George, Jerreth certainly is having a challenging week. It sounds like the power might make it back on before you get home. What wonderful friends y'all have.....loaning Jerreth the RV with its' generator. I'm glad Jerreth is going to be able to save the frozen food. And, putting the refrigerated food in the 5-gallon buckets was a brilliant idea. That's a long way to haul water. So, I guess the two of them are building some serious muscle tissue.....and they don't even have to drive to "the gym" to do it. I know that you are doing terrific work at the Bible Institute and you are fortunate to have a spouse who shares your faith and supports your efforts. It can't be fun to be the one who is "home alone" at this time of year with the risk of ice storms, and I admire her so much for being willing to do it. You said that this is one of the "prices" which you wish y'all didn't have to pay, and I understand that, but we don't really get to choose the price we pay or the challenges we face. I know that Jerreth will come through this challenging period just fine and I suspect she won't even "rub it in" too much that you were off in sunny Mexico doing the work of the Lord while she was here dealing with the mixed blessing of having frozen moisture fall. Look at it this way: The good news, George, is that while you are away in Mexico, all your trees got watered. The bad news is that they got iced too. I hope the rest of your trip is successful and productive and the conditions at "the home place" improve soon. Dawn

OKLibrarian, I know that you are going to plant your broccoli early so you can try to get a crop before the warm season crops have to replace it in the same bed, but it seems to me like you might be planning on planting it a little too early. I am as far south as you can go in Oklahoma and still actually be in Oklahoma and not in Texas, and I don't even put my broccoli in the ground until the first or second week of March, depending on where the low temperatures are at that point in time. If you plant your broccoli too early, it will not necessarily die....the plant itself can handle cold weather without freezing. However, as Dorothy has already mentioned, broccoli that is exposed to cold temperatures at a certain point in its growth cycle will button, which means it will give you "heads" the size of a quarter, more or less....and sometimes even less than that. The key fact to understand is that broccoli cannot be exposed to temperatures 40 degrees or below for two weeks while the plant is approximatey 4" to 6" tall. If your plants receive that kind of prolonged exposure at that stage of growth, they are forced into dormancy, When the temperatures warm up and they resume active growth, they often produce small heads prematurely and flower prematurely. So, the earliest you can safely plant your broccoli is about 2 weeks before your last freeze date and, even that is not a guaranteed "safe" date--because 50% of the time your last freeze date will occur "after" the average last freeze date. Last year, my last freeze occurred 5 or 6 weeks after my average last freeze date, so you can use average freeze dates as a guide but you have to remember that the weather does what it will do with no regard for "averages" and "calendars". My average last freeze date here in southern OK is in late March, and I feel fairly safe planting broccoli in early (but not earliest!) March to mid-March but, if I were in the Tulsa area, for example, I wouldn't plant broccoli until latest March or early to mid-April. It is your garden and you can plant whenever you want to, but planting too early can cause your crops to give you little to no yield, and it can be discouraging to spend a couple of months growing broccoli and then have almost nothing to show for it. I like to plant early and push the limits, and I do it all the time, but you have to know which plants can tolerate early planting (with protection) and which ones can't. You can plant early successfully with some crops if you protect them from late freezes.....but with other crops, planting early backfires....broccoli is one of those crops, and so are peppers, okra, black-eyed peas, sweet potatoes, cucumbers and melons. In the case of those crops, early planting and exposure to more cold than they can handle greatly reduces yield even though the plants may not show any outward sign of being "bothered" by the cold weather. The local stores here in zone 7B have had broccoli transplants in stock for about 3 weeks now, which means that people with severe gardening fever (and this is most common with newer gardeners who have not yet experienced the frustration of buttoned broccoli) could have purchased and planted broccoli plants in late January, a full 6 to 7 weeks before our average last freeze date. If they had done that (and some probably did), there is no way they will get a good crop from those plants. We've had a lot of temps in the 20s since then, and we've had hail and, as recently as yesterday, sleet. So, just because you "can" plant early doesn't mean that you "should". Just some food for thought. And, on the attached link, you can click on the menu at the left and see all kinds of freeze data. And, sometimes, freeze data doesn't mean much. We have been here in OK ten years now, and we have had a freeze or frost later than our "average last freeze date" in 9 of those 10 years. That sounds wrong, because statistically we ought to have had our last freeze before that average date half the time and after that date half the time, but we live in the real world and the real world does not operate according to statistics, so the freeze has been after that date 90% of the time. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: OCS Average Last Freeze Dates

Ya know they got doctors that can help with obsessions - fortunately this one is a healthy one. Nah - it ain't too awful bad freezing cold up here right now. About 35 or so at night and we have seen a couple of 70 degree days already. Spinach is looking good. Cabbage too. No carrots up yet - but since I just finished up last season's crop, I ain't too anxious about them - yet. Kind of hard to try and keep track of everything at this time of the year. Got the mulch pulled back so the ground will warm up. Steadily planting the cool weather crops and killing off the cool weather weeds. Tomato stakes are driven and ready to go. Cucumber trellis is ready. Blackberries are all pruned, tied up, and ready for the demon child from next door to raid. Already have two dump-truck loads of horse manure/straw ready to compost and go into my last bed (as soon as I double dig it that is). I should have had it ready last fall - but since I already grow more than I can possibly eat, I am in no rush. Might have to join one of those dating sites to find me a nice hungry female so I don't have to wander up and down the streets trying to give away free vegetables. And I STILL have to get all the canning equipment ready to go! Unfortunately it is in the shed. And the shed is buried under the elm tree that I STILL haven't cleaned up from the ice storm. *Chuckles to self* It just occurred to me - I am a real hellion full of all kinds of interesting qualities that ANY female in the world would be proud to snatch up. I can just see how it would go on THAT dating site: Q) What are your hobbies? A) Digging big rocks out of my garden. Q) What do you do in your spare time? A) Think about ways to get that big rock out of the garden, and look for sources of compost and mulch. Q) What qualities do you look for in a woman. A) She has to be strong - cuz she's gonna help me dig that big rock out of the garden. Oh yeah, I'm a real catch.

Courtney, Thanks for saying I am a wonderful teacher. Sometimes I really, really struggle with the best way to make a point without coming across as an overbearing organic wacko. (smiling and poking fun at self as I say that) The post in which I told you that chemical companies fund the very research that says their products are "most effective" was one of those times. I could tell you had really done your research and understood WHAT you read, but just wondered if you had thought about who was paying for that research? In many ways, the research system in this great nation of ours is evil....and not just with regards to the gardening world....how about in the pharmaceutical world as well? There is such a complicated financial relationship between the companies who MAKE/MARKET the products and the very researchers/agencies who evaluate their safety and effectiveness. I find it impossible to imagine university researchers and regulatory agencies are not influenced by the large multinational firms who market these products AND fund the research that studies these companies' own products. There is a superb book out that studies the complicated relationships that exist in the agricultural/horticultural world. It is called THE WAR ON BUGS and was written by Will Allen. It basically describes in great detail the vast ongoing collusion between the chemical firms, the university researchers who study their products AND the media. These three groups have combined to convince us all that commercial agriculture cannot "feed the world" without a heavy reliance on chemicals. I highly recommend this book. It is the best explanation of the complicated relationships/processes that I have ever seen. I linked info on The War On Bugs below. If you go to that link, read the review by Dr. Rob Williams near the end of that webpage. This is a book that everyone interested in horticulture and agriculture should read. And, how much of the chemical pesticide-related research is funded by the chemical manufacturers themselves? Research done in the 1990s found the chemical manufacturers and their industry lobbying groups were funding 66% of the research at that time, and it was increasing at a rate of about 3% a year. (As government cuts research funding, the manufacturers step in and fund more and more and more.) OK, I'll stop going on and on about the chemical manufacturers! I bought Milky Spore powder in a 40 oz. can and applied it over the 10,000 s.f. closest to the house, following label directions. When you have acreage (even 1 acre!), you just can't treat all of it, so I concentrate on the area closest to the house, yard, barn, garden, etc. If I had felt like I needed to do additional treatment, I probably would have treated a 10,000 s.f. area every year until I felt I'd covered all the area I wanted covered. Keep in mid that Milky Spore powder is a bacteria that should grow and spread on its own over time. Nolo Bait for grasshoppers works the same way--once you establish it on your land, you often have it forever after. I think I walked around with the cannister and sprinkled about 1 t. every 4 feet in a sort of checkerboard pattern. They also make milky spore powder dispensers or spreaders. I never try to treat a really large area because it costs too much to do so. I just treat what I can. Dawn