Jeanie,

Join the club, and it is a big club this year. This is the harshest weather in which I've ever gardened. Last year was pretty tough too, and that's what worries me.

If this is a temporary weather pattern change type thing, I'm OK with that. Weather in this part of the country always fluctuates quite a bit. However, if this is the beginning of a long-term pattern change in which we're moving towards more erratic weather, and a really brief mild spring every year before the sudden onset of such awful heat and drought, then I'm not going to like it one bit.

We have brought out cats and dogs inside for about 18 hours a day to keep them out of the heat and now that they're used to laying around in an air-conditioned house all day, we may not ever be able to get them to go outside and stay there if the weather ever returns to normal. Do we even know what normal is any more?

I try to ignore the afternoon/evening wilting because the plants tend to recover, but of course it worries me a little to see it. Generally it means their leaves are transpiring moisture out faster than the roots can take it in, so they have a temporary moisture shortage, even when they're sitting in moist soil. It is vexing to see it, but it usually corrects itself as the sun starts going down.

I generally go outside in the morning hours, work a couple of hours, come in during the heat of the day, and then go back outside in the evening hours. I don't get as much done as I could when I was staying outside longer, but I am careful to pace myself in the heat. I got heat exhaustion at a wildfire once in 2006, and since then, I cannot tolerate too much heat, which is a fairly common response of a person's body to heat exhaustion or heat stroke. I just have to be more careful about staying out in the heat and come in, too, every 20 or 30 minutes for a brief cooling break. Sometimes it is really hard to make myself go back out after I cool down inside. There are days I think to myself that I'd like to close the garden gate, stop watering, stop even looking at the garden, and just hibernate inside for the rest of the summer. I'd never really do it, and I know I just feel that way because I'm hot and tired, but I am so tired of always being hot and tired!

Now, our Keetch Byram Drought Index is only in the low 500s right now so I feel like my plants can make it another 2 weeks on the watering I'm able to provide. However, once the KBDI hits the 600s, I'm have to make some tough choices because once our soil moisture level sinks that low, I really can't water enough to overcome the heat and lack of rainfall. You know, if some rain would fall, it sure would solve a lot of issues!!! Anyway, once we hit the 600s, I get so busy with fires that I can't devote any time to the garden anyway so in that sense, the decision usually is taken out of my hands.

The saddest day in the summer is when I close that garden gate, say enough is enough, and quit watering. I've done it before, and I'll do it again.....likely this year and likely it will be sooner rather than later, but priorities are priorities.

How to fight the constant heat and wind? Any way that you can. I water the soil around my foundation with a soaker hose set extremely low and left on all night long. You do what you have to do. There's no shame in saying "I've had enough" and walking away from it in any given year, either. It is more important to take care of yourself than to kill yourself out in the heat fighting the infernal heat and drought.

You know, in a year like this, there's a part of me who thinks I should forget about the outdoor garden and go to a store and buy 2 or 3 African violets and just do my growing inside.

Still, I am always reminded that it's not all about me. Not only are there plants out there that need care and attention and crops that need to be harvested, but there's a whole ecosystem we're a part of and it is "out there".

There's a big buck stalking me day and night and he's turning me into a nervous wreck. What he really wants is to get into the garden and eat his fill of yummy okra, pepper and bean plants, but he'll settle for a little deer corn and an occasional tomato that I toss him if something has pecked it. Of course, if he could breach the garden fence, he'd be in there in a heartbeat. If I opened the front door and he was standing on the porch right now, it wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Every morning, the rabbits sit in the driveway every morning waiting for me to put out birdseed. The hummers come to their flowers and feeders. The purple martins swoop overhead in long, lazy loops as they catch bugs and eat breakfast every morning. As long as I'm nearby, they'll chatter back to me when I talk to them and some of them sit on the power line and watch me work in the garden. A whippoorwill moved into the pecan tree today. In the past, they've lived further away. I think they're coming here because I put out food and water daily. Still, the drought hasn't reached DEFCON LEVEL FOUR yet. How do I know when that happens? When the roadrunners start coming to the yard and standing out by the compost pile waiting to be fed, that's when I know that the heat and drought have driven our toughest bird "home" to be taken care of. If I stayed inside 24/7, who whould be putting out food and water for all the little critters? Who would notice the frog has his foot stuck in the deer netting or that the possum or raccoon knocked down the hummingbird feeder again and drained it dry? Who would feed the feral kittens and their mama, and chase the snakes away from the henhouse? So, out I go into the heat every morning and spend a little time looking after the plants and the animals and trying to draw what pleasure I can from The Great Outdoors before I retreat to The Great Indoors. It's a terrible year for us nature-lovers, but we've survived tough years before and we'll survive them again.

Dawn

Dawn,
Thank you for the encouraging words! Like you. I am sure I won't give up. I don't have as much land or as many "critters" as you, but I, too, try to see to the needs of the birds, squirrels , etc. as best I can, providing food and water. Looked out my door the other day and saw a squirrel languishing in the birdbath. I could practically hear him say, "Aaaaahhhhhhhhh!" as he lay there in the water! HA. I certainly hope this isn't a long or worsening weather pattern. It COULD get serious! I AM thankful that, so far, we've had only one sizeable grassfire about half a mile from my area which was brought under control by the Wynnewood fire dept. a few weeks ago. Bless their hearts and ALL the fire fighting personnel who are working so hard all over the state and, even, risking their health and well-being in controlling these horrible fires breaking out
everywhere! Don't let that buck get too close to you. He's a lot bigger than you are!

Jeanie

Evening used to be my favorite time to be outside, watering, pulling weeds, checking on the garden and the flowers. I'd head out as soon as I got home from work and usually spent the entire evening outdoors except for getting dinner together. But now it is all I can do to force myself to get out there. I don't know what's worse, the heat that takes my breath away and drains the energy out of me, or the punishing hot wind. I keep going out there though, and I often find myself thinking about the pioneers who traveled across the west in covered wagons and who made their homes out on the prairie. They certainly had to endure summers that were terribly hot and windy, like this one, and I wonder how they did it. Of course it was different for them because they had never been accustomed to the comforts of air conditioning, but still ..... it had to have been miserable. I sure hope this summer isn't the "new normal."

Dawn, the image of you opening the door and finding that big buck standing on your front porch made me laugh out loud!

Suzie

Oh .... and just to add to my frustration with the heat and wind, even though I do drag myself out there to take care of the garden, almost nothing is producing. There have been a few cherry tomatoes here and there, and a few peppers, but with 17 tomato plants and 5 peppers it's pretty disappointing to have nothing more than blooms for the most part. Same thing for everything else .... the plants are growing and blooming but that's it. But I keep being hopeful that eventually things will turn around and get better. I'm fortunate that we're on a well and don't have to face a big water bill every month.

Suzie

I threw in the towel a few years back after another drought year of constant watering. I am now going with it rather than against it. I ripped out just about everything the end of one horrible summer and I planted lots of cold hardy cactus, agaves, desert spoon and native plants. Its survival of the fittest out there winter and summer. You cannot believe the variety of cactus that will grow in Oklahoma and the blooms are unbelievable for two months each spring. One pad is all it takes and people trade them online. I don't have children so I am able to grow them but there's plenty of other ornamental plants that never need additional watering except maybe once a month if its a drought like this year. One example is Russian Sage. That thing is huge and will bloom all summer planted in the worst hottest full sun spot in my yard down by the street along with some other tough stuff. Another one is Artemesia. I had trouble with the native sages here from too much water in Spring so I went with the Artemesia.

I got seeds of plants like Desert Marigolds and a lot other drought loving plants from Plants of the Southwest (seed catalog) and they bloom all summer without watering and have naturalized. I have stuff like snakeweed, purple winecups, fame flower, Rabbit Bush, Winterfat and lots of west Texas natives. Some bloom from Spring till Fall and lots of plants have silver leaves or very small leaves so it all starts getting "a look".

It became fun. More fun than any other garden I have ever had and if its a scrubby looking plant with ornamental possibilities and it looks like it would be at home out on the range, I usually want it and try to track down seeds. I ordered lots of native seeds from the Sonoran Desert and got some interesting stuff there too. Finding these off beat kind of plants is now a major hobby and sometimes I see something growing wild that would look good and get plants that way too.

Last year I started adding drought hardy native grasses. Stuff like Little Bluestem massed in, Sacaton Grass, blue grama, sideoats gramma and Deergrass. Range stuff. Its a big trend in gardening and I found I like it.

So I already stopped fighting the good fight a while back and have never regretted it.

Oh, I forgot, we took out the lawn too. Its all native tough stuff now. I noticed they are doing this around the Government Buildings down there on Lincoln too. Native grass gardens. They are gorgeous! No watering. And it looks like Oklahoma, kind of a state pride sort of thing. Its what got me started on the native grass craze.

OH MY GOODNESS. Thank you for the rant. It was funny, but I am SO relieved. This is my FIRST time gardening and I didn't start in spring.

bon

Suzie,
Yep, the pioneers were made of tuff stuff. Of course, we musn't forget that some of them were encouraged by the offer of "free land" in the land run, and some of them "gave up", and rightfully so, when the wind came "sweeping down the plain", blowing the topsoil into Canada in the "dust bowl" period, so they moved on into California. Thankfully, some of them dug their heels in and stubbornly planted "wind breaks", dug wells and brought in cattle. When you see those old black and white pix of these
people, standing in front of their huts and cabins (NOT laid out in chaise lounges on the deck or patio with a glass of lemonade in their hands),
they look old, tired, haggard, but stubborn. They made our lifestyle
possible today. Actually makes me feel kind of ashamed for being such a pantywaiste.
Cactusgarden,
Actually, I have already been thinking along those lines of changing to succulent gardening. The pix in the "Highcountry Gardens" catalogs are beautiful, and it just makes sense to admit to yourself that this ain't England with loamy soil and daily rainshowers and, as you say, look
around you and copy the natural landscape. I already grow some drought-tolerant plants and cacti. It would take some planning, and thank you for
your hints. I moved into a rural area on a very windy hill with horrible soil
in 2007 (the year of the monsoon) and was totally unprepared for the heat,
drought, wind and ravenous wildlife that has crept upon me, since! OKC
used to have a succulent greenhouse out on west 23rd street, but think it
no longer exists. Wonder if there are any in existing in Oklahoma
somewhere.
Bon,
Good luck, as a new gardener! I don't know where you live, but you might
consider doing some research on Xeriscaping gardening and save yourself
some heart-ache and wasted dollars on plants that struggle to survive in
our environment. Maybe, I shoulda moved to England! HA.

Jeanie

I feel the exact same way. I am developing a smarter plan for next year because I am so tired of fighting this horrible weather. I am so exhausted from watering that I never have time to weed anymore, and grass has all but taken over many of my previously immaculate walkways. I look at my garden, which used to make me so proud, and all I see is a big half dead weedy mess.

Jo

My heart goes out to those of you in drier parts of the state, because even over here in Green Country it is getting parched and I know that as bad as it is for us, it is even worse for you. Fortunately the floods of April and moderate rains of May filled up our deep soil moisture so by mulching we were able to hold on to some of it. And we always plan our garden to be mostly a spring, early summer garden. That means with the peas and cole crops gone at the beginning of June and the corn and potatoes gone the beginning of July, there won't be much left to water over the summer. And I am thinking about pulling some of the tomatoes out after the fruit they have on them now ripens. They haven't set any new fruit for the last month, so some of them might as well go. I planted at least two plants of each variety of most of my tomatoes so will take out one of each. With every other plant in the row gone, the remaining ones will get all the water. Some other stuff I planted as an experiment and will let it go. (What do you do with borage, anyway? I think it's nasty.)

We never water grass and I've learned that well established hostas and ferns will go summer dormant and come back next spring. So will daylilies and echinacea. That leaves a few containers I keep going for color and the azaleas by the house

For right now, the "meadow" that I don't mow in the summer has several hundred blackeyed susans in full bloom. They won't last, but they are lovely for now.

If I can keep my tomato plants alive, is it possible to trim them back and possibly get some tomatoes on new growth if it does get any more sane with the weather later in the season? I've never tried that before and usually just do a row of tomatoes along a chain link fence and have enough.

I got mine in late this year and have had exactly three cherry tomatoes from them out of six plants. Or should I just forget them?

I pray this year is just a backwards year. Unusually hot and dry spring followed by an unusually wet and cool August. I can remember Augusts like that, its rare but I can remember a couple.

Pallida, that year I did the ripping was almost a tantrum of sorts. Everything looked so awful and I was so sick of looking at it, that it was easy to rip out and once I got started I became a demon with a purpose and couldn't quit ripping and then at some point it felt more like a positive direction rather than a negative one.

I chose a bad year this year to establish native grasses, thats for sure. At least they don't wilt, they just get a bit shriveled when they need a drink and snap back.

Anyone ever read the book "The Worst Hard Time"? I don't know how those people survived the dust bowl. The saddest thing was reading about the destruction of the prairies that took eons to create and how deep those grass roots were. It made me love our state.

The saviour of my garden has been the squash, the garden huckleberry bush, and the melons. Everything else has disappointed me. My tomatoes have hardly produced. The peppers are starting to look a little better, but none of the beans put out at all. Next year, I think I'm going to plant more melons and squash and fewer tomatoes. Perhaps I won't even plant spring/summer tomatoes. I might only reserve them for the fall. I don't know. I need to see how well fall tomatoes do for me. I'm hoping that they'll work out. It's just so depressing. And I'm getting tired of watering.

Kelly

I cried uncle just a few weeks after I planted my tomatoes and the weather turned so very hot. I figured I would never get any fruit. But, I perservered and kept watering when they needed it, staked them when the got tall, and low and behold I have baby maters on 3 of my plants! I cannot believe they set in this weather. I didn't plant until the middle of May, so they are right on track timing wise I suppose. I'm thankful that when I moved here, I planted mainly evergreen shrubs and a few daylillies, tulips and hyacinths. The shrubs are very well established so I don't get overly concerned with watering, I can water once a week or not at all if we get rain. I add hanging baskets and pots for color.

I'm just so happy I have tomatoes!

E