Do you think we should just let this forum go? It's something that has been on my mind for the past few days. The number of originals and "guests" who visit/post here is very low. I'm not sure the reasons really. I can guess on a few things. For one, Houzz isn't easy to use with phones and tablets. And I suspect that the originals have all gone in various directions in their gardening goals, whether it be only flowers, only native plants, only vegetable gardening, etc.

Dawn was interested in all of those things, as am I. But, only Dawn seemed to have the ability to hold all those styles of gardening together here. Obviously, I can't do it. I don't have the experience or respect that Dawn had. I also don't have the time even if I tried really hard.

Also, this year was really difficult in the garden because of drought, pests and other things.

Some of the originals are busy at the FB group and don't have time to hold this one together too.

Anyway...what's y'all's opinions?

I'm really weary of the drought as I'm sure all of you are. It's become a chore to water.

Yesterday I planted a few of the cabbages and the collards and was astounded at how dry the ground is even in beds that I water nearly every day. I gave all of those beds a real flooding.

If we didn't have a well, the garden would already be closed. I would not be able to afford to keep it going. As it is, Tom is talking about adding some type of dripline, but I'm not sure how difficult that would be in the kitchen garden. It's worth researching for sure.

The sweet potato buckets/tubs were dumped yesterday, and the product was not what I had hoped for. It's okay. There are a few decent sized ones, but probably nothing one would want to bake for a holiday dinner, unless they were put into a casserole or pie. I will certainly try this method again with fewer slips in each container. And I'll go with my own intuition about watering more often.

I do think that is part of the issue with the gardens here. They didn't get enough of deep watering early on. Rains stopped June 10 and then we've had a couple of inches since. We lollygagged around with deep watering until it was too late. That is what I think.

The cucumbers that were given the MG look better. I have a lot of thoughts about this and sure wish I had someone like Dawn to discuss things with. My thought about this in particular is: is it possible that with the constant well watering, the nutrients in that raised bed soil have been depleted? Our well is very alkaline. We all know that rain nourishes the garden like nothing else and rains has been quite absent. Does anyone have any knowledge on this?

I will amend the beds this winter for sure with the chicken droppings and zeolite combo, which is why I don't really want to overwinter any plants. It is time to rest the soil and make amendments.

Next year (heaven forbid) if we have another year like this year, the fall garden will be much smaller (except in the case that there is a food shortage). The stress and frustration of keeping everything going may not be worth the cost. But, I like to think next year will be better.

Always hopeful... but prepared with several plans.

The apples from the columnar trees are very little this year, Very tasty, though. I used about 5 of them to start a batch of apple cider vinegar. I've fermented veggies and make kombucha, but this is a first for me. It's so easy too. Just put apples and/or apple scraps into filtered water with a bit of sugar/honey for the bacteria to feed on. That's it.

We'll see how it does.

I sure would like to know what everyone thinks about this forum.

Time for a few chores before a work related thing tonight. And hopefully time to plant a few more greens/brassicas.

Jennifer, I understand what you are saying about the forum. I like it, and think you are interesting, I also understand that you have very little time.

I expect there is a good chance that the economy will get worse next year, that is one reason I keep going on with the garden. My daughter likes the idea that I grow less, and, really I should, but what else is there for me to do. I dont think I have ever come out even on the food I have grown, I have to justify it as a hobby, and I have never made any money with a hobby either.

I have a set-up where I can haul water from a well on the other side of the property, but that is a half a mile haul, and I have to pump the water with a small 12 volt pump run off the battery on my rtv.. This pump cant last long, but, maybe till we can get some rain.

My daughter and grand daughter were over today, they are both concerned about my health and pushing for me to downsize, which I will do. Grand daughter and her boy friend said that they would come over next Sat. and help me dig sweet potatoes. I expect that the harvest will be very weak, but this has been the toughest gardening year I have ever had.

The forum will go on as long as there are two people to talk to each other.

I know what you mean, Kim. But, it was afternoon before the week's thread was made and I made it after work. I guess those two (or more) people can figure out how to keep it going in the way that works for the people who still post here regularly.

There were 5 different people who posted on last week's thread: Rick, Larry, Lynn, you and me. We don't own Houzz, so of course it will continue to go on. The people who are interested in the weekly threads can start those in the way that works for them.

It's not a place to really discuss gardening any longer--trouble shooting issues, asking/giving advice, along with daily life thoughts. And that is okay. Things evolve and change.

Larry, maybe a downsize isn't a bad idea. You grow a lot of stuff! You can still grow a lot to feed your family. And it still gives you something to do that is productive. I know that is important to you. It is to me too. I'm glad you have the ability to grab water from your pond. That's such a great blessing, but a lot of work, I'm sure.

I like this forum too, which is why I still post here although almost everyone else has fallen off, which is understandable. People are busy.

And, like Kim said, as long as a couple of people chat here, it will go on however those people keep it going.

And...even if we (you, me, all) decide to downsize for a time (like for a drought), IF food security becomes an issue, all of us here know how to grow food and we can always ramp it back up. BUT, another year like this year would be tough. Because even though we might work hard at keeping it going, sometimes things just don't make it in extreme heat and drought.

I've always had that in the back of my mind. IF I want to downsize for a season, I can always upsize again if needed.

As important as growing food is to me. All my time away from work can't be spent watering and jumping through hoops to keep plants alive. I have family. My Mom is a widow and I need to spend time with her, and I want to spend time with my kids too.

Anyway...

I hope the forum can continue on in whatever way it's meant to be...and in whatever way it blesses those who post here.

Jennifer, I don't know what type of watering system you have, but I am getting out my old pvc system and checking it out for next year. I haven't used it in 7 + years, and I know some repairs will have to be made, but it may be the answer for next year, but I WILL have to downsize.

I agree, family has to come first.

Houzz does irritate me. Here lately I have the pop up to the app, which I don't want, but no way to get out of it.

I have been in a funk, and haven't posted because I don't need to be a downer.

I'm thinking we need to look at what DID grow this year. We need to be figuring out how to deal with drought.

We're done here. Ron is tired of it. he's worked for 2 weeks on getting daughter moved so we can sell the rent house. Now he's sick.

Cucumbers never grew for me, Jennifer, but Ron's did well this year. I expect the problem is alkaline well water. Not necessarily washing out nutrients, but maybe affecting uptake?

This is one of George's forums, if you want to sample something else. https://seedsavingnetwork.proboards.com/

I hate to see it fizzle down, I've been on here for 20 years. But Im also guilty of not posting last week. Work has been busy, & Cliff & I have been working through a few things so my garden has been largely ignored for the last few weeks. I don't have anything to contribute so I haven't posted. I know years ago the threads were monthly, then weekly during peak gardening season. Maybe we should go back to that, see if we get a little more conversation going.

I feel like I don't have anything of interest, but I like the forum. Most of my stuff would be classified as "Rube Goldberg", but it interest me, and I will share if it interest others.

This is one of my old irrigation tubes, I started using these about 20 years ago, but have not used them in the past 7 or so years. The tubes will have to modified, my garden rows use to be 22' long, but have grown the past few years. I will have to add about 3' to the tubes.

This is how I am setting the tubes up.

I drive to the the old house and drop a hose into the well and pump into the barrels. This is a crude set-up and I hope to improve it.

I have a Dr. appoint in the morning and plan on picking up more supplies.

From looking at the stream coming out of the tube I should be able to run 2 tubes per barrel.

I just tossed the tube over into the turnip greens after I took the picture. I will check in the morning to see if there is any run-off. This "Free" water cost me more than the water out of the hydrant, if I could get it.

Larry That is a great remedy to the no outside watering. I want to set up rain barrels again and hook up my drip line. Even without rain I like to fill them with tap water and let it sit before I put it on the garden.

Testing testing

I'm interested in your turnip greens there.

Rick

Holy mackerel! I went to all the trouble of printing off your discussion from the desktop computer in the other room, HJ, brought it out here to the laptop and then realized I couldn't comment on the laptop. Which is why I've not been chiming in anyway--because I've not been using the destop computer. Well, now, apparently, Houzz has decided to work on the laptop. Huh. Who knew.

I'm in a baby funk, Amy. We still haven't regained strength lost over the past couple years, and with the grasshoppers and drought, just have ended up with nothing at our place, though the garden at Lincoln looks fairly good--but few veggies . Terrible tomato year, as most everyone has agreed, though we'll have some nice fall tomatoes at Lincoln. Of course none of us can really have a longterm garden without moisture at some point And so without a garden, not much to contribute in the way of gardening. I could talk about my life othewise--reading, church, the Lincoln garden and kids there, painting, butterfly collection, native plants, pet antics, but nothing that would be part of the conversation of folks who've been posting here regularly. Which is fine--all good. I check in here occasionally, but since I've not been spending time in the "everything room," hasn't seemed to be worth it to bother you all with my prattle. And so. That's all that's going on here! (But am glad to see Houzz seems to be working on laptop again. Yay!

I've already said that drought sucks...nuff said.

About grasshoppers.....I'm still beheading them.

About church... I've already talked about my dad and the dairy. somehow he merged the two together. and if you didn't go to his "brand" of church you might as well meet up with a bear grizzly.

About fall plantings, it's been pretty grim out east. I'm just trying to keep my spring planted collards/kale alive along with the okra. Can't even get a turnip patch going over there.

I've had better luck at Jennifers with fall plantings.

Anybody know any thing about elephant garlic?

Rick

I grow some. Not a lot of experience but I really like it. In fact I have the little bulbs it put off I need to plant out. All I did was keep a little water on it over the winter.

I accidentally grew elephant garlic--it was a volunteer in our drainage ditch. . . rascal refused to die. This was its third year, and GDW finally pulled it--we hadn't realized that's what it was. We had several cloves--I'll replant some of them this fall. I am a new fan, for sure. Bruce and George are both fans, as I recall.

I like to grow elephant garlic, that and the Egyptian walking onions are a gift that keep on giving, because they are so hardy. I am having a hard time getting Madge to use them. Madge has a weakness for Walmart, it is hard to get her weaned away from the bag and the can, but we are making headway. I am about ready to replant the garlic I have hanging in the shop. I also have a lot of onions that I will need to chop up and freeze. I also told daughter to go through her stash and freeze them. Of course we have some that have gone bad, but I always lose a few.

Rick, I expect that we have lost a lot of turnips in the wildlife garden, and in the neighbors garden, they came up and looked good till we had to cut the water off, I have not been over to check them. If I can find the part I need in Greenwood today, I will make a way to drive my rtv down the row and water them. There is no way I can water everything that needs it, but I need to make a way to water seeds in and get them started in the row.

Amy, don't let the funk keep you from posting, posting may be good medicine to help cure the funk.

Larry you are right. Reading and posting here gets me out of a funk many times. I refocus on my garden and garden dreams

I finally got spinach and bok choy up. Much of my seed stash is not coming up but I do believe partly because of where I got it. I have had problems with brand new seeds from them. I overseeded this time and got a decent stand.

Our weather guy is saying a chance of rain early next week, this will be a good time to plant more seeds, I can haul water to water the seeds in, and maybe get them up by the time it rains.

That's what I'm going to do.

At least re-seed in time to get rained on.

Rick

I have pushed out my okra plants and plan on getting that row ready to plant. I may have to go back with rape or mustard in hope to reduce the root knot nematodes that have damaged the okra roots, those are the only seeds I have that may even come close to working.

I think it is the time of the rear that we should be seeing a few rains. Oct. use to be my favorite time of the year to go hunting and camping, and often we would get a few light rains before, or during dear season.

Mustard will work for sure. OSU say Oct 10 planting date.

Rick

I will try for the 3rd time and if this doesn't work Houzz can kiss my grits.

There's a thread on Green Country Seed Savers about dealing with drought. What, if anything, produced for you this year?

I've been hoping someone would talk about varieties that grew well, or at least produced. We had cucumbers, which I can't grow, but apparently my husband can. We think he planted County Fair. (He's not good at tracking what he plants.) The Emerald Okra eventually produced. Both were in my best bed, so that may have something to do with it. We had tomatoes, most notably black cherry, which produces well for me some years and not others. I should keep track, maybe it likes dry. I think the Souix produced. The Heidi, which are usually big producers got a lot of blossom end rot, which isn't normal and probably means we didn't water consistently. We haven't harvested sweet potatoes yet. I grew no beans. We had kale and collards. They're actually still out there, but they got kind of tough.
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Okra finally produced but it took nearly all summer and didn't hardly get 2 ft tall. It was half Red Burgundy and half Clemson.

One highlight was the horticultural shell beans that produced well right after a flooding rain in early June.

Rick

I don't think anything of mine really did well, other than the onions and garlic, which were harvested before the drought hit. The okra did okay, but was cuts short by the drought and the fact that our outside watering was band.

I have been overrun with insects this year, and wildlife has hit the garden too often, when our garden watering was cut off I took the electric fence down around the garden, and let the deer eat on the sweet potatoes. I also bought another 50# of Elbon rye seed, and 50# of corn, I also bought more beet, mustard,and lettuce seed today. I will place some of the corn under the oak trees in the pasture to feed the wildlife. I hope to plant the Elbon rye in different spots in the pasture, and maybe some in the garden.

Rick, thanks for the tip on the mustard.

I've read through all the posts, but don't have time to post much right now. Maybe tonight or tomorrow.

Amy, I'll come back with a list of what produced for me this year. There were a few things.

One thing I forgot to mention was the tomatoes that I have marked as 4rh of July. I had read some of Dawn's post about the 4th of July tomato, and thought I would try the a couple of years ago, they did well enough that I wanted to try them again, but because it is easy for me to get the tags mixed, I planted some in the south garden this year. I still have some tomatoes on those plants. I may have mixed the labels both years, but I plan on growing them again nest year because they seem so hardy. They are small tomatoes, but produce well.

Anybody try to grow corn salad?

https://www.nature-and-garden.com/gardening/corn-salad.html

https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-to-grow-miners-lettuce-and-corn-salad-mache-two-nutritious-delicious-greens-that-love-winter/

Rick

I have always been curious about corn salad. I got so many lettuce seeds in grab bag years ago I haven’t even thought about getting any more

Corn salad is something that I have wanted to grow also, I dont remember hearing about it when I was young, and just cant remember it order seeds, if I had seen it on the rack at Farmers Co-op I am sure I would have bough some to try.

Corn salad, also known as mache. Cool season lettuce like plant. It's not native. Miners' lettuce or claytonia is native and due to high vitamin c is credited with keeping gold miners from having scurvy. I was confusing the two. I have tried to grow both. They will give you some extra salad greens, both mild greens, I think. I never got good stands and they don't tolerate heat. One of them, I think mache, can be planted "on labor day" for a good stand in early spring. I never managed that. Could you plant it now? Could try. Both plants are nutritious.

Tablets battery is dying. TTFN.

I just planted some corn salad over at Jennifer's since it's suppose to cool down now.

I read that it needs the soil temp to be less than 70* to come up, kinda like spinach .

If the ground is too warm it'll go dormant.

The mesonet says the soil temp here is 74 but I went ahead since it's supposed to cool on down and rain (hopefully).

And it takes a long while to come up like maybe a month.

Rick

Amy, thanks for the info. I have never planted a wide range of plants, so my knowledge is limited.

More boring pictures. To the right of my "head" shadow is a hill of Covington sweet potatoes. Also shown is the tilled ground where the okra was. Also shown is the step down in soil surface. The step up is where the edge of the garden use to be, to the left, south is newer garden, covid made me want to extend my garden.

I hauled water to keep some of the garden alive, which is quite a task. It was not a lot of fun getting the soil damp enough to keep the dust down while I tilled, gut its about ready now.

This is the sweet potatoes we hope to dig tomorrow. There are 4 rows of sweet potatoes in there, but I expect a light harvest because of the drought and the flash flood, I lost a lot of top soil that I really could not afford to lose. I would have lost a lot of plants also if they did not have a good root system, some were just hanging on by a small root or two, I covered the roots with a little mulch, and hoped for the best.

I will have to get a jackhammer to bust up that hard soil, well, really, I will try plowing them out with a tractor, but I will wait till grand daughter and her boy friend get here with a digging fork, they may be stronger than this old man.

It's so good to see the conversations going. Love to read posts from my friends.

Amy, as I was thinking through this gardening year, I came to the conclusion that not much did well during July and August. It was just so hot and dry. Part of our issue was watering. Pretty sure we didn't deep water when we should have. Our okra didn't even do well.

The Jet Setters and Heidis behind the shop did continue to look good but didn't make any fruit.

The Jet Stars in the SG produced. Not quite as well as last year. I managed to keep them alive, and they are loaded with fruit now.

The Heidis did not do well in this garden. I won't give up on this variety yet. They had a bad start. First, was the bad potting mix, then too much wind and then too much heat. I will give them a second chance next year.

The heirloom varieties did well in June, then stopped. They're not dead, but very sickly. I'm going to try your suggestion about saving seed and hopefully develop an heirloom that does well in my environment.

May and June were good. Here's the things that did well:

Onions--I planted all long day varieties, and they are wonderful.

Potatoes did well

Garlic--excellent (Inchelium Red)

Cabbage and Broccoli--did okay

Corn did fairly well

Persian cucumbers did very well even in the heat--until it got too hot and too dry. I think in a regular Oklahoma summer, they would do better. We were over a 100 many days this year and no rain.

Disappointing:

Our peppers sucked--all varieties.

Cow peas--not good

Sweet potatoes -- so so

Eggplant

and even basil -- bad!

The volunteer cantaloupe did decently well. The roselle is way behind. The plants are healthy but just now starting to bloom.

What a weird year.

Our fall garden is planted and looks great. Hopefully we'll get great harvests.

I'll have a full day tomorrow out east replanting fall greens, spinach , corn salad , mustard , chard , onions, turnips... it's a little late now but it's the last call before frost.

Weather boy here says possible frost next Thursday morning. probably Northern OK.

Rick

I am not ready for a frost, but I might as well have one, because without water I cant grow much.

I am trying to give the rutabaga and turnips at least 30 or 40 gallon per day. I am not sure if its the cooler weather or the mineral in the well water that is making them look so well, but there are so many insects to deal with. I use to have a lot of birds in the garden, but so few now, very few in the pastures also, even the trees are looking dead.

I hope to dig my sweet potatoes tomorrow. I tried to dig some today, I dug under 2 plants, and the soil was so hard I could not stick a digging fork into it. It looks like I will have to put the middle buster on the tractor and see if I can plow them out, I hate to do that because of so much potato damage.

The weather here is so beautiful today. Started out at 59 degrees.
My spinach and bok choy are coming up nicely. Peas were starting to make and neighbors cat laid in there smashing many of the plants. Then the row cover came off and the grasshoppers moved in. Okra is still producing enough for me a portion every other day. Three out of seven tomato plants are loaded healthy and huge. Sungold and black cherry look the best. This year my gherkin cukes did amazing. I am saving seed from them. They are much like okra. Must pick twice a day or all of a sudden they are too big. Towards the end I did not realize they were not getting enough water and they went down fast. I had cut back a little out of respect for the well. I am still going to plant sugar peas and lettuces. I condensed lots of Iris. I decided I am not doing and put smaller than mineral tubs. They dry out too fast.

I can’t edit from my phone so the last sentence above supposed to say ….. I am not doing any pots smaller…

Today's haul, Red Wine Velvet in the tractor bucket, Covington in the 5 gal. buckets, and purple in the cardboard box, peppers in the Walmart bag. I still have 3 rows of Covington potatoes to dig, but they were planted really late, and I expect very little out of them.

The harvest was lite, but could have been worse. The Covington was the best looking potato, the Red Wine Velvet produced the most, the purple did not do well at all, but this has been my worst gardening year, and I should be happy that anything produced.

Nick, grand daughter's boy friend dragging the cultivator through the soil to scratch out stray potatoes.

I sure hope we can get some rain to settle the dust so I can till this area and replant

Beautiful. Any harvest this year is wonderful.

This picture does not do justice to my onion and garlic stash, but I will have to start freezing these before cold weather because I don't have enough storage room.

That is awesome

Those sweet potatoes are amazing, Larry!

Kim, Jennifer, thanks, I am happy with the sweet potatoes, there should have been more, but It has really been a hard year for me. I will make sure I save enough Covington for slips next year, they just seem to work better for me, the Red Wine Velvet has out produced them the past two years, but the Covington are more forgiving. I plan on trying the RWV again next year even though Madge says she likes the Covington better. Last year I was only able to get 2 RWV slips, those 2 slips produced between 25 and 30 pounds of potatoes, but they were planted in a prim garden spot and got top notch care, I have never had potatoes to produce like that.

I am trying hard to support my grand daughter in growing food. She and Nick have music degrees, and digging in the dirt may not be the most exciting thing for them to do, but I am trying to make it interesting.

Nick is from New Hampshire, and I dont think he and ever been on a tractor till today, but he seemed to like playing on one, I hope we can do more of it.