying, though, unless all the ranchers sell out to land developers someday....but then we'll just end up with a bunch of homeowners spraying herbicides.

There are good people who are conscientious about their herbicide use and do their best to prevent drift, but we still get damage anyhow. I'm thinking there might not be too much damage this time because wind speed was low. The bad thing is that someone else will be spraying in a day or two or three. I just try not to obsess over it too much since I have no control over that they do. Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself, Fred tells me about the time a crop duster down in the Valley View TX area (about 25-28 miles south of his place) made some sort of horrible mistake and his herbicide drifted all the way up here to southern OK and killed everyone's crops. Fred said they all got a big payoff from the insurance company, but the part that baffles me to this day is that anything could drift that far. It makes me wonder if the crop duster took off from the Gainesville Airport and was spraying (accidentally) from the moment he took off. That was decades ago----he doesn't remember exactly when, but he's told me the story several times.

We have had a couple of small storms roll through here, but not very much rain has fallen. It has been amazing, in a good way, to see the rain mostly all staying south of the Red River. Down in the D-FW metro, rain has fallen at a rate as high as 5" per hour, and there's massive flash flooding, road closures, high water rescues, the whole nine yards. I feel bad for everyone down there, but also feel relieved that the heavy rain is missing us. They also have had straight-line winds in excess of 60 mph, and one guy posted a photo of his neighbor's trampoline frame sticking through his bathroom wall and through his tub....driven there by the wind. Our worst weather issue is that the DirecTV signal is disrupted a lot and the TV cuts in and out. If that is the worst thing the weather throws at us tonight, I'll have no complaints whatsoever. We don't even have big puddles in the yard or driveway, so I'm guessing we must be well below a half-inch of rainfall so far. I might even be able to plant my corn and beans tomorrow if the raised beds don't have water standing in them.

And, now, I have stayed up so late that all the thunder has ended and it now is tomorrow. I need to get some sleep.

Dawn
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
Who was it said they were sunburned? I meant to mention there are "wicking" shirts (that keep you cooler) that also have varying degrees of sun protection. We bought some last year. I used to burn. Any more I just get more brown spots. I had a flip flop tan on my feet that took months to fade. I also try to protect my face with a big sun hat, and if it's not windy, I have umbrellas.

I roasted radishes last night. Neither of us are fond of radishes raw, but I always grow some. Turns out DH likes the white icicle radishes and I usually let them go to seed. So anyway, roasted radishes don't have that strong peppery taste. I wouldn't say I love them, but I can eat them that way. I have a recipe that sautees them in a pan and before you're done you add the greens. I don't know if I'm that brave. I don't like turnip greens, so not expecting much from radish greens. Ron will like them.

I'm doing a Jen thing, my 3 dogs plus 2 of my daughter's. 5 dogs, in and out, in and out. I taped the latch on the storm door so they could push it open. Honey's got that down pat, but Daughter's dogs are like whiney, let us out, don't know how Honey got out...and one of them has farts that can clear a room!

I may have to water! All this rain we were supposed to get. WTH? The previous storm missed Owasso, but apparently it was bad in Bartlesville, complete with sirens.

Dawn, I get upset for you every year when the spraying starts. I would be livid.

Larry, it seems when I plant winter peas they're spotty. I actually read to put annual rye grass in with then to get better coverage. Hairy vetch might help stop/prevent tomato diseases. See this article. I meant to do that this year, but it didn't happen. Maybe next year.

Well, I have to go feed all those dogs. Going to Bartlesville later. My dad is doing well. He thinks I should come up at least once a week. He'll be spoiled this week, Sunday, today and Friday is the wedding.

XOXO
slowpoke_gardener
5 years ago
Amy, everything I plant is spotty. Most of the time I just use a pan or a bucket to hold the seeds and sling them out a handful at a time. It I were going to mix the seed before I planted them, I think I would go with hairy vetch and peas because they have about the same shape and should travel through the air about the same. The smaller seeds I dont see well enough to tell how well I an doing and its too much work to attach the seeder to the tractor and my old body does not do well walking and turning the hand crank seeder.

Nancy, Madge and I give most of the stuff we grow away. She also has 10 more tomato plants in our lawn garden, bring the total up to 32 tomatoes and 12 peppers, with 60+ more tomatoes to plant in the wildlife garden and a bunch of pepper plants, not sure how many. I also have 1/2 # each of purple hulls and crowders. I also have a lot of okra to plant

over there.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
WOW!
hazelinok
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I know, Dawn. He was still in Jr. High when I started posing on this forum.

It feels weird to only have 11 tomatoes in the garden. I'm used to near 30. I'll have to be careful not to pick up too many extras at SF.

I haven't looked at the coleus in a couple of days mostly because I've gotten in until after dark. I hope they are okay. They are on the shop porch. They're all coming to SF.

One of the hens didn't make it back to the coop tonight, so when I got home and did a check and noticed she was missing, I quickly searched and found her roosting on a chair on the back porch. Phew! She's one of my favs. Rosslyn Kaye, an Easter Egger.

That is all. Long work day. No time for garden today. I longed to be in the garden today.
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
I got to spend the afternoon outside today. Planted most of the rest of my flowers, and tomatoes. Potted up stuff for Saturday. Tiny sprouts of stuff coming up in the flower bed where I had cosmos, strawflowers, bachelor buttons, and zinnias last year. Too early to tell what they are, flowers or weeds or Bermuda. Next up, getting space ready for cucumbers, squash, and beans. And SF stuff.

Also stabbed myself with my micro pruners. Glad I had that tetanus shot.

Was the perfect day for planting. Cool, overcast, had a bit of rain overnight. Hope things look good tomorrow.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Amy,

Five dogs is a lot! When we had 8 dogs (because our Honey showed up as a skinny, starved and apparently pregnant stray), only 3 or 4 slept indoors in the house and the rest slept in the garage. The three we have now all are spoiled house dogs, and they're getting to where they don't like going outside when it is too cold, too hot, too wet, too windy, etc. I guess they are spoiled from living inside a climate-controlled house.

I hope y'all have a great week and that the wedding is perfect. I bet your dad is really enjoying having everyone around a bit more right now.

I used to get livid over the herbicide drift, but what good does it do me to let my emotions get all riled up? I have tried (really, really, really hard) to remove emotion from the equation because I just want to be able to live with a peaceful, happy soul. This is one reason I don't document everything and file complaints---I just don't want to end up in a perpetual war with everyone who sprays, and I guarantee y'all that people never will stop using herbicides. I did tell Tim I wanted to put up a big billboard across our front pasture near the bar ditch that says something like "Organic Garden: Stop Spraying Your Herbicides Carelessly and Killing My Plants", but he was not a fan of the idea. lol. Oh, and I was just kidding about doing it.....but there are days when it seems like a good idea if I thought anyone would change their ways because of it, and I do not think that they would.

I think I found the source of the Round-up drift, and it is a fairly close neighbor. (sigh) I hope that killing what they wanted to kill was worth the two dozen tomato plants that we lost to their drift here.

I wonder how strong some of this crap is that they use. Y'all might remember that several years back---maybe 4 or 5---somebody in the road spilled a tank of herbicide in the road or at least had a big major leak from a tank that ran down into a portion of our bar ditch. I didn't see it happen and only became aware of it after the fact when that area turned brown and died while everything around it was green and thriving. . It was a broadleaf weedkiller, easy to tell because all the broadleaf plants died and the grasses did not. So, here we are 4 or 5 years later and there's still only grass in that area---everything around it has wildflowers. Obviously that soil is contaminated and I assume the contamination is so bad because the herbicide ran into the soil in a concentration greater than what is sprayed through the air. I expected to see the wildflowers return to this area, but they still haven't. After that spill we stopped collecting the grass clippings when we mow the bar ditch. We used to catch them in the riding mower's grass catcher and use them as mulch or as fodder for the compost pile, but we don't any more.

The rain mostly missed us too, but I am not going to complain because our soil remains incredibly wet from all the previous rain. We ended up with about a half-inch, which is much less than the 2-3" or even the 3-4" that the QPF predicted for us 7 days out from the multi-rain event. I'm not complaining. Heavy rain fell west of us, moving north towards OKC. It fell over a huge area to our south with so many problems caused that it makes my head spin just thinking about it. Overnight it fell to our south/southeast. All we had here was light rain, mist, clouds and, today, fog and mist. I miss the sunshine and hope it comes out of hiding today.

Larry, Your garden might be spotty, but it sounds like you'll have plenty of everything regardless.

Jennifer, There's something to be said for planting only a reasonable number of tomato plants. I might do that next year because this year my tomato plantings are totally out of control, and I'll pay the price for that by having to preserve tomatoes like mad this summer. Luckily, I am not a sentimental tomato grower, so when I have harvested and canned, frozen and dehydrated all I want to preserve, I can ruthlessly yank out the plants and throw them on the compost pile without a second thought, keeping only a small handful for fresh eating. I always remind myself when that time comes that (to steal my cousin's daughter's favorite childhood phrase) that "you are not the boss of me" (I'm speaking to the tomato plants there) and out come the excess plants. There are people here in my neighborhood who think it is a crime to pull out healthy tomato plants that still are producing. Well, that's their issue, not mine, because my large number of tomato plants are a tool that serve me and when their service is done, I want to be done with them and replant that space in something else that will provide a different harvest. I also have no desire to spend the entire long, hot summer trying to keep 100 tomato plants watered and happy and healthy because that becomes an increasingly difficult battle at some point every summer. I'd rather have southern peas growing at that point because you generally don't have to water them much if at all. I believe I could give up canning, freezing and dehydrating tomatoes in a heartbeat at some point and just grow a few for fresh eating each year, but I am not at that point yet. I think I might retire completely when Tim retires from working. Well, maybe I'd make one or two salsa batches per year for us. Just for us.

Rebecca, It sounds like it was the perfect day for you to get a lot done yesterday. I planted corn and beans yesterday and this morning, while it is foggy and misty out, I'm going to start some hot-season flower seeds in flats. It is hard to guess how many to start because so many volunteers are so slow to pop up and show themselves in the garden this year. I don't know if we'll have less because of all the excess autumn/winter rain and the excessively wet ground we've had since September, of if they are just slower to appear. Or, if maybe I mulched so heavily last year that they cannot sprout. Time will tell.

This year continues to remind me a great deal of 2002 when we stayed cool and rainy through June and then were instantly hot and a whole lot less rainy. I wonder if that will happen this year? It wasn't the worst year ever as the cool-season plants stayed productive very late into spring and almost into summer. The only hard part was the ultra-brief transition from cool to hot.

My broccoli is trying to head up. I hope we are going to get normal heads and not buttonheads. It seems awfully early considering how late (compared to most years) that I planted.

Dawn
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Okay, I give up. Do you all know what this is? Is it some giant horrible wed?

AND, I suddenly have one more thing to worry about. . . cats getting bit by rattlesnakes. Found Tiny and a pygmy rattler facing off earlier today. In Tiny's defense, he WAS being wary, but I'm not sure the other two cats have that much sense. When Garry said Tiny was interested in something on the other side of the wall, he said Tiny would jump down and then kind of jump back a hop or two, then jump back up on top of the wall. I got suspicious, thinking snake. Yep, sure enough was. So I hollered up for Garry to bring the shovel.

Eileen is so good at finding things in Tulsa that I must have. Garry is not so sure that is a good thing. I told her I need to hire her as my personal shopper! YEAH.

I worked on SF plants. school plants, my plants. I will be so happy this time next week when I only have 3 flats of plants left here.
Rebecca (7a)
5 years ago
Had some help cleaning out empty seed packets today. Help being in the eyes of the helper, of course.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
5 years ago
:) I forget how she is marked. Need a full body picture so I can see again. I have such a weakness for black and white or tuxedo kitties. (And now, orange and white long-haired ones AND short-haired ones, and gray tabbies and so on and on and on. . .) I don't know about you, but I'm not all that pleased with my seed-helper cats, either.

Oh.. . . found a dead mole above ground yesterday. I've never seen one before. This one was smaller than I thought they were. Well, I am presuming it was one of the cats. I think voles or mice would be VERY afraid around this house. I know all the little lizards are. . . all the ones who get away, that is.

Dawn, I had totally forgotten you had Tiny Baby at the time I named Tiny Dude! Now Tiny is Tiny Fluffy Ruffles. Tom might be the absolute funniest one though. He jumped up on the rail under the hummingbird feeder tonight, and I headed for him, scolding him all the way.. He held his ground, growling. I snatched him up and he held onto that railing with all his might! Growling the whole time. I about ripped his claws out getting him off! I was laughing the whole time and he was growling the whole time.I laughed and put him down, telling him NO NO NO. And then invited him to come into the house and he trotted in as affably as could be and jumped up here to the computer for me to pet him. Weird, Cat. Weird cat. I love his grumbling growl. Cracks me up.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
I would have a lot to comment on, but no time. My daughter got me this for my birthday! It will be my new seed cabinet.

Pressed flowers under glass.

It was at the Restore in Tulsa and they put the pic on Facebook. I posted it and said I liked it. She's had it for a month. She doesn't keep secrets well.
farmgardener
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
Amy, love your cabinet. Do you really have enough seeds to fill it?

I’ve tried 3 times to post picture of my potatoes but won’t work

My potatoes are starting to bloom! Maybe have new potatoes soon. We used to aim for new potatoes for Mother’s Day, however I lost my Mom the week before Mother’s Day last year so will not use that saying again. I’ve empathized with all of you who have parents needin extra help now. Been there with both of my own and both in laws. It’s hard and sometimes all that gets you through is prayer.
Okiedawn OK Zone 7
Original Author
5 years ago
Nancy, I've never had any weeds as beautiful as that plant, though I'm not saying it could not be a weed. If it were in my garden I'd leave it a while and watch it and see what it turns into. It could be some beautiful herbaceous perennial that you forgot you planted?

The venom of pygmy rattlers packs quite a punch, so I'm glad Tiny avoided being bitten.

I am feeling the same way you are---ready to get the last of the flats of plants in the ground and over and done. I am not sure how quickly it will happen, because so many are earmarked for the back garden which stays too wet for too long most Springs. I am hoping to be able to work in the back garden on Sunday and Monday, but I don't know if the ground will allow. I often still am planting back there late in May, trying to do what I can in wet soil so we can beat the heat. You just know that in summer when the soil will need moisture, there won't be any. I need to flip-flop the gardens and plant the back garden first next year---letting the cool season plants deal with the excess moisture.

Rebecca, I love tuxedo cats. We had several at one point in time, though none of them are left now. We are more in a tabby cat stage now.

Seed packet helpers, particularly feline ones, are not nearly as helpful to us as they think they are.

Nancy, If Tom continues to stalk hummingbirds, a quick solution for that usually is a squirt of water from the hose (or, even better, from a super soaker water gun). That has worked well for us to teach the cats to stay away from the hummingbird feeders.

Amy, Happy Birthday! I love your seed cabinet and remember when you or your daughter posted the photo of it on FB a few weeks ago. She did a great job of finding you the perfect gift and keeping it a secret from you this time. That sort of surprise is the best gift.

Farmgardener, My condolences on the loss of your mom. We sure have lost a lot of our moms (and dads) here the last 2 or 3 years, and those of us with our moms still living, albeit at very advanced ages and in very poor health, are lucky to still have them even though we know the end inevitably is coming. Tim and I lost his mom, his dad and my dad within about a 3 year time span and it was so hard to have so many losses occur that closely together. My mom has outlived pretty much everyone from her generation, except for her two brothers' wives, and none of them are in good health. At one point she had tons of brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law on my dad's side (he had 8 brothers and sisters) and all of them are gone now. It must feel odd to lose everyone like that one by one until they're all gone. We've even lost some cousins who were children of my dad's oldest siblings (he was second-youngest of nine and had some nieces and nephews almost as old as he was), and none of us were ready for that.

I think it is likely you'll have new potatoes by Mother's Day. That, at least, is something the late, cool, wet Spring hasn't messed up. To me there is something nice about having the usual harvests at the usual time even when it has been a challenging weather year.

We're only just now starting to see lots and lots of cottontails---even the rabbit 'crop' seems late this year. I could watch baby bunnies hopping around endlessly but they scurry away and hide once they know they've been spotted.

Today I noticed a lot more tiny Laura Bush petunia and zinnia volunteers sprouting, which is a relief as they've only sprouted sporadically and in really small numbers so far, and several times they sprouted early and then froze. I'm reasonably sure these that are sprouting now will not freeze. I also found teeny-tiny dill plants (only 3, but still....) sprouting, which is a relief, because other than these new sprouts, I think I only have 8 or 10 dill plants to feed the tiger swallowtails and that is not enough. We usually have a lot more volunteers. Maybe they are just late and I need to be more patient.

I did not find any visible plant damage from herbicide drift when I walked the garden this morning, so that's a very good sign. I won't feel confident the garden escaped damage for another few days though as it can take time for the drift to work its way into the plant deeply enough to kill it or to even show significant damage.

We have sunshine and pleasant temperatures today, and low wind. Our relative humidity is much lower too and you can tell---it just does not feel hot and sticky today.

Dawn