My garden was just about burned up today

My garden is hurting, but it will hurt a lot worse if the water company cuts our outside watering off like they did last year. I have some plants that need to be taken out, but as hot and dry as it is there is not much need in planting anything else at this time.

Well surprise surprise. After I watered thoroughly a little cloud popped up and gave us some rain. Over 1/2”.

I/2" of rain is nice for this time of the year, but the trouble is, with this heat the 1/2" wont last long. Our forecast shows 33, and 58 % of thunder storms the 15th, and 16 of August, also 3 days over 100 degrees between now and then, but long range forecast often miss their mark.

I would like to start some seeds in the garden, but with this heat, and the insect problems it sure causes a problem. I feel that I need to haul some water to have on hand so I can keep the soil damp. I have not had good luck if I am not free to water every night and morning if needed.

Well, the convention is over and I’m back in the garden. I pulled out three tomatoes today and several other things that were just half dead. I’ll work on it a little bit more in the morning with the grass and the weeds. I’ve got bindweed creeping in one corner And I need to get it all out before it finds my pots. I need to weed eat and pull a lot of grass around my pots. I harvested quite a few noodle beans and okra so here in a little bit I am going to sauté those in bacon grease ,onion and garlic it will make a nice snack. I’ve got almost enough tomatoes to make round of spaghetti sauce and I bought a spaghetti squash since mine never grew. I start back to school on Tuesday so my summer fun is over.

I am not starting back to school, but I expect my summer fun will be over till the weather cools off. It seems as tho I can not give my plants enough water to keep them happy.

I am still harvesting enough to keep us and the kids happy, but production is dropping fast.

Jennifer, you mentioned pickled red onions, would you share your recipe?

Yes, Jennifer I would like the recipe too please ???

Hopefully this will post.

The recipe is easy. I don't have it with me at work. It's basically

4 cups of sliced red onions

1 1/2 cups of apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/4 or 1/2 cup of sugar (can't remember for sure)

pickling salt

mustard seed

celery seed

maybe red pepper flakes.

Stuff the onions in jars and pour the brine over it. Either can it or put it in the refrigerator.

I'll get it when I go home this evening and get the exact amounts of items.

Okay. The recipe calls for all the above. Here's the exact amounts:

1 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

1 Tbsp of pickling salt

1 tsp mustard seed

1/2 tsp celery seed

and I usually add about a 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes

Bring the brine to a boil and pour over the 4 cups of onions. I divide the onions between pints or half-pints.

That sounds yummy. I love pickled onions.

I have mentioned that I was working on finding some type of living mulch that will function like a mulch, green manure, and it would be nice if I could get a little food from it also.

Here is a picture of sweet potatoes with 2 different kinds of cow peas and 1 or 2 different kinds of green bean mixed in. I have been picking the cow peas and green beans and cooking them together, which taste pretty good.

The tomatoes you see near the T post to the upper right was a bad choice, they are Bush Beefsteak, they are producing, but not as well as expected. The T post to the top of the picture,, and the white stake you see at the left side of the picture are markers for the sweet potato row I have running along the north side of the garden, there are a few bean seeds tossed in here and there to fill in bare spots, and the beans are starting to make.

This is the west end of the sweet potato row. You can see that I have potatoes pushing through the soil from the top left to the bottom right of the picture, and still 2 month of growing season left. There was an opening large enough to plant 3 slips here, plus 10 or 12 bean seeds, the beans are starting to produce also, but I wish I had marked where I planted different kinds of pea and bean seeds. All the vines will be mowed and tilled back into the soil, but if I had the type of seeds I filled in with I would know what to replant if I wanted to try it again.

This is a picture of the east end of the north garden. I was trying here to have a late tomato crop that might last till frost. The first plant is a Early Treat, it will be worth trying again. The next six plants are Delicious tomato plants, and I have been disappointed in them, the last plant in the row is a Chocolate Pear, I cant brag on that tomato either.

I watched old Alabama Gardener on you tube. He did a series on growing onion from seed. It’s really good information. I will be starting most of my onions on 10/15. Just like the Texas 1015.

I post too quick. Larry your garden looks so wonderful. I wish I had the space that you have. My first four gardens I dug quite a bit of square footage by hand. Didn’t have a tiller the soil I was digging was easy so really didn’t need one when I get land to actually garden, I will do Charles Dowding style no till. I look forward to that.

Kim, I like the no till idea, but I was unable to make it work as well as I would have liked. I think it would have been easier for me if I had had more organic matter. I try to practice some sort of limited till, and if I were younger, I think that I could make it work better. A person just has to work with what they have, and what they are able to do. I feel that my soil is much better than it was when I started with it, but it is a never ending battle.

Kim, I did not start out with a tiller, but as I started expanding my gardening beds, and my body started falling apart, I started looking for a cheap used tiller. I still like the hand tiller soil better. I think that no till, or limited tilled soil has better structure, and you kill less of the good insects.

This year I have been using cheap potting soil, and adding some perlite in places to see if that helps my soil, and it seems to help. I mainly just amend the planting hole or area because of cost. I am also thinking about adding a little vermiculite in some of the planting areas, this will be on a small scale, I just want to see what happens.

When I have a strapping teenager boy to help me in the garden, it seemed very easy to prep beds and turn them. We did double dig according to John Jeavons. I had read his book at the library and it made perfect sense so that’s what I did. It worked great. I hope that I get land while I can still hit the ground running so that I can have the garden of my dreams. It’s very frustrating to be surrounded by many acres of ground and, limited to about 20‘ x 20‘. And you are so very right about doing what you can do and what you have available. I know Charles Dowding uses a lot of compost and he makes a lot of compost. I would love to be in that position as well. Currently I do compost in my tubs. I get a new mineral tub drill holes in the sides and put some kind of dry matter in the bottom, cardboard or mulch. Leaves work as well. Then I will put in kitchen scraps and more dry matter Until it’s at least halfway full. Then I fill the rest with potting soil and plant in it. It seems to be working really well. I just started doing that this year. I also put in rabbit manure. I planted black eyed peas, and this time I covered them with, a little bit of potting soil and those things jumped right up sprouted and growing like crazy now

I'm going to try to post.

I'll come back and read all of the posts above this one.

Right now, I'm trying to gather myself to go outside and I really don't want to. But the chickens need fed and things need watered. Although at this point I'm wondering if it even matters.

I just dislike this weather so much. My body and head hurts when it's this hot. Plants burn up and die. The dryness of it all is depressing.

But, this is summer in Oklahoma.

Hoping for rain this weekend.

Right now the only gardening I'm really doing is watering every day.

My lettuce seeds have popped up, but I'm not going to take them to the hoop house until Thursday night.

The Greenstalk needs to be cleaned out and up and readied to plant. The strawberries look good in it, but everything else is toast.

Welp, I should go feed those poor hot and hungry chickens.

Larry , here's a video for you about growing overwintered onions from " SEED".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0skgSP57Fyk

Here's a link to the varieties used :

https://territorialseed.com/collections/overwintering-onions?utm_medium=email&utm_source=attentive&utm_campaign=Aug%2006,%202024%207:00%20AM&externalId=4qoTj

I do my overwintered onions from "sets"

Rick

Spent a little time potting up some seedlings

Robert, you have been busy, and will be busy for a long time.

Rick, thanks for the links, I doubt that I will try starting onions this year. I don't have a greenhouse, and starting plant in the bedroom is tough, plus our health issues are being more difficult to deal with.

Jennifer, I feel about the same way as you with the weather, and I don't think it is worth it money wise. I expect our next 2 water bills will make me want to run away, but I enjoy working the soil, and fooling with plants. I also like to know what I am eating. When I was young I worked in canning plant, and a frozen food plant, and you would be surprised at what I have seen going down that conveyor belt, and sometimes how bad it smelled. I could buy cases of the damaged cans of produce that would not go through the labeling machine, dirt cheap, and some of the stuff I would not even take home, even when money was really tight.

Larry I am starting all my onions outside like Alabama Gardener. You plant them very tight and then separate in February or early March into their final destination that is why I ordered so many. I am sure I will lose some along the way. It’s how Dixondale grows. Admittedly they are further south but I will cover. I am going to make hoop house for the bed with agribon and plastic

Here’s some of my up-potted seedlings, Robert.

Jennifer are those hoss trays? They are so pretty

Kim, I will have to look up Alabama Gardner, and try to get some pointers. Best I can remember is that I had trouble with timing on my bulbing onions when they were started outside, and got a lot more bolting, but I only tried it a time or two. I have had great success with bunching onion when starting them outside, but I am up to my ears in bunching onions already.

I am thinking that I need to go out and place the walking onions in a row and try to use them as green onions. I removed the grown plants to make room for some late tomato and pepper plants, I just tossed the bulbils up under a tomato plant to get them out of the way, they got rained on, or I got them wet while watering, and now I have a pile of sprouting bulbils that I need to do something with, and it is at a time when I cant find room for anything.

Kim, they are not. I can't remember the name of the company, but these were much cheaper than Bootstrap. I got them for Christmas a couple of years ago. I do want to get some of the large Bootstrap cups. These ones are nice for up-potting greens and such, but a larger pot would be better for tomatoes and peppers. I saw that Bootstrap introduced a slightly bigger pot this year. I'll think of the name of the company and get back with you.

These ones have faded a bit, but they're still really sturdy. It's fun to up-pot into pretty trays/pots. :)

I would like to try starting onions from seed someday. This isn't the year for that, tho. I've seen it done even in Oklahoma. There was a YouTube channel. I cannot remember the name, but they are in the Tulsa area. It's how they did their onions. They did have a large hoop house. It's a project for another time (for me).

In 2025, I'll probably do Red Creole, Texas Legend, and Highlander again. They've done the best for me over the years.

Rick planted onions sets last fall and covered them over the winter. They made some nice sized bulbs for sets. They did all bolt this spring, but they're still useful for a few weeks even bolted. They're in the shop now storing and are starting to go bad. I was able to use quite a few. I made two batches of red pickled onions and one batch of yellow bread and butter onions.

I think my preserving is coming to an end for the year. I'll still have Tuesdays off for a couple of weeks, though. I still want to do some pickled garlic. I promise those are sinus infection curers. Peeling all that garlic is such a chore, plus I didn't get as many bulbs this year. I suppose I could buy some peeled garlic, but it's not the same as using what you grow. Or at least locally grown.

Larry, if we don't get rain this weekend, I'll probably pull out most of my plants other than perennial things. Just start spreading compost over the beds and putting it to sleep for the rest of the year.

Even with watering deeply, the ground is so dry. I might keep the peppers.

Hopefully we will get rain, though.

If not, I'll keep the Vego beds going and get the hinged hoop, hoop house and Greenstalk ready for the brassicas and greens and lettuces.

Even our okra is not doing well right now.

And the coop door isn't wanting to close again starting today. I have to rig it up to close.

It's a little building set on a concrete slab and has a regular type of "house" door on it. It's a nice coop. I'm lucky to have it.

This morning I went out and pruned my vitex. You know, I order vitex berries for health things, but I should figure out what the berries actually ARE on the vitex. I can't tell. Maybe I should look up a video. It's silly that I'm buying vitex when I have it right in my backyard.

Y'all be careful out there. Around 10 last night, I got sick and threw up. I think it was from the heat. I couldn't cool down last night even after coming inside. Usually, I'm the one at work who keeps a space heater at my desk even in the summer. Because AC can be too cold in some buildings. But, I just couldn't get cool last night for a long time.

Jennifer, I have the same problem with the soil staying too dry and cracking when I have to water by hand, which we have to do from June 1 thru gardening season. Because of watering restrictions is the reason I bought the IBC totes. I can use my irrigation tubes, and water from the back of my pickup, with well or pond water, and bypass the water company's restrictions. It is a lot of work to have to haul water, but that is about the only way I can keep things alive. Last year the water company cut off all outside watering.

I am modifying all of my irrigation tubes because they no longer fit my garden. Some of the tubes are about 20 years old and need a little repair anyway. The tubes are made of 1/2" PVC, so it is easy to cut one apart and add to another, then piece the pieces together to build another one the proper size.

Be careful in this heat, I have gotten too hot in the past, and for some reason I can get too hot in a heart beat, one time I had to be taken to the ER.

Jennifer, I went out to check the gardens for heat stress, and was somewhat surprised, they are worse than I had expected. Madge does not like for me to get out in the heat, and my doctors say the same thing, but I went out today when it was 102, and harvested some produce. The tomatoes looked, and felt like they were cooked, many of the cow peas were wilted and not filled out well.

I will try hard to keep the okra, peppers, and sweet potatoes alive, the peas and beans I will just play day by day.

I don't remember it being so hard keeping peppers producing in the past. I am growing some (new to me) peppers this year, maybe I should just cut back, set up some kind of drip watering system, and just grow what we can use.

I have worked hard trying to get the kids interested in growing food, and have felt that I was making headway, but I may be just setting up a welfare state.

We show a 72% chance for rain for this coming Sunday, but it takes more than "Chances" to water my gardens.

Well, I just keep stopping on this post and going to do something else, now it is past 8:30, the hay crew has been here bring in equipment, and I have been taking them around the gardens, they have been eating and filling their pockets and shirt tails with produce, but we had a good visit, many of the ones that came by i don't get to see but maybe once every year or two.

I was up at 3 am and decided to go out to the greenhouse and see if I could find any grasshoppers. Found a few and dispatched them . Decided to go ahead and do a little watering while it was less hot.

I may have waited to late on my strawberry plants. Hopefully some of them will survive. I have them in old feed tubes and they dry out so quick in this heat.

I'm just letting the okra go to seedseed now.the ants are getting all over them looking for moisture.

My sweet potatoes are probably glad I gave them a little drink of water. Some of the cracks in the dirt around them are over a inch wide.

Hey Friends. Waiting on the cool down and praying we all get some rain--decent, good rain.

It's been a long day at work. I'm about to go outside to do some work. Leftovers for dinner.

Robert, we've had cracks like that--I can fit my hand into them. They aren't quite that bad yet, but if the rain misses us this weekend, they will be.

We have these giant logs that ChipDrop dropped at our house. A neighbor with a forklift is about to come over to move them to another neighbor's property. I'm a little sad about it because the logs could be made into something cool. BUT, only so many hours in the day. We are going to tarp the entire thing once the giant logs are out, because weeds and grass have grown up into it all. Maybe in a year or so, it'll be great compost. We'll just go get truckloads of chips from now on and not have giant piles on the property.

I understand that Jennifer. The neighbor got a chip drop from a friend of theirs and they haven’t done anything with it except fill in some spots in the driveway. So I’ve been taking a little bit of it. My initial plan was to do my whole garden in chips, but Richard doesn’t really care for them and I don’t want him injuring himself for sure, so cardboard it is. I planted a whole tray of stuff the other day for fall gardening and the only thing that came up was purple pack choy and then I almost killed it so I have to start all over.

Jennifer, dehydration can cause both vomiting and diarrhea, making the dehydration worse. Y'all need to drink more! And rest more! When it's real hot it's like 15 minutes outside and 30 minutes cooling off. It is probably worse the older one is because the older you are the less efficient your body is at controlling body temperature.

Amy, I think that you are correct on old folks and body temp. Madge adjust the thermostat often, she is either hot, or she is cold. I am one of those that can only handle the extreme temps for a short time, then have to go inside, and my hands and feet feel cold all the time.

I am still trying to keep things alive in the garden. The cucumbers and some of the tomatoes have died. Some tomatoes are setting fruit, so those I will keep watering as long as there is hope. I have a Champion tomato that has small fruit in it, which was surprising to me, that plant was given to me, but it is one that I may have to buy seeds for. Of course I want to look after my sweet potatoes. I use to almost let my sweet potatoes grow wild, but last year I set out 4 slips late and cared for them very well, afraid that they might be the only potatoes that I would harvest. The 4 late slips produced about 30% of what my other 105 plants produced, so this year I planted 33 late slips, and I am caring for them much better than the 85 earlier planted slips to see if the same thing happens this year.

I actually do drink a lot. I'm always sipping water or herbal tea.

Amy, It's very likely that I have a very mild lupus. My primary doctor wouldn't diagnose it, even though they called me for further blood tests when they discovered the ANA. I wouldn't take meds at this point anyway, so it doesn't matter. BUT the sunlight when so strong does cause me issues. I wear garden sleeves in my car even.

Rest is a dream. Maybe a winter dream. Although I'm going to paint the living, hall, dining and kitchen this January. It shouldn't be as crazy as this past winter. These rooms have already been properly textured and whatnot. Just paint. Maybe I'll knock it all out in a week or two and then can have a lazy winter.

My work is crazy right now, but I won't go into the boring details.

I didn't garden today. I watched Rick water for a short while tonight.

Wait. I did rest. Tom and I did a fire pit for about an hour this evening at dark. It was nice and I feel much better.

Tomorrow, I'm having family for my Mom's BD lunch. She's precious. I got a good mom.

(I think) My kids think the same. It's so weird how they're not near me. I always thought they would be close. Both would have me live close to them in a heartbeat. I just can't see moving to Oregon at this point. Edmond maybe.

Not much gardening talk.

Working on my 2025 plan. I'm going to stick to it. I will not take plants at SF just because they sound interesting. I will not feel obligated to find a place to plant gifted seedlings. I will stick to the plan.

I have found that drinking water does not help to keep me from overheating. It’s the electrolyte balance that needs fixing. I like the zero sugar body armour. It’s made with stevia and just a third of the bottle keeps me feeling good. If I do get over heated a cool shower or cool water on my head and neck helps immensely. I keep it running for a good five minutes to literally cool off my brain. I’ve seen what a heat stroke does to people and it’s not pretty. I rooted out some tomatoes and I am about to rip out the peppers and another tomato. I have five pots cleared out but a couple more won’t hurt.

Amy, I am not very nice, I cut out the Jimsonweed that BIL sent home with Madge, I should have had better sense than to plant it, but I did't.

I expect that there may already a thousand seeds on the ground. Note that there is a 5 gallon bucket full of seed pods, and a good size pile on the ground beside the bucket, I plan on burning the seeds and the pile of plants shown. Some people are not good at saying NO! Just because someone gives you a plant, does not mean that you have to plant it.

Kim, I have 7 mineral tubs that need cleaning out, and 4 that need new soil in them. The plant you gave me died, and I need to clean out that area, but I doubt that I plant and fall stuff in that area because the sweet potato runners well be growing there soon, but I think it may be a good spot for green onions after I harvest the sweet potatoes.

I need to go pick the okra. Madge said that she felt well enough to freeze this batch.

Larry I wasn’t impressed with giant crimson. I didn’t save seeds and I won’t plant again.

Kim, I was impressed with the Giant Crimson, till, something hit, maybe hot weather, or disease, what ever it was caused it to die in 2 or 3 days, and it was getting prime care. I have been impressed with Champion. Neighbor gave me 3 plants, and one of them is still sitting fruit. I don't have many plants sitting fruit in this hot weather, but the ones that are, are moving up on my "to grow list" for next year.

I don't have any plans to grow any of the dwarf tomato plants next year, I will try to grow something more productive in the same space.

I am thinking that I might try growing some peas and/or beans in between my sweet potato rows again next year. I will wait till harvest time for the sweet potatoes to decide, but I have picked 2 good messes of green beans and purple hull peas from space that I would have just been weeding anyway. I cant plant as many peas or beans as I would normally, and I have to be very careful while picking the peas/beans, and do as little damage to the potato vines as possible.

Another plant that I have been dissapointed in is Jalapeno M pepper, they just don't seem to be very productive, and the fruit is small. I seldom start peppers because we use so few of them, but I am trying to grow stuff that the kids will use, and I started a lot of peppers this year, and the only ones I am happy with are Habaneros.

I have 5 or 6 jalapeno M pepper plants shown in the center or the picture.

I have from 3 to 5 jalapeno M between the okra plants. I expect that these plants may be starved for light, but they are not producing either.

Larry, your garden always looks so lush. Mine looks the opposite right now. The only decent things are peppers. Even those have aphids. Haven't had aphids on peppers in years.

The rain has mostly missed us yesterday and today. If it doesn't happen tonight in a meaningful way, I'll be pulling plants tomorrow. I'll probably pull a few regardless.

I did put in the 3 new Sungolds. Maybe they'll soon make some fresh cherry tomatoes for us.

I have a very ripe "Dawn" jalapeno that I'll be saving seed from. I'll bring some to SF next year.

Mom's little BD party was nice. It's always just a bit sad because my niece, a nephew, and my son aren't here. We remembered to take pictures, but I look AWFUL in them. I had cut up an onion before, so my eyes were messed up and face all blotchy and strained. Luckily, I'm not the focus of the pictures--my Mom is. And the grandboy. And they both looked cute.

We've been to the store to grab a few groceries for the week.

Y'all are all expanding your gardens and here I am watching Calikim again. She has a backyard garden. I'm trying to downsize some so I can take care of it better.

I'm about to walk out to the hoop house and water the seedlings and I'll walk through the gardens too. I did early with Mom. Even she commented that the garden looked about done. It really does.

The other day I tucked in some cucumber seed, maybe it will sprout.

I used to watch Cali Kim. I enjoyed her sometimes but when everything looks so perfect it’s really hard to watch day after day. Kind of like garden ANSWER but she shows the bad stuff too and I appreciate that. Because everybody that gardens has stuff that happens. Nobody has a perfect garden. I took a little Class this morning on fall gardening. Half of it was them trying to get you to sign up for a $300 course and I appreciate that their knowledge is very valuable but I just wanted to clean a little information. I planted summer squash, cilantro, dill, parsley, basil, and I picked all of my peppers that ended up being jalapeños. I had gotten a six pack at the spring fling. And was going to dehydrate the bell peppers down to put in my herb blends that I do. They indeed were not bell peppers. But my neighbor appreciated and I had about 20 off of two plants. And they look like they could just go like gangbusters, but I cut them down. I left Sophie running around outside today. Usually when it’s hot, she doesn’t do anything, but today was only 80°. So she tracked down my duck in the garden and dug a hole and got in there. I was in the house and I heard her yip. I ran out and she was staring down my duck. I got her out and Richard was mentally traumatized but looked good otherwise. I don’t know if she would actually eat him or if she just wants to play either way he is not down for that. I’m off the next two days. I’m gonna make lots of videos and headway in that garden.

Jennifer Larry’s garden always does look lush doesn’t it? I am glad the party went well.

Thanks, Kim!

I'm glad Richard is okay. Poor lil guy.

I've seen a couple of less attractive things on Calikim. One was rats getting their tomatoes.

But, I get what you mean. She was one of the first garden YouTubers I watched and I liked her older videos back then.

But, honestly, most of the big name YouTubers is the same for me. I liked their older stuff better. Goodness, I remember the video where Jess and Jeremiah had a wreck and had no transportation because they couldn't afford to fix their vehichle or get another one. Viewers sent them money, although they never asked for it.

Anyway....

Yes, this next season I need to focus on a smaller garden area.

(I always have to say this---if we're shut down again for some reason or there's a food shortage, I'll pivot.)

Ladies, thanks for the compliments, but remember that I only post the best pictures, some of the sights in my garden would make you cry. All my cucumbers are gone, and I don't have a pretty tomato plant anywhere. I do have some pretty pepper plants, and some productive pepper plants, but the jalapeno are not in the productive group. I am going to buy some more pepper seeds, but not the jalapeno M. I was impressed with what I had read about the "M", but I am not happy with these plants.

Kim, I also have a "bell" pepper that I don't know what it is. The pepper looks like a heart, and it is smaller than a California Bell, but very productive. I started way too many plants this year, and some of them I did not know what they were, one that comes to my mind is "Red Pimento", I have know idea what Red Pimento is.

I caller my grand daughter to come and get come veggies, she took 3 bags of produce home with her, mostly okra and peppers, and a few tomatoes.

Jennifer I remember that video well. I wrote her and poured my heart out to her. How I wanted to help her etc. next thing I knew I got a card and money from her. I still have the card. Precious. I need to go watch some of her older videos. Larry I get it. If I posted pictures of my truth/junk y’all might kick me out lol. It good feeling to share

69 degrees, and getting a nice rain, I hope all of you are as lucky.

How about 5 to 7 inches.

Rick

Kim, my dog played with a couple of my chickens. Have you ever seen a dog shake a toy or throw it up and catch it? I don't have chickens anymore.

Larry I love pimento peppers. They're like a squashed bell pepper. Shorter, thick walled and flavorful. Always more productive for me than bells.

OKC got rain, we got .06. :(

Amy, that is why I am working to keep Sophie out of the garden. I stepped in the house for just a second and literally she dug a hole and got in the garden. the neighbors great Dane did that to one of the neighbors Chihuahuas and it did not survive. But the big dog literally just thought he was playing.

Amy, I think the red pimento will stay on my grow list, as well as the Ashe County. I am having pretty good luck with the China Giant, and the California wonder, but I am not sure that the two larger bells will match the pimentos in pounds of produce per sq.ft. garden space, plus, the larger pepper plants seem more apt to break.

I am surprised with the habanero peppers. This is the first year I have grown them and taken really good care of them, and I have so many that I don't know what to do with them. My grand daughter says she going to try to use them with the pimentos and the bells along with other veggies to make a hot relish. I am happy that some of the kids are taking an interest in things like that.

Lisa showed just over 3 1/2” Rain in okc

5 +” the guage was only 5” and overflowed. Filled all 3 ponds and 2 smaller ones are running over.

I'll start a new thread for the week.