Lynn that's the way my cukes do when it turns off really hot. You can still pickle them at least till they start turning yellow but it's not ideal. When mine get that way I just call it a season and replant for the fall if it'll cool off some. OSU says Aug 10-20 for fall cucumbers , seed or trans plants.

Larry , some of my winter squash is done fried in the heat along with the summer squash . The grasshoppers are getting bad now too starting to shred things . In hot summers like this I can walk across the garden and just see a wave of grasshoppers move across.

Rick

Rick, if it were not for those two rigs in the picture, I would have to retire from gardening. It always has been a hobby for me, but trying to keep up a bunch of junk makes it an expensive hobby.

That is my 9th bucket of mulch/compost on the tractor now that I have hauled to the gardens this morning. I am running low, that is unfinished compost that I am using that was meant for fall and spring use. I hope the landfill in Ft. Smith will have some compost for sale this winter. It is getting a lot harder to get compost from the landfill because more people are buying it for gardens and landscaping. I dont know how so many people are building so many homes to landscape around. It seems strange when there is so much talk about food shortages, and new homes are popping up everywhere.

I know I am bouncing around everywhere with my subjects, I am hot and tired and ready to eat lunch.

I watered early this morning before going to a doctor appointment with my Mom. Got home, brought the cat in and checked the chickens' waterers and squirted them with water.

Just yuck. I'm not going back out until 7 or later. It will be interesting (and sad) to see how everything looks.

We might just go get ice cream for dinner. After 7. I don't feel like cooking. I haven't had ice cream in months.

Rick, we did can greens and beans. And I've done a couple of batches of diced tomatoes and a small batch of bread and butter pickles. And we'll do your soup tomorrow.

I wanted to ferment most of the cukes this time. They are so much better this way. Still have a bit of crunch to them.

I feel like it's been a hard year, but we've gotten good harvests of potatoes, onions, cabbage and cucumbers. Tomatoes and peppers so-so. Not bad, though. Although the heirlooms are probably toast.

Really, not much to report. We're hanging at 109 at our house. We'll see it if makes it to 111.

My min/max is showing 109 now. I cam in for lunch and did not go back out to work again. The tractor is still out by the south garden with a bucket of mulch, I will wait till sundown to do anything else outside.

We are on water restrictions and my gardens are burning up. I drove around the place checking on the water. The water is not good, the wet weather creeks are dry, the pond is low. Mackenay creek, which runs north to south across the property is not flowing but still has pools in it. My artesian well is still flowing. The old house is at the artesian well, I miss the place because of the water supply, I had a good garden over there because of the great water supply. I may need to get a 12 volt pump, or a gasoline pump so I could get water there in case of emergency.

Jennifer, can you share your pickle recipe? I did not get my cucumbers planted, so asking for a recipe now is sorta like counting your chickens before they hatch. I have the compost and the tiller at the garden, and the seeds sitting on the seat in my rtv, so not long after sundown I should have the seeds in the ground, and if this weather doesn't change I may end up with fried pickles.

110 in OKC , broke the record of 109 in 1936.

Rick

We made some Mrs Wages refrigerator dill slices today. Tasted of cucumbers first and about half of my 4 pounds were bitter. I think I'm waiting too long to pick.

Lynn, Madge made some refrigerator that were, really good and I ask her about them and was told, "I don't know, it must have been something you showed me, or I saw on facebook", so we are back to square one on pickles.

I had planned on working in the garden after sundown, we are in the shade of the mountain and it is still 103 degrees. I think I will go out and work for a few minutes anyway.

Larry, that happens around here , a lot . Too much.

Still feels like a broiler outside. and it's 102 at sundown.

Rick

Its 95 degrees and I have Madge looking for me a coat.

I did a little tilling and got a 4' row of cucumbers planted. The cucumbers are in sorry soil with a lot of half rotted hay tilled in. I also spread a little mulch.

Lynn, I have no idea what has happened, I think I have been abducted and taken to a far away planet, I sure miss earth, this must be the place the preacher warned us about. Man, I sure thought my dog was good enough to miss this place.

We just dropped to 97. yay!

lol

Larry, the fermented pickle recipe?

Here it is crunchy pickles

You have to scroll down to get to it.

I put mine in a crock instead of jars.

The bread and butter pickles recipe is from a book that came with my canner. I can type it up here if that's the one you want.

Lynn, I had to blow up my screen up to type, and I had miss read your post, that too happens a lot for me, getting old is not a lot of fun, but I guess getting dead is even less fun.

It's 96 in Norman at 10 pm. I heard them say 80 something for a low before sunrise tomorrow.

I remember the hot nights back in 2011 and 2012. It was hot all night long.

Rick

Jennifer, don't go to the trouble of typing the recipe, I don't even have any cucumbers yet. If I can get cucumbers I may do some reading on line. Madge and I are both so beat up that we cant do much anyway.

Thanks for the link, I will get Madge to read it tomorrow, she is in bed now. We are babysitting for daughters yorky for a week, and I think the little dog has Madge worn out, he sticks to her like glue and wants her to chase him and try to get his toy from him.

OSU date to plant fall cucumbers. Aug 10-20.

That's if it cools down enough.

Rick

I may have messed up, but that is something I am good at. I was going by the Arkansas year round planting guide, but it is not very detailed, From what I can see so far. there is not going to be a good time to plant many things this fall, but the weather can turn on a dime.

It needs to just cool down and rain a little.

Rick

We got about 1/16" of rain this morning. Hooray! I'm afraid it's going take a LOT more than that to get it to where it's needed. We could turn around in 2 weeks with heavy thunderstorms though. I say go for that fall stuff regardless, seeds are cheap.

I may plant some fall green beans this weekend. My final spring bean harvest will be this weekend.

I'd like to plant some shell beans for the fall around the 1st week of Aug if this heat would lay off.

Rick

Larry, it is no trouble. In fact, I could probably take a picture of the recipe and just post it here. Let me know if you get cucumbers and want the recipe.

Jennifer. thanks, I think a picture would work. I checked the cucumbers and they are not up yet, but it may be too soon, it has been almost 18 hours since I planted the seeds, but my peas are starting to come up, but it has been 3 or 4 day for them.

I was cleaning up around my tomatoes that had a living clover mulch, I have found out why my tomatoes look so bad, the ground is so dry and hard.

I went over to the wildlife garden doing a trash patrol. I did not find much trash, and most of the wildlife garden looks bad. We are only watering cantaloupe and some of the peas, and they are not getting enough water.

Here's some ideas for cucumbers. I've not tried these, just putting it out there for those who have cukes now. https://www.ruralsprout.com/preserve-cucumbers/

Amy, thanks, when my grand daughter comes over I am going to have her save this link.

My son called about an hour ago and said he had a bunch of seeds for me. I expect they are old, but, I also expect to have a bunch of seeds I can use. He said that Ace hardware was clearing out their stock and just gave them to him. Son said there were a bunch of flower seeds, which I dont have a lot of use for, but there should be a lot of veggie seeds also.

The temp was pretty nice this morning, but my thermometer is showing 103 now.

Wow Amy, that site and the links has a tremendous amount of cucumber pickling info. Canning the bread and butter pickles really caught me eye.

I've much to learn about cucumbers, I never knew.

For sure, they will darn sure hide. I went through my plants three times yesterday and then this morning find two 6" cucumbers that I've no idea how I missed.

Lynn, some hide, and some leave town for a while, I have found them that look more like watermelons, I know they cant get that large in one or two pickins.

I planted another 50' of zipper cream, I need my head checked.

I swear I checked yesterday & there wasn't a single cucumber, but today there was one about 8" long & 4" across. Tried a bite but the skin was too tough, so I cut it up & dumped it in an old jar of store pickles. If they turn out great, if not I'm not out anything.

I have a small bowl of cherry tomatoes, some basil, & a little mint. Not enough to really do anything with them, tho.

Jen a summer salad sounds good with all that in it. Larry I am going to plant peas today. It rained and may still be. I finally got my bed ready and several pots. I found some string I am going to cover my pots with netting and use m my string to hold in place. All my trees are completely defoliated. It’s a pitiful sight.

Kim, I had Madge buy me some clothespins to use in my seed starting projects, I normally use the metal spring clips, but they seem to be a little harder to find, and may cost a little more, but either one might be helpful in holding netting in place. I am afraid that I may have to use netting to protect plants from grass hoppers, but I have heard that they sometimes even eat netting.

I would like to go out and plant collards, kale, mustard, daikon radish, turnips,and rape. I think all of these would come up and grow as long as I could keep water to them, but I would be jumping the gun on all of them. I have a really strong case of the hankerins, I trimmed my finger nails really short last night so the garden soil cant pile up under then, that sometimes helps with the gardening hankerins.

I've seen grasshoppers eat the paint off of buildings,

I hear there's a cool down around the end of next week with maybe some rain.

Might be a good time to plant some fall stuff then . Bring it on.

Rick

Larry I do have spring clothespins. I buy them at dollar tree. I also have binder clips somewhere

Kim, binder clips is what I was talking about. I have 3 or 4 sized of them that Madge bought at Walmart a few years ago, I love them. The clothes pins are nice too, but they dont fit my needs as well as the binder clips.

I went down to neighbor's veggie stand a while ago, and he told me about a rain coming through this afternoon. I told him that he should be ashamed to lie to an old man like that, but he still says we should over an inch.

I planted my last sweet potato slip. I am really late with the covington potatoes, but I have just got to get some for slips for next year, if I have to, I will try to keep plants alive in the house all winter.

Old, just looked at the radar. You lucky dog! That looks like some real rain and I would pay for it right about now.

I don't think the temp has reached the levels predicted all week. The five day at the start of the week was nothing but 100* plus. Here in OKC we did not get there yesterday or today and tomorrow is predicted 97.

Almost feels cool .... hahaha

I am sitting in this recliner, just woke up from a nap. was 107 when I dozed off, woke up to 82 and raining, and dark. If we can get more of this my peas in the wildlife garden may make a few peas, I doubt that it's gonna hurt the ones I just planted in the south garden. It sure would be nice if we get enough rain to close up all the cracks in the ground.

I am going to have a hard time resisting planting some collards, may even plant 2 or 3 kinds. I dont like to have bare ground, so I try to keep a few bermuda grass, clover, brassicas and some small grain seeds on hand.

Neighbor just called to rub it in about the rain that I said we would not get, but I still dont think we will get over an inch, but I am not sending any of it back. Neighbor said it has been 45 days without rain.

I've been feeling encouraged about the cool down next week. might be some hope after all.

I'm ordering some extra seed for the fall.

Hope it's not in vain.

Rick

I hope we got enough rain to take some pressure off the lake that supplies our water, Having to let the garden go is one thing, but having the lake very low puts a lot of things at risk. Maybe we can get more rain next week.

I think that I should do things differently next year. I think the first thing I need to do is to try to plant eariier, but I dont have a lot of control over the weather. About all I can do is try to get the ground ready. We had so much rain early in the year and it too wet to work the ground, then it turned hot and dry.

Rick, I started stocking up on seed when covid hit, and may buy more seeds when I find, and need them.

I don't know how much rain we got, but it was sure not what we needed. I would guess that we got around 1/4", there was very little run-off, but the grass in the pasture looks a little happier.

We had been ask not to brush hog or cut hay because of fire danger. I need to do some brush hogging and spray the fence line and honey locus in the pasture.

The wildlife garden looked better today. The last peas planted are coming up, the ones that are starting producing are really not good, but maybe this little rain will help them.

I have work that need done in all gardens, but spraying the fence line needs to be done first.

I would pay for rain, too!

Binder clips in the garden--YES! Love them for the garden.

Lynn, I'm so thankful that we haven't reached the predicted highs on most days. Tuesday was brutal. My almost ripe elderberries dried on the bush. I don't think they're useable.

So disappointing.

Larry, that's a nice way to wake up--to cool temps and RAIN! Sorry it wasn't enough.

Rick and I canned soup a couple of nights ago. We got 16 jars (I think) and a jar of juice.

Just came in from watering -- 2 hours later here I am.

Considering pulling out some of the tomatoes. I deep watered them. We'll see if they bounce back.

It's just a weird year for gardening (and in other ways). I can't quite put my finger on it....but something is off.

Jen, the Gartenperle makes such a pretty fruit. Unique color. I'll come back with a picture.

the color in the picture is a bit off....they are redder in person...a unique red. Almost looks like a handful of grapes.

Larry, I’m jealous of the rain Several times lately we have had thunder and lightning but not a drop of rain, I’ve had hankering to plant fall stuff too but having hard enough time just keeping a few tomatoes and cucumbers alive until the temperatures cool off. I picked out 8 of best looking tomato plants and deep water them every 3 days. I have a few PEPH peas but they dry on the vine before filling out. Our pastures look like winter, afraid we may have to put out hay a lot earlier this year. We went to Stillwater and got feed at the mill - between here and there they’ve had a lot more rain than us and have been blessed with showers twice since then. Just hang on and keep praying - I’ve heard the forecast for cooler temps and good chance of meaningfull rain. I sure hope they are right this time.

Farm, that sounds about like our luck with the rain. It was about 5 miles away last night and went the wrong direction. When the lightning hits a transformer and knocks out power, and you get ZERO rain out of it...just snake bit.

Lawn looks like it's throwing in the towel and going dormant. It's gonna take a LOT of precip to get us back right again.

On the bright side, we were able to can a few quarts of tomatoes today.

My lawn has gone dormant. Only good thing about that, I don't have to mow it every week. Im keeping water on it, but its not doing any good.

Madge froze a few tomatoes today. We don't do much canning, seems as tho we just dont feel like it any more.

The rain was nice, but very little run-off, seemed to all soak in

We have peas and cucumbers coming up, I think I might plant some other things. I have a row of tomatoes that wont recover, I think I will try to plant something under the trellis. I have trellises that I leave up all the time and just rotate the crop I plant next to them.

I noticed when I was out at the garden a while ago that I still have some pretty good size cracks in the soil, but I think we have a few more chances of rain in the next week, we need it.

My lawn does not look good either. I have not mowed in a few weeks. I like to let the grass grow, I think it insulates the ground a little, but I do need to mow over the lateral lines.

Me and Jennifer canned up some vegetable soup while we still had tomatoes and a little squash to go in it:

That finishes up the spring garden. End of season soup mix.

Now it's gun HO away for the fall plantin if it cools down and rains state wide like they say.

I got some extra seed ordered up for the occasion along with whatever is left over from the spring.

Think I got all the bases covered for the fall. Even got fall sweet corn planted on July 15 like OSU says, but I've been holding a water hose over it trying to get it to come up. still ain't got my Knuckle Hull peas to come up yet. And the okra is still only a foot tall , what the ****.

Hoping for a cool wet August and no 100's again into Sept.

Rick

Rick, it sure looks good. Madge and I go out to eat pretty often, and Olive Garden is out favorite place to go, soup and salad is what we always eat.

I made a bit of progress this morning. With the house hunting with my daughter, the visit with my sister, the mad dash to Colorado to get the grands from camp and finally my friends visit.. nothing much had been done besides watering.

But I had watered a patch, that was just right this morning, and I dug out some of that beloved Bermuda grass... LOL

I never plan to start anew again, but if I did... I would start digging out the Bermuda in one corner of the yard, and then just increase that area, instead of a circular here, a rectangle there and another circular etc. This encroaching Bermuda all the way around CONSTANTLY is rather bothersome.

It didn't look like rain to me, and didn't really sound like it either...but my daughter drug the solar panel in, cause she thought it would rain.

Yup, it sprinkled. I would call it 17 drops fell... and NOTHING was in the rain gauge. I would really like some rain.

Stay cool everyone

Moni

Moni, I think of you every time I see Bermuda, you sure have been on my mind a lot here lately. I have been meaning to spray my Bermuda, but just have not got around to it, in this heat that stuff can grow faster than I can dig, but the Bermuda is not the only grass/weed I am fighting.

The deer got into my sweet potatoes again last night. The temp has dropped to 97, so maybe I should go grab some wire and a charger.

I got part of the lawn mowed today. The only place that needed mowing was over the lateral lines, and It REALLY needed it.

Moni, as you can see, I have a lot of weeding to do also. This is around the edge of my sweet potatoes. You wont see a lot of Bermuda, but you can see that I have more than my share of Johnson grass, I think that I had rather deal Bermuda than Johnson grass. I bring in all kinds of junk grass in that free hay I get.------- Sorry, I got these pictures reversed. I am going to play this computer to try to learn how to correct the pictures. I have no idea how this is going to turn out.

Well I am not smart enough to figure out what I need to do to fix this post, but the above is a picture of my great grandson's sunflowers, he lives in northwest AR., and I want to send him a picture before I cut them down.

Ahead of the tiller I will be planting collards. Between the sunflowers and the row to the left will be Fl. broad leaf mustard. Where the sunflowers are I plan on planting some beets after the sunflowers mature. To the right, next to last row in the garden is a trellis of tomatoes, I plan on plant turnips in that turnip row. That row in past picture range.

go for it Larry. sometimes you just got to shotgun it. that's what I do.

Rick

I got very little done today. I picked and shelled about 1/2 of a 5 gal bucket of peas. The rain we had helped the peas a little, but they are of poor quality, they did not fill out well and a little harden to shell. I think I can go back to the wildlife garden and pick another couple of gallon, but they will be poor quality also, but will taste good.

I am not handling this heat to well.