Jay,

It seems like the weather is doing everything it can to delay your planting this year. It's hard to get upset over rain when we so often don't receive enough of it, but I'd sure like a break.

So far this week, we haven't had horrendous amounts at our house, with maybe a little over 3" for this week. We were really dry and needed it, although we didn't necessarily need it all in one week. We have a big break in the storms right now. Our all-day-long training rain storms are finally east of us, and the next wave is still several counties west and not expected for a few more hours.

We have rain in the forecast for every one of the next seven days except 1, and our local forecaster keeps joking "hey, I don't make the weather, I just forecast it". Some minor flooding is occurring here in southern OK, with worse flooding south of us in Texas.

I can't do anything out in the yard because the yard is one big lake. That's one thing about clay....when the rain falls, it can pond up and puddle up and hang around a while.

Dawn

I planted about 18 tomatoes before the rain started at noon. I wish I could have finished but this is a much needed rain and is falling nice and slow so it is not running off. My garden needed a good watering and a break form the wind.
Jan

I received 5 pear trees and 2 raspberry bushes last night after it was dark (UPS). This morning I dropped my son off at preschool, then stood outside in the pouring rain for over an hour planting everything. I was muddy and soaked, but I was so afraid they would fare poorly unless I got them right into the ground!

I would really like to get my cucurbit and bean seedlings in the ground but I know the soil is too wet. Sometimes gardening is frustrating!

Got 25 plants in yesterday after it dried some. I made a quick inventory of what I had so I could have an idea of what to plant where. Then decided to wing it. Will have plenty of plants but may not have any of the Brandymasters, Brandyboy,Sungold and most of the other hybrids. As the hybrids were in the MG that it hit the hardest. Didn't go through that part of the frame real well. So may find something yet I feel has a good chance. Although due to my soil tests and suggestions I mainly added sulfur it takes me awhile to plant. But like Dawn when I'm done I hope I don't have to do much more. Did drench them with a molasses and mycorrhizal fungi mix and then sprayed them with the Bonnie's fertilizer. Hoping it would give them a boost during transplanting. Especially the older root bound plants. May go back and put in a few of Dawn's beneficial insect attracting plants and try that this year. Will have to spread the mulch and put cages out and then about finished except for eating hopefully.

Thunder woke me up this morning and we got another 2 tenths. So will be in the afternoon before I can get back to planting. We've received 7 tenths over the last 2 days. Thankful for that. My main garden is in good shape. But dug holes in a section that this is the 2nd year for and where
I had let a few weeds get some size before killing. I found that from about 5 inches to 10 inches the soil was fairly dry. Hopefully will get enough to get that soaked up. If not will start the drip hoses.

Was surprised how much my young plants had grown and almost caught the few big plants I bought. The root systems on my plants were just about to fill the 16 oz cups so a perfect time to transplant. Of course the big plants I bought were in smaller cups and are root bound. Will see if they produce any earlier and also more. They do have blooms on many of them so a little more mature. After Carol's questions about the stems rooting where covered I paid a little more attention and found several that had rooted already.

Another observation that is obvious is the plants that I had potted up in MG mix to compare to those in the High Performance Fertilome and the Ball mixes overall are several inches smaller. Good color but just not as vigorous. The HP Fertilome plants are as big and maybe in a few cases bigger than those in the Ball. I will probably use more of the Ball as it is cheaper to buy. Both are the best out of the several I've tried over the last two years. Both compare favorable to Pro Mix but I can't get it anymore.

I will have more cherry/plum types than I have ever grown. May have a few new ones for Dawn to try. Will probably move Madagascar today. I had forgot they say it is a very vigorous sprawler. It is one of the 3-4 varieties that have stood out as a very vigorous grower so far. Has the looks of a big plant. I had decided to plant my caged plants 36 inches apart with rows 44" apart. So will move it where it can have room to sprawl. Amish Mayberry is another nice looking plant. Will grow several of it. I'm excited to taste it. As the source that sent it too me said it was the best cherry type they have grown.

Need to plant as many as I can. As I need room to start moving more peppers to the frames and harden them off. My peppers are almost 2 weeks ahead of where I wanted them. I had planned on a Memorial day weekend plant out. Again a couple of new ones that are very vigorous. I'm growing a new to me Italian cowhorn type that if it continues like it has started I will be sending seeds to Carol. Have to enable her some more.

Better head out and survey the garden. Know it is too wet too do anything. Sure the plants under the eaves of the garage got a good soaking. Not too worried as that area drain extremely well. Jay

Jay,

I'm so happy you were able to finally put some plants in the ground! Now it really feels like spring, doesn't it?

We have had 4" of rain in the last week with a good chance of more today, so I can't do much outside. By tomorrow the pathways might be dry enough for me to pick peas and pull weeds or maybe do a little mulching. I guess it depends on whether more rain falls today or not.

I think our Internet Service Provider suffered some sort of system failure or damage during the recent storms. I can get online only after trying over and over again and then I get knocked offline after about 5 minutes. Then, it is sometimes hours before I can get back online. Not being able to stay online at the same time that it is too wet and muddy to work outside is frustrating. I've had to resort to doing boring, mundane things like cooking, cleaning and laundy. lol

Dawn

Jay, Thankfully you finally got some of them in the ground. I wish I was close enough to share because I do have some leftovers of some of those. The Pink Brandymaster appears to be a vigorous grower. Even in the cup it had really heavy roots. I hope it produces good tho. If so, Dawn has enabled us right into another one by sharing seeds.

Oww...a new pepper! You know that I am always open to that. Lynn brought me a giant marconi to the swap which already had a small pepper on it. I knew it would be best to take it off and let the plant get stronger, but I didn't. The pepper is getting really big and the plant is tall and skinny. I have it caged and the pepper a little supported on the cage. I can't wait to try the pepper.

We have had a lot of cool weather here so the peppers haven't grown tall but they are all getting full of leaves and a few are forming buds. Some are new to me so maybe they normally form short stocky plants, but I think it is more a weather issue at this point.

My potato plants are just beginning to bloom and I am glad. I didn't want them to get any taller. My broccoli still hasn't headed but it sure had a growing spirt with this cool wet weather.

I only have open blooms (or fruit) on the tomato plants I brought from Dawn, but the ones I grew from seed have little blossoms forming and should flower within a few days.

Dawn, I had trouble keeping my internet up for several days, then got a virus on my computer. I will be taking it to he shop tomorrow, because I don't like using this one. My DH uses a track ball, and I am not comfortable with it. I have had to resort to some housekeeping also. LOL What a drag.

Congrats on getting some plants in the ground, Jay!

I've had a not-so-stellar year with seedlings this year and, I'm not sure, but my gut is saying that the MG I potted up into is partially to blame. Oh, there are a million other things that went wrong as well but there's just something about the MG this year that the plants were definitely not liking. I finally made it a point to go to M&M greenhouse that some of us around here have talked about and, yep, they have some better stuff, it looks like. So I guess I'll be buying my potting mix from them from now on and staying away from the MG.

Lots of cherry tomatoes for us this year, too. More than usual. I blame Dawn with her constant talk of dehydrating them and munching on them all winter long. Taunting us, teasing us, in January for Pete's sake, with her dried bite-size tastes of summer. Ooooh, the humanity!

:-p

Diane

Thanks to everyone for their comments. Yes it is good to finally get the first ones in. I really should of only planted the ones around the garage and in the containers Sat due to it being wet. The deep sand does allow me to push things a little. But just had to get a few in to make me feel better. I then went over to my stepdads yesterday and also visited a greenhouse and a nursery. Stayed away on purpose while things were wet. Looked at plants, new products and bought some more potting soil. Finally saw some Cheff Jeff's plants here. They had been out in all of our cold it appeared. Hadn't actually got bit but looked awful. There was a few up under the shelves that didn't look too bad. After looking at all the plants mine even looked better. Will have lots to do tonight.

Dawn and others have you ever used any of the Jobe's products? I never have. I found a new organic product of theirs that looks good. You know I've been using some of the various fungi, ect. This product is called All Purpose. A blend similar to the various Tones. Tomato Tone ect. Also has some fungi and a Biozome. Going to give it a try. Will be interested if anyone has used it or any of their products.

Diane,
Dawn is an enabler and also likes to torture a person a wee bit. Talking about eating tomatoes when I can't even plant mine yet. Next year with the greenhouse I hope I can cure that. Sure she will claim she was only trying to give me incentive to finish the greenhouse. I've learned she has a purpose to her madness. LOL. I just appreciate everyone on this forum and the fact they are truthful and like to have fun.

I had read a few posts over the last year from those complaining about the inconsistency of MG and how plants performed in it. I would take the plants of a variety and just divide them up randomly. So many in the High Performance Fertilome, so many in the Ball mix and then so many in the Miracle Grow. Like I've stated the first two have outperformed the MG plants big time. If a person only needed a bag or so and the High Performance Fertilome was available I personally wouldn't hesitate to use it. I've used the regular Fertilome a little but not enough to give an opinion on it. Using as much as I do it is higher and adds up after several bags. If only using a bag or so and it was close the cost of gas might make is as cheap. I really need to pot up the MG plants and see if I can give them a boost. Or spray them with blue water. I'm a wee bit hard headed and have to see things for myself. I did have good results with the MG seed starting mix. But you can see a big difference in the two quality wise. I bought 8 more bags of the Ball mix yesterday mainly to use in containers. If I get the cover on the greenhouse soon I'll probably buy a few more to have early next year before this greenhouse gets his in. He said he should have it in by mid Feb and to call him and they will meet me and let me buy it. They were questioning me about op/heirloom tomatoes. Guess they've have customers asking for them and she knows nothing about them. Wanted to know why I grew them. I said because I liked many of them. And said many claimed they were more disease tolerant. I told her they were no different than a hybrid. Some are and some aren't. I did buy a half a sack of their seed staring mix I'll try to package well and save. I'll use it along with the Jiffy mix next year. Plan on picking up some soon. I have never had as bad of results as I did this year with the MG. Jay

Carol, After I read that you were having computer problems too and had a computer virus, I became worried that maybe my computer had the same problem. Tim loaned me his little netbook computer yesterday and he also tried to get on the desktop computer upstairs while I attempted to get on my laptop and his netbook downstairs. All three had the exact same issues yesterday, so it clearly is our ISP and not my computer. They had high winds near a couple of their wireless antenna things (whatever those are called, I am not a tech geek) so I had felt all along it was 'them' and not 'us'. Well, last night when I came in from the Great Outdoors around 9 p.m., all the computer stuff was back to normal, so maybe they got everything fixed. I did a lot more home cooking this last week, and cooking and cleaning and I am ready to do whatever gardening you can do when you've just had 4" of rain and the ground is a muddy mess.

Some of my potato plants are blooming too, though not all. I have so many different varieties that I am trialing and the earliest ones are so tall they're starting to fall over, so I think it is time for them to bloom and form tubers and stop getting taller. I do need to do some more hilling up around the taller ones today if the muddy ground allows.

Diane, I became hooked on drying tomatoes when a local woman here started describing how she dried her excess cherry ones all summer long so she'd have them in winter. We were at a potluck dinner several years ago and she'd brought a salad with her dried tomatoes in it. I dabbled in drying them for a couple of years but then planted more bite-sized types and began drying a whole lot more 2 or 3 years ago. Every year since then, I've dried more than the year before. I love having them to eat in the 'off' season.

As far as bite-sized tomatoes, whether they are cherry, grape, plum or currant-shaped, they are my "insurance policy" against a bad drought year. While larger tomato plants produce very tasty tomatoes during severe drought (not enough water to water down the flavor!), they produce significantly less because I cannot possibly give all of them enough water in a year like 2003, 2005-2006 or even 2008, and the excessively high temperatures impair pollination too. The bite-sized ones, though, just keep on producing like maniacs in spite of the heat and relative lack of water, so it seems like I plant more and more bite-sized ones every year and, especially, in a year like this when summer drought seems more likely than not.

So, I hope all of you join me in dehydrating tomatoes for winter. They're the next best thing to fresh. I eat them dried like raisins, I rehydrate them in a bowl of water and eat them fresh or in salads, and I toss handfuls of the dried ones into pots of homemade soup like chicken-tortilla soup or taco soup....you can do it with any recipe that has canned tomatoes in it. What's not to like about that?

Jay, I think maybe Chef Jeff had a bad year, or maybe it was just that the plants sat in nurseries long enough that they started looking old and tired and somewhat ill. I saw some at a couple of nurseries I routinely visit in the DFW metroples...think I saw some in a Calloway's in late March or early April and at Mike's Garden Center in mid- to late April and none of them looked as good as the Chef Jeff's plants usually look.

I haven't used many of Jobe's products. Several years ago, when I managed to keep a lemon tree alive for several years, I did use their Citrus plant fertilizer and it seemed to work just fine. I'll keep my eyes open and look for the Jobe's products next time I'm at Mike's Garden Center---it has the best selection of fertilizers that I've ever seen. The only Jobe's products I see here locally are those little fertilizer spikes for houseplants or tomato plants or shrubs.

As far as using soil-less seed-starting mixes and potting mixes, I don't know that Miracle Grow either out-performed or underperformed Fertilome this year. My plants seemed to do equally well in either one. However, I do pick out the bigger pieces of bark from the MG before I pot up into it. Some bags of MG seemed pretty normal and some had lots of big chunks of bark. I don't know what their problem is, but suspect they're producing lots more bagged soilless mixes than before because of soaring demand and may be letting bigger chunks in because of that. I have noticed a steady decline in their quality over the last 3 or 4 years, and only tried their organic mix once and it was horrible and I'll never use it again.

I think maybe next year I'll mix up my own seed-starting mix from scratch and then pot up into my usual home-made soil-less mix. To do that, I need to mix them up in January while there's no other gardening to do, because otherwise I'll run out of time and just buy MG because it is quick and easy. The downside to that (gulp) is that if I have seedling problems it will be all my own fault and I won't be able to blame it on the soilless mix or anything else.

Really, considering the sort of spring we've had, with snow in March and rainfall at all the wrong times and some very high winds and some odd hot days here and there (especially in conjunction with high winds), I am just amazed we're all as far along in the growing process as we are. There was the potential this spring for so many weather-related setbacks.

I am, of course, very concerned about the weather our members' gardens have endured this last 7 or 8 days. I am afraid some of the folks who haven't checked in may be struggling with a lot of storm damage...and we know several had hail damage yesterday. In spring and summer, hail is my biggest garden 'fear', hands down. It can be so destructive and there is nothing you can do to prevent it because you normally don't have enough warning to cover very small plants and you cannot cover large plants. And, of course, if hail is large enough, nothing is sturdy enough to prevent the damage anyway.

Dawn

Dawn, I probably didn't make it clear, but I had both an ISP problem and a virus. I fought the ISP thing going off and on for a week, then picked up one of those things with 15 infected warnings coming up at once. I couldm't go anywhere unless it was their chosen porno site, so I knew I had been had. It would't even work off-line after that. Doesn't that just tick you off when that happens?

Carol,
I know the feeling. Fortunately for most of those issues I have an award winning computer tech that is my nephew and I just dial 1-800-JACE. Now I'm receiving my payment for changing his diapers several years ago. LOL. I understand the porn site situation. Mine wasn't just like yours. Mine was the administrator at a tomato forum instead of black listing me and a few others just made it where when we logged in it diverted us to an undesirable site. My nephew checked it out and said it was something he was doing. My nephew is the computer tech for our local ISP provider. Again very handy. Glad you and Dawn both got your problems lined out.

Dawn till this year I had never seen it as evident as this year. It wasn't the moisture control some have had troubles with. Said improved. I sure didn't see that.j I could tell as I potted up it wasn't right. So quit after potting around 20 plants in it. If you took out all of the wood products there wouldn't have been a 1/3 of a bag left. Like all of it ended up in one bag. I will spread the rest as a mulch over the flower bed area. Don't even feel it would work in a container. I had read the comments of others who had bad results and till this bag had always stated I had never experienced that kind of results. This will be the last time I use MG unless it is a last resort. Jay

Jay, My computer is in the shop so we will see how I come out. I have the same family situation as you do with two sons in the business, but one is the CIO of a Ft Worth company and the other is in Nigeria. Too far away to be much help. One could use a remote program and work on it, but he is working on a PHD right now, so I think he has plenty to do. We all think he is a little nuts since he already had a double masters degree, but he thinks he is doing the right thing.

Carol,

Hope they get rid of that computer virus. I "think" our ISP is making progress because the computer was up, on and off, for 4 or 5 hours. So, we're making progress.

Jay,

I'm wondering how many different places that Scott's might package MG and if some plants may enforce quality standards less than others?

Today I was up to my elbows in soilless mix, making my own for containers. Tim has a really big new wheelbarrow so I used it as a mixing bowl. I dumped out all my soilless mix in my containers into our granddaughter's new beds in the her Peter Rabbit garden and then added compost and good stuff to those beds. Her beds are in great shape, but I still have a lot of empty containers to refill and plant. I've made up the soilless mix, filled and planted about 25 containers the last two days. That doesn't sound like a lot, but 6 of them were molasses tubs and they took me a while. I ran errands and did other stuff too, including picking CPBs off the potatoes. I then fed the CPBs to the chickens who thought they'd won the lottery!

We also mowed and weedeated here, which is a neat trick to pull off when you still have water standing here and there. We were trying to get the grass cut before it grew so high that we'd have to borrow a tractor and brushhog to cut it. Lots of folks were out cutting high grass today...trying to regain control of it before the next round of storms starts on Tues. or Wed. I do hate to complain about rain because one week it will stop falling and then we'll have a long, hot, dry summer.

Today the wicked weather has been in Texas...and New Mexico, with some of the storms now moving towards Oklahoma. It seems like we went weeks with no moisture, and now every day there's a threat of severe weather somewhere around us.

Dawn

Dawn I dumped the last 2/3 of that bag out after I posted today. It might of had 2 cups of peat and perlite in it. The rest looked like shredded wood. I think that is why the plants are doing so bad and you can keep it wet.

I got one container plant in tonight. And mowed the back yard and the north strip. I then vacuum packed some meat I had bought at Sam's a week ago and had put in the freezer till I had time to pack it. I bought the vacuum sealer the same time. I really like it. It says you can use it on veggies.

I then watered everything left under the light stands. While going outside to fill my water jug I noticed lightning to the west and SW. I just looked at the radar. Looks promising. I won't get my hopes up though till I hear it on the roof. Looks like we have a good chance for the next 2-3 days. I didn't water any of the outside things tonight. Hoping Mother Nature will give it all a good soaking. Close enough now I can hear the thunder. Some of the plants I set out Sat are already looking better. They were ready for a summer home. I have several more ready.

I use all molasses feed tubs. I dumped mine in a wheel barrow and replace about half of it. I used the Jobe's tonight. Mixed in some new potting mix, pecan hulls and some nice looking compost a local greenhouse has that is made down in OK. I think a manure and alfalfa combination. I will read on it a little more tomorrow evening. Also adding a little green sand I've had laying around. Spudleaf and another gardener had always told me to try some pecan hulls in my containers and garden if I could find some. I finally found some so going to try it. I still have around 20 containers to go. I think I have enough of potting mix. Might have to buy a little more of some of the additives. If it is wet tomorrow I'll work on the containers as long as it isn't raining. If this storm has hail in it I might be glad I don't have anymore out.

Carol,
My nephew works on my stepdad's and his parents computers remotely. I have a Mac. He hasn't worked on them much. Have had it 3 years I think and have had very little trouble. Knock on wood. I have enjoyed it. The few minor troubles I've had he has had to get online and then come in to help me. I had one download issue.

Hoping we all miss the real bad weather tonight. But sometimes you have to take the bad with the good. Jay

Jay,

That sounds like a horrible bag of MG. So, basically you've got wood mulch with a small amount of peat, perlite and granular fertilizer? What in the world is wrong with the manufacturer these days? It used to be such a good product. I haven't purchased any that was quite the bad this year and I do prefer mixing my own when I have the time and patience (lol) to do so.

I got a vacuum sealer for Christmas but I haven't tried it out yet. With the peas I've put up in the freezer, I've just used ziplock freezer bags because I've just been doing a bag or two here or there. I think I have ten quart-sized bags of green Sugar Snap and Super Sugar Snap peas in the freezer so far, and will pick another round of them today. We've harvested 9 lbs. so far, which is exactly 9 lbs. more than we'll get in a year when the heat hits the 80s in early May and stays there. Having the temps dip back into the 70s every few days has kept the peas blissfully happy this year. I'll probably use the vacuum sealer for the first time when I do the first big round of the broccoli harvest. I have three broccoli varieties and the earliest one is just starting to form heads now. I hope the good weather holds long enough (like it did last year) for good heads to form. Here in our climate, all the cool-season crops are so iffy and need for the cool, spring weather to last through the end of May in order to produce well...and some years that happens and other years it doesn't.

Your chances of rain today look pretty good, don't they? I see on today's weather maps that your part of KS, a lot of CO, parts of the TX and OK panhandles, etc. are in the area with the highest threat of severe weather today. Let's hope you get the rain but not the high wind or large hail. I need to go start a Severe Weather thread for today and tomorrow because tomorrow looks especially dangerous for a lot of OK and for your area too.

Our son and daughter-in-law bought MACs last year and love them, by the way. They haven't had any problems with theirs.

Our messed-up internet service seems to be more or less fixed. We've also had poor local TV reception since last week's storms and I know the areas where the TV transmitters are located had received some of the severe weather last week. So, now that they've had a week and everything is about repaired and back to normal, severe weather is threatening again. I shouldn't complain because we've come a long, long way since we moved here in 1999. Back then, our now-paved road was dirt (not even gravel, just dirt!), there was NO internet service except if you bought a satellite dish and had DirectPC and no TV reception down here in our low-lying area unless you bought a satellite dish and had DirectTV. Now you can get normal wireless or dial-up internet and the TV reception is much, much improved although we still have DirectTV. Oh, and you couldn't get any cell phone service at our house back then. You had to go a mile or so up to higher ground. Then, after they put in a closer cell tower, you had cell service in the living room or half the breakfast room but nowhere else. Now we're big time because they put in a closer cell phone tower and we have cell phone service everywhere on our property. So, like I said, we really can't complain because things have improved a lot.

I hope the overnight weather brought you rain and nothing severe.

Dawn