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Oklahoma Gardening

November 2020 Week 4

3 years ago

Wow...we're almost at Turkey Day. It looks to be a rainy week here in NWA.

It rained earlier today, and hopefully that's all for today, with chances for pretty much the rest of the week.

I received my Jelitto (Germany) seeds in the mail yesterday and seed starting soil mix the day before, so this morning I got out and planted Heliopsis 'Burning Hearts' in media, as it doesn't require cold stratification and I would love to get them to bloom first year (thus starting soooo early). I put three set of seeds wrapped in moist paper towels, and enclosed in plastic ziplocks, into the fridge to cold stratify and updated my spreadsheet (my memory) for when they could come out, one at Christmas, one mid January, and one end of January.

By then I'll be starting more to cold stratify outside, assuming it ever gets cold enough to do the job (that's why things went into the fridge). The rest of this year promises to be too warm to provide cold stratification.

It was very little gardening, but something for late November. Hope everyone has a good holiday, despite the ongoing virus proliferation.

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Lisa_H OK

3 years ago

I came over here because Amy was having trouble getting the page to pull up. I got the error screen too, but found a way around it. I kinda suspect they've shut down the gardenweb link. No gardening going on here. I did trim up (well, my neighbor did most of it!) my ornamental trees. The ice storm did a number on all the trees in my neighborhood. I do NOT regret removing all my big trees for more manageable ones. The city hauled away all the limbs this week.

I took tomorrow off from work, but I am gearing up for our Community Thanksgiving Dinner. We are calling it "drive thru'", but it is really more like curbside delivery. It's been crazy trying to plan this out. The upswing in positives made it much more difficult to find and keep volunteers, but I think I finally have enough. I'll know for sure by noon on Thursday! Our church had to shut down for the rest of the year. We lost one of our elders to COVID late last week, and another one was deathly ill, but is slowly recovering. They decided it was not worth the risk. We've all gotten pretty good at Zoom Sunday classes and YouTube church (pre-recorded, but "live streamed" via FB.)

Today was our "chili cookoff" at work. It was good to finally have some fun at work, if only for a few minutes! It's been a long, hard, hard year.

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Comments (74)

OklaMoni
3 years ago
Just a heads up. WINCO on NW 39th in OKC has regular neck pint canning jars, also, bands and lids... just not lids by themselves. Saw that this morning.

Moni
jlhart76
3 years ago
HJ, I'm not sure if I'm any good at succulents, but if they're dying & you want to give me a shot I'm game. My biggest issue is light. I'm about out of space in my front hall which is the only space for plants where pups & cats can't get them. But succulents do ok in lower light.

As for a zoom call, I'm game! All I'm doing this weekend is playing with puppy dogs (13 I think) so I'll be around.
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Amy, I think the feeder on Fred's truck was the type that would drop cubes into something. This truck had a hay spike, I think (I should know for sure as I've seen this truck drive by our place a million times), but they weren't doing round bales yesterday. Billy Fred thinks that as they drove through the pasture (the pastures near the Old Home Place looked to have grass maybe thigh high), some bits of grass got hung up underneath the truck between two things, and I think maybe he said transmission and something else, perhaps engine block, but I don't remember....and then the grass first ignited as they drove up the road from one pasture to another, and the burning grass ignited the truck. The round bales in the field belonged to the guy whose land is across the street....but I am sure Fred's ranching insurance or auto insurance would have paid for the loss. 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While we have quite a lot of chickens, many of them are useless roosters because we are too soft-hearted to execute all the roosters hatched out by our hens. I guarantee you that if we let a broody hen set on eggs, 10 out of 12 that hatch will be roosters every time. Why? Why? Why? Every time we lose a chicken to a coyote (haven't lost any in the last 2 months, but before that we were losing them quite regularly if they were stupid enough to wander off into the woods, well away from the flock), I secretly hope it was a male. We also don't kill chickens when they get too old to lay and be productive, so we are in effect running a retirement home for geriatric chickens. While it is not very cost-effective to feed so many non-laying poultry, they do seem to keep the snake population down and each one of them eats its weight in grasshoppers, so at least they are useful for something. I think Fred took the burning of the truck very, very well. 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I was just mostly worried about him and Billy Fred---both have bad backs and mobility issues (even though I think Billy Fred is exactly my age, he seems to have inherited Fred's bad back genes)---afraid they'd inhaled smoke or gotten burned or whatever but they seemed fine. For the last 3 or 4 years, I've had a creeping feeling of fire disaster related to Fred---I cannot tell you how many times I've told Tim that I was worried about Fred's house catching fire at night and him not being able to get out of it---like a premonition. I don't know why I had that feeling, and I feel pretty confident he no longer sleeps in an upstairs bedroom but has instead moved to a downstairs one. Still, I've just had that feeling. Maybe this truck fire is the thing my premonition was leading me towards. Does that sound crazy? If so, then I am crazy. I did hear about Owasso winning state and thought that was cool! Yellow Cat's death hit me extra hard---perhaps because he had such a hard life as a feral cat roaming the countryside and I know how much he appreciated finally having a family, a climate-controlled home and steady meals that he enjoyed. I spoiled him all that I could these last few years as I saw his once ginger-colored hair turning snow white. I could see him aging, and could see his health failing, but stayed in denial for so long because I couldn't bear the thought of letting him go. When his health had deteriorated to the point that he wasn't going into the garden any more, I cut him catmint and/or catnip and brought it to him daily. He was such a garden cat when he was young and healthy. These last few weeks, I knew the end was coming soon and tried to make sure he had lots of time outside on pretty, sunny days and lots of loving when he was inside. He was purring up until shortly before his death, as I held him and talked to him and promised to see him again at the Rainbow Bridge. I agree with you that there's not much worth getting dressed up for any more. If I am going to put on pantyhose, heels and makeup, it is going to be for something at a church, a funeral home or a big family gathering. I don't hardly wear heels much either, preferring low heels or flats. I'm beyond thinking that heels are worth wearing to anything. Nancy, We went through this same thing with dogs several years back---we had 8 dogs, the oldest of which was about 18 or 19 years old when she died. Then, it seemed like we lost a dog a year (or even more often than one per year) for a while until we went from 8 dogs down to two. Then Ace and Princess showed up and we were back up to 4 dogs again. That's the down side to having a bunch of dogs or cats live forever and forever and forever---once one of them finally dies, it seems like the others just fall like dominoes. We've certainly had what with the old cats these last few months. Pumpkin seems the most upset over Yellow Cat--he came to me this morning from the direction of Yellow Cat's grave and had the oddest little expression on his face. I think he knows exactly where YC is and that he is dead. He even seemed sad, which is odd, because the only thing he liked to do with Yellow Cat was to hiss and growl and try to challenge Yellow Cat to a duel. YC dealt with it by ignoring him, a la' W. C. Fields "go away kid, you bother me...." Sometimes I wonder what the animals know---when it is practical, we will let the other animals see and sniff the deceased animal before we bury it because it helps them understand and accept that animal's death, but yesterday we got paged out to a fire while burying Yellow Cat so just had to hurry and get it done so we could leave. It is hard for me to believe that Shady is our last old cat left. I really thought Yellow Cat and Emmitt both would outlive him, but they didn't. (sigh) I did notice today that Shady took over Yellow Cat's favorite porch spot and was sleeping there in the sunshine. Maybe he's waited a long time for that spot to become his spot. Shady was bitten by a copperhead when he was a couple of years old. He survived, but was very sick---the bite was in his groin area. He actually got the raised copper-colored rash that they say "can" happen, but which we've never seen with any other animal of ours. The spot where he had the rash didn't stay copper-colored forever, but after the rash eventually faded, hair never grew there again, so when he sprawls on his back sleeping, you see the white scar still, after all these years. It amazes me because the vet really didn't think he'd live, and now he has outlived all his siblings, his parents, and even cats a few years younger them him. He had a twin brother named Slim, who was very skinny his whole life and who died several years ago. Shady was a big bruiser---like a big offensive lineman on a football team---but was gentle and didn't throw his weight around. Slim and Shady were identical, except one was thin and one was big and hefty. As Shady has aged, he's gotten skinnier and skinnier, and now I find myself accidentally calling him Slim more and more because he looks so much like Slim now---then I hastily add Shady, calling him Slim Shady, which is the Emimem song they were named after when they were born---we were running out of names for a litter of almost identical black cats, and had named their sister Emimem because she was the spitting image of their dad, Emmitt, so then from Emimem to Slim Shady wasn't much of a stretch. (And now y'all know what sort of music Chris was listening to in 2000.) Yellow Cat once was very sick similar to what Titan had this past summer, and we thought we'd lose him then. We had to keep him caged up and medicated and worked so hard to keep him eating/drinking and alive. The vet kept him in the clinic on an IV for several days before we even could bring him home and take care of him here at the house. He was still about half-feral when all that happened, but by the time he was well, he was my little shadow cat who followed me everywhere I went. He also thought he owned the house (prior to that, he preferred the yard, the garage, the chicken coops---anything but the house) after that. So, I feel like he had another good 7 or 8 years after that round of illness, and he appreciated every day. He was just a happy, purring machine all the time. When Tim joined the VFD, which was way back in 2002, I believe, I never, ever, in my wildest imagination knew how it could/would take over our lives at times. We can have very long periods of relative quiet where he runs on a ton of medical calls and smallish fires and it doesn't really involve me at all. But then, let drought roll around as it has this fall, and let everything dry out after we freeze, and suddenly it takes completely over our lives. You just do whatever you have to do. Our worst years have been 2005-2006, when we had horrific drought and wildfires from roughly October 2004 through probably January of 2007, when we would have fires almost daily and sometimes, at its worst, up to 5 fires in one day, and then 2011 when we had incredible summer drought and had multiple fires daily (or sometimes one big wildfire that lasted for multiple days) from June through August, with lesser periods of fires for months before and after the summer. Really, then, we had recurring drought in 2012, 2013 and 2014, but nothing like the summer of 2011. As a gardener, the hardest part for me is that the winter wildfire season's peak tends to coincide with spring planting season, so I'm constantly trying to put transplants or seeds in the ground and having to drop everything to run to a fire. On April 9, 2009, I couldn't even get all my seedlings moved indoors into the sunroom (which was still a screened-in porch then, but it had half-walls that protected the plants from the wind) before I had to rush off to a fire just after lunch, and I lost most of my plants to the wind that day. We had a 15,000 acre wildfire that kept us away from home for about 12 to 14 hours, and when I got home and wearily carried in the seedlings, most were windburned beyond saving---our wind had gusted as high as 53 mph that day. We built the greenhouse soon thereafter so that the plants could get sunlight as I prepared to plant them in the ground but wouldn't have to be out in the wind if I had to run off to a fire. One year, in 2012, I was trying desperately to get fall transplants in the ground. I was so far behind and finally had just decided I was going to do it period. I was not going to leave no matter what was on fire. And I didn't. When our VFD became the 9th department paged out to a wildfire at the eastern end of the county, I called Tim and told him I wasn't going---I had to get those plants in the ground that day or else it wouldn't be worth planting them and that was that. He was fine with that. Our local county emergency management director was not okay with that---he kept calling me and calling me and calling me and I kept telling him I was busy and couldn't leave and he'd have to find someone else to bring drinks and food to the firefighters. I pointed out to him that 8 other VFDs were paged out before us, and surely one of them had a fire rehab person bringing drinks. It was like my words were going in one ear and out the other, and I finally quit answering my phone because he wouldn't stop calling. That's probably the only time he ever really just infuriated me. I remember asking him what part of "volunteer" he didn't understand, because on that specific day I was NOT a volunteer who was going to a fire, I was a woman making a last-ditch, late effort to get a fall garden planted in the midst of tremendous drought. I did, by the way, have a marvelous fall/winter garden that year and we were still harvesting from it in April....and I had to yank out overwintered plants to replace them with new Spring plants. On one other day, probably in 2013 or 2014, I was behind on getting tomato plants in the ground and told Tim one morning that I absolutely, positively was not going to any fires that day. I was going to start planting in the morning, and was going to plant, weed, water, mulch, etc. and wasn't leaving my garden for any reason. I was so determined to do this that I did not take my fire radio or phone out to the garden. So, guess what happened? I looked up from my garden at some point, and the ranch across the street had a fast-moving wildfire. They had been burning a brush pile and the wind kicked up and the fire got away from them. I could see our neighbors and their hired hand running around with a tractor and hand tools, but the fire was moving faster than they were. So, I had to run to the house (no phone, no radio, remember?), get Tim and Chris on their way to the fire station, with Tim using the radio to tell Dispatch to page out 3 VFDs and then using his cell phone to call the neighbors and say "we're on our way", etc. Then, I came back out of the house with my radio and cell phone in my hand, but couldn't decide what to do. I finally decided to run across the road and open the ranch gate and stand there directing the trucks where to turn into the property. So, the firefighters came, got that fire put out, I checked on our neighbors and made sure they were okay and eventually headed home to the garden. Tim headed inside to take a shower because he worked 3 to midnight back then and needed to quickly leave for work. I returned to planting the garden. For me, the important thing was that we kept the fire from jumping the ranch road and hitting their gigantic barn/indoor riding arena. As luck would have it, after Tim left for work, I looked up about an hour later, and there was fire running across that field again. The firefighters had put out the wildfire burning through the pasture, but not the huge pile of burning trees (not enough water available to put out that brush pile), and somehow the fire had escaped from the brushpile and was burning across the field just east of where it had burned previously. This time I had my phone and radio and could call everyone, and then I ran across the road with a shovel or rake or whatever and helped Chris fight that fire by hand after he got there with the brush truck. It seems like I got there in time to open gates for him, and then as he drove across the field to hit the fire head on and stop its forward movement, I followed on foot and worked the fire flank with hand tools, as the owners also were doing. So, I learned an important lesson about never, ever saying I am absolutely, positively not going to a fire on any given day, because the last time I tried it, I had to fight fire by hand twice just across the street from my garden. There's no way anyone involved with a VFD can ignore a fire across the street from their own house---I never would do that to our neighbors. I don't think I've had that much trouble getting the garden planted since then, though I know I have had to postpone planting a few times because I cannot be away at fires and home planting the garden at the same time---it just doesn't work. : ) We've been very lucky and had 3 wet years in a row and so our winter fire season has only lasted maybe a month or two, usually in Jan-Feb or Feb-Mar, so having it start up pretty strong in November is very discouraging. It is a long, long time until we'll green up enough out in the fields to drop the wildfire danger. We now are at the point that anything will start a fire---several wrecks have started fires recently, as have chains being dragged by a truck, or pieces of a rubber tire coming off a semi truck on the interstate, or a spark from a welder or whatever. Once it is like this, there basically is no justice, no peace, and no rest for the weary, so to speak. However, even though there were several fires today, none of them were in our fire district or involved us, so we got to stay home and get stuff done at home. Both tomorrow and Monday are expected to be much worse in terms of fire danger. Our Keetch Byram Drought Index numbers really are climbing now and we are in severe drought, so our county commissioners ought to be considering implementing a county-wide burn ban. However, they are elected officials and all the farmers and ranchers tend to give them hell over passing burn bans because it interferes with their ability to burn off crop stubble or do prescribed burning to burn brush out of pastures, so getting a burn ban passed here is like pulling teeth because the elected officials don't want to irritate potential voters, The firefighters aren't picky. They get lots of coldcut sandwiches when the weather is hot, but in the winter I like to make them stuff that's easy to eat by hand and quick, so often it is sausage balls, Sweet Bacon Chicken Wraps, cinnamon rolls, muffins, or breakfast burritoes (and coffee) if it is an overnight/early morning fire (and coffee of course). If we have time, Fran and I have been known to make Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas, taco soup, chicken tortilla soup, meat loaf, casseroles, chili, stew, etc. Much depends on how much advance warning we have, what food we have on hand, and how much we cook in advance. If we are going to have a Red Flag Fire Warning and we know the day before, we often cook in advance because any day that there's a Red Flag Fire Warning, we're likely to have fires. For snacks, we always carry prepackaged snacks, which we usually buy at Sam's Club or CostCo---a blend of sweets and proteins (we have lots of firefighters who are diabetic or pre-diabetic and have to watch their carbs), so we've always got several kinds of cookies (Nutter Butters are a special favorite of the firefighters), packages of nuts, Sweet and Salty trail mix, etc. I often make (as I did today) a copycat version of the Doubletree Hotel's Chocolate Chip cookies---today I made the standard version with chocolate chips and walnuts, but also a separate batch with white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts. These cookies are big, like the cookies you buy at mall cookie shops, so are the perfect size for a firefighter to wolf down (with a bottle of Gatorade or water) while he's refilling his brush truck water tanks at a tanker truck. I have been making things daily and freezing them if we don't use them for a fire that day, so just about have filled up the available freezer space now. It will pay off later. I do not mind, ever, ever, ever, going to the fires except when it interferes with planting time day after day, but my efforts to put the garden first do not exactly pay off, so I tend to just drop everything and go to the fires instead. Tim went outside intending to mow a lot today (as a method of slowing down fire with very short grass) and I never heard the mower start up. I was cleaning grout haze off the mudroom floor, so I wasn't really paying attention to what he was doing. I still have no idea what he did for a couple of hours, but when I finished the floor and went out, he had the dead lawnmower on the charger because he wasn't able to ever get it started---and nothing got mowed. I guess if the battery isn't charged up by tomorrow, we'll go buy a new battery for the mower. Butterflies were out all over the place today (our high was 79 degrees so it was nice weather for them) but I still have no idea what they're eating because nothing is in bloom. I won't say it felt hot outdoors, but it did not feel like December. Of course, in a couple more days it will feel very much like December and we'll be wishing to have that 79 degrees back again. I need to find time tomorrow to go into the garden and see if any zinnias are sprouting or anything. If they aren't, it is because the rainfall has been MIA for the last couple of months, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are---we've certainly been warm enough. There's pink evening primrose plants sprouted all over the place down by the road---and I mean those plants are 2-5" tall. If we weren't expecting freezing weather in a few days, I'd expect to see the pink evening primrose plants blooming soon. Dawn
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May 2020, Week 4, The Rainy Week....
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Comments (100)
Farmgardener, I am so sorry about your tomato plants. Being rural with lots of herbicide-loving people around, we get drift every year and, yes, it is heart-breaking and frustrating beyond measure. Some years we get it once or twice and other years we get it 5 or 6 times a year. So far this year, I think we've had it only twice, and only tomato plants were affected. One year they got virtually all our okra and watermelon plants, a lot of flowers and some of the tomatoes. I grow peppers near my tomatoes and they rarely get damaged. I don't know if it just luck on the part of the pepper plants or what, but they always come through it in much better condition than the tomato plants do.For years and years it seemed like we only got Round-up Drift because the people nearest us were using Round-up along their fencelines to control weeds. 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With all the heat we have here, that's about the best option for fresh, home-grown summertime salad greens. HJ, Lilies are fascinating and we grow more and more of them every year because our granddaughter, Lillie, believes we should. : ) I am amazed at how much further ahead were here this year with the blooms of the lilies, but perhaps it is because ours bloomed really early considering far south we are. They finished blooming here about a month ago. I think the warm of days in the 90s in late March or early April set them off early, and once we returned to cooler weather, it didn't matter---they already were set to bloom early. We have them in a lot of different colors, including white, pink, red, yellow and peach, and I have to grow them either in containers or in tall, hardware cloth-lined beds because voles will come out of the woods and into the garden and eat all the lily bulbs if the bulbs are not well-protected. There are not many types of bulbs that voles won't eat (mostly allium, garlic and daffodil) so I'm limited in what I can plant. Well, also crinum lilies never have been bothered, and neither have cannas, and daylilies. I think they can and sometimes do eat daylilies but just haven't done it in recent years. Nancy, I've always gardened for the pollinators as well as for us, but we have ample sunny space, plus we never wiped out the native plants that existed when we bought our land, so that made a huge difference. All I had to do was plant to supplement what was here to begin with. In our first handful of years here, the old farmer crowd gave me hell for growing "weeds" (i.e. herbs and flowers) in my garden, telling me that Tim and I couldn't eat those. I just had to point out that the pollinators could and would eat them. Those guys meant well, but were trying to turn me into a row farmer with monoculture rows of veggies and no herbs and flowers and I wanted to be a raised bed gardener with all of it mixed together. So, in that sense I won....but it was, of course, the pollinators who won. Later on, I had more of a monoculture row garden in the back garden after we built it in 2012, but then the voles are a terrible plague back there, so that area is not utilized as much as I'd like---it depends on how much I want to fight the voles. The girls and I spend endless hours outdoors when they are here, and they love the butterflies and moths as much as I do, so much so that they hate to see bad caterpillars, like army worms, put to death. Now, I'm trying to teach them not to be afraid of the seemingly dozens of kinds of bees we have here, while also teaching them to respect the hornets and wasps and give those guys a wide berth. Yesterday when the kids were out of the pool for a snack break, a butterfly came and sat on Lillie for about a 15 minutes and she was so mesmerized by it. It sat on her bare skin part of the time and on her neon bright bathing suit the rest of the time and was in no hurry to fly away. Jennifer, I think that if the only flowers we had were the front wildflower meadow, the pollinators still would be deliriously happy, particularly this year. Between the overseeding of that area with a wildflower mix from Wildseed Farms last spring and the abundant moisture, we have the best mix of wildflowers in there that we've ever had. It is starting to drive Tim crazy---usually he can mow the wildflower meadow down after the Spring wildflowers have gone to seed and before the summer wildflowers are coming on strong but this year the spring flowers lingered a bit longer than usual and the summer wildflowers started up already, so his need to control the meadow by mowing is dead in the water, and the wildflowers and I are delighted. He had to content himself with mowing only the yard and the back pasture yesterday, where there were not nearly so many wildflowers this spring, perhaps because of drainage issues back there and all the standing water. Perhaps I need to overseed that area back there with wildflowers next fall. Would that be too diabolical? It might interfere with him mowing in that area if we got a better stand of spring wildflowers back there. I would think just the acre around the house would give him enough mowing to keep him happy, but he could be happy mowing all day long. He starts twitching and practically breaking out in a rash when I discuss our plans to replace lawn around our house with hardscaping and raised beds. He is afraid I won't leave enough for him to mow, and I keep telling him that having less to mow as we age will be a blessing and to just wait and see. Nancy, We live in what is usually a dry grassland area, so I've never wanted a weed torch. I think they can work for people in some situations, but am not convinced I am one of those people. Maybe it is because we spend so much time fighting grassfires in our county in the summer, winter and autumn...and sometimes early spring in the dry years. We also don't have stone pathways to maintain and I can see where one would come in handy there. Marleigh, You've got to kill whatever you've got to kill to keep your garden going. Over the years I've found I have to kill less and less because all the beneficial creatures take care of a lot of it for me. There is a huge difference in wet years like we've had in 2015-2020 so far, and the dry years that mostly plagued us from 1998 when we still were clearing our land prior to building the house all the way through 2014. In the dry years, the pest level rises along with the drought and I spend far too much time and effort on killing excess damaging pests. The way I grew up was that you planted about four times as much as you wanted/needed so that the wild critters could have what they wanted and you still had enough left for yourself, and that seems about right here in OK. The only area where planting extra for the wild things doesn't work is with fruit---they want it all, no matter what, and you have to fight them so hard for every bit of fruit you grow. I have gotten to where I grow less and less fruit as the years go on because I get so tired of the endless fruit wars with the wild things. Our cats have become much more indoor cats than outdoor cats over the years. As they age, most of them have seemed content to sleep in the sunroom, where the sunshine and views of the great outdoors are endless, and now are happy most days just to go out for a quick hour or two and then come back indoors. They don't bother wild birds much because I trained them (with a water gun....everyone needs one Super Soaker to blast cats away from little wild birds) to leave the wild birds alone. Now, when I am out and the cats have done the brief tour outdoors and want to come in, they come and find me and meow for me to come up to the house and let them come inside. This year's perpetually wet, puddled ground probably has contributed to that a lot. Tim and I joke that our cats have become too conditioned to the great indoors---dry "ground", no snakes or annoying biting insects, no bobcats or coyotes chasing them around, and perfect climate control so they're never too hot or too cold. There's a lot of truth in that though. Even Pumpkin has become very much an indoor cat even though he's not as old as they others. When our cats are indoors and the coast is clear, the feral cats, neighborhood barn cats, etc, come over to visit and hang out. As long as I grow catnip, we'll never be cat free. We were outdoors more than we were indoors yesterday and the weather was just perfect---clear, sunny skies, not too much wind, and neither too hot nor too cold. I think most of this week will be that way, but our highs are moving into the 90s by the end of the week, so it looks like June weather is arriving right on time. I was looking forward to mealtimes as a way to use up a lot of tomatoes---BLTs for lunch, tomatoes on hamburgers at dinner time, chopped up in salads, etc. but then I harvested more tomatoes and brought in just as many newly harvested ones as we had used up in our meals so the pile of tomatoes on the counter is the same. I haven't even harvested the cherry tomatoes yet this weekend, but I'm going to do that today. You know that the tomato harvest is going well when we're looking at the tomatoes on the counter and hoping we can hurry up and use them up before I bring in more. lol. That's a change from looking at them longingly on the plants and wishing they would hurry up and ripen. We're probably about to get to the point of needing to make salsa in the next couple of weeks just to stay caught up on the harvest. The tomato plants in pots are doing great, and the ones in the ground that were planted much later because of the nonstop rain are coming along pretty well. Mosquitoes are a huge issue now, and I am sure that will continue for weeks until we get good and dry. It is the end of May and we all survived it, with a lot less weather disruption than we have some years. Well, the heavy pounding from the rainfall was disruptive, and so was the hail when and where it fell, but it seemed like we had a lot fewer tornadoes statewide than usual. The nights still feel kind of cool to me for this late in Spring, but I bet that's going to change in June. Dawn
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Nancy Waggoner
3 years ago
How's the weather all about??? Cold and rainy here. . . I think about 50,, raining hard. What a wonderful day to not be outside. Even the cats thought so. However, they are the eternal optimists. Every half hour or so they think, "Maybe it's okay out there. Open the door and I'll go check." 15 minutes later, they knock and come back. BRATS.
Larry Peugh
3 years ago
It was cool and damp most of the day, got a little rain this afternoon, sounds like we are getting some wind and thunder, maybe light rain, the temp has been rising, outdoor thermometer just went from 61 to 62, I will expect more rain tonight.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
3 years ago
I woke up yesterday with the blues. Cloudy and dark started my personal Persephone days early. Man I need sunlight.

Lisa, thanks for trying to figure houzz out for me. Today I got here through notifications. It still wouldn't open the page. I just leave the discussion open normally.

Nancy, I'm glad you got your desktop fixed. When I broke my wrist, I used speech to text. It was about as accurate as my auto complete. I get frustrated with auto complete, but it spells better than I do.

Count down to Thanksgiving now. Will be 7 adults and 3 kids. For us that's smaller than usual.

In September an event we rarely miss is Glendi, a Greek festival put on by a Tulsa church. Food and spectacular dancing. They turned it into a drive thru food event this year, but added some dishes available to pick up for Thanksgiving. We will have a Greek macaroni dish and the filo pastries for tomorrow. No idea where to put them!

I spent yesterday updating my spreadsheet. Looking for things I had noted I was interested in. I ordered from SESE. (Jewels of Opar, a couple of collards) I looked for some of the natives I'm interested in. Why are they all 8 feet tall? Maybe when the chicken pen is up I could put them there. My weed whacking husband would cut them down.

You all have a lovely holiday.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
I never did well with Jewels of Opar, though I think it's very pretty. Will be interested in your results Amy, maybe I was just too wet and clay-ful.

Not all natives are 8 foot tall, you must be looking at the wrong ones (lol).
Larry Peugh
3 years ago
As I have mentioned before, I have planted a lot of greens this year. There are many things that I like better than greens, but I have never planted any thing that is easier to grow. I am going to try to experiment with liking them better. I like to experiment with anything I do. I cut about 3/4 of a bag yesterday and cooked them. The greens I cut yesterday were mustard tender greens, I think I like Florida broad leaf mustard better. But I went out to the garden and picked 3 jalapeno peppers, and a hand full of Egyptian walking onion tops. I would have put in a few garlic tops also if I had thought about it.

I hope to come up with a year round garden. I am happy with sweet potatoes, butternut squash and pumpkins. I have never grown peas or beans to dry, but my day did, and I feel I can also, but at this time I am not ready to tie that much area to grow something that you can buy and store, but I will if it is to my advantage.

I would like suggestions as to what In could grow as seasoning. Also I have something growing in the lawn that we called wild onions when I was a kid. Is that chives? and are they edible? I are what I called wild onions as a child, I am not sure if they were the same as what I see in my lawn, its been a long time since I was a child.

Its 45 degrees outside and I would like to plant some lettuce, but the garden may be too muddy from the rain we have been getting.

I know most of you are busy with holiday stuff, Madge is also. She is a wonderful woman, but I wish she did push herself so much, maybe that is what keeps her young.
hazelinok
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
Jen, light is the problem in our house too. It faces the north and the house just doesn't get much light other than the kitchen/dining.

Moni, I'm going to be more careful with what I post on Facebook. I'll still do Garden Monday, but fewer pictures of certain things.

Amy, you made those items cool...and now everyone wants them!

Nancy, let us know what varieties of beans, peppers, and tomatoes you order.

Lisa, I feel ya on the drive-thru thing. We planned a drive-thru Trunk or Treat this year. SO much to deal with, although it seems like it would be easier. It's not. The volunteer base wasn't there either. We ended up cancelling because that was the week of bad weather and half the city had no electricity. I'm so glad you're trying to keep the community dinner going.

Larry, it was rainy and chilly yesterday. It's sunny and chilly right now. I'm about to make the dogs go out for awhile, though.

What do you mean by seasonings? Like spices and herbs? Arp rosemary lives all winter. I like to use it in simmer pots along with other things. Makes the house smell so nice.

We are going to Mom's for dinner. We are doing the turkey. I got one at Natural Grocers. It will just be us and Mom. "Us" including Mason and Mack. We will try to Zoom with my sister and her family.

Today I'm cleaning bathrooms and bedrooms. I'll probably start some of the food prep tonight. In fact, I might make the "pumpkin in a jar" desserts tonight. We are taking those, as well as rolls and some sort of green bean casserole. I had a delicious one that did not use canned "cream of" soup. I'm not a fan of recipes that use that ingredient. I hope I can find the recipe. I have homegrown beans I'd like to use. We need to scale it back on the food because it's such a small group this year. It's hard to scale back because we've waited all year for certain yummy things we always make/eat.

The rest of the house is dirty, not cluttered, but dirty. I've decided to wait until I get the Christmas décor up before cleaning the living, dining and kitchen. Christmas tree Friday night. Other stuff on Saturday.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed that I'm lighting candles every night and replacing batteries on all the battery candles. I like to put those in decorative lanterns with small strands of battery operated lights. I have them set on a timer. They come on and go off without me messing with them. Normally around March the batteries go out, but by then I'm not even noticing them much because the light is returning. It's just a thing I've noticed about myself. The first two weeks after the time change is miserable for me. I don't know what to do with myself...but eventually I settle into it...and actually enjoy the rest. I'm not even missing the garden that much. Honestly, I still have a garden BUT fall gardens are much easier to deal with IF they would hurry and make food.

HU is coming out on Sunday and we'll cover the hoops with frost cloth since it's supposed to get cold.

If y'all want to Zoom, let us know. If not, it's okay. I can try to figure out how to start a Zoom meeting. It's been awhile since I've started a meeting. I do Pilates every week through Zoom, but she starts the meeting. Anyway...

Dogs need to go out and I need to start working again.
Nancy Waggoner
3 years ago
Well. OKGW is working, but now has the newest messages on top. It gives an option of sorting by newest or oldest; I select oldest, but then it doesn't activate. So newest it is, I guess.

Okay, HJ. Got my seeds ordered. (I still have plenty from last year, so that's another reason I don't plant to order many.) Tomatoes: Costoluto Fiorentino and Delicious.

Peppers: Ashe County Pimento, Keystone and Marconi bells.

And lots of Contender beans. Got all those from SESE. Have any of you grown the Costoluto or Delicious. I'm looking for large tomatoes, and heavy producers. They sounded promising. I have plenty of hot pepper seed leftovers from last year.

Done. Thanks for reminding me.

Larry--you might have wild onions. And you might have chives. LOL Chives grow in a clump--they're perennial, so will come back every year and the clump will grow larger. I love using chives in my cooking--both for the color and the mild onion flavor. The wild onions don't grow in clumps and don't grow large (at least not here--here, they're a puny skinny little plant).

I just checked the forecast. Possible freeze Friday night, and looks like for sure a hard frost on Sun/Mon (or was it Mon/Tues). For sure things will come to an end for most plants then. Not the mustard. We are cracking up about the giant red mustard. It's popping up all over. Any of you eat mustard? Ahh. Apparently Larry did. Or does. This red stuff is powerfully tangy.

Larry--seasonings? You mean herbs? I grow tons of herbs. BTW, HJ, rosemary ARP doesn't necessarily live through the winter. I know this. lol I have one out of 3 that survived. And it's in one of the raised veggie beds at the top of our sloping yard, so undoubtedly warmer there than other parts of the yard. SO. Foolhardy herbs--plant once and pretty much forget: oregano, thyme, rosemary (with the above caveat), bronze fennel (that black swallowtail caterpillars LOVE), parsley (Plant parsley year one and then year two. It's primarily a biennial, so if you plant it in 2 succeeding years, you'll have it all the time.), dill (self seeds), catmint, chives, lemon balm and lime balm (thugs). I'm probably forgetting some. I do love growing the herbs. Dawn said, and perhaps others can confirm, that basil will self seed. Mine, so far, has not. That might be because I keep adding soil to existing beds.

Wow. I assumed we were the only ones who lived in a cave. Guess not, huh. From a houseplant standpoint, I don't mind. I have quite enough plants outdoors. We're not doing anything for Thanksgiving. But we're going to head for Chili's for dinner this afternoon after we pick up groceries. I figure the restaurants should be pretty empty since many will be preparing for tomorrow. And we go extra early (like 4 pm) so there are not many people. Chili's does a good job of wiping down and distancing. I'm trying to figure out if any of the Wagoner restaurants are heeding the governor's mandate.

Well. . . . back to work.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
With my weird sense of time (living alone and almost no contact with others), I got up at 2 am, and made lunch (and decided it was Thanksgiving) for myself about 10 am. Ham, a green bean dish with homemade cheese sauce, mushrooms, and water chestnuts, Mashed potatoes (first time I did the potatoes in instant pot...it worked very well, cook time 8 minutes).

I didn't have room for the pumpkin pie or cranberry sauce...those will come this afternoon, I don't think I'll be able to more of the main meal, still fullish.

It just seemed to me, to go ahead and eat leftovers from today, tomorrow. Doesn't have to make sense to anyone else I guess :0
Larry Peugh
3 years ago
For the ones that think you live in a cave, try putting up some LED lights. You can buy them in what they call "Sun Light", which is a whiter light, they take some getting use to, but that is what I installed in our living room. I have (4) 4' tubes in the living room. I also have them in the dining room, and bath room and kitchen. I think most people would say that they are too bright, but we like them. Madge is the type of person that likes a lot of light, I don't, but I would not want to go back to what we had.

For the ones that feel that they need a good battery hand light around the house, buy your husband a set of battery powered tools which includes a battery powered light. I have an LED hand light and we use it every night. We dont see well at night and are afraid of falling. We never let our little dog go out without a leash, that means we go out every night with him. A 2 AH battery will last at least 2 month before it needs to be recharged. I have several 2 AH batteries and (1) 4 Ah battery. I think most men would love to have a set of tools like that.

As far as seasoning goes, I was referring to anything I can grow to make food taste better. I grew up with mostly salt. pepper, bacon grease, and onions. We try to stay away from grease and salt. We use olive oil or vegetable oil, and try to use as little salt as we can.

I called my neighbor a while ago and told him that he was not doing a good enough job of keeping the greens eaten down in the wildlife garden. Of course I was just yanking his chain ( we both pick on each other ), but he did say that he was going to pick several bags and take them to bowling tomorrow, I also told him where there was some Barkant turnips that need to be picked. I want him to try them, I think they are better than Purple top turnips. They are a forage turnip and have a higher sugar content.
jlhart76
3 years ago
I grew up in a bat cave, dark wood paneling and brown shag carpet, all the windows covered. So Cliff's always bugging me about leaving lights on. If I have my way, the next house will have a sunroom that I can use as my office.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
I enjoy my dark cave. I only turn on a light when I need one (which is not much of the time, with lighted Kindles, phones, tv, and computer screen). Bats would probably not be uncomfortable in my house (*lol*), my friends often comment.

Hey, the pumpkin pie is just out of the oven....I found I rather thoughlessly used the can of evaporated milk for the mashed potatoes, thus leaving none for the pie, so I had to use glue (sweetened condensed milk)...here's hoping I like it and it's not sickly sweet (no added sugar).

Happy Holidays!
hazelinok
3 years ago
I don't mind a darker house...it's cozy. I would like a sunroom, though. Darker houses show less dirt too. LOL

Grow ALL the herbs, Larry!

Nancy, I have no experience with those varieties of tomatoes, but I'm intrigued.

Your dinner sounds good, Danny. How do you make your green bean dish?
Rebecca (7a)
3 years ago
I have an Arp rosemary that’s at least 5 years old, if not older. I transplanted it into a cattle feed tub in 2019, and it feels like it’s outgrowing that already. I need to cut it back and make focaccia. It’s also wonderful to toss a handful into your fireplace, fire table, or chiminea. It’s survived just fine being sheltered from the wind by the house.

We are having tomatoes out of my garden tomorrow. We wrapped a bunch of green ones in newspaper a couple weeks ago, and they’re perfect now. I also have lots of parsley. Still no spinach.

Ive only gotten one seed catalog so far. Tomato Growers Supply. I’m not finished cleaning up this years garden yet. I’m not thinking about next years until December 26th.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
Well, I made it up Monday in the shower,...since I can't do alliums. I made a bechamel sauce (white sauce basically), added a bit of worchestershire, bit of red pepper flakes for tiny tiny bit of kick, 1/2 bag of shredded mixed cheddar cheese. Mixed that with green beans, mushrooms, and diced water chestnuts. Not bad at all.
OklaMoni
3 years ago
Jennifer, which Natural Grocers? I live in super close walking distance to the one on North May

Danny I went to bed about 7:30 yesterday evening. Just worn out tired body and spirit. Thankfully my friend Uschi called me about 8:30 and woke me up. Otherwise who knows, I would prolly have been up around 3. This way, I got up and made my pecan pie for today.

Happy Thanksgiving all. I am sitting in my very cozy (to me) kitchen. It's almost 80 in here. Feels sooo good.

Turkey in the oven:

all the fixings for the cranberry jello:

cranberry jello is delicious:

Pie is outside, since the kitchen is to warm...
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
My understanding is that Rosemary is a short lived perennial. Anecdotally Arp survives best here. Rosemary is a strong flavor. It smells divine, though. Rosemary must have good drainage to survive. That's why Nancy's top of the slope and Rebecca's feed tub work. I like fabric pots. My perennial oregano does not have much flavor. (I've had it so long I don't remember where I got it.) I think I read that marjoram is sold as oregano in jars. There is also Greek oregano. Thyme is another strong flavor in my opinion. Chives are great and have a pretty flower. We have garlic chives. They are thugs and I don't think you can kill them. Dill. Cilantro, unless you're one of those people who thinks it tastes like soap. Its seeds are coriander (often used in pickles). Basil. Definitely Basil. It goes well with tomatoes both in the garden and cooking. There are a lot of Basil varieties. Try Sweet Basil first. Tuck some plants in with your tomatoes. (Supposed to repel hornworms.) They bolt in heat, but if you keep them shaded and trimmed, they'll survive. If you grow root parsley, you get a twofer, leaves and a root vegetable. I'm fond of parsley root. Or you can leave it in the ground and it will bloom and set seed. I grow papalo as a cilantro substitute, I have a theory that it repels bugs. Lemon balm. Spearmint (I've never gotten peppermint to survive). Sage, perennial, nice foliage, pretty flowers. I have a bay tree and Cuban oregano (very strong, smells wonderful) growing as house plants. Its hard to say if you'll like any of these flavors. To replace salt, you might prefer a blend. My Mrs Dash salt replacement has onion, pepper, parsley, celery seed, Basil, bay, marjoram, oregano, savory (I've grown this, but didn't use it) thyme, coriander, cumin (I love cumin, never got it to grow, but Nancy did), mustard, Rosemary, garlic, orange peel, carrot, lemon, tomato and red bell pepper. I don't like mustard greens, but I have grown it for seed. So Larry, leave a few plants and see what you get. I don't know what "flavor" of mustard you'll get. Maybe not good? You can grow black pepper, but not easily in our climate. Nasturtiums have peppery leaves, pretty flowers (may draw aphids). Its also supposed to have strong antibiotic properties. Incidentally, thyme, Rosemary and sage all have medicinal properties. I'm rambling.

Danny I'm sorry you're alone, but it sounds like you had a great meal. Ha, I know ALL natives aren't 8' tall, but all of them I looked at Tuesday were. I had made notes to look into them

Ron cooked some tomatoes yesterday that ripened. We still have a few ripening.

I'm a person who wants/needs light. My house is pretty dark, but we have a few south windows. Sun is shining now, so I feel better. Larry, ron put up a new dining room light recently. He put bright LEDs in it. It was shocking. Since we have an open floor plan it was just too bright for the rest of the house. He put the curly fluorescent bulbs from the old fixture in instead. The old fixture had globes that muted the light. New one bulbs point down, exposed.

Well Ron says we have to do stuff ;)
Rebecca (7a)
3 years ago
Happy Turkey Day everyone! I’m thankful for this space.

Checking in while the yeast rolls rise.

I planted basil with my tomatoes this year, and did not see hornworms. The tomatoes also shaded the basil during the hottest weather, and therefore I didn’t need to pinch off the flowers nearly as often as I do when they’re in their own pots.
hazelinok
3 years ago
Moni, I got the turkey from NG in Norman. It was one of the Mary's ones. You have to preorder them...I guess to know who many to kill? Although, I think sometimes they have people not pick them up so they have extras. Kim probably knows how it works.

Danny, sounds great!

I think my arp rosemary is on it's 3rd year. It's in the bed around the chicken pen. I wish I hadn't put it there because it's so big. It wasn't big when I planted. I pulled a couple of sprigs and put them in the turkey, along with a couple of sprigs of thyme and sage.

I tried the basil thing for hornworms after Dawn and several of you have had luck with that. It didn't work for our garden.

I'll take hornworms over many other things, though. As long as you keep an eye on the plants a couple of times a day. Problem is when you don't. Then it's a big problem.

Okay. I'm considering a short nap before finishing up the food and "dressing" for dinner.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
If you managed a nap, I'm jealous. I laid down about 1, and within one minute of getting into bed, the power goes off.
And since I'm on CPAP and oxygen for sleeping, that means no napping. I tried after power came back on (about an hour), but apparently the mood was lost. Possibly by running around house and silencing shrieking things (UPS, oxygen concentrator, and oddly an old alarm clock---never had done that before...so figured it fried).
It was a pretty nice day outside though, 64 and sunny. Despite my grousing, I am thankful for it ;)

Next week is supposed to be colder, down to 20 Monday night.

I'm kinda wanting to catch my new neighbor (moved in, in July), because I went out Tuesday morning, and went 'Whoa, something's different!' and noticed two trees along fenceline (on my side though) had been cut off to fence level. I can only assume my neighbors are responsible. And while I actually wanted to cut them down (so not sad), I think I should speak about cutting down trees rooted on my property without a word to me. I need to cut the trunks down to ground level now...and then that's where my fall flowering witch hazel (H. virginiana) will go, I think. Will make mowing a bit more challenging because I won't plant on fence line (so that neighbors might want to cut it down), so will have to mow around it at least till it gets big enough to discourage bermuda.
jlhart76
3 years ago
Law about trees and fences is you can cut anything growing on your side as long as you don't harm the tree. But common sense dictates you talk to the owner first just to make nice. Otherwise cutting them is a good way to annoy someone you're going to have to live next to for a while.

Turkey turned out perfect though I forgot to put it in the brine last night so I remembered at 4 this morning. Everything else was good to, though I'm going to be eating dressing for a week. Why can't I figure out how to make a small amount? I even made half the cornbread I normally do & still there's nearly 3/4 a pan left. Night everyone, gotta go research leftover dressing uses...
Nancy Waggoner
3 years ago
I took a page from your playbook, Danny. Well, yours and mine. Perhaps just to be a bit contrary, also, I decided this Thanksgiving thing was moot. First, kind of a slap in the face to our indigenous neighbors. . . second, Garry warned me when we got together that he didn't do holidays. I didn't either, really--just Christmas with my Mpls kids and grandkids. I am nothing, if not lazy, regarding holidays. I don't like doodads lying about. I have enough STUFF vices without holiday junk. I have quilting fabric up the kazoo. Also art supplies. Also seeds, winter sowing containers, expensive flats for my grow cart, my grow cart (!). And books, books, books! Holiday doodads would just push me right over the edge. And I've been on a reading binge, so wasn't in the mood to cook a holiday dinner for just us, especially since both of us have plenty of other foods to love.

I was in the mood for a good old hamburger. To fancy it up for Garry, I also made fried potatoes and deviled eggs. LOL. We had a splendid Thanksgiving dinner.

I DO have a frozen turkey breast in the freezer and am working up an appetite for fresh cranberry something and dressing, so we'll probably have that in the next few days. I never do cornbread dressing (now, Jen, I believe that IS a southern thing. I mean to comment on this earlier. Bacon grease in a mug near the stove is not. I think that stems from depression era. I came from Wyoming, and we always kept a mug of bacon grease. And so I always have, in Wy and in Mn, and now down here.). But I DO a combo bread/cornbread dressing. My dressing is always an exercise in freedom and creativity--various elements are mushrooms, oysters, sausage, turkey giblets, water chestnuts, whatever strikes my fancy. Another for sure southern thing is biscuits and gravy. You all need to check with me before you declare southern things. I can assure you there certainly ARE southern things. Here's a few: serving bologna at restaurants; smoking bologna; okra; THE BEST BBQ SAUCE in the USA--Head Country!!!; yep, biscuits and gravy. . . . invite you to play along with me. . . ?

I'm certainly celebrating Thanksgiving in my way this year, however. I'm so thankful for all of you. For all of my friends here, on FB, in MN and in WY. I

Yep Danny, our gardens will be shot by Monday morning. I was out taking pics of the cosmos, Mexican sunflowers, peppers, parsley--crazily enough we had an endless Summer hydrangea bloom a couple weeks ago. Have NEVER see that before, down here. Temps look brutal next week--like Jan-Feb brutal. Oh well. Glad I'm into reading.

Jen. . . do you always brine your turkey? I have 2-3 times, liked doing it. How do you do yours?

Now I AM the one who is rambling. . . . XOXO
OklaMoni
3 years ago
Oh, Nancy, I am so with you on several points.

do dads for holidays... Nope, not happening here. Haven't decorated for any since I went solo.

I don't agree on the to much stuff... since I am fairly good at something out, when something comes in. But not at the moment. I bought a new pressure cooker/canner. The 23 quart one. Wished I had it, when I had enough produce... but just gave the surplus away this year.

Nancy, Head Country BBQ sauce was "invented" in Ponca City... where I lived the longest part of my life. They used to have a restaurant too, but I don't know if it is still there, as well if it is still made there.

I need to finish the cold frames that are all being made in my head... but might have to just put blankets out to keep things from freezing early next week.

Anyone going Black Friday shopping? LOL... running and hiding...

Moni
Larry Peugh
3 years ago
We had our Thanksgiving meal at my daughters yesterday evening. I loved seeing everyone, but it was sort of a drag also. My daughter has a large house, and has, what they call " the big room", which it is. It is sort of an entertainment room with sink, refrigerator, cabinets, wood cook stove, a very long "L" shaped bar, It is all old western theme, with tons of old junk hanging on the wall. It looks more like an old saloon/ brothel, with the "L" stairs leading up to the balcony and bedrooms above. We had room be 10' apart and only use one corner of the room, plus we wore mask. It just was not the same. I could not understand anything that was said because my hearing is almost gone, and the mask muffle anything said.

I expect my garden will flop after Mom.. Ft. Smith weather says 23 degrees Mon. night, that could mean 17 - 20 degrees here.

My neighbor came down for some radishes yesterday and said he would come down to pick sacks of green for the old folks at bowling. It seems strange, but the mustard green are the one most folks want. I did not plant a lot of them, but I have tons of turnip and collard greens.

I need to get out and fix a cold frame. I am going to try just driving 2 x 4's into the ground and hinging a cattle panel to the ones on one side and attaching plastic with clothes pins. I will have to check to see if I can still lift a 16' cattle panel, if not, I will cut it in half and make two of them.
Nancy Waggoner
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
I told Garry what you said, Larry, about the masks and distancing. He knows exactly what. you're talking about. His hearing is shot, too. I know several folks who did Thanksgiving by Zoom yesterday. I wish I'd thought of that. Speaking of Zoom, HJ, that could be a lot of fun. I posted a few pcs several minutes ago. I wonder if they'll ever show up.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
Well I headed to the grocery store this morning (which was deserted..the way I like it). I thought I was refreshing just a few things that were low (mlk, biscuits, canned milk, etc). However, I think I made the classic mistake of going just before lunch, and somehow my bill on checkout was $80. I guess I'll eat it though (lol). It was nice to eat something I bought and not have more leftovers (this would have been my third consecutive day of holiday meal). I will finish the leftovers for supper and have done with them.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
3 years ago
I was having fun in the post that hasn't shown up by mentioning things that I thought were uniquely OK or southern.

I do that now and then Danny. Tuesday was the last time. I ordered online for pickup Wednesday. And though thought I was just out of a few things, ended up spending $130. I was SO bummed the next day to find out three of the things I REALLY wanted/needed were out of stock. Buttermilk, hot dogs, and small ears of frozen corn. I wanted to do a seafood boil for Garry. REALLY need those little ears of corn. I couldn't go into the store, though, because it was obviously overrun with customers. The Walmart lot was like Grand Central Station. Cars and people everywhere! So much for social distancing. Bet that was a super spreader for Wagoner. LOL! Really not funny, huh.

Question for you all--do any of you have toaster ovens and do you use them a lot? Seems like it would be a good deal for us, since it's just 2 of us. Probably would save a lot of electricity, I'm thinking.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
3 years ago
BLACK FRIDAY DEAL: ENJOY 15% OFF everything with code "PTTHANKS" www.superseeds.com

Don't forget to put in the code like I did a couple of years ago.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
I have a small convection oven that is used about 500% more than my real gas oven. It's in the size range of a toaster oven.

I decided (among other things) that I craved kolaches, so I bought cresent roll dough, cheese, and smoked jalapeno/cheddar sausages to assemble my own perhaps tomorrow. Lots of impulse buys...and a few odd stockups (like tobasco sauce...that's like every 2 years?) But as I told myself after I exited, it's not like I won't eat it....nothing I bought will ruin. Well the bananas might get away and become banana nut bread, but umm that's not waste!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
3 years ago
last modified: 3 years ago
I'm broke, Amy. I just saved myself $27 on the Cosori toaster oven. Glad to see your input, Danny. I looked at both convection ovens and toaster ovens. I settled on a toaster oven that bakes, broils, airfrys, and dehydrates. And other stuff. I had to be careful of dimensions, too, since it has to fit between the bottom of the cupboard and the counter. Aha. It IS a convection oven, too.

Moni, all of this is YOUR fault. Furthermore, wasn't I the one who was saying I don't buy kitchen gadgets? This didn't feel like a gadget. Felt like a necessity. When you asked that question, I thought no WAY would I do any Black Friday shopping. . . I was thinking there's NOTHING I need. Then all of a sudden, my grandmother's toaster oven popped into my head. I hate our toaster. Takes forever to toast. And it's ugly. Then I thought about how guilty I feel heating up the oven for just silly things, not real hard-core cooking or baking. And even guiltier in the summer when I heat it up. TaDA!! I need a convection or toaster oven. This will be GREAT.

Okay, now maybe I'll go look at the seeds. :)

Kolaches sound great. I think I need to make some, too.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
3 years ago
Random discovery today when I clicked on an edible flower mix. Agastache is edible! https://www.registerguard.com/article/20140717/lifestyle/307179813
Nancy RW (zone 7)
3 years ago
Well, I'll be. Thanks for that little nugget. :)
luvncannin
3 years ago
Nancy Waggoner
3 years ago
I know, Kim!!! BRRRRRR. . .
luvncannin
3 years ago
Looks like we are going to get frosty.

most of my stuff is ready. We had a nice rain a couple nights ago so everything is well watered.

i have harvested all the seeds except for okra.

I told my grandson I was the crazy seed lady. I had seeds everywhere. I handled all those today. Well I take that back I have some black eye peas to shell. I will put those in jars. Whatever happened to them this year is not worth saving the genetics. I will buy fresh seed for those as soon as I can find them
hazelinok
3 years ago
I wonder why your power went out, Danny....were y'all having storms?

I barely took a nap. I laid down with my "meditate to the sounds of nature" station, but couldn't really sleep. It was nice to be still for a few minutes, though.

Jen, I'm glad your turkey turned out well. Mine was okay, I guess. I'll make bone broth from all the scraps...and probably turkey/noodle soup with the rest of it. I'll freeze it if necessary.

Isn't it great how we can all celebrate how we want? Or not celebrate at all? We're free to do what we want in that area. To me, having a day to especially focus on gratitude is great! I try to leave it at that. And try to use it as a refocus to stay grateful throughout the year. And it's nice to see family and eat traditional favorites. For those who don't like that, it's wonderful that they can do other things.

Our outside lights are up and are on a timer now...since last night.

(and the traditional BC Clark commercial just came on...the one from childhood that y'all all know and love if you're from Oklahoma...with Santa riding in the sleigh.)

Anyway, my goal is to have them up and ready so that we can light them on Thanksgiving night. Goal accomplished.

Our tree is up and decorated. I'll do the other decorating tomorrow. My style has simplified. I like to use the same vases and whatnots and use them all year, but change out the contents of them. Like, apothecary jars can be filled with different things depending on the season. In the winter, it's usually pinecones. I like to keep it simple and tidy. I also don't like a lot of stuff sitting around. Actually I don't like a lot of stuff sitting around ever. It makes me nervous. BUT, I love visiting friends who have a more 'cluttered' style. It's interesting to look at their stuff. My brain is just too cluttered and a cluttered living environment makes me feel panicked.

Tom and I did our usual breakfast out and then picked up keepsake ornaments at Hallmark and the annual visit to Bath and Body Works. It's a tradition. They were keeping it serious at that store. There was a lineup outside and they did it like stores were doing it back in March and April. They only let so many in at a time. I got my traditional soaps and candles for December. It was especially important this year with so many changes and weirdness. It was comforting to get those items.

We didn't do much Christmas shopping though....I already gave Ethan a big chunk of his gift which was money to buy a plane ticket to Portland. He's going back at the end of December for a couple of weeks. I'm going to lose him to Portland soon. He's an interesting kid. Very different from other kids in beliefs and all...except for maybe his friend that he's visiting soon....and it's especially interesting because she is in Portland for crying out loud. I would think she would have all the tendencies of that area especially.

Her favorite book is Dispelling Wetiko, so I ordered it. Let's just say that I must be very similar to her in personality regardless of age and upbringing.

I didn't look at the garden today, but did yesterday. Amy, I'm not quite ready to buy seeds. BUT, two seed catalogs showed up on Wednesday. I can't remember which ones...Totally Tomatoes maybe? And another one.

And, that is all from me. And it's a mess.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
Re: blackout, we usually have squirrels as the cause. I wish the power lines were underground or something. That's often right in my backyard at the transformer, and i hear the sizzle, this was a less local outage nearly a quarter of Springdale, but I guess it could still have been a squirrel (lol).

It's suppossed to be *20* here Monday morning. We've had it a bit cooler than most of you and everything is done here (for a week or so), but it hasn't been lower than 27 or so yet. Winter is coming though.
jlhart76
3 years ago
Sometimes I brine, other times I'll just marinate. This year I did a cup of salt & a couple oranges, then enough water to cover it. Soak for 12 hours. Then baked with sliced oranges, garlic, & salt/pepper.

I couldn't find anything in the sale flyers to motivate me to go out so my black friday shopping was online. One of my facebook groups had a thread for all the seed sales but I couldn't find enough that I needed to justify it. Mel wants to go out today so I may go ahead & get groceries done too.
OklaMoni
3 years ago
Nancy I borrowed my daughters toaster oven, back a few years... cause I thought, it wouldn't heat up the house as much that summer as an oven would. I rarely turn the oven on in the summer month.

That was a good deal. :)

Never used it once.

Money and countertop space saved. :)

Amy, I ordered 9 packets of seed from MI Gardener. I am done. Did you all know, he doubled the price of his seed packets?

Kim I know. I have everything including the windows from old storm windows to make cold frames. But then... last week Thursday I put a HUGE mark through my "doing things" list. Can't make those cold frames... CRAP.

But I did realize, I have the okra and black beans... which were heirloom thus I don't have to buy them.

I think, my beach towels will be out again... they were last out just the evening before the ice storm.

Should have worked on the cold frames a while ago.... live and learn, and don't put stuff off for later.

Lets try to stay warm next week.

:) Moni
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
3 years ago
I walked around my garden yesterday. I have a couple of nice Swiss Chard plants, a couple of nice arugula and some little reseeded ones, a little lettuce that reseeded, nice Brussels sprouts, broccoli and some kale planted this fall. The pansies out front are gorgeous. There were some fresh buds on the spring planted piracicaba. The brassica in that bed got hit with Harlequin bugs and cabbage worms, but it is slowly recovering. I think I have one Collard plant. I'm thinking about throwing frost blankets over things like the Chard. But it probably won't happen.

I happily bought seeds yesterday and still didn't get my discount. Fedco is not taking orders till December. I tell myself I bought enough natives last year and heaven knows I don't need tomato seeds (or kale, really, but greens are a weakness.)

We replaced my folks ancient convection oven just before they moved (she was using it with a melted cord and plug!) We've considered one, but Ron is OCD about counter space. He liked using the one at work.

We tried to do an Alexa video call with my dad for Thanksgiving, but couldn't get a stable connection. So we passed the phone around. We took leftovers to him yesterday. We were going to sit outside and visit, but the wind was too cold.

We're babysitting the older boys today. Time to go.
Larry Peugh
3 years ago
I never brined anything other than deer. I would cut it up and soak it in saltwater for about three days keeping it packed in ice. I am not sure why I did it, I was tole it would take some of the wild taste out of it. I am not sure if it did, we used the meat and nobody died from it.

I checked the south garden, all looks well, but slow. I don't remember ever growing fall beets, and I might as well not tried this year, they are not growing bulbs yet,and it don't look as they will. The turnips are much too thick. That does not bother me though because I was trying them for a green manure/cover crop. I will have to wait and see how that works. The greens are doing great and it seems as though I have more people wanting them. The greatest demand is on the mustard. That has surprised me, I did not plant as many of them. A fellow yesterday ask if I had any rape, this was up at my neighbors house, and the neighbor ask what that other kind of green was that we planted in the wildlife garden. My neighbor said " didn't you tell me you tell me you bought some rape seed". I had to tell him that I think that I bought 3# of rape, 3# of collards and, 6# of turnips, and I had 10 or 15 pounds of Austrian winter peas. I let my neighbor do almost all of the planting because I don't walk very well. We may no know just what we have, but we have plenty of it. What is not eaten will be turned back into the soil anyway.

We are going to have Thanksgiving today, again. I think I like it better this way. Madge's son, and his daughter are coming today. Madge has a wonderful family and I love to visit with them, but I cant understand anything when there are 15 people in a room and all talking at once, I almost have to do one on one, where I can watch there mouth and expressions.

It looks like it is going to be a great day. I though that I do some burning, but the wind is getting too high for that, but I can find plenty to do befor the company gets here.
Nancy RW (zone 7)
3 years ago
Haha, Larry! That sounds like me. . . not sure what I'm growing, but looks like plenty. The red mustard cracks me up. Just popped up here and there--in the original bed and out of the bed. I've been brining some pork lately. We're having a hard time finding loin and even tenderloin that's not tough. I've about decided to stick with pork shoulder roasts. Frankly, I think the taste is superior to the others.

Happy second Thanksgiving.

I was a bit worried about counter space, Amy. I measured carefully. But then I thought, "What can I get off these counters that doesn't need to be on them. Actually was room where the toaster and coffee pot are. The toaster will be gone anyway because of the toaster oven, . . And that's a corner of the counter space that had plenty of room where the toaster was. PLUS I moved some other stuff off the other counter space next to the fridge and then on either side of the stove. I'm excited about the electricity we'll save--really, used the stove almost every day. And for two people--awfully big stove for just two people. I guess you know now I'll NEVER make it to a Vitamix. Or to a nice Kitchenaid mixer. Besides, those things would take up serious counter space, too.

Do you like the piricicaba? How does the taste compare to heading types? I think I might like to try it, depending on your opinion. I'm a little jealous about all your greens, Larry and Amy, which I think is nuts, considering I'm not that crazy about greens. But with the new scare with romaine, I can definitely see the appeal of growing one's own greens. And since I don't have any big plans for the garden, I guess I'll plant a bunch of greens.

HJ. . . I would think Dispelling Wetiko would be perfect for Oregon! My kids in Mpls have talked about how much they love that area--and how beautiful much of Oregon is. I've only been on the coast, not inland.

I got a chuckle about kolaches/klobasnek/sausage rolls this morning. I was all excited about trying them out, Danny, so was looking at recipes specifically with the crescent roll dough. It seemed to me they might be a little crispier fixed that way? Are they? One of the bakeries in town sells sausage rolls. We get the jalapeno sausage ones. BUT. I have kind of a love/hate relationship with them. I can't love the soft roll-like quality. I start out liking them (with mustard), and by the time I finish one, I decide I don't like them. I tried crisping one up in the skillet, and liked it much better. But found a really good-looking recipe--they used ground sausage and mixed it with cream cheese. I might experiment a bit. Why I chuckled was that when I got up this morning (slept in until 8:30), Garry had left me a note that he was on a trip to town for sausage rolls. He must have felt the vibe.

Okay. . . to work!
Nancy RW (zone 7)
3 years ago
Red maverick mustard:

Endless Summer? I guess!

Habaneros. Can never have too many habaneros, right?

Parsley: 1 of 3 stands.
dbarron
Original Author
3 years ago
I haven't done it yet (the kolaches)...maybe tomorrow? But I've done pig in blankets essentially the same and yes, I think the crescent roll dough is a thinner crispier (but soft) dough.
AmyinOwasso/zone 6b
3 years ago
Well, I like Piracicaba. Dawn said it got aphids for her, but, knock wood, I have not found that to be so. It tastes like a mild broccoli, with a slightly different texture since the buds are looser and a little larger. And of course, the more you cut it the more it sprouts. It was bred for Brazilian heat and I have had it live through summer and sprout again in fall on several occasions.
luvncannin
3 years ago
I am trying a trick in reverse on my tomatoes

I learned in Lubbock you can plant 4-6 weeks early by wrapping your tomato case in heavy clear plastic

we did at least 150 plants and lost none to below freezing or hail or snow or wind. It was amazing to be part of that and see for myself.

so my experiment today my grandson found a huge green tomato on one of my fall plants. Instead of picking it we wrapped the cage and shall see if the freeze kills it or not.

also gathered seeds galore and lots of cotton bolls
hazelinok
3 years ago
I really missed Dawn tonight when I wanted to ask her about keeping a third rooster. I know she kept more than one or two at times.

Nancy, your plants look great! Our peppers slowly died about getting bit with that frost a few weeks ago. It's funny that they didn't die quickly like the tomatoes and okra. It took them a few days. ANYWAY, your habaneros look so pretty!.

Dispelling Wetiko was written by a guy from Oregon, I think. People there may not necessarily be dispelling Wetiko. Not all of them. I think they think they are....but they also seem to be under "spells". But it's too deep of a topic for this forum. Haha.

Oregon seems just lovely, though. It's doubtful I'll ever leave Oklahoma, other than for trips.

I got a lot done today and am happy about that.
OklaMoni
3 years ago
I never kept more than one rooster. In the beginning, because they fought. Then, once a new "chick" started to crow, we had it/him for Sunday dinner. :)

Moni

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