Check in thread week of 4/30/2019
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years ago
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AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoRelated Discussions
January 2019, Week 4, Getting the Itch To Plant Something, Anything...
Comments (50)My uncle grew blueberries just fine southeast of me in Texas---mostly east and only a little south and about 160 miles from here. His plants were growing in acidic soil, in an area with a higher water table (very close to the lake but not lakefront as there was one lot between their place and the lake) and tons of huge tall pines, so his blueberries were true understory plants growing in humid dappled shade, no full sun, and they were very happy. They produced well there because he had the specific microcIimate and soil they needed. I suspect the heavily dappled shade kept them quite a bit cooler than they would have been in full sun or even in morning sun and afternoon shade. He grew the rabbiteye types and grew multiple varieties to spread out the harvest. His plants were huge and produced heavily. They put up tons of blueberries in the deep freezes every year. Anyone and everyone I know in Oklahoma who has attempted to grow blueberries here eventually has lost the war to keep them alive, usually between about year 4 and year 7. I think it is the exceptionally hot and exceptionally dry year that will get them even after they are established for a few years and producing well enough to please whoever is growing them. I think people in the northeastern quadrant of the state likely have the best chance of growing blueberries successfully. Amy, The blueberries need a very specific soil pH that most of us here in OK do not have naturally and they need perfectly draining soil but then it also has to be able to hold enough moisture in the hotter weather. I suspect the Smart Pots with the drip irrigation system are to allow for great drainage and also to make regular irrigation easier to manage. It also is easier to provide the soil-less mix they need in Smart Pots than in the ground or in raised beds that include native soil, especially if a person has clay. Blueberries are a total impossibility here where I live because we have not only high pH soil but very high pH water. If I ever say I am going to try to grow blueberries here in hot, dry, high pH southern OK, y'all should tell me I need to have my head examined. Patti, Well now you've gone and done it. Here is is after midnight, the grandkids are having a slumber party in the living room, and I now am craving a fried pie. I doubt I could go into the kitchen and make a fried pie of any sort without waking up the children, so I guess I won't have a pie right now. (grin) Thorneless blackberries do not seem as resilient to me as the ones with thorns. I don't know why that is. Voles eat my blackberry roots (but don't touch the wild dewberry roots) so I've given up trying to grow them here. I'd have a much bigger and better garden if the voles would just leave my plants alone. That's never going to happen though. Rebecca, Williamson County is further than I would drive even if they have tomato plants. Anyhow, they will have them in the DFW metroplex soon enough if I have the urge to get a couple of early plants, and so far I don't have the urge. Some years they have them down there around the end of January and other years not until mid-February. I still feel like this cold weather is going to hang on and hang on for weeks yet and I'm not going to get in a big hurry with anything. Amy, Aww, poor Honey. If y'all decide not to keep her, I hope you can find her a nice home. All of our dogs that were diggers eventually outgrew the digging, but it took a few years. Jersey always has been such a wild runner, an escape artist and a digger. She finally has settled down, and that almost makes me sad because it is old age that has settled her down. She is about to turn 12 years old and not only is her whole face going white but so are her paws and legs. She used to be almost solid brown. Now she is brown, gray and white. Why is it that by the time a high-energy dog finally calms down to a reasonable level, he or she has one foot in the grave? Aurora still tells me almost daily that she misses Jet, and asks why he had to die. She wasn't even that attached to him because he was sort of a grumpy old dog. She adores Jersey and Jersey adores her and she hangs all over Jersey all the time. I cannot imagine what it will do to that child when Jersey crosses the Rainbow Bridge someday. Jen, Underplanting really does rock. I love being able to squeeze 3 crops into the space of 1. Well, there was nothing garden related for me today or even yesterday. Here is my non-gardening Saturday with the grandkids: breakfast, grocery store, feed store, home for lunch, playing and watching TV, off to the park to play on the playground, ice cream at DQ (it is across the road from the park in Gainesville), a late afternoon movie (The Kid Who Would Be King), home for dinner, more playing, TV and then bedtime. This includes Jersey practically sitting on top of the girls so they will give her their total attention. Where would I have squeezed in any time to even contemplate gardening? Heck, Wal-mart or TSC could have had tomato plants and I wouldn't even have noticed because I was doing my best to not lose the grandchildren while at the stores. Tim is always the most worn out on the weekends we have the girls and he always goes to bed first. It is exhausting keeping up with them so I totally get it. Dawn...See MoreMarch 2019, Week 4.....Finally Spring and We're Loving It!
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 MoreSpring 2019, Week 4, Planting Madly Yet? And, Here Comes Rain/Flooding
Comments (37)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...See MoreAugust 2019 Week 4
Comments (37)Jennifer, My 7-day forecast has been fluctuating back and forth so much that I don't know which one to believe. Currently they have us in the lower 90s for highs, which sounds good...but that was sort of our forecast for yesterday and we went hotter and had a heat index of 108, so I don't know if I can trust even the lower 90s. It is aggravating. Today, though, was the bomb! They raised our chance of rain for today to 40% but the 7-Day QPF still showed us in the 0.01-0.10" category, so I wasn't really expecting much. Then, the cold front came through, the skies broke open, it got as dark as night in the middle of the day (I couldn't even see the rain or the hummingbird feeders hanging 6' from my front window) and poured and poured down rain----2.7" of it. Best of all, we dropped from the mid-70s to 68 degrees when the front came through and stayed there until the sun finally came out around 5 pm. Any day that we can stay in the 60s most of the day in August is a really good day. Now, I know we'll probably pay a price for all this rainfall, and likely it will be in the form of really high heat indices but it is hard to be unhappy about the kind of rain we received today. Unfortunately, it brought strong winds and lots of my plants are flattened and lying on the ground. I'll look at them tomorrow to see if they are going to stand back up on their own. Our county had the usual weather complications---some trees down, some power outages, internet and satellite TV knocked out for a few hours, some flash flooding, etc., but who cares.....we got rain! Of course, Tim's plans to mow all weekend long are dead in the water because our property is heavily waterlogged with huge puddles everywhere. There's no sense in wearing anything but water shoes, flip flops or boots outside because your feet are going to be soaked up to your ankles in 3 seconds. The chickens got tired of wet feet and sat on the porch steps for a long time after the rain ended, and the cats and dogs weren't any happier about the rain than the chickens were. I'm pretty sure there will be no mowing of lawn tomorrow because I think the riding mower, or even the push mower, would sink into wet clay and get stuck. We'll see how much it dries out by Sunday or Monday. Since I was totally stuck indoors all day, all I could do once the darkness passed was watch the hummingbirds fighting over the feeders. I think a lot of that nonsense they were engaging in designed was just to stay under the porch roof and out of the rain, which is fine. Oh,and I read the Cat 6 blog and watched TWC to see what's going on with Hurricane Dorian since Tim has cousins and one aunt and uncle in Florida. I think your bed will be fine by March if you go ahead and dump the chicken poo on it now so it has all winter to break down. Pumpkins and the vining types of winter squash/Korean summer squash go wherever they want and I mostly just let them because fighting them is too hard. Nancy, I'm glad the internet issues our resolved. When ours goes out, it almost always is weather-related, and it rarely goes out like it used to back when we had line-of-sight internet because the trees would interfere in that line-of-sight transmission. Now that the new transmission tower near us doesn't require line of sight all we have to do is roughly aim the received towards the tower (no precision needed any more) and we have service. When the roofers re-roofed our house a few weeks ago, they took down the receiver, shingled that area, put the receiver back and we hardly had any interruption in service at all. I'm not ready for football season to start and, yet, here it is! If only the weather, not counting tonight's weather, were feeling more like football weather. Amy, Public clothes! Ha! I thought I was the only one who has public clothing and private clothing. It takes a lot these days to get me to change out of my comfy private clothes and put on public clothes and go anywhere. I'm perfectly content to stay home and be more comfortable most of the time. Okmulgeeboy, That is a long commute. My husband makes a long commute from here (Love County) to Dallas to work and has been doing it since we moved here in 1999. For a few years, he carpooled with one of his coworkers who also lived here then, and that made it somewhat less tedious. He's used to it, though, and says he can get from DFW Airport to our house almost as quickly nowadays as he could get from DFW AIrport to the west side of Ft Worth when we lived there because the traffic down there in Fort Worth is so bad, and once he hits I-35 headed north, he never really has to stop so he makes good time. I understand about starting seedlings. They are very time-consuming. Jennifer, I hope y'all got enough rain today but not too much. I discussed our rain above so won't repeat it. It is so good to get rain, and it came in the nick of time. Believe it or not, yesterday I saw new cracks in the clay ground down near the gate, just days after the big old cracks had closed up. Surely today's rain took care of those new tiny cracks. I left the walk-in garage door open so mama feral cat could move her babies inside out of the rain, and she did. They look like they are about 3 weeks old at the most and they are extremely skittish---they act like they'll die if Tim or I lay eyes on them, so they hide the instant they hear us, see us or smell us. The difference between now and a few days ago is that this time she decided that she and the babies would stay indoors and not go back out this evening when the sun came back out. Maybe this is the first step to being able to see them, pet them and start to tame them. We don't have any grandchildren here this weekend. I think I'll be able to sleep in tomorrow morning! Woo hoo. I never sleep in. Dawn...See More
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