Where are you in the state that you have a forecast for the 40s? I'm near Skiatook and Accuweather says the low is 54 on Monday and Weatherbug says the low is 50. I know they can revise a lot as the day approaches. But since Texas is 90 miles south of you, I'd have thought that the southern part of the state would be even warmer than up here in the northern section!

I'm just ITCHING to get started myself... but hesitant. The Monday forecast for here is a low of 53. ALL my little tomatoes that I had started didn't make it, unfortunately. So I'll be buying a few plants for sure. I DID start a few Fourth of July's in MG potting soil... and am babying the heck out of 'em... LOL! I shoulda done that to begin with, just a FEW seeds instead of a whole lot!

My peppers survived smashingly tho! GREAT looking things! They're outside right now getting all the sun they can handle. The low on monday makes me nervous about going ahead and planting them tho.

Do you just simply lay plastic over your cukes, squash and pole beans and they'll be fine? Details please?

Beth

Jay,

Have fun! My favorite day of the gardening year is the first day that I can "safely" plant tomatoes out in the ground. Of course, it never fails that, on the day after I plant, the weather forecast then bizarrely tail-dives and it either hails, sleets or snows....but that's just the kind of weather we have here in the spring. I hope you don't get any strange weather after you plant out.

I have been proceeding very slowly and carefully. Only have 1/3 of the tomato plants in the ground, but should have 2/3s of them in the ground by the end of today. The relentless wind has been very hard on the ones I've transplanted, but I can't wait any longer for the wind to calm down, so I've been wrapping the lower part of the cages in plastic to serve as a windbreak.

I hardly know what planting date advice to give anybody any more because the last three years it has been impossible to plant "on time" without losing plants to late freezes. So, I think there's a point where we just have to forge ahead, plant, and hope for the best.

The tomato plants I set out two weeks ago are starting to bloom. They are loving the temperatures, if not the winds.

It looks like all your MG potting mixes were from good batches and that is good to know. I wouldn't wish Beth's experience with MG on anybody.

Gamebird,

Jay is in southwestern Kansas, so his place is a little colder than ours in winter and spring, and probably hotter and drier in summer. It doesn't seem fair, does it? Whenever I start to whine about the rain that is not falling this summer (if it doesn't fall, and it probably won't), I hope Jay will tell me to shut up and appreciate whatever rain I'm getting because he'll likely be getting a lot less rain at his place. : )

Beth,

If 53 is the lowest temp you have to worry about, I'd go ahead and plant. I don't like to expose tomato plants to temps below 45, but anything above that is fine as long as your soil isn't still abnormally cold.

I don't know how Jay does his plastic. Normally, though, when you put a plastic covering over plants, you have to use hoops or something to keep the plastic from touching the plants. If you have a late freeze, which is still a good possibility for Jay and, perhaps for you as well, any part of the plant that touches the plastic can freeze. Plastic suspended above the plant, though, helps hold in heat and keep the frost off the foliage, so it is a great garden helper as long as the foliage doesn't touch the plastic.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn! BTW... MG might've been part of the problem, but the rest was all me... lol! :)

I'm doing well with the MG potting soil so far. Instead of starting under my crummy lights, I'm using the allmighty sun now. Keeping my fingers crossed! Still having fun with it!!! lol...

Beth

I've finally set out my tomatoes and peppers today. Had planned to plant them but hubby can't get the tiller started and the kitchen garden is one spot that needs tilling. Maybe he'll say just the right combination of cuss words and get it running yet today. Then I'll plat the "hurry and plant before it rains again" game.

Oh, we have tons of blossoms and even a few baby tomatoes! Silly plants wanted to be out weeks ago.

Diane

Dawn,
Haven't got any out yet today. Had a little set back but going out to do some potting up after I answer this post and then if I don't stick any in the ground today will tomorrow. The cold front and wind that came through changed my plans. The plants I left out when I checked on them after I saw the temp had dropped to 40 looked droopy and concerned me a little. So hurried them into the cold frame I had moved and set earlier in the week. Then applied shade cloth to half of one top door. And moved them under there. By this time the weather service had lowered their prediction to 56 so I left the doors shut and headed over to see my Mother who was leaving on a trip and her health is failing every day now. Got over there and the sun came out and it started a warm up. It is 60 miles over there so couldn't just run home and open a door. But the grass and a weed or two inside the frame had survived the hot days and with the shade cloth I figured I should be fine. By the time I got back was 63 but everything is looking great again. Hoping the brief drop to 40 didn't hurt them much if any. I'm like Dawn don't like to see them under 45 if so not for long. They were close to the house and normally it would of been warmer but the wind didn't help. I will leave them in the frame for a while now unless they are selected for the garden. I have promised myself I'm not going to carry several hundred plants back and forth anymore. Start the seeds a little later and use the cold frame or plant with protection. When they get potted up out they go. I may leave a few small ones in under lights for a few days. Our average last frost date for the last ten years is April 18th. But for the 3 years previous to this year is May 5th. So anyones guess. I hope we are finished and many feel we might be. I have enough plants like I said I will gamble with a few and replant if I have too. Stopped by a few greenhouses and a nursery today. One is leaving their veggies outside with just good wind protection. Not sure I would do that yet. A few plants looked nice but overall not great. And didn't see a single op/heirloom.
Beth if there is a method I've probably tried it. My Mother always planted peppers and tomatoes in post holes. Set the tomato plants with the tops about ground level or just lower and then fill in as they grow. This and the bucket around each gives wind protection and a little warth and also you can put some straw in around and lightly on top to filter the sun and hold in some heat. Then if you think temps are really going to drop just put a plastic cover on. I use everything from the plastic coffee cans up. The nice thing about the coffee cans is you can pop the lids on for protection. If you are leaving them during the day be sure to cut a ventilation slit. I also cut out the middle and leave the outer ring. Then put plastic over the top and snap the ring on. This not only works for small tomatoes and peppers but a nice way to start cukes and even an early squash plant or two. Plastic milk cartons work. And I use plastic 5 gal buckets around the tomatoes. Using the same covers with a little straw inside. In my cold frame I'm filling several plastic milk jugs with water and putting around the inside. I think this will have the same effect as a wall o water. I have been saving the jugs for sometime. I will try to take a few pictures of the frame and the way I use the buckets and cans and post them. Along with a few of my plants. Like Dawn said make sure the plastic doesn't touch the plants.
I was a little leery of the MG after reading your story. I feel that there is bad batches. The one thing I've noticed more of in the MG this year from when I used it in the past is some chunks especially of wood. The Fertilome doesn't seem to have this. If it does I haven't found any yet. But so far very nice texture. I also have an abundance of lights. I used to have three shelves of two lights. Then went to two levels of 3 lights and now 2 of four lights. Each shelf holds 4 trays slid in crosswise. The lights run crosswise across them. Meaning each light covers a 5 inch area. The plants have stayed stockier and don't get leggy. The shelf frame in like my cold frame made of what I either have laying around, can get free or what I can buy at auctions cheap. When I use plastic on a row of plants I make a low hoop row and then put the plastic over it and hold down with dirt and weights. I don't do rows very often. The pole beans I'm starting is too climb a fence and also twine so will use buckets over them. Hope this is clear. If not ask again. Jay

My Miracle Grow batch had a lot of wood in it too, which I thought was odd but I wasn't sure. I don't remember MG before this year having wood in it. I'm glad to hear I wasn't imagining things.

Beth -
I'm also glad to hear I'm not the only one who has abused her tomato sprouts! :D I've only lost about half, not all, but I literally had nightmares, or at least really bad dreams, about them. I'd failed to water the day before it got so hot and then didn't water until the end of that day. A bunch of them just shriveled up and died. Same for my cabbages. And the streak of wet weather we had damped off a bunch too. I'm down to 70ish tomato plants. If I wasn't fussing around with these dang fruit trees so much I'd be down planting the cabbage out at my father's garden. But I'm tired now, have a sunburn and my back hurts so I don't feel like it now. Now that I think about it, I think there's a beer in the fridge calling my name...

Talk to you later.

Gamebird,
Likewise I'm glad others have seen it also. It is in the regular and the moisture control. But my regular is the worst it seems. The Fertilome is nice. Can't say yet if the plants will do any better but really a nice mix. I imagine I will finish with it and use the MG in the containers and on flower beds. Some of the chunks were big enough you had to throw them out just because they wouldn't fit in the 16 oz cups right. Jay

Glad everyone is getting good weather and can plant out. Our weather has been nice but I have been too busy to get much planted.

On the MG discussion....I bought two bags this year. I never use that brand, but I needed some for wintersowing early in the year when there wasn't much choice out there.
I will never buy it again. It had so much wood in it that the rain made it float to the top and I had to pick it off the top so the seeds would have a place to germinate. In some of the pots, all you could see were wood chips. It might be OK if you were potting up large plants, but it didn't work for the little sprouts.

I just came in from the garden about the time it got pitch dark (I need to stop staying out that late because I can't see the snakes once it is dark and I don't want to step on one) and looked at the weather map....and somebody is getting rain, and hopefully not tornadoes and t-storms. I planted and worked in the garden all day long to get stuff in the ground so it could benefit from any rain that might fall, but we're dry as a bone here and have clear, starry skies.

Beth, The hardest lessons are those that we learn the hard way....but, you know what, you never forget those lessons!

Diane, Those silly plants of yours are just like my silly plants. I am sure they are wondering what in the world is wrong with us gardeners and why we're holding them hostage so late in the spring. I hope your DH said the magic combination of cuss words and got the tiller to start. : )

Jay, Oh, well, better to have the weather change your mind for you BEFORE you plant instead of making you regret it AFTER. I set out my first tomato plants one afternoon, and then had a thunderstorm with driving rain and hail during the overnight hours. Then the next night, we unexpectedly went down below freezing, but I did have them covered up "in case".

I hope your mom is OK and enjoys her trip. My mom's body began failing her long ago, and now I think she's losing her mind....and it is so hard to see it happen.

The MG thing has been going on for years. I feel like they have completely given up on the idea of "quality control". I like potting up veggie seedlings into MG in the early spring, but it is getting harder and harder to "trust" it because so many people have had bad batches. I just toss the big pieces of wood into a 5 gallon bucket and dump them on a spot that needs mulch.

Game bird,

It's been a hard year for tomato plants. It has been almost impossible to harden them off without the wind beating them up. Usually, when I harden off the plants, it is mostly an issue of "light exposure" and it is easy to watch the clock and move them outside and inside again at the end of that day's time period. With wind, though, all bets are off because (obviously) 15 mph wind may not bother them much, but 30 mph wind will, and 45 or 50 mph wind can break them or kill them. I've never had as much trouble hardening off seedlings as I had this year. It has been one of those "one step forward, two steps back" kind of years.

I gave away about 100 tomato plants at the swap and have about 150 left here at the house. Some are in the ground, some are back-ups for the ones in the ground in case one disaster or another occurs, and others are just waiting for me to get them planted. When I finally get them all planted, I give the backups to local gardeners--often to replace plants they already had in the ground that met disaster. Around here, disaster is often caused by the wind or an unexpected freeze, but also by bunnies, deer, voles and other creatures eating the plants, so back-ups come in handy.

At least the fruit trees are all finished, right? So, maybe now you can get busy with the veggie planting if the weather cooperates.

Carol, My MG has had some chunks of wood, but not as many as yours had. One day this week I am going to mix up my own potting mix to fill the really large containers I picked up at the swap. One thing about mixing your own--you have no one to blame if it drains too quickly or too slowly or whatever. : )

Dawn

Dawn I did get one tomato plant in the ground. In a WOW so feel safe. It was a Golden Cherokee and big and knew if I potted it up and waited a 7-10 days for it too root well in the cup it would really be huge. So planted it. The ones in the cold frame looked good by the time I got home after taking a wind beating along with being cold this morning. Will see how they are in the morning. The water in the milk jugs was warm after the sun this afternoon. About have one tray potted up. Will almost have half of the cold frame full and 2 1/2 trays to go. Not sure where I will put them all. Hopefully can drop a few more in the garden soon. And start giving some away. I culled hard as I was potting. Plants that normally would of made it got tossed.

Soonergrandmom- Sounds like yours might of been worse than mine and mine was bad. The seed starting mix was ok. But both potting mixes were bad. Like I said one chunk was so big it would only fit in a 16 oz cup on an angle and went from the bottom to the top. and almost a 1/4 of an inch in diameter. I will buy a few bags of Pro Mix this summer if I find them and just store them till next spring. If not will probably use the Fertilome mix unless the plants don't grow well in it. It sure looks nice. Jay

Jay,

My planting is going so slowly that sometimes it feels like I am going backwards and losing progress instead of moving ahead and making progress. The potatoes that were planted at the proper planting time froze back to the ground 3 times because of very late freezes, so I finally replanted and am glad I did because it is the late planting that will give us a harvest. So, the early planting was a total waste of time.

I have 5 raised beds planted and 4 to go. I am spending an inordinate amount of time moving seedlings around just to keep them out of the wind. I also have been spending a lot of time wrapping tomato cages with plastic to provide a bit of protection from the relentless wind, which blew hard here all night long again last night.

I am the slowest planter in the world, but once I am done planting, very little maintenance work is required the rest of the year. Each raised bed has landscape fabric on the surface of the soil and mulch on top of it. This is about my third year to use landscape fabric in the veggie garden's raised beds and it has changed my life. With the use of the landscape fabric, I hardly have to weed at all. I spent an enormous amount of time weeding the vegetable garden the first few years, but now I hardly spend any time at all. My beds are a crazy quilt of plants--with herbs and flowers mixed in and growing right alongside the veggies. I pair specific flowers and herbs with certain veggies because the herbs and flowers attract pollinators or beneficial insects. And, since the garden looks "pretty", I am more inclined to hang out there more and keep up on routine maintenance chores.

As I plant each tomato plant, it is mulched, caged, the cage is staked and one of the cage stakes has a label on it identifying that tomato. It takes me a long time to get it "just so", but then I don't have to worry about anything the rest of the year....just watering, harvesting, pulling the few weeds that come up in the mulch, and watching for pest or disease problems. I used to just slap the plants into the ground as quickly as I could, and then come back and mulch, cage and stake later. Sometimes, the plants were fairly large when I finally got around to caging them, so now I just do all that stuff up front. I could never keep up with the heavy harvest and putting food by for winter if I had to weed constantly.

My beds full of veggies/flowers/herbs drives my "old rancher" friends nuts. They give me endless amounts of grief about planting "those weeds" in the same beds as my veggies, but I always get great yields and both earlier tomatoes and later tomatoes than them, so that has stopped a lot of the criticism. They also give me grief for planting "late" but some of them routinely plant so early that they lose most of, if not all of, their first planting of corn and beans to cold snaps, so that by the time they replant, my "late" stuff is farther along than their crops that were replanted.

The other day, the son of a local rancher stopped and talked to me and gave me a hard time about being "late" in getting the garden in. I told him that if I was on high ground like they were, I could have safely planted 2 or 3 weeks earlier than I have, but that our low-lying area keeps getting hit by late freezes. I had to bite my tongue because what I REALLY wanted to say was that I already had some ripe tomatoes (from container-grown plantings) and that I always harvest weeks before they do even though they plant earlier. I was nice, though, and just said "Yes, I need to get it done. It is getting late."

The corn, squash, beans, melons, black-eyed peas and okra don't go into raised beds but just into well-amended clay at grade level. I've got corn planted and should get the rest of these crops into the ground this week depending on how much it rains. Our best chance of rain is tonight and tomorrow.

I hate planting late, but planting earlier ("on time") would have meant I would have lost stuff to the two late freezes, so it is just as well that I am planting late.

Since I am going to try to get most of the rest of the tomato plants into the ground this afternoon, that probably means we'll have severe hail, thunderstorms, tornadoes, etc. this evening. It never fails! LOL

Dawn

WELL... everything's on hold now. Last night my husband's Great Aunt passed away. He's been taking care of her for years now, and we're awful sad. She made it to 88 tho! Pretty good run, huh? :) My husband is arranging the funeral, so I'm just doing little bits outside as I can.

Jay,
I've got a TON of milk jugs that I had been saving to make a milk jug igloo for my youngest.. (lol). Might try your method for starting my bush cukes, a few squash plants and my pole beans. I'm glad you said your pole beans were gonna go on a fence, I've been trying to figure out where to get cheap supports for mine. I do have a fence they can go on! You do explain things clearly, thank you for that!

Dawn,
lol... I'm learning! I've always said I can't learn anything unless I try it. And I have a tendancy to do things the hard way. When I was little and learning to ride a bike, I wouldn't use the brakes... I'd just JUMP OFF... LOL! I'm still having fun with it, even tho I was a bit put off when those seedlings didn't make it. OH, ONE Bushsteak plant has new growth on it! THAT CHEERED ME UP GREATLY!!!
AND, I looked at the forecast wrong, the low on Monday is gonna be 57. I can handle that.
Gamebird,
You did better than I did! 57 seedlings, one survived! LOL... pass a beer on over here. :)

OH, after reading Square Foot Gardening, I'm thinking of putting my tomato plants in a raised bed like he does. I have an old bookshelf that's outside. I used it for storage last year, but the big winds keep knocking it down. I guess it wants to be on the ground, huh? It'll take some cash to fill it with the proper stuff... but it might be worth it in the end. Thoughts? :)

Thanks for the help everyone.

Beth

Dawn,
Nice to hear how you plant. I enjoy and learn from how others do it. I have never done raised beds. Last year was the first year I tried containers. Going to keep messing with it till I get a mixture right. I plant slower myself usually. This year it will go faster as I drilled and filled most of holes in Nov. with all the goodies I add. Then got the soil test that said all my levels were high. That is ok as I drilled each hole 24 inches deep and filled it back up. Also about half will be in a new area. So all I have to do is plop the plant in the ground. Potting takes me longer as I label the cup and also create a label with all the info that will then stay with the plant. I don't cage or lay my drip line till I'm done planting. I usually lay my drip line first then cage as I take the buckets or WOW's off. That don't take long. Yes mulch really helps keep the weeds down. I have enough mulch if I hadn't deep ripped I would of been ok. But bought the tractor so had to play a little.
I will try to get sweet corn in this week and several other things. From looking at the foercasts my gut still says May 7-10th would be ideal this year. But from the last few years feel I need to push it a little. At least have things hardened off and ready to go. Most things will get some protection that is going in now except the corn. Peppers and okra won't go in till May 20th to Memorial weekend. I've found they are warm weather crops and do better if you wait. I will keep the peppers under the lights up to two weeks longer than the tomatoes then harden them off. That is the way all the chile growers in NM where I was from did it and when I've tried to plant earlier my later ones have always out performed them. Peppers don't like the cold.
Beth,
You can use about anything for a pole bean. A fence, the cattle panels or twine and just string it from the plants up to anything high and tie it off. Need to decide before you plant them. I buy the twine at farm auctions cheap as most bales now use the poly twine. The kind I buy will decompose if you drop some on the ground. Bush beans will go in a row. Milk jugs work well. You can cut the top where it will hinge and you can open it. Also you can remove the cap to ventilate. Of drill a hole in it. They are smaller but work well for some plants as long as they aren't too large. And for me they really help.
You and your family will be in my prayers. Gardening will always wait a few days and has served as good therapy when I did resume it. Jay

Beth,

I am sorry to hear about the loss of your husband's great-aunt. I do think 88 is a pretty good run.

Square Foot Gardening is a great book but I like to give my tomato plants, especially indeterminates, a bit more room than Mel advocates.

With the bookcase, you'll have to look at what it is made of and decide if it is safe. If it is particle board or shellacked/varnished wood, I don't know that I'd grow veggies in it for fear that chemicals might leach from the bookcase into the soil. Anything that is in the soil "might" be taken up by the roots, but we don't really have a lot of research on specific compounds that might leach from wood and if plant roots take up those compounds. If the bookcase is oak or pine or some other wood and is not chemically-treated, painted or finished, I think it would be fine to use it.

Dawn

Jay,

I've been out planting in pretty windy, misty weather but came inside to listen to the tornado watch. In a minute, I'll go back out and see how many more plants I can get into the ground before the real active weather hits

I've been so frustrated by the weather delays that I've been threatening to skip laying the fabric, pinning it down and cutting holes in it, planting through those holes and then topping it all off with mulch. Then, I look at the onion bed which does not have landscape fabric and I see the tiny grasses and weeds sprouting in the mulch, and I come to my senses and go on planting in my slow-as-a-turtle way. LOL There are days, though, when it is tempting to just dig holes, plant, and be done with it, but I'd pay a heavy price in "weeding time" later on.

Between the fine hardwood bark/hay/straw/grass clipping mulch and the shade that the flowers/herbs create as they serve as a living mulch, my ground stays relatively moist and cool considering the climate. I'm not a market grower nor a farmer--just happy to raise a lot of tomatoes for us, our family and friends, so I can play around and have flowers in the veg garden if I want to. : )

Sometimes my old rancher neighbor invites me over to "help myself" to his excess corn and beans, and if I am not too busy I take him up on it. (I always offer them our excess tomatoes and peppers, and sometimes take them bouquets of flowers from the garden too.) His garden (much larger than mine and planted traditionally with narrow rows and wide paths), though, always has Johnson grass and other weeds, and snakes and chiggers, and when I return home, although I am grateful for the produce he shared, I'm glad to be out of his weedy chigger and tick patch. To each his (or her) own.

I bought WOWs but couldn't use them because our garden slopes too much. I thought I could use them at least in the upper couple of raised beds which seem fairly level, but I couldn't. As soon as I started filling them, they started falling over. It was very frustrating.

My peppers are not ready to go out even though it is now warm enough. I'm like you--I just won't put them out in the cold. In Fort Worth, in zone 8, I could set them out when I set out tomatoes, but that doesn't work as well here.

Don't mention the word "tractor" around my husband because he wants one. Most of our land is wooded so we don't really need one, but he'd like one any way.

I need to get back out to the garden and plant some more while DH is mowing our weedy lawn.

We're under a tornado watch here until 10 p.m. but there's nothing near us on the radar. The old saying here is "it takes a flood to end a drought". Well, I'm ready. Bring it on. (I'd do a rain dance if it would help.) I don't really want the tornadoes though.

Dawn