So glad to hear it Jay. We are still very dry. DH dug cabbage today and there was just no moisture under them. To add to our water problems, our rural water line has had reduced pressure for a couple weeks now. We are at the end of the line so often have pressure drop in the evening, but now even at 6 a.m. the pressure is low. If it doesn't rain soon here we are going to let much of our summer garden go. We're determined to get corn and it has tasseled, but is only 2/3 as tall as it should be. I'll also pick 8-10 of our favorite tomatoes to water and let the other 25 go. Some of them haven't even set tomatoes yet so I won't care too much.

I was watching the radar last night and thinking to myself that this time there was no way that rain was going to go around you. I'm so happy you got the rain, and relieved that the hail was small and did relatively little damage. After seeing you endure so many consecutive drought years, it sure is nice to see you getting some regular rainfall.

Like Dorothy, we're still very dry here. The upside to that is that there haven't been any mosquitoes lately.

We have several days this week where we have a 20% or 30% chance of rain, which is not a really high chance, but maybe we'll get lucky and get something on one of those days.

I've been watching the news of the wildfires in New Mexico. They sure are dry and, consequently, those wildfires are burning out of control. I hope they get some serious rainfall relief there soon.

Jay I'm so glad to hear you got some rain. *happy dance*

The news has upped our chances of rain some this week--rather than having chances from 10-30 percent over several days, we now have one day at 40 percent and another at 50 percent. I sure hope we get it because it sure is dry around here.

DH brought home 4 large totes from work that we can use to store a back supply of water, so we plan to fill them up to help us get through the water rationing we're sure is coming again this year.

Bought two more soaker hoses. Most of my beds have 3-4 inches of bark mulch now. I think I might actually add mulch to the corn and melons beds too...never done it before but I'm thinking it may be wise.

I'm so worried about fires this year. We had our weekend bbq yesterday but we had to wet the ground before and after cooking. Not sure how much outdoor cooking we'll get to do this year if we don't get rain.

I'm praying for rain for everyone.

Dawn,
I walked through the tomato plants earlier kinda fast. I noticed the growing tip broke out of a Cody's Paste. It is a double leader plant and has fruit set. It should be ok. I will check closer on all of the plants later. Everything looks happy except for the peppers and some beans I hadn't mulched. They are covered with dirt splatter. I will mulch them and gently wash them off later. I didn't check anything else really. At least the hail wasn't near as severe as last year. I know I've been very fortunate on the moisture. I have watered the garlic twice all spring. The sweet corn 3 times. The main tomatoes once when I transplanted and then again last weekend. And they have been in since April 10th. The memories of the drought are still very fresh and I feel for everyone who is in need of rain and hasn't received any or enough(Not sure I've ever seen enough here. LOL). We have 20-30% chances most of the week. And after today(predicted 88-91)we may not see the 90's again till at least the weekend and maybe longer. That should allow for some good fruit set on the larger plants. Wish I had planted them all early. Hindsight is always 20/20. Jay

Jay, am so happy you got more rain! I know how Western Kansas can be. There is no relief from water or sun (not much in the way of trees to even provide shade).

We have several high chances of rain this week, lower temps, and it will even be in the 60s for nighttime temps. Hurrah!

Have had to water the tomatos about every other day in containers. It seems like the roots really filled them up FAST this year! I fertilized them yesterday with Tomato Tone, after using Jobe's Organic in the beginning. Want to see if I get better, same, or worse results with it. I, too, am not happy that Espoma changed the formula a few years ago. I really liked the Jobe's, too. I had never really trusted using the "spikes" they sold, so never even bought any. When I saw the Jobe's Organic and did a little research, I was willing to give it a go. It may be just a little less expensive than Tomato Tone, but close to the same price. Also using Fish Emulsion.

I'd love to try the Fox Farms, but their products are pretty high to experiment with.

Susan

Jay, I don't think that my garden plants are suffering from moisture stress as much as the surrounding landscape is since the garden soil has been improved pretty heavily. However the heat and constant wind have been stressing the plants quite a bit.

The yard? It looks pitiful. The bermuda greened up to a certain extent and then started fading to brown. We haven't watered it at all. I think it probably is time to start running the soaker hoses around the foundation of the house in order to keep the cracks in the soil from getting too close to the house. Out in the pastures everything is pitiful.

Our big project for this afternoon and tomorrow is to cut down every single bit of dry, standing vegetation we can on the three acres around the house, garage, yard and garden. At least that way, if grass fires threaten in our immediate neighborhood, at least the short grass on our place will slow it all down and give us a chance to protect our structures.

With regards to early planting, hindsight always will be 20-20, and some years we make the right guess and some years we don't. You know how it is. Flip a coin, make your decision and pray the weather cooperates. I did plant early---and once I made the decision to do so, I went hog wild with the early planting. I kinda felt at that point that being so warm in March, while a delightful treat, also could be an omen of a blistering hot spring and summer to come. This time, planting early paid off, but in most recent years it wouldn't have.

Because I planted so ridiculously early, the early corn is done, we've harvested a total of 14 gallons of bush snap beans, and tons and tons of zucchini and squash. The onion and potato crops in the Peter Rabbit Garden are huge, and it is an incredibly awesome tomato year so far. I feel like I'm having the late June/early July mega-harvest busy time now in late May, which is okay. I'd rather be harvesting and putting up food in these temps than in the ones we're likely to have in July.

So, this time the early plantings are paying off for the most part. Next year I could do the same thing and lose everything to a late frost. However, based on this year's results, I'm more likely to plant early next year anyway just because I got away with it this year. And when I plant early next year? It probably all will freeze. I keep saying that gardening here should not be as hard as it has become in recent years.

Susan, I'm seeing the same thing with my tomato plants in large containers. They seem root-bound and it is too early for that. I suspect the really warm weather in combination with early planting allowed them to make a lot of growth early and that the containers are filled with oodles of roots, meaning that watering twice a day is already required here at our house. Usually in May, with fairly steady rainfall, I don't have to water the containers very often, and certainly not twice a day.

We will see a small drop in temperatures here, and also have some overnight low temps of 69 later in the week, but I'll believe it when I see it.

I haven't fed my container plants since they were planted, and I probaly need to. They're pretty heavily loaded with toms so they probably could use a nutrient boost.

Dawn

Be glad, you who grow tomatoes. I went to WM, again, today, with the same result as last week, no big, wonderful slicing tomatoes. They had a few boxes of grape tomatoes. Stopped another customer and asked her if she knew why WM had no tomatoes, and she said she couldn't find any today or last week, either. Stopped a clerk who went to the produce person and asked about the tomatoes and produce person said she would look to see if they had any, but clerk said she was on a break, so she didn't know when tomatoes would be stocked. Truck break-down or wreck? Nooooo. Think we have a lazy produce person. Is it just me or do people not take their jobs seriously, anymore? You would think with all the job shortage that people would break a sweat hanging on to their jobs!
I STILL don't have any nice tomatoes! WM apples are looking small and pathetic, also, but they DO have plenty of strawberries, melons, etc. Of course, this is good, unless we have another canteloupe or lettuce scare as in previous years. Gee. Cattlemen can't afford to feed their livestock, and eating imported produce is playing Rissian Roulette or non existant. Think I an going to start buying my produce at Braham's. It always looks fresh and wonderful. We don't have a "Farmer's Market" in these small towns; maybe a roadside stand or two now and then.

Cannot believe how dry and dead our roadsides are, already. Not into rain dances, but definitely, into prayer..........

Jeannie, I am leaving to go to the Wal-Mart in Gainesville in just a minute and I am going to check the tomato supply there. I'll let you know what I find.

I am beginning to wonder if a disaster hit the tomato growing fields somewhere? This is just weird.

I am glad I grow tomatoes. If we don't have any tomatoes on any given day, I have only myself (or the darn weather) to blame. Once the tomatoes begin to ripen, we usually always have tomatoes It is one of my favorite reasons to have a garden.....a bountiful supply of tomatoes.

I also wonder if maybe a contract grower for Wal-Mart had a serious crop failure, a weather disaster or a contamination issue that made the tomatoes unfit for human consumption. It isn't like Wal-Mart to not have tomatoes on a holiday weekend! I'll report back later on what I find at the store nearest me.

Dawn

Jeannie, It must be some sort of ordering or distribution issue unique to your store or your DC's distribution area, because the Wal-Mart in Gainesville, which I assume gets its' shipments from the DC south of it a few miles in Sanger, had a huge number of tomatos in the store.

They had the big round orangeish-red slicers that have been bred to be almost square so the fit efficiently in shipping crates. Those were $1.68/lb. They had paste tomatoes for a lower price. They had cluster tomatoes, grape tomatoes, the little yellow Sweetie cherry tomatoes and all kinds of red cherry tomatoes. The prices were typical for late spring, so I don't think there is a nationwide shortage or anything, or the prices would have been higher.

I cannot imagine it is just that they have a lazy produce manager. You know, the next time you are in the store you could ask to speak to the manager to see if there is a reason they cannot get the tomatoes out on the store shelves. It is just so strange.

It is not an exaggeration to say the tomato displays in the Gainesville store ran for at least 20' along one aisle. That's a lot of tomatoes, and makes it more puzzling that your store has had none.

Dawn

Dawn, thanks for double-checking WM for me. I've never seen WM without tons of tomatoes before. As I said, we have the DC just down the road, so I would think there would be no shortage of produce or anything, for that matter.
The manager is new, and moved out into my addition. He is just down the road, and, as a matter of fact, I watered their beds for them last week-end, while they were out of town. I hardly ever see him, but do see his wife and daughter fairly frequently, so maybe I can find out something through them. Thanks, again!

Jeanie

Jeanie,

My wife worked about six months in Walmart, in their meat dept. and my daughter about a year in grocery. The last one moved to another job about a year ago. What they observed was 1) that Walmart has become increasingly centralized. Too many decisions were made in Bentonville, when Bentonville really couldn't be in touch well enough to competently make them, and 2) They were "upgrading" to a new ordering system. This system was unwieldy and uncoordinated between shifts and departments. Hence, in the meat dept., key cuts of meat were often no where to be seen and they would have to stock probably 10 times more, of some other item, than they realistically could sell. One shift would not know what another had or had not ordered, resulting both in omissions and duplications.

In the back, pallet area and coolers, folk from one shift or one dept. would often bury the product of another shift or dept., making many hours of unnecessary work for those who had to dig the stuff out. Walmart has fallen a long way from its golden years.

And, yes, there is the problem with unmotivated employees. It seems that management does everything "counter intuitively" for employee motivation. This causes a very large rate of attrition among workers.

George

Thanks for the info, George, and again, Dawn. I guess we all shop at WM for the same reasons: low prices and an enormous diversity of products. You can park in a large parking lot, enter and purchase just about everything but a vehicle and major appliances. They even give you discounts on your gasoline, if you use your card. They are, actually, kind of scary, and, I am sure have ruined many independent businesses and chains. Because of the size of the business, they probably don't pay as much attention to detail, as in the beginning. Remember the little corner grocery stores with wood floors, a bell over the door and fresh sliced meat, which it always fascinated me that the friendly old proprieter avoided cutting off a finger while deftly guiding the balogna or whatever through the slicing machine? I could ride my bike down there and get a Royal Crown Cola in a glass bottle and a Cherry Mash the size of your fist for .15 cents.

Jeanie