That is a lot of rain. I believe I have an inch for the week so far, but we are expecting more later today and tomorrow. I need to get some buckets set out under the eaves to catch some rain for later. Soon as we are done with the rain for the week. I’m going to start harvesting Roselle.

Glenda, thanks for starting the thread. We got a little rain, I don't know how much, but I would guess around an inch. It looked like about everything went at an angle northeast across central Oklahoma, with Ft. Smith being at the edge of it. I am sorry for the ones that got the strong weather, but I am thankful for the rain we got, but we are showing a 90% chance for more tomorrow.

I am glad that you and your husband are still able to feed hay and tend to livestock, those days are past for Madge and me. My small garden and the housework Madge does keeps us busy.

We got about 2 3/4" of rain combined so far. I've got a few saffron crocus fixing to bloombloom in the greenhouse.

There's a little over 100100 bulbs in that container.

Aphids have been wrecking havoc on some crops in the smaller greenhouse.

Satsuma/ tangerine

Thanks for starting the thread, Glenda.

We've had many inches of rain, but I don't know how many. I was able to get to work today--sometimes Indian Hills floods at a certain place just east of the tracks. The "road closed" signs were up, but we went through them because we could tell that it had receded by 7:30 this morning. (However, it might be flooded again now). We wouldn't have been able to get down Sooner Rd. to I240 because of the tornado damage near Sooner and 89th. That's just a few miles from us--maybe 6? From the pictures, the damage looks pretty bad.

We hear both Moore and Norman sirens and they started at 130 this morning. I had the window open because the nice calm rain was so soothing at bedtime. Somehow Tom slept through those sirens. Even slept through me turning on the TV. Luckily, so far, we've kept our power.

I was able to get to work this morning without issue. I have another work-related thing tonight. I got home around 1 and slept for over 2 hours. It felt so nice. I finally went back to sleep "last night" around 4 and was up at 6.

It's been a bit crazy.

Rick went to his work this morning and messaged from there that his power is out at home.

I sure do love rain, but this is a lot. I'm not complaining, tho. It would be nice to have it without the severe weather.

No gardening today. :)

My outside tomatoes are loaded. I probably have close to a dozen still blooming.

Had to stand the one back up wind had it blown over.

Harvesting roselle hibiscus

Old busy, I’m jealous of your greenhouse. 30 years ago I had a greenhouse about 1/8 size of years We’ve lived 3 places in 50 years and my husband has always made me some type of small greenhouse. I’m not sure if it’s more therapy and mental sanity for me or peace and quiet for him. I heated the biggest one with an old old woodstove and couple of fans to circulate the air and heat. The one I have now he built from scrap materials when our house was built, its very well insulated and small enough to heat with a little propane heater. I miss having the in-ground beds and enough light to raise fresh lettuce and greens in the winter but for us its cheaper to buy it than to pay for heating fuel.

We got another 6/10” today - so total for the week so far is a little over 6”. Ground is finally saturated enough that water is going into ponds.

Finally got my power back on. Yep , i was in one of the more tornado prong places , enough for sirens to go off. And lightning /wind took out my power for 20 some hours. I'm among the lucky ones. Some people lost their roof...sucks..

Rick

Rick that’s good to hear. Glad you are okay. Scary weather up there

I'm so thankful I got power .And pity those who don't.

Seems like you're just stone dead when there's no power.

Especially at night. can't see anything (without a flashlight) , no TV ,no computer, no phone.Just nothing. Can't cook , no microwave , worries about the frig and any freezers.

There's more bad weather coming they say.

Probably more flooding...well at least it'll end the drought.

Rick

We have dumped 7.25 inches from our rain gauge in the last few days. Our weather station isn't registering proper rain amounts any more. Slept through the tornado warnings, but sirens didn't go off here.

I always feel lost without power. We now have a device that will charge phones if power is off.

I'm envious of any greenhouse, but that is very nice!

Glad you're all safe, stay that way!

Farmgardenerok, I have 2 greenhouses. One is 16'x48'x12'. The other is 16'x40x8' tall. I started with a harbor freight 10x12'. It dry rotted at 5 yrs old. I wished I had another one , not a harbor freight one. Lol.

My saffron is getting closer. I'll harvest when fully open.

I'll probably plant another tub next year.

I don't know how much rain we got, but I am sure it was much less than y'all got, I am expecting we got around 3 inches+ total. We lost power for an hour, of course our phones were both about down. I ask Madge to go hook her phone to the car charger for a while, but the power was back on too soon to be a problem.

I would like to have a nice greenhouse. I had a makeshift greenhouse at one time, and enjoyed it but I was single at the time, and it was just something to play with. At the time I was already growing much more than I could use in the garden, and did not want to fight the grass and weeds that was growing in the greenhouse, and could not afford to heat and vent it for things I did not need anyway. For me, a greenhouse would be more for therapy.

The rain has really made the garlic and onions pop up, mater of fact the garden looks happy. I have at least 300 garlic up, and found 27 more in the back of the RTV that were sprouting, I will plant them also, I can always throw them away later if I cant find a home for them, or I need the space for something else. The number in my head is telling me that I may have as many as 600 garlic planted, but my memory last about as long as a puff of smoke.

I noticed a 5 gallon bucket at the edge of the south garden, that I though I had left empty, that had about 6" of water in it, I must have left some water in it to keep it from blowing away, because I don't think we got that much rain. The last time I used that bucket was Sat. when I washed the veggies that I took to my aunt and uncle.

Do you sell the saffron or keep it for yourself?

We have unpleasant weather forecast for this afternoon and tonight. We don't want the wind, rain, and hail, but I don't often get the weather I want, but, so far, I have been able to deal with the weather that I have received.

The saffron is very cool, Busy1. Something I must try in the future!

I have no idea how much rain we've had, but it's been a LOT. Our yard area looks like a lake.

Woke up with sirens around 6:30. Schools were cancelled. I came to work and am SO glad that I did. I got much done....especially without dividing up my day between jobs.

I'm about to head home, put on my boots and look around at the garden and hoop house.

I need to take some time to figure out an area for the succulents. They're in the shop now. They like summer rain because it gets hot again quickly. This rain was too much for them, so they were moved to the shop before the deluge. And, they need to come indoors anyways. I just don't know where to put them all. I suppose the light shelf would work until I can figure out another solution. My house is fairly dark, facing the north. After Christmas, 3 of them in matchy-match pots would look cute on my kitchen table, but I do other centerpieces for the holidays.

I wish I would have picked the beautiful cherry tomatoes before the rain. They'll be split now.

Anyway....not much else gardeny to talk about.

Oh, I saw a beautiful packaged deal called Cottagecore Dream at Botanical Interests. It looks lovely if anyone is interested in that sort of thing. They have some neat packages, like the Witches Garden one that I bought.

Larry, tornados moving your direction, be alert.

I texted Madge. They are fine and keeping an eye on the storm. I saw one that touchdown at Watts, which is West of them.

Kim we keep the saffron. I haven't grown it in a long time. The last I grew died out from staying to wet.

At this point the storm is tracking west of us, still in Oklahoma, heading mostly north. Our weather often matches close to what Poteau OK. has, but we are in Arkansas.

We had sirens in the afternoon, but it went north east of us. Then one tried to get Nancy, she's OK. Then the one that went for Larry. Kept me watching Travis all afternoon. I've forgotten how much rain Ron said, but at least another inch.

We got a total of 4 1/2" of rain. I planted replacement garlic today. Yes it was damp but not muddy. That's how fast my garden can be dry enough to get accessacrossaccessacross. Stupid gardenweb.

We got a pretty good rain, my bucket in the garden had at least 4 more inches in it. I also planted a few garlic where I had skips. I am not sure if I missed it the first time or the clove did not sprout. My garden is really too muddy to do anything out there, and I feel too weak to do much anyway.

Jen, I had a couple of memories pop up from the last few days. I had mentioned maybe on last week's thread, that I only remember first frosts being in October (in the past 10 years) and my FB memories seemed to support that. However, the couple of recent memories show that we did have our first frost in November last year and in 2018. Just thought I would share. Funny how memory works sometimes.

Nothing else really to report. Just leaving how at dark and getting home at dark. Hoping to get home a little earlier today. Maybe walk the poor dog and look at the garden. I have a chicken in my bathroom that was found last night, barely hanging to life. She was still alive this morning, but by the time I left, she wasn't responding to anything. She is one of the younger ones--a little over a year.

That's all. Just checking in.

Sorry about your chicken Jennifer. And these dark days early are not my favorite.

We have had 2 mornings back to back at mid Oct. with freezing temp., 32 one morning, an 31 the next that wiped out most of my plants, but some came back and are still producing a little. I have not fed my plants since early summer so fruit is small, plus that were not watered after the freeze, but surprisingly I still have peppers. I am low on Ache County pepper seed, so I need to save some of them. I may save some habanero seeds also, this is the first year I have grown any of those in 20 years and I don't remember how many seeds I had when I started them this year. I have a good supply of onions and garlic coming along. I was ask yesterday for a start of walking onions, so I need to dig some and take to the lady that wanted to try them. I wish I had as good of luck at growing all things as well as the walking onions grow for me.

Madge said that she would make some turnips and turnip greens today for lunch, but I need to go harvest some. I hope that we have had enough cool weather to sweeten up the turnips, and greens, but I doubt it, but I am hungry for fresh salad and fresh greens, along with some green onions. The bunching onion sets that I bought last year at the Co-op have done well, but they did have any this year when I wanted to buy more, all I had were the ones i harvested and saved this spring, which cut me a little short. The sets were supplied from north of Ft. Smith, and I don't even know what the name of the onions are, so I will have st save a larger supply this year.

While out harvesting stuff for a salad I harvested a bunching/multiplying onion, the bulb, of set had made 7 almost equally sized green onions, I saparated them, brought 3 in for the salad, and replanted the other 4. I gathered Parris Island lettuce, arugula, White Icicle radish, a jalapeno, and some sweet potato leaves for the salad. This is my first time at trying to eat sweet potato leaves, there may be a learning curve to this.

Larry, I wish I lived close enough to share your turnip greens. They are my favorite. the Paris Island lettuce is the best producer for me and since I buy those seed at Dollar Tree they are a bargain .

I have no luck growing garlic but I can get onions to grow. I’m anxious to hear if you like the sweet potato vines. I tasted one raw in the garden and wasn’t impressed, maybe you will be

First big harvest of roselle. I wanted to get the big ones off the plant to allow more energy to make the little ones bigger. I left a few huge ones on there and I am going to mark those with A string so they can go to seed.

I like my sweet potato leaves cooked with other greens like collards and I don’t like them plain or raw

Glenda, I did like the sweet potato vines, I actually liked them better than the lettuce, but I tried the alone back in the summer ( while I was out in the garden ) and thought they were a little tough. The vines I picked today were young and tender. Some weeks ago I mowed the sweet potatoes, then dug the potatoes. plowed the area with a 9 shank cultivator, the tilled several times. I got my fall crop planted and started and started water everything, then had sweet potatoes coming up everywhere. I plan on leaving the potato vines, and eating on them till the frost kills them. I would love to be sharing my greens with you. I don't understand why you cant grow garlic, I don't what I am doing, but I have garlic coming in at least 3 areas in the south garden.

Most of the the sweet potatoes are at the far end with the beets. I did not get a good stand on the beets, but I have more greens than two people can eat.

Here is one area where I have garlic coming up. I expect that I have over 300 in this area already up, many to small to be seen in the picture.

I didn't have a chance to look at the garden yesterday after all. I got stuck at work. I did have time to walk my dog. Poor thing needed it. We squeezed it in right as it was getting dark. My hen died.

I did run out to the hoop house this morning to grab some lettuce for my salad today. It's ridiculous because they're still in their little seedling pots. But, it's working. One of those things that got neglected because of time issues. And it was so hot until last week that I didn't want to put them in the Greenstalk in full sun. It's okay. I'll just cut on them like this. They taste good. There's tiny seedlings in the Greenstalk. I wonder if they'll have a chance to size up. Spinach too.

The cherry tomato trellis got blown over in the storms. But, mostly becasue we had so much rain that the soil was super wet and muddy. That wind just pushed it on over. I was able to grab some tomatoes too for the salad. And some lunchbox peppers as well as salad turnips and radishes. It should be a tasty lunch. Ilike the Brianna's salad dressings. Have y'all tried those? If I can't make my own, Brianna's is my favorite.

Just checking in....

Larry, your garden looks great. I’m so jealous of your nice neat rows of crops popping up. Jennifer, I’m very sorry about your chicken. It’s very hard when the little darlings are just our little pets. I have to replant my spinach. I have been having a terrible terrible time with frogs in my tubs. And the ones that are on the outside of the fence, a dog gets in and tears the tub apart to get to the frog. It’s very frustrating.

Tkanks, Kim, I made a tool that looks like a rake with 4 pieces of 1/2 pvc through a 2x6 that I can drag across the garden that will make 4 shallow grooves 6" apart which helps me apace rows 6, 12, or 18 inches apart. I plant garlic on 6" centers, most greens are 12 or 18 inch rows. I have to have a walking path about every 24 to 36 inches. Larger stuff has to have more room. My trellises have to be 7+ feet apart to till, disc, and mow in between. I plant okra, peas, and so forth between the trellises. Under my trellises I just work by hand. My garden never really looks neat, I am always bending, breaking, or knocking something down with the tractor, but I am thankful that I can still get on the tractor because a lot of the stuff I use to do by hand, I am no longer able to do.

I do love the way that looks. I used to garden like that and I will again.

Kim, that is great.

My garden and weeds are really growing well, but it is too wet to do anything in the garden.

I tried to till and replant too soon after harvesting the sweet potatoes. I normally dig sweet potatoes around the first of Oct, which I did just a little earlier this year, then planted a fall crop. It was very dry at the time so I had to water often. We had two freezes approx 14 and 15 of Oct., but lots of warm weather after, and from the vines and missed potatoes, I have sweet potato vine try to out grow most of my fall crop. I really can't complain, other than those two cold mornings that killed most of my summer crop, we have had a long growing season, and it looks like we may have more to go.

My garlic is growing well also. I don't keep records, and with my memory I can't even keep up with what happened yesterday, let alone in years past, but I would like to ask a question of those on you that I know are much smarter than I am, which is, if we have a longer growing season in the fall, will the garlic need to be dug sooner, or is that going to depend on next spring?

Kim, I wish we did live closer, because it looks like I am going to have to find someone to dump some garlic off on next year. I have planted at least 500, and I must have 400+ already up..

I am about to climb the walls, its too wet to work outside, and I am not in the mood to do cleaning in the house, but that is not uncommon, I am not a very good house cat.

Well, the only thing that doesn’t hurt tonight is my hands so I am cleaning several gallons of Roselle. After I get them deseeded I will dehydrate

How did the market go, Kim? You're so good. I should have picked more roselle before dark and dehydrated it. But, I've about decided that I'm going to let it go for the year. The plants aren't looking great right now. Maybe it's too much water. Only the cool season things look good right now.

I pulled a goji berry and ate it. It was very sweet. Maybe I'll pull those tomorrow if I have time.

So far, no garlic has popped up. Hoping it didn't drown. lol

Larry, does going out for a drive help your cabin fever?

Not much new to report here. We got a lot of rain again yesterday but today was sunny and crisp and nice.

Jennifer the market was great. I cleared expenses plus plenty more to reorder for the next few markets. I was going to do one tomorrow but I need to restock first. I love doing the markets so much and I really believe this will be a new business for me. I’m praying about what to grow next year for Market. We got quite a bit of rain and I was concerned it was supposed to rain today and then all of a sudden it was out of the forecast and looked like it was gonna be a beautiful day and it was. I started off freezing at 6 o’clock and by 1 o’clock. I was getting a sunburn neck. This Roselle is a beast, but I am determined to harvest and process as much as I can tolerate. I am going to dry the seed pods. I found out that they don’t have to be brown and crunchy to harvest. You can actually just lay out the green giant seed pod and, let it dry in the house and then harvest the seed so I will definitely be doing that I cleaned about 50 and could not do anymore.

Jennifer, years ago I liked to go for drives, I don't care much about them anymore. The thing I had rather do now is go out to eat with my wife. I get my best meals at home, but I like to take her out to try to thank her for being such a caring wife to me. Our health issues wont let us do a lot of thing we use to like to do.

I would like to contour the lawn to improve drainage, but this is the wrong time of the year to try that, but I may try to plant some winter grass to see if that will help. We have too many trees, and we planted them all but one of them. I tried to tell Madge when we were planting them that we would regret it later, but she did not understand how large they would grow, and how hard it would be to get things to grow under them, but they look nice, and we have plenty of shade. I think it is easier to care for a lawn that does not have so many trees. I also don't like caring for the land like I use to, its too much work and too much equipment to keep up.

Jennifer, I expect that all of your garlic will come up, or at least most of it. I planted last month and already have more up than I need, plus I have a bunch of bunching, and walking onion to deal with. I plan on getting rid of some of the onions. I told a couple of old folks that I would give them a wicking tub and some onions, so as soon as the weather straightens up some I will go over and sit the tub up for them, but I will still have too many onions.

I picked most of the tomatoes from the plants i have left. Plants still look green and healthy, but tomatoes are not getting larger and now of all things the worms are hitting them! In November!

Larry I fully understand your feelings about trees and working the land. We enjoyed it when we were able but now its too much chore instead of pleasure, especially in the Fall when leaves are falling and need to be cleaned up constantly. What used to take 30 minutes to an hour now takes us all day and both of us to get it done. We also enjoy eating out more often, not fancy places - just simple fast food; however that is too expensive to do often. I could survive on salads and vegetables with just occasional meat. My husband would eat bacon sandwich and homemade, not frozen fries everyday - he rarely eats vegetables. I brought in most of the remaining tomatoes and peppers last night, 3 cucumbers, a good handful of green beans and some radishes for a friend at church. Still have greens and lettuce growing - its always good to pull a handfull for the chickens even when not the best quality - they aren’t as particular as people. I even planted a few garlic.

Those tomatoes look good. My big beefy pink brandywine do not look like the pictures. Their coloring deep red almost burgundy. They are striped and streaky.
The seed is from BC so it would not surprise me that it’s not true to type.

Kim, they look nice to me. A question comes to mind, are your Brandywine seeds small? I have an ounce pack of Brandywine seeds from the Farmers Co-op, and they seem smaller than most tomato seeds. The tomatoes seem okay,but just seem to have a small seed for the fruit size. I have volunteer plants that are about knee high and blooming like crazy, I have no idea what kind of tomato they are, just that this seems to be a crazy year. We had a long dry spell, but when all the numbers are in I expect we will have a wetter year than normal. I had one water bill over $100, but that is not bad considering our water is around .6 cents a gallon, and I have two gardens.

I expect a good day, daughter is to come over. I doubt that grand daughter will be here, they had to have a pet put down Friday, and they are a little sad now. Otis was just an old 3 legged stray, but she cared for and loved that old dog for a long time.

I just went out to check the garden, and it easier for me to count the garlic that I don't have, than to count the ones that I do have. I planted on 6" centers, and I have 60 empty spots. I know that I planted at least 500, maybe 600. I have walking onion and sweet potatoes coming up where there should not be anything, but I guess that is no worse than having weeds coming up.

Kim, I picked a nice for, this time of the year tomato while I was out at the garden. I also have quite a few peppers I can pick, but they seem to be growing very slowly this time of the year.

Glenda, somehow I missed your post.

We dont go to fancy places to eat other, we dont even have any fancy places around here. When we got Ft. Smith we mostly eat at Olive Garden, we love their soup and salad, which is about the cheapest meal they have, and I could just about live on salad.

Greenwood is the closest place where we like to eat, there is nothing fancy in Greenwood, but all of the places there are fancy enough for us.

Your plants really look nice for this time of the year. I wish that I had some chickens to feed produce to, I just cut my damaged produce and toss it into the row centers to be tilled back into the soil.

I say that I would like to have chickens, but we don't eat that many eggs, and we are too soft hearted to kill any thing. We have a stray cat here, that I told Madge not to feed when it came around, but she said that she did not like to see anything hungry. I threatened to kill that cat countless times, but she knew that I would not kill her. You can guess what has happened, that sweet cat that I should have shot has already blessed us with 9 babies this summer, and is ready to drop some more. I guess that if I cant stand the cats I will have to shoot my self, because I will soon not have enough shells to shoot all the cats.

I think you will enjoy growing garlic. Garlic seems to be a lot like onions, you just stick it in the ground and it grows. We dont use a lot of garlic, but the kids seem to like it, and I am trying to get them to learn a little about growing food, and onions, garlic, and sweet potatoes are some of the easiest plants to grow. The kids wont eat turnips, or any thing that looks like a turnip. I am not sure I will live long enough to change their mind on turnips.