Technical Help for Newbies PLEASE GO TO YOUR EDIT PROFILE PAGE AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR CURRENT EMAIL ADDRESS LISTED CORRECTLY. Then go to ADVANCED SETTINGS (<<--click here) (located under “Account” on the left side of the “edit profile” page or at- https://www.houzz.com/settingsAdvanced ) Scroll down to "Privacy settings" and select the option of “ALLOW ANYONE TO MESSAGE ME” under "Who can message me". click on "UPDATE" when you are done to store your settings. ========================================== To add your growing zone: Go to ADVANCED SETTINGS Look for - Climate Zone for Garden Forums - and fill in your zone. ====================================================== To make/edit your wants list: Go to ADVANCED SETTINGS -Then click on the box under “My GardenWeb Trading List” -Type/paste in your seeds in a vertical list (much easier to read than a horizontal list with commas between). ========================================================== To access these settings: if you are currently logged in, click on your name anywhere on the site, or the “Your Houzz” button at the top right of any page. Then go to ===> Edit Profile ===> Advanced Settings (located under “Account”on the left) also, this page can be accessed by going directly to the web address - https://www.houzz.com/settingsAdvanced this is the page where you can edit your preferences, allow people to email you, list your growing zone, and fill in your have/ want lists. (THANKS LEILA for putting this together!)

It rained on and off all day, though mostly drizzle and fog and mist, so I couldn't do anything outdoors. There was nothing I wanted to do indoors. So, we went to Gainesville "adventuring", just to see what was going on. There wasn't really anything much that we needed, though I wanted to get some sour cream and some ice cream if the stores had any. I was just thinking that if the coronavirus becomes too common around us, we'd just stay home but that hasn't happened yet, so I wanted to get out for a little while. Atwood's had a ton of plants outside, and I wanted to stay out and look at them, but it was raining, and it started raining harder, so I quashed that dream and went inside. I bought more vinegar for pickling and a few minor things, but nothing big. The major revelation was that the sell bacon grease (rendered bacon fat) as an official product! I think it was called Bacon Up, and they had small containers and really large ones. We've saved it from cooking our bacon forever and used it forever in cooking certain things, but I've never seen it sold in stores. It was kind of cool to see it there. Except for Atwood's being completely out of toilet paper and mostly out of paper towels, the store seemed normal. No panic shopping there. So then we went right next door to Wal-Mart, which did have several aisles with empty or mostly empty shelves, but once again, it was just the predictable items: beans, rice, pasta (all about 90-95% gone), canned meat and canned fish, soups, (about 90% gone), toilet paper and paper towels (100% gone), and bottled water (95% gone, and most of what was left was just distilled water in gallon jugs). I did buy us some sour cream, ice cream and a few other minor items but, really, most of the store looked fine. We didn't even go to the other side of the store, but I saw no hand sanitizer, liquid soap, rubbing alcohol, OTC painkillers and OTC cold/flu medications in anybody's carts, so I am sure those still remain sold out, as they largely have been for several weeks here. That's largely because it has been an awful flu season and those items have been hard to find since early January. Wal-Mart had a ton of plants out in the rain, so I didn't get to see them either, but I could tell as we walked by that they had a ton of cool season transplants that were getting pretty old and big, and a ton of freshly arrived smaller warm season transplants like tomatoes, peppers and squash. About the time we were leaving there, my son called and asked me to watch for brown rice because he could use it as part of a homemade bird food formula for his tropical birds if he cannot find more when their current supply is exhausted. Since there wasn't any rice in the two stores we'd just visited, we went to Tom Thumb, which showed the least signs of panic buying. They still had everything, though toilet paper was in fairly limited quantity and paper towels in very limited quantity. They still had all the other foods that were sold out at the Wal-mart up the road, and plenty of people shopping but nobody looked like a panic shopper or a doomsday prepper. I actually am surprised more people weren't stocking up, but maybe all those folks had done so on Friday, since that community had one person awaiting COVID-19 test results. I learned this evening the test was negative. Yay! If the weather is nice tomorrow, which is iffy because rain is in the forecast, I'd love to go plant shopping. I just don't want to do it badly enough that I'm willing to shop in the rain. I'm hoping all this rain keeps knocking down the pollen in the air. With family still down in the DFW metro, I follow the news from there closely, and panic buying made everything a big mess, especially at all the big box stores. Desperate metro shoppers were venturing into east Texas from the east side of Dallas, and driving as far as 80 miles without finding what they were looking for. Others drove north up to Sherman, and found a lot there, although I don't think Sherman residents were very pleased to have their stores invaded and raided. : ) Really, adventuring today just reinforced two things: I'm glad we prepared in advance and weren't out frantically searching for a lot of different products. We easily could live without sour cream and Blue Bell Ice Cream if we had to. And, there's lots of plants in the garden centers and the rain is keeping me from seeing them, enjoying them and maybe buying some. Then we came back home to the land of mud and puddles, and I started hating on the rain all over again. Our driveway is a river and more rain is coming. Tim picked up and then dropped a flat of tomato seedlings on the floor. I was not amused but resisted the urge to kill him. I always tell y'all that he is a plant killer---when he comes into the garden, plants die, which is why he stays out of the garden at last 99% of the time. Now he has expanded his killing to innocent seedlings growing under lights indoors. I scooped up everything and saved what I could. There is a reason I always start more than we'll need to plant. Despite the broken and dead seedlings, I should have enough to plant since I wasn't planning on having that many this year anyway. Marleigh, Your husband has my sympathy. I cannot imagine how frustrating all this panic shopping is for people in his industry right now. I saw lots of reports today of many grocery retailers cutting back their hours, even 24-hour stores closing down at night, to allow employees to clean, disinfect and restock and I think that's a great idea. I hope it makes the situation more manageable for the store employees. Here's your book at the website of used book reseller, half price books online: How To Cook A Wolf Larry, Your nutrients do look high, but your soil pH is great. I hate soil tests. Trying to decipher them makes my eyes cross and my brain explode, so I haven't had one done in years. I figure if something is deficient in my soil, I'll be able to see signs in how the plants do or don't perform, and the plants I grow look fine each year and produce well so I just don't worry about it. Your area is like mine---high in minerals. That is the one good thing about clay soil---we are having to scramble and add various nutrients to the soil. Nancy, Are your freezers full of a lot of fish? (grin) That would be my guess. Our freezers are so full after we crammed in the ice cream that we cannot buy another single thing that needs to be in the freezer, but we will eat well without shopping while the coronavirus rolls through the region and makes going out increasingly risky. I did think twice about not going to Gainesville today, but I think this could be our last good weekend to be out rather fearlessly, so wanted to do it. The whole time we were out, I never heard a single cough in any store except in Wal-Mart where one woman was hacking up a lung just outside the lady's room, near the water fountain. Her coughing was so hard and painful it scared me for her. I hope she isn't walking around in public with pneumonia or bronchitis. The cases of coronavirus in the DFW metro are rapidly expanding although I haven't seen reports of any deaths from it yet, as they are similarly expanding in various other major Texas cities, so I think we'll avoid Texas after this weekend and just go north to Ardmore. Tiny is such a garden cat! I used to grow valerian for our cats, but it was such a garden thug that I really didn't want it in the garden and eventually dug it out. Sometimes a volunteer valerian plant still pops up in the yard outside the garden. Valerian has a pheromone that affects some cats the same way that catnip does, and our cats seemed pretty fond of it. They'd walk on it, lie on it, roll on it, etc. just as they did with catnip. Graham crackers with milk was a favorite childhood snack of mine too, and one I still enjoy occasionally as an adult. Rebecca, I am glad you grounded your mom. I'd be doing the same if my mom were still here. I worry about you being around all the sick people that come into the store, so please take good care of yourself too. I've never had anything from High Mowing Seeds that didn't sprout, but I've also not grown zinnias as winter-sown seeds or started them this early since they are true heat lovers. So, I don't know if you've got a germination issue due to the seeds or if maybe it still is too cool for them. Zinnia seeds ought to germinate in about 4 to 8 days if the soil temperature is 75-80 degrees, but will be considerably slower in cooler soil temperatures. I don't "think" the seeds would get cold rot if wintersown, though, because mine reseed every year and I get tons of volunteers in the spring. If cold, wet, clay soil doesn't kill them, then being wintersown shouldn't. Maybe your seeds just need some sunshine and warmth. Jennifer, I always expect late cold weather, but was thinking this might be the Spring that we don't have that. Now it looks like, from your forecast, there's a cold night lurking out there. I don't want to go look at my forecast because I don't want to see the same thing. I don't have any tomato plants planted out either in the ground or in large containers, but my son does, so I'll tell him he needs to watch his extended forecast. While the fruit tree blooms are fading as tiny fruit begin to appear on the trees, the native redbuds are blooming everywhere around us now, and a couple of days ago the first Indian Paintbrush in our wildflower meadow began blooming. While both of these plants will jump the gun and bloom before the end of the freezing weather, they usually don't get too terribly far ahead of the weather either, so seeing the paintbrush blooms made me think that maybe the cold weather is behind us now. Oddly, the redbuds are blooming just about right on time, and not a month early like the fruit trees were. It is interesting that they didn't jump the gun and bloom far too early. Look how much I wrote y'all! I practically wrote a book tonight. (grin) There's no one awake but me. The grandkids aren't here, the pets are asleep and Tim is upstairs, presumably asleep although his phone keeps ringing so I think he is half asleep and getting crisis calls from work. Today, at the airport (and at any US airport with inbound international flights where passengers must clear Customs), US citizens and residents rushing home to beat the travel ban found themselves packed into the Customs area like sardines (by the thousands at DFW) as they lined up to fill out questionnaires designed by the Department of Homeland Security and U. S. Customs. Let's just say that frustrated travelers were posting photos and complaints on Twitter and leave it at that. Maybe it wasn't the best choice for them to fly off on trips overseas with the coronavirus pandemic making travel more risky? The airports did not create this situation, and those two government agencies are trying to catch people who might be traveling inbound with coronavirus so they can keep us all a bit more safe. It just seems like an unfortunate situation for the travelers to find themselves caught up in. Maybe they should have stayed home and planted gardens or gone panic shopping or something.... Kim, I hope you're having a great time in west Texas. Dawn

Larry, I'm glad you weren't getting too much rain this morning, and sorry it found you later in the day. I saw that there was a pretty bad tornado in Jonesboro today, and didn't even realize any part of your state was under a Tornado Watch until I saw a video someone posted of the Jonesboro tornado on the ground. I hope everyone in the Jonesboro area made it through that without death or serious injury. That's a nice plant nursery you have going there. It cannot rain forever, and when the rain finally stops and you are able to plant, you'll have a lot of wonderful plants to transplant into the ground. Nancy, Oh, elms are a thing here too. Honestly, with about 10 acres of wild, left-to-grow-as-it-sees-fit woodland, anything that seeds prolifically is found in abundance here. About the only thing we do is try to remove the cedar trees every few years, as they sprout like weeds too. I spent quite a few years cleaning up the woodland every winter, but it was a never-ending task, and keeping up with it was a full-time winter job, so nowadays, I just try to keep all the tree seeds out of the garden and let them do their thing in the woodland. This means at the very least that I spend a significant portion of each spring pulling out sprouting oaks, pecans, hackberries, redbuds, elms and mulberries from the garden beds and pathways, and fenceline too. If I were to miss doing this for one single spring, my garden would become a woodland in the blink of an eye. The very first year after I removed all the invasive cedar trees, greenbrier and poison ivy from the north banks of our creek, we had a lovely little colony of mayapples spring up. I was excited to see them there. We never would have known they were there if I hadn't taken out all the invasive stuff. By then we had lived here several years and never had seen mayapples, so it was pretty exciting. That has been a general thing that happens here----remove invasive plants (whether native or not) and watch to see what shows up in the newly cleaned-up spaces. You can get some plants you've never seen before. Amy, Chris had that trouble with Jiffy organic seed-starting mix this year. I really didn't. Some white mold tried to spring up on the surface one time this year, and I saw it right away as it was just beginning to develop so I just made sure to run the fan in the room pointed at the light shelf to dry out the Jiffy mix more so the mold wouldn't grow. That was all it took for me. I don't really have a good alternative that is readily available in stores, unless you have someone around you that has a nice selection of Pro-Mix. Amy, We made a quick run to Home Depot to plant shop. It was pretty early in the day and the store was packed! I did notice that folks in the garden center were doing their best to maintain correct social distancing....everyone wanted to buy plants, and they had tons and tons of them, and everyone wanted to buy safely. That was enough of "getting out" for me to stop feeling like I had cabin fever so badly. I don't have to get out ever, but tell me that I can't get out, and I want to leave our place and go somewhere just because I know I can't or shouldn't. The kids have been careful to keep themselves and the grandchildren away from us for the most part, wanting to protect us oldsters, so I am sort of having grandkid withdrawal. They did stop by very briefly last week to pick up hoops, row covers and earth staples because they were expecting a freeze, but even as we walked in the garden, we tried to maintain proper social distancing while at least getting to chat with each other for a few minutes. There are many other people going through the same thing right now so I'm not going to whine about it. I know that none of us want to inadvertently spread this virus to anyone else on the chance that we might have it and be asymptomatic, and none of us want to catch it from anyone else either. I wonder how many months it will be before we can start to return to some sort of normalcy. Jen, I'm glad the seedlings are okay. You must have had a good rain. We had about 5 minutes of light rain in the early morning hours so it wasn't enough to hurt anything. Rebecca, It feels like full-fledged spring here and I have little to no concern about a late freeze. Our weather pattern has done a total turn-around the last couple of weeks. Today is my average last freeze date, so technically I still have a 50% chance of one, but I don't think it will happen. I think that is true for at least 80% of OK. I'd be a little worried next week if I was in northwestern OK....and the panhandle likely has more cold remaining too. I think your area likely will be fine. Obviously anyone from OKC northward probably needs to be watching next weekend's low temps very carefully, but it seems like most people could go ahead and plant now and just cover up on that last cold night or two. It is supposed to be 40 degrees here at our house Friday night/Saturday morning, so I'll keep an eye on that forecast, but what has happened lately is that they will forecast a cold night out 5 to 7 days in advance, and by the time that night actually arrives, the forecast low has risen by several degrees and I don't have to cover up plants. I doubt I'll cover up tomato plants if the forecast is for 40 degrees, but I might cover them up if it is for 38 degrees. So far, our last freezing night here for 2020 was around March 7th, although we have had some nights in the mid-30s since then. Just not lately. Even on the night Chris had a forecast low of 32, they only dropped down to 34. He did have his garden covered up just in case. That was about a week ago. Having said all the above, I never fully relax until after May 3rd because we went through a period more-or-less from about 2007 to 2013 where we had a late freeze or frost on May 3 or 4 every year (which explains why I acquired a ton of frost blanket row cover during that time). Because of that, I never can relax until after we get past May 4th. We haven't had one of those exceptionally late cold nights in quite a few years now, so I don't worry about it as much as I did when it had become a feature of every year. Rebecca, See there, if Dan Threlkeld thinks it is okay to plant tomatoes, it must be okay! Jennifer, This virus may not like heat, but thrives in it, unlike some other types of viruses that die down in the heat. Many countries that are in the midst of their summer and hot weather have had huge outbreaks of it, so the heat is not having much direct effect on it. As for as drinking hot beverages, that is a fake news thing. Once you have the virus in your body, drinking a hot beverage might make your throat feel better, but it will not kill the virus. If we could kill the virus merely by drinking very hot tea, coffee or whatever, then we wouldn't have 600,000+ cases worldwide and we'd all be drinking hot beverages because the CDC was telling us too, which they are not. I wish it were that easy to get rid of it! Keep in mind that if the virus is present in one's throat, it probably also is present in one's nasal passages and sinus cavities so even if hot beverages worked, they might reduce the viral load but wouldn't eliminate all of it from your body. Some people say that taking zinc logenzes at the first sign you have a viral infection, may kill the virus in your throat or reduce its impact but I have not seen any research that validates this either. It is just that with some other viruses, notably rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, zinc works so people probably are assuming it will work with this one. Unfortunately, there are differences between rhinoviruses and coronaviruses, so ultimately we will have to wait for research on zinc's effectiveness with coronavirus. I do think there is research showing that people who are deficient in zinc in their diet/body are more vulnerable to viruses in general, but if you take a multivitamin, you probably already get adequate zinc. I have noticed that you cannot find zinc in any of the stores so people may be buying it to take in the hope it will ward off coronavirus. Our Centrum multivitamins have 100% of the MDR of zinc in them, so I guess we've got that one aspect covered. This COVID-19 just hasn't been around long enough for us to have much research available on what does or doesn't work to prevent it or to lighten the viral load. With a novel coronavirus that has become a pandemic, we all are searching for answers to help us ward it off, but research so far seems to only support avoiding infecting persons, washing your hands thoroughly and keeping your hands away from your face. Perhaps in due time, there will be more research that provides more answers. You have to be careful what you choose to do. With the 1918 pandemic, there was a wonderful miracle drug available---aspirin. The usage of aspirin was fairly new and there was a lack of understanding about how much was too much, so many people took it in huge dosages (often recommended by medical personnel of that era). Nowadays, for various reasons, many researchers have come to believe over the decades that the overuse of aspirin in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic contributed a great deal to the high death rates. I have read quite a great deal of what has been written about this phenomenon and feel like what they say about it makes sense. It is a terrible shame if, indeed, the over-use of aspirin caused many deaths that otherwise might not have occurred with the Spanish Flu. That's one reason I think we need to approach all possible 'cures' to the coronavirus with a great deal of caution---we don't want to take anything or do anything that would make us worse instead of helping us fight it off. With the internet, there's tons of misinformation out there that likely is not helpful and even could be dangerous. I had fun plant shopping, but only bought a handful of edibles---some peppers and some herbs. I wish I had taken more time to look at flowers and buy some, but the store was very crowded and I was uneasy being around too many people, so I didn't. Our bluebonnets in the front meadow look astonishing. They've never been this early before in such a large quantity. At first, earlier in the week, it was just a handful of early bluebonnet blooms but now there's dozens. I'm so happy to see them. No one else around us who normally has bluebonnets have any of them blooming yet, not even the folks down in Thackerville who usually have bluebonnets in bloom at least a week before we do. I didn't even see any bluebonnets blooming yet alongside the highway in Texas this morning. Another early visitor is a male luna moth hanging out underneath the porch light on the front porch tonight. He apparently hasn't found his female yet, so I think I'll leave the porch light on all night long tonight in the hopes that they will find one another. They are, after all, on limited time. It seems a bit early for the lunas too, but they surely are responding to the early warmup here that has had it feeling more like April or May than March. Dawn

Johnny, thanks for the link. I an sorta working that way. I was over in my wildlife garden building some mounds for winter squash about an hour ago. I gathered the material late last fall. i have some unwanted fescue over there, and an old road bed I am trying to work on. The first work I did on the old road bed was around 50 years ago. Anyway, this past year I would drag organic matter and pile it on the old roadbed. I would also dump a bucket of extra dirt over there when I could come up with one. I built 4 pads for winter squash from the material that I had gathered by dragging my pasture cultivator through the brush hogged fescue. I hated to tear the pile down because it was so pretty with crimson clover, fescue, and other very green growth, but I needed the material. I already have a pile of old burned trees piled to plant Seminole pumpkins on, I hope it will be a hugeikultur bed at some point in the future. I will have to talk to the grandkids about that because I wont be alive when than that pile rots down. If I see no interest in the hugel idea I will burn the pile before it becomes an eye sore. While I was in the wildlife garden I checked the berry plants I ordered form Simmons Plant farm, it looks like all 25 Kiowa blackberries and the 5 elderberries are starting to grow. Johnny, above you can see the type of material I am building the pads for the pumpkins and squash out of. Above the first compost pile you can see my log pile across the highway. The piles here are old hay and manure.