I never get beets up as fast as I would like to. We planted beets and turnips at the same time about 2 weeks ago, and no sign of the beets yet. We had another flash flood a few days ago, and beets may have been washed away or buried too deep to come up.

I would like to plant carrots also, but I don't have good ground for carrots.

I need to spend some time working on my tillers, but the ground had been too wet to do anything with anyway. If I were younger I would make some raised beds to plant some of the stuff in.

Amy, thanks for starting the thread.

There's still time to plant beets. i haven't planted any of my cool season stuff by seed. Still haven't finished setting out all my brassica plants. Dumb weather won't let me , 3.5 in of rain over east and then a dense foggy morning so bad I couldn't drive over to it till later in the day.

Hope it isn't another too wet spring ...again.

Rick

I have 6 tomatoes out as an experiment since 3/21. Temps down to 39 degrees in Norman, so I have covered with plastic cloches and they appear to be doing fine. I have a number of plants still under the grow lights, so I can afford to lose these, but so far so good.

I check my beets, turnips, and potatoes a while ago. I had a few beets up, but may have a bunch washed away or buried too deep. The flood we had washed across that garden, and the south garden, but the north garden was okay, but I have nothing planted in it yet. The potato patch had a little erosion and a few potatoes were uncovered, but its too wet to get out in the patch to cover them up, but out of nearly 600# of potatoes, no more than 10# were uncovered.

I am carrying a lot of my plants out to the yard and potting up as many plants as I can. My sweet wife is shutting my farming operation down in the center bedroom, at least till after out company leaves next week. Its tough being a bedouin farmer.

I up-potted another 3 flats of tomatoes and took them down to neighbors greenhouse, I expect that I have another 200 or 300 plants to go. While I was there neighbor ask me about placing a couple of hives of bees on my place, which I like. I told him that I would buy more clover and flower seeds to plant if he will do the work, I can do the tractor work, but I cant change the implements on the tractor alone. He also ask if he could plant roselle plant here, which is okay with me also, but I think that they will have to be watered, maybe we can plant some of them over by creek or the artesian well. He said that he planted a bunch of roselle seeds in the greenhouse, and he just got through potting up 360 of them, he is just having a ball with his greenhouse, but I am afraid he is going to plant more than he can care for. I still have about 1/2 pound of okra seeds, and about that many sunflower seeds we can plant if er run out of something to do, after we get the 1000 squash and pumpkin plants planted.

I say all of this and it is so wet that we cant even get the tractors in the fields.

Oh I would love to be y’all’s neighbors

Kim, we would love to have you for a neighbor.

I wish we all lived near each other and could help each other out as needed. How fun would that be?

That's a lot of roselle, Larry. Is he selling the plants? I had 6 plants two years ago and it was too much for me. Although, they are beautiful plants.

Last year my plants didn't do much. Not sure what happened.

This year I have 4 healthy plants and will share 2 of them.

Rick came out and tilled in some amendments today.

After work I planted a few bunching turnip and radish seeds, cleaned out the bed where the carrots will go and cleaned out an herb bed. These herbs are perennials and are just beginning to come back. Kim, at least a few are from you including the fennel and mallow. There's also bee balm, hyssop and something else that I can't remember the name... beardtongue???? Excited to see those returning.

Sunday night. It's hard to not be blah on Sunday nights. Gotta get up in the morning and start the work week again.

Jennifer, I have suggested that neighbor sell some of the plants, and I expect that he will. I don't take any money for my input, but we have a lot of expense. We have talked about at least making enough to offset our supplies.

We are going to try to siphon, or pump water from a pond or well to cut water cost, we are not sure if we can make that type of irrigation work. There is no way we can get free water, free potting soil, or free electricity. We also have fuel cost, repair cost, fertilizer cost, and we spend a lot of time working the soil and harvesting the crop, so if he could sell some plants and vegetables to offset some of our supply cost, we can eat our labor cost because we enjoy the work anyway. There are also times we can help someone out with free food.

Larry, I was going to suggest you all sell plants too. You'll need help harvesting if you put them all in the ground.

Kim, can you describe for Howard Roberts the system for tomatoes on that market farm you worked for?

Glad to hear it's not too late for beets, not that I really expect many. Jennifer, I keep seeing beet salad recipes, do you do that? Do you cook them first?

Everyone have a good week.

Thanks AmyinOwasso, all info is much appreciated Kim

Amy, I am just letting neighbor have his head on this plant thing. I am just one notch above useless. I can tear up hell and half of Georgia with a tractor, but I am useless on the ground.

I can harvest enough for Madge and me, but I cant supply a produce stand, but neighbor does that, that guy can work like a slave.

I up-potted 76 more tomatoes, and taking a break waiting for Madge to get back from town with more Happy Frog potting soil, I am mixing it about 50/50 with LP-15 PRO mix to make it go farther

I am having trouble with my artificial shoulder. I was told that I should get 10 years or more out of it, and it has been 10 years. I was told that they did not install my joint in anyone under 70 because of the few options. The surgeon, and P.T. were both very unhappy when they found out I was going to P. T., then coming home and clearing land with a tractor and a chain saw.. I was told no way will my shoulder last using it like that, so I stopped and had a bulldozer and track hoe come in and finish the rest of my clearing, which was one of my smarter moves.

Anyway I see the surgeon this Fri., hoping that I can just strap the arm down and let it heal, I don't want to go through surgery and P.T. again, but my shoulder is still 10 times better than it was before surgery.

Tomato greenhouse.
With this method you can set tomatoes out 6 weeks before last frost date. The year I helped we set out 100-150 and lost one. They survived snow hail freezing temps and high winds in the Lubbock area. We tilled rows and covered with weed suppressing material. Cut an x every 4 feet. T posts every 10 feet with a tight wire top and near bottom. Cages…. We used concrete mesh. Cheap Rusty has about 5-6 inch squares. Five feet tall. I want say they were 5’ or more made into circle. Wrap with plastic from HD or Lowe’s. Heavy duty clear plastic. Fold and staple. Plant your tomato plant. Put cage over plant. wire cage to top and bottom wires. Most important of all. Scoop dirt and build berm all around the bottom. Water , tamp it down. Berm should be at least 3-4” tall. Check and water regularly. Not remove plastic until you see red.

These plants were busting out of the tops before others had theirs in ground.

Amy, I'm new to beets. It's the one vegetable that I don't love. The pickled ones bothered me as a child, and I have a pretty extreme beeturia issue. It's not harmful, but it's freaky and I don't like it.

However, I've eaten them grilled and roasted and they are so good. That is why I'll be growing the golden ones this fall.

Larry, somewhere you mentioned building beds and not having time for it. Have you thought about this type of raised bed? It's easy. raised bed with deck corners

(let's see if that link works....) Set out your corners and slide the boards into the slots of the deck corners.

It is chilly today. I forced myself to do all the chores that aren't my favorites this morning, so it's all done! And I can do chores I want to do.

Garden updates:

First asparagus is showing up. My asparagus is later than everyone elses. It's always been that way.

Winterbor kale. If you like kale, try this one. Rick bought the seed last year and I started it. It was planted last spring and kept coming back--from freezes and harlequin bugs and heat. Yesterday I had plants that were over 3 feet tall and the leaves were still sweet (for kale). Not bitter at all. I could see that it was about to bolt, tho. So it was pulled out and given to the chickens except a few leaves for me.

The strawberries are looking good. I sure hope we can get the strawberry patch back in action.

All the greens are now planted out and look fine, as are all the brassicas.

There are still around 50 plants of various kinds that need to be potted on. Peppers, herbs, and flowers. Hopefully will be able to get that done in the next couple of days.

The chamomile is out of control. Botanical Interests sent 6 free cardboard pots. I sprinkled way too many seed in each pot. I've been separating tiny chamomile plants and have near 100. I'm going to plant them everywhere and with everything. I do have one more little pot that needs to be separated and Jen might take it.

They seem to be doing well with the separating and repotting. Chamomile is one of the focus herbs. It was once called the "plants' physician". Supposedly it helps heal other plants. We will see. The heat of our summers is hard on it.

I have to close this garden update, because Tom needs me to help him pick up his truck from Hibdons.

Kim, I have a friend that use to be a maintenance man at a farm in Florida that grew almost everything in large greenhouses. Some of the things my friend told me that they did just blew my mind, I could not see how they ever made a profit, until he told me the prices on some of their produce. I think that they had oranges, and other things that grew in the ground just like we think about growing things. I think that their tomatoes , strawberries, and maybe a few other things they grew so they would be harvested in the winter, and would bring top dollar.

I am up-potting more plants today. Most of the stuff I am up-potting the past two days are seeds that neighbor started. I don't care much about his method of starting seeds, he gets a lot of plants per flat, but they are harder to get out of the flat because they are all inter-grown, we just don't need that many plants anyway.

PIcking back up from where I left off....

Garden update #2

The tomatoes with the phosphorus deficiency are looking much better. Their new leaves are a healthy green.

In the future, I think I'll let Rick buy the tomatoes for the SG since he enjoys buying tomatoes and I'll just start seed for the heirlooms and other things for the KG. It will free up some space and time for me. As it is, I have Jet Setters started from seed and he purchased a flat of Jet Stars as well. And we only want two rows of tomatoes for the SG. The Heinz sauce will be the other row. So...a lot of tomatoes to find places for and I'm not putting them in the area behind the shop this year. I'm going to (finally!) finish it as a place for native plants. I moved the pot of mountain mint back there today. It will be planted in the ground. And, I have a coreopsis and rudbeckia in pots that come back each year. They're going to be planted in the ground as well. A lot of the other things accidentally got pulled, but I'll get more plants at the flower and garden fest in May. It's a fairly large area and needs lots to fill it up. I had a false indigo and sure hope it comes back. There's coneflowers in the burn pile and I'll relocate them as well. If I can ever get it planted like I want, it will be a lovely place.

I was able to pull henbit out of the bed with the goji berry. It looks better than it ever has. I dumped chicken dropping around all the berry bushes in the fall as well as a bit of acidifier.

The onions have 4 or 5 leaves and look good. The garlic looks good.

My lettuce is struggling. I used a different tray system this year and I'm not sure it's for me. A lot of the seedlings in this system seem to be struggling a bit. But are fine once I move them to different pots.

Today was peaceful and then it wasn't. I won't go into all the details, but I am grateful for the early part of the day where I was able to spend some time alone.

I'm tired of potting up seedlings. My hands are frozen and nails are stained. There's only some vincas and the peppers left. I won't be able to do them tomorrow because I'll be working until around 9 pm, but maybe Thursday. I'll be glad to get that task over.

Overall, things seem to be coming along nicely.

How are y'all feeling about your gardens this year so far?

My garden is as it is each year at this time, wet and late. It is very hard for me to get things planted on time because of the spring rains.

I am tired of potting up plants also. I still have over 150 tomatoes and about 200 egg plants to up-pot, its too bad that I cant be at the spring fling, because I have plants running out my ears.

Many of the plants in the greenhouse and on the light shelves are getting too large, other than that they look good. We have chances for rain all next week, so there is little chance of getting any ground ready to plant.

I'm optimistic about the garden this year. It can't be any worse than last year, right? Onions and garlic are green, looking good. Got a little crop of carrots and radishes going. And I'm pretty sure the mystery sprouts are sunflowers. If so, I have gobs of them to move and thin out.

On the seedlings front, tomatoes are doing amazing well. Peppers are tiny but getting better. And I have a few eggplant that may turn out fine. And I have a single celery growing, has gotten twice as large in a week of being planted.

We had a little ice on a table on the front porch this morning. I feel sure that the temp was low for such a short time that the in ground plants are okay. The ice was a big surprise, but as far as I know we had all plants inside, I will go down to the greenhouse soon to check the plants over there.

I have all the plants potted up at the house that I will pot up till after company is gone. We are celebrating Madge's 84 th birthday this weekend, and the first of her 6 kids will be here today, so I had to convert my plant room back into a bedroom. I have a bunch of junk that I need to move to neighbor's greenhouse from my plant room, I am really too much of a pack rat.

Being a pack rat can have some good points. A few days ago neighbor was having a problem with the tiller on his tractor, I told neighbor what his problem was, and that I had a new part in stock. In just a few minutes we were up and going again. Yesterday neighbor could not get the sprayer on his tractor to work, I think that he may have left water in the pump through the winter and it froze and cracked, anyway I had a new pump still in the box, it was a perfect fit for his sprayer. Neighbor is sort of like having another son, but I enjoy it, its a good feeling to help someone with what little wisdom you have, but I am sure dead weight when it comes to doing manual work.

I tilled the garden yesterday and made my raised rows. It was a bit wetter than I like, but it was workable and it had to be done. Then I planted tomatoes in the ground today. The 7 day forecast looks good, if we have a freeze, I'll just cover them.

Now these plants just have to weather some heavy wind Friday. I wrapped the cages with plastic wrap to give them some protection, but IDK how it will hold up.

And since the cutworms ate up my crepe myrtle transplants, I'm now scared to death of them.

Looks great. Y’all are all doing so well. I live vicariously through you this year

Looks good Lynn . If the cages are anchored down well it should hold.

Rick

Looks to be a cloudy day so I moved most of the tomatoes outside. They're all inside storage totes, buckets, and large pots with something over the top to block most of the wind. I'll check them around lunch and see how they're doing. But they've multiplied to the point I don't have room under my lights, and if I want to start flowers I need to make some room. Long range weather forecast looks promising, so hopefully I can get them moved outside during the day permanently. I need more space lol. Or more accurately, better organization for the space I do have. But now that I know how well that grow tent works for seed starting, I need to get some more lights. I have some but the bottom shelves are still pretty dark.

Trying to straighten up the shed before spring fling. Between moving and our unplanned floods in the garage, everything got tossed in a completely disorganized pile. It's amazing how quickly you can go from empty building to packed with junk.

Chop sticks or tooth picks. Dawn said Cutworms completely wrap around a stem. If you insert a tooth pick or chop stick against the stem they can't wrap around the stem. I would do 2 or even 3 if I was worried.

Amy, I read recently of using plastic straws, with one one side cut open so it can be wrapped around the stalk. I liked that idea. And I sprayed around the plants with Eight insecticide, its recommended for cutworms. Whatever cut down my crepe myrtle transplants, went a few inches up the stalk, higher than a toothpick. My Dad wrapped the stalks with aluminum foil but he did not have 24 plants like I do. I've still got spare plants, I'm gonna take my chances. If cutworms gets one of them, I'll go full blown protection.

Rick , what happens is the plastic wrap comes undone. I don't have it taped on, I'm just using the stickyness of the wrap. But how that goes, if ya don't want plastic wrap to stick to something , it sticks to everything and does it so tight, ya can't get in untangled. But if ya want it to stick .......... well, ya know the story.

I'm using Glad Press and Seal this year. A few months ago, Mrs Dollar wanted me to get some plastic wrap at Sams and I got the wrong thing ( imagine that, huh ). I got this Press and Seal stuff and of course, when I buy at Sams, I bought a lot of it. She doesn't like it. So I've found a use for it in the garden, and so far, I was just out there, its holding up to pretty windy day today.

And again this year, I'm searching for cottonseed hulls. The Marcums nearest me doesn't have them. Yesterday, they told me the Norman store had 13 bags. I drove down there and they said they'd sold em. Supposedly, the Goldsby store has 250 bags and they're suppose to bring some to my store. For the last 3 years, its been a battle getting cottonseed hulls.

Jed Castles 9 day forecast looks good

Mine looks pretty good too. Might take a risk and plant some this weekend. If they die, I have plenty more.

If we had ground ready we would plant also. The forecast looks good except for rain, matter of fact the rain just started about a minute ago. I did manage to get the lawn mowed before the rain started. I did save some henbit and other small flowers for the bees and butterflies.

We need to start pulling sweet potato slips next week. So far, we are running short on Covington slips, but it is still early.

We are at the point to start throwing egg plants away, we just have too many, and we need the shelf space in the greenhouse. I think we can pot up some of our large tomato plants and sell them for a larger price. We have too many of almost everything, I guess we have been lucky, I don't think we have lost even one plant so far.

Larry , Wish I could take some plants off your hands. Even the egg plants.

I'm going to try to plant all the cool season stuff (lettuce ,spinach, mustard , collards , kale, Swiss Chard , carrots ,beets, radishes, Kohlrabi , green shelling peas......maybe some Parsnips ) out east this weekend if it don't rain too much. hoping the howling winds tomorrow will dry the ground enough to plant seed at least after I till it.

I might also plant some field corn ,( the soil temp there is about 51*) , before it gets too wet ...again. I'd like to do sweet corn but the coons won't let me.

In another week or so maybe start plopping in some tomato plants.

Rick

It's done! They're all potted up now!

Really, I sorta messed up by not potting them on much sooner. It's not that they were big....it's that they needed a bit of fertilizer.

I suspect everything will really perk up now that they're in bigger pots with some feeding.

Jen, I feel good about the garden this year too. For some reason. Last year was the only really super hard year. Every year has its hits and misses, but last year was rough.

Lynn, I like cottonseed hull for our ornamental beds. I need to get some as well. We live about 2 minutes from the "Norman" Marcums. It's not really in Norman....just like we're not really in Norman, but have a Norman address.

A lot of times they don't have the bags early in the season but get them later.

I only started 6 eggplants and they all came up. That will be plenty for our house. I like to share veggies, but this year I'm just trying to provide for our needs. If there's extras, I'll share of course. It's a summer of change....and trying to wrap my mind and emotions around it all is a lot.

We still don't have the Vego beds put together. It's not a big rush because I wasn't planning on planting them for the spring and summer.

Hazel, I wondered how far you were from that Marcums. That area has really developed since last time I was through there. There's some new housing additions, more businesses. I wish Mrs Dollar and I could get out of here, we would look for areas like that.

I saw the anti-turnpike signs. That's gotta be difficult to have to move, no matter how good a price people get for their property. That's part of what's keeping me here, I've spent years on my garden soil, I don't wanna start new. But on the other side of that, traffic on I-35 is heavy, no matter what time of day. And its just gonna get worse. Some type of bypass has to be built somewhere. I drove I-35 at 10 am yesterday, from I-240 to NW 63rd and it was close to what was once rush hour traffic. I-44 on the west side of town is the same way.

After the rat infestation last year, I'm wondering if I want to put anything that contains seed in the garden. I don't wanna feed the rats. But hulls are the best mulch I've found. Hopefully, the neighbor has got the rat population down on his side of the fence. I've not seen any activity on my side. The real draw is the dog food and water he keeps on his patio. I've been using hulls for a lot of years with no problems. Never any sign of rats.

The wind has already loosened the Press and Seal on a few tomato plants. I'll be out there today doing what I can taping them down, but I can't get in the garden cuz of the rain yesterday. I hope we don't have another spring like last year, where we got whip-sawed by strong winds, for what seemed like every other day.

The wind has hit, Mesonet reporting gusts over 60 mph. I used blue painters tape to secure the plastic to the tomato cages this morning and its holding up .......... so far. And I'm glad 60 mph gusts on newly planted anything, is not good.

The wind is crazy. It was literally blowing me across the parking lot from the gym to the main building.

Yes. I'm very close to that Marcums, Lynn. Our neighborhood backs up to it. One of our favorite neighbors is right there at the back of the nursery's property--they've had pots and gardening stuff from the nursery blow into their backyard/property. Also, between that row of businesses and our neighborhood is a patch of wild blackberries that I've picked from a few times.

It is very much getting built up. Across Indian Hills IF the turnpike doesn't come through (although that area has the "go ahead") a neighborhood will be built. I'm not sure which is worse--a neighborhood or a turnpike. We like it being a field with cows and wildflowers. Those days of being in the "country" are about gone.

I won't do any gardening tonight, but hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to continue weeding and preparing garden beds. Also, the carrots need to be sown. All the light shelf seedlings will go to the hoop house except the zinnias and peppers.

That's all I'm planning on doing that is garden related.

I should finish up my work so I can go home soon.

Don't know how ya could do anything in this wind. And the dust is terrible. Trash truck just went down our street and trash is blowing everywhere.

Weather map looks like a mini hurricane with the eye in central Kansas.

My plastic wrap job is holding up, so far.

After going into the ground with my tomato plants, it sets in , that now I'm at the mercy of the weather.

Hope it goes better than last year.

'Lynn, we are having a fair amount of wind, but I haven't seen any dust in a good while.

Your, garden looks very nice. We may have to harvest our garden in the greenhouse.

I had made the statement that we had not even lost one plant, but that statement may not be true for long, because the plants are getting so large and thick, I am afraid of fungal disease. The temp is getting up to 115 degrees. I turned the fan on today, but we are going to have hotter days soon. We plan on carrying the plants outside to improve the air flow around them.

Larry , glad you didn't get what Little Rock got.

Rick

Me too Rick. I have not seen any of the video of around Little Rock, but neighbors brother was there and told him about some of the things that happened, it must have been really bad.

Jennifer , Rick, Lynn, anyone else, tell me you're safe from fires.

Fires were all on the north side of OKC. We all live south or in Norman/Moore area. Its a huge mystery to me how a fire can get started on a day with winds we had yesterday. Some people just lack any degree of good sense. The fires are very very preventable.

BTW, my PressSeal with the blue tape held up to 60 mph gusts yesterday. My only question about it now, is its opaque. I noticed yesterday it threw a shadow. I'm wondering if it filters sunlight.

First garden job of 23 kicked my but.

Larry that greenhouse is intense

Kim, we have too much stuff in the greenhouse. We need to start hardening off now and don't really have a place to do that. Our largest problem is getting a place to plant our plants.

Kim, do you have a tiller?

Lynn, I never had a light problem, I used a product called stretch wrap, I expect it was much like what you use. The stretch wrap was used in shipping, it was the stuff wrapped around pallets of products to keep them secure in shipping. The problem I had was not getting enough air flow, by not wrapping very high up the cage solved the moisture problem.

I am also concerned about the moisture problem in the greenhouse. I am afraid the plant will be getting too thick and we don't have enough air flow.

Our first patch of potatoes are breaking through the ground.

No Larry I don’t. This was a clients bed. I hoed, raked, hauled compost by the shovel full not too far and planted. It took 3 hours but I took lots of breaks. I told the client pay me by the job not the hour this year. She’s always very fair. The husband maintains around the bed with weed eater so I didn’t bother with that.

Just for the record - I live within 3 miles of the fires between Edmond and Guthrie. i’m 72 and have never experienced winds like yesterday. We had hours of constant strong winds of 40-50 mph, not just gusts. There were fires on all 4 sides of us, thankfully not on our propery. It was terrible and frightening - its rural areas with limited water sources and mostly volunteer fire departments. Many people lost their homes and property, at least no lives were lost. The fires were started by lines arcing and often breaking because of the winds - most of the area lost power at least intermittently. Some still have no power. Our only loss was several shingles off the roof and many small trees and branches.

Oh my. I had no clue that was going on. I don’t have a tv so no news available. That is terrible. Sorry y’all are going through such a scary thing.

That's awful, Farm! Really scary for you! Homes burned in Bartlesville, too. That's my hometown. I think I saw where there were 97 fires reported in Oklahoma that day.