Im kind of in limbo too. My toms and peppers went in last weekend along with corn and bean seeds. the corn and bean are just now popping up. I want to get my watermelon, cukes and cantaloupe going also. Oh and pumpkins. Im trying big max and another normal size type.
Surely after this cool spell passes we will stay in the upper 40's or above at night.

mike

Thanks, Mike. I barely know what I'm doing, much less the guess-work with the climate. I must force myself to remember success is not mandatory as I'm learning. At least my lettuce is doing well.

When I saw the temps at the in of March I was afraid we were going to have another early hot summer so I pushed it and planted almost everything. I saved all the plants from the cold snap although my peppers did get set back some.
Hopefully this will time will be even better and I will get a early harvest and a bit of a break before I have to start my fall garden.

I'm so glad you were able to save. I didn't have a lot that I was counting on. I lost about 4 tomato plants that weren't doing to well, to start off.

Heh. Chickencoupe, if you were anywhere close to me, I have a couple of dozen tiny 'mater plants that are extras . The result of a... weather related incident, shall we say. Not that I made a mistake, you see. It's all Mother Nature's fault! She did it! Not me!

Totemwolf, I did much the same thing. It kinda-sorta worked. :)

Now, I gotta go transplant some tiny 'maters somewhere ...

Bon, I have been saving my zucchetta squash seeds,waiting for warmer soil temps.

However, I got seed sowing happy a week or two ago and planted my buckwheat seeds. I spotted seedlings coming up yesterday in that vicinity and I'm pretty sure they are buckwheat.

So, I realize that is not really any great help...except I am in the same quandary. :)

Lisa

Bon - I don't know if this will help considering you are in our upper NE quadrant of the state, but the old farmers almanac says for our zone that the 29th & 30th are good days for planting maters & peppers, squash and beans. From then thru May 7, melons, From then through May 14, cukes & pumpkins. With just a bit of cover, the ground temp should keep them healthy.

That's what I'm going with...and if it doesn't work, I can always blame it on the almanac!

wbonesteel I have a few tiny ones, too. They start wilting and I consider leaving them but water them out of spite hoping they'll SUFFER for not behaving well.

Lisa - Thanks. As long as they'll have enough growing season.... Buckwheat grows fast ....when it's warm. I giggle because they're up and stop... up and stop.. up and stop. Currently, they are stopped. When it rained I seeded the entire area with buckwheat. ALL of it. Should be interesting in about a month or for the next decade depending on the timing of my harvesting.

Paula - Someone posted those on facebook. Is it not creepy that the bad dates fell on the rainy days just passed? It made me take it a bit more seriously than I normally would. I've been putting off planting a tomato plant until today. I planted carrots and beet (greens) on whatever day it suggested root crop planting last week. We'll see!!

bon

I think it is warm enough for everything except, perhaps, winter squash seeds. I wouldn't plant them until the soil is staying at 70 degrees or above. Everything else should be fine now, notwithstanding the fact that some areas likely will see frost on a couple of mornings this week. Frost wouldn't affect any seeds that are in the ground, but it could nip newly-emerged seedlings. Still, if you sow now, you aren't going to have much popping up out of the ground until after the next 3 cold nights/early mornings have passed.

As late as it is now, I'd just sow the seed directly in the ground. It will sprout really fast as long as the soil has a little moisture in it. My entire front garden is almost completely planted, as I just have one small area along the north and west fences where I'll be planting today, and then I'll turn my attention to the back garden, likely beginning tomorrow. I've been kind of dragging my heels this week with regard to transplanting any home-grown seedlings into the ground. I'm just waiting for the cool early mornings to pass before I do any more transplanting. I'd rather wait a couple of days than plant a lot of stuff that I might have to cover up at least one night this week. Sowing seeds in the ground? I'm doing that today and tomorrow because those aren't going to sprout quickly enough to get frosted.

After this week's cold spell ends, I think it is likely we'll all be in good shape and probably won't see another cold spell that is cold enough to cause our plants any problems. I've never had a late frost or freeze later than May 4th, and y'all know I am in a problem microclimate where it gets really cold really late at night upon occasion in the spring.

This spring is kinda reminding me of 2002, when it stayed cool throughout May and even into early June and the garden loved it. However, we had more rain then than we're getting now.

We hit 88 degrees officially on Sunday, but two thermometers at our house both showed 93, which is ridiculous for April, especially with overnight lows in the upper 30s/low 40s expected for the next three nights. Our soil temperatures? They're loving the warm temperatures, and have hit the low to mid-80s this week, though they cool off a lot at night still.

It's time to plant, so go for it.

Dawn, thanks.

Maybe I should yank something out of the planter and set some more lettuce seed. I think I will. Yay! These are really enjoying the cool cloudy weather. I'm so glad I met you and everyone here. Without different perspectives I'd be bonkers for perfection (which I cannot afford, anyway).

Pics Everybody loves pics! I'm proud of this one, but not because of the growth. I made the soil all by meself!

OMG OMG OMG!!! I JUST had home-grown sautéed chard and spinach. First time EVER.

Help me. I can never go back to store-bought !!!!! What am I going to do when it gets too hot?

NO WONDER MY RABBITS LOVE ME. I nab a little of this every day while weeding. FORGET that. It's all MINE !!

Yummy! I'm trying that tomorrow! That sounds delicious...

Bon, You can grow Egyptian spinach (you are growing it, aren't you?), Malabar Spinach, New Zealand Spinach, Aztec Spinach, Lamb's Quarters, Amaranth, etc. See the linked page which conveniently lists hot weather spinach substitutes all on one page.

If you grow your chard in part shade and regularly (and relentlessly) harvest the leaves while they are young, you can keep it going all summer and into fall and even winter. If you let the leaves get too big in the heat, though, they become really tough. Swiss Chard is a really tough plant. If it gets away from me in summer and the leaves get too big, I whack it off at the ground with the string trimmer and bunches of new, small tender leaves quickly regrow.

EVERYTHING you grow tastes better than produce from the store because you can harvest it, prepare it and eat it just hours (or minutes) later.

One of our favorite early morning routines is to stroll out the the garden and pick a handful of strawberries to go with breakfast. Fruit can't get much fresher than that.

That is one of the benefits of growing your own---freshness that can't be beat.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Hot Weather Spinach Substitutes

I forgot about the molokhia! I'm so focused on those that should already be growing like the green beans. I'm guessing the molokhia favors an environment similar to those favored by okra and gourd. so, I was waiting to plant it later.

In fact, today is the first hot day we've seen in our little area. (And maybe why the greens are so tender and sweet?)

Love it all.

I planted my zucchetta today and my spring fling castor beans. I figured the forecasted run of 95 degree days was surely "warm enough" :)

I hear that!

It is 90 degrees right now in the shade on the east-facing front porch. Y'all know what? It doesn't feel all that bad....but that is because our relative humidity is only 14% so that our heat index is lower than our actual temperature.

If it isn't hot enough now for warm-temperature seeds, then when?

I am concerned about the lack of rainfall. The front garden plot with mostly well-amended clay is in good shape because I have had stuff growing in it since February and have watered occasionally (though sparingly). The back garden plot has nothing in it except perennial plants, and it is so hard that it is almost impossible to rototill. My plan is to plant the hot-season crops back there, but some rain needs to fall or I may have to use TNT to break up the soil before planting. Tim tried to rototill it a couple of weeks ago and the tiller was just bouncing off the ground.

I want to know why the voles can tunnel through that hard, compacted ground like it is nothing, and a nice, heavy tiller can't break the surface.

Our grass that was lovely and green after two decent rain showers in April is turning brown fast and the ground is cracking in places already. We may have only two seasons this year: Winter and Drought.

Dawn the weather dudes are teasing us that there is big rain coming in the nine day forecast. I'll believe it when I see it. Anyone want to take bets it'll be another .25 inch rain?

Lisa

A quarter inch would be a big rain out this way. Right now I will take anything we can get.
The forecast for the next three days all call for triple digit heat.

Robert

*hugs* Dawn, I know your exasperation. We've been far wetter than your area so my only reference was 2011, here. But a return is imminent without more rain. In fact, right now is the first visual signs of it. Yesterday, I gathered my 9yo son and husband and explained to them that certain crops will require h-kulture plots. This is a nefarious move given my back problems. I will need every strong back available to get it done and I love gardening so much I'm putting myself at risk. I don't mean a dangerous risk for my back, but an incident that might put me out for a couple months which would ruin everything. When I get out there I just don't stop or pay attention. I instructed my son to scold me when it happens. lol I may not have much of a garden because of the work for h-kulture (even shallow ones), but it's my only hope in obtaining an affordable means of watering for solid growth.

02 for a high today. I think we skipped the watm weather crops and went straight to the heat and drought tolerant crops.

Robert

We only hit 98 at our house, and 95 at our mesonet station. My husband is on a work-related trip to Florida and it was hotter here today than it was there. That's just wrong.

My cool season plants (potatoes, snap peas, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, etc.) were most displeased with the weather today, especially since the wind made all that hot air feel like it was coming right out of a blast furnace. Another couple of days like this, and the lettuce will start bolting.

It is hard to believe we hit 32 degrees on May 1st and 98 degrees on May 4th. No spring this year. I know people here who looked at the weather and decided not to replant the garden plants that froze earlier. Who can blame them? With so little rain falling, the garden soil is turning to dry dust.

I'm scrapping most of my summer plans. Tonight I will head out to Wal-mart to pick up untold amounts of cardboard just to keep the soil from being destroyed.

I worked outside for most of the weekend. My mom called me at 3 pm Sunday and I told her I was outside working and she said "You know it's over 100 degrees outside, right?" I had no idea. The spot I was working in was full shade by that point and with the wind, I wasn't even hot. I don't know what the heat index was, but our RH was really low. It was too windy, though. I keep track of what I'm planting in a notebook and I had to chase pages down more than once.

But I could have worse things to complain about. There was a fire down by the Red River Friday and it rekindled itself yesterday. A fire is bad enough but fires when we're already short on water? Not a good combination.

Leslie

Bon, I'm not exactly scrapping my planting plans yet, but might not plant the back garden. The plan was to work on it all week and finish planting it, but the ground is so hard and dry that I'd need a jackhammer to break up the soil. It is just so dry back there that I don't want to plant a thing out there unless good rainfall occurs in May. Since it all is reserved for hot season crops, I don't have to get in a hurry to plant it. If I decide to leave it fallow, I actually would plant a cover crop to prevent erosion, but rain has to fall before the ground would be soft enough and wet enough to even sow seeds of a cover crop. I wonder what the voles will do if I don't plant a lot of stuff back there for them to use for their own eating and amusement?

I have space in the two fenced garden areas out front to squeeze in the okra, southern peas, cukes and melons originally planned for the back garden, so it is more a case of me just making up my mind about what I want to do.

Our rainfall this year is not as far below normal as OKC's is, but it is low enough and the drought is severe enough that I have to be very careful about how much ground I plant because there's no way we are going to have a garden without a lot of irrigation unless we get some drastic change to the rainfall pattern. I'd rather irrigate a smaller area than a bigger one.

It is hard to know when to cry "uncle" sometimes, particularly since a few good days of decent rainfall could change everything. I usually won't give up on planting until at least June 1st because a rainy May can change everything. It is just that May did not start off rainy, and April rainfall was too skimpy too.

Leslie, I enjoyed working outside yesterday and today both. With the relative humidity so low, it just didn't feel that bad. It doesn't feel bad today though we are a bit more humid. Tomorrow may be ridiculously hot, but I bet I work outside until 1 or 2 pm anyhow. I have a lot of mowing to do. I did some today, but want to get the rest mowed tomorrow. Shorter grass means less fuel for wildfires, and mowing means more mulch for the garden, so every minute I spend mowing is a win-win all the way around.

The fires are awful. No matter which part of the state they are in, they're requiring water that could be used in much better ways. We need a statewide burn ban!

The big negative from the heat, gardenwise? It seemed like the early grasshopper hatchlings kept dying in the persistent cold. You'd see new baby grasshoppers, it would freeze, you'd see fewer. Over and over again. This week? All of a sudden there are grasshoppers of all sizes all over the place. Apparently the invasion has begun.

This is the quickest we've gone from worrying about it being "too cold" to "too hot" in a few years.

I'm going to link the map that shows the year-to-date rainfall as a percentage of average rainfall. We can look and see which parts of the state are flush with water. (We already know which parts are short of water.....) However, now that I found the map and linked it, I have to add that even the areas that have received pretty good rainfall (compared to everyone else) still remain far below average too.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: