I think we're all in the same boat, Pat. This year we were fooled by those heavy rains we got in April and May (24" total) and neglected putting the mulch on soon enough and heavy enough. Then we quit weeding in early June when it got hot, thinking weeds wouldn't be an issue with so little rain, but weeds can survive on much much less water than veggies. So we've got weeds too that came up late.

We too are revising our methods. I will have a greenhouse for next spring and will start some things inside that I have always direct seeded before, notably okra, cucs, beans, crowder peas to get an earlier start. I will also use the CRW cages DH built this year as cloches by wrapping plastic around them to give peppers and tomatos a head start.

And if next year looks to be as hot and dry as this one, I will forget about planting anything as a succesion crop until late Aug, early Sept and then not much unless we get a good rain.

The greenhouse will also change my winter gardening habits. I plan to start growing cold hardy things in it all winter long as Elliot Coleman does in Maine. Of course here overheating on warm winter days will be more of a problem than it is for him.

I won't be using an actual greenhouse next year, but I'm seriously considering coldframes for some early things. We'll just build them with hinged tops so they can be opened on warm days. What I know I'm going to do is get potting benches put up in one of the enclosed chicken pens, so I can put any sprouted stuff out there instead of in the house. This year was just insane. I had pots everywhere, on tables we set up in the sunroom, all over the front porch, and anyplace I could find to stash them where they'd get some light. I'm not doing that again. Those pens are 6'w and 12'L, so if I can't manage to have enough benches to start whatever I want, then I'd better quit buying so many seeds!

Pat

my hydrangeas look like somebody took a match to parts of them.

I'm rethinking too. One thing is not spreading out things so much, and keeping the mid-summer veggies closer together, so I have less area to water.

I like the idea of cages with plastic wraps, and also Dawn's practice of putting a few tomatoes in pots and bringing them in and out early on. I don't have a greenhouse, but also need to re-work how I start seeds, and expanding my potting bench, which is in full sun, might be a way to do it. I have one spot in a raised bed I may make a hinged coldframe, I've thought about it a couple of years, and so now I really think I should do it.

The other thing is, I'm going to plant more Armenian veggies. I picked two large snake melons today, that had hidden in the leaves while I was off teaching for a week. It still shows no sign of stress at all.

I may also invest in some Wall-o-Water for next year. I've used them before and liked them. With the rapid temperature changes that can happen in the spring, I think they might be a huge help when it comes to setting tomatoes out early. It's what I've found to be true in the past, when a sudden late snow storm can wreak havoc in a new garden.

I did a whole lot of carting things in and out this past spring, and I don't want to do that again. That's why the potting benches in the chicken pens. If I need to, I can use garden quilt to protect the plants, but since the walls are enclosed on the bottom on 3 sides already, and the north wall is solid, I only have the upper open sections that are chicken wire on 3 sides. If need be, I could even anchor some heavy plastic in place to keep out the chill, and putting it over the top would be pretty easy, since the wire runs completely over the top also. I could have sort of an 'instant greenhouse' with very little work.

The veggie garden is going to get permanent beds and cattle panels.

I've been following the discussion and plant lists for both my ornamental perennials and the veggies, and buying seeds accordingly. Most things will be started from seed, although there may be a few plants that I'd like to see already well started. I think, at least I certainly hope, that next year is going to see a big change in my garden. And I hope I'll be much better prepared for it if (Heaven forbid) we have another year like this one.

Pat

So Pat, will you not rotate your tomatoes? I'd love to not have to keep thinking of where to move them, and do one spot with the cattle panel and just try to improve the soil every year.

Our neighbor brought over a beautiful bag of tomatoes last night, from her son's garden, by way of asking us to water her flowers while she's away. Now I want to drive by her son't garden and see how he's doing it!

Betty, I will still rotate crops, but I'll be putting up more than one of the panels for that reason. I think we'll probably buy 3 more of them in addition to the two that we already have. I just can't bring myself to plant the same things in the same places year after year. It goes completely against years of training and habit. I'd probably have a guilt complex over it, not to mention a lousy result.

I'm also looking at doing a very heavy mulch this fall and working on improving the conditions of the entire garden wherever I can. I just hope we don't have a repeat of this year's conditions, where I need to worry about shading things. I don't even want to think about that possibility. If it happens, it happens, and I'll cross that bridge when I get to it, but not before.

Pat

Well of course you will put up more than one panel, what was I thinking? (I was thinking of my own tiny garden obviously! HA)I use T-posts and a wire like grapes, but take the posts down for winter, so I move them around. I might have to go back to cages if I decide put them out sooner and cover on cold nights.

My beds form a square, with an herb garden in the middle.
This was my first time to grow tomatoes in this particular bed, and I'm glad that next year's bed gets some shade in the late afternoon.

I'm ordering three kinds of drought tolerant tomato seeds for next year, from Native Seeds Search -Nichols Heirloom
Punta Banda & Ciudad Victoria. Ciudad Victoria sounds interesting.

I have been looking at my flowers. I think I will be investing in more lantana and autumn sage (salvia). Both have shined through this drought. The small "profusion" type zinnias have done pretty well too. I think my daylilies will ultimately survive, but they look mostly dead at the moment, and that is with consistent watering.

Lisa - of my flowers, the following things are doing quite well: lantana, catmint, purple cone flower, butterfly weed, blanket flower and passion vine. Pentas are doing okay if I water every few days. I've lost some salvia and tall phlox.

The basil is growing like a weed. Everything else flower and herb wise has shriveled. I have one cherry tomato plant volunteer that is doing okay.

~Laura

Hi Lisa,
Interesting comment about the daylilies. I had heard they can survive nearly anything and was going to put some in here. I wonder if some are more heat tolerant than others?
I've got a couple of hardy agapanthus that never bloomed this year. The growth is smaller than usual and now they've got burned tips on the leaves.

I've had mixed results in trying for perennial lantana, and some surprises. I'm really pushing their hardiness zone, but wanted to see if they'd winter over. Miss Huff is supposed to be the hardiest of them, but I lost all the ones I planted 2 years ago. Last year I tried again with Miss Huff and the darker one that I think is Confetti, which is supposed to be annual. The ones on a south-facing wall all came back surprisingly well. Miss Huff survived but never grew to any size or bloomed well for me. The Confetti have been the toughest ones. Not quite as big or vigorous as last year, but no whitefly either, so that's a relief. Used just as annuals they are pretty unbeatable, but I can't always find them to plant, which is why I'm trying to keep them going. The John Deere dealer in Shawnee has a bank of them on their south wall and they come back big and full every year, so there has to be a way to do it.

Betty, I haven't measured my veggie bed and will be making adjustments when we set it up for the permanent stuff. It's about 20' deep and maybe 5 rows wide once we get everything in place. I'm only growing enough for the family and to share with friends. Anything larger would be too much for me to care for, I think, and if we have another bad year I'll need to think about the water needs also.
Have you thought about using Wall-o-Water for your tomatoes? That way you don't need the cages and can still get them started early. You could also put in 3 or 4 short stakes around each plant and then wrap something like Garden Quilt around and over them. Either way would be easy to remove when the weather is warm enough, and you could use your regular T-post method and not need cages. As for me, I've never found a tomato cage I really liked or that I felt was effective and easy to use. The bottom wires bend and the cages flop over when the plants get big and they are just annoying. This will be my first year of using cattle panels for them, so it will be an interesting experiment. I just hope the weather cooperates more than it's doing this year.

Pat

I have been doing a lot of online research into different varieties of all the veggies I plant. Looking in the direction of very early varieties to get the harvest before the evil sets in, and very heat and drought hearty, next years varieties will definately be different. I am planning now so I don't get behind and have to plant whatever lowes or wally world want me to plant. Oh and almost forgot, looking at varieties that the squash bugs don't like!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Need to rethink a plan for them, and will definately start early w/ the grasshopper spore stuff.

I had one lantana winter over, but it never got very big. I would love to have some big perennial ones. I can't ever find Miss Huff. Where do you find her?

As for daylilies, I had a surprise this year. The old ones, like the ditch lilies, and the old double orange ones, did very poorly in this weather, but the ones I bought at the Hemerocallis show in Tulsa did well. Totally not what I thought would happen. Laura Bush petunias are fine, I keep cutting them back, catmint, basils, lamb's ear, Confederate Rose. The tall phlox is hanging in there but the flowers are about gone. My Evelyn Rose is doing ok, better actually than the pink double knock-out a few feet away.

The Hyacinth bean vine I got from one of you is doing well, I've really never watered it, it just gets runoff from another bed.

Vincas, I think they are also known as periwinkles, have done great in pots and baskets for me this year. I love petunias and have babied some baskets/pots and they are ok, except for the worms...ugh! But the Vincas have no bugs, dont really need deadheading and just wilt to remind you if you are late watering.

As for doing something I just put a shade cover on part of the toms and peppers. I noticed that the half of an Early girl that is shaded by a neighbors tree is still setting fruit...so I decided to try it. I "made" it mostly inside the ac, and nearly melted while putting it up in the garden, but it is up.

I really want to do some fall veggies but I dont know about this weather. If it would just get a little cooler.

My DH says we really picked a year to get back into gardening and yardcare!

Betty, I had to order the Miss Huff. I'll need to go back through my records to see if I can find where I got them. It was probably Niche Gardens. No-one around here carries them. You can read the reviews on the DG site. They say it's hardy to z7, but I'd still give winter protection from ice storms.

Kassaundra, if you find squash that are resistant to vine borers, I want to know which ones they are! Okay?

Tracey, yes, the vinca are also known as periwinkle, but there are two kinds. Vinca major and vinca minor. They are very hardy and can be extremely vigorous if planted in the ground. They will spread out to take over everything they can reach, although they do not climb. Mine that came in with another plant has now turned into about 8' wide and at least 30" tall. I need to chop it all out, since it just turns into a tangle of Bermuda and vinca. It is doing just fine in the heat and other than being invasive, requires very little care. Water it when it wilts is all. If it grows out into a lawn area, you can run the mower over it and it will still come back unless you spray it. It's very tough, but not nearly as hard to deal with as something like hypericum, which can be a true nightmare. If you have a strong slope where nothing else wants to grow or is impractical, vinca is a good answer to fill it in and provide erosion control. As far as I know, they have no pests or diseases, and we've grown them as bank covers for nearly 30 years. Oh, except for the fact that some of the ground wasps (yellow jackets in particular) like that high and dense cover and will hide the entrances to the nests under the vinca.

I always set a timer for my watering, and I'm sure getting tired of running out to change it every 10 to 15 minutes. Although it has always seemed silly, I may seriously think about a battery-operated timer to put on the drip system next year, so that it turns on and off at night. Then all I'd need to do is check on it to make sure everything actually is getting water, and make sure the batteries are good in the thing. The timers are about $35 each, but now I'm thinking it might be worth it. I could do both the veggie garden and the big flower bed in the wee hours of the night if one follows the other on the timers. What a work-saver that would be!.

Pat

Redding, do you want to know by research (reading) or by first hand knowledge, I have found a couple that are reputed to be resistant, but won't "know" until next year.

Pat,

The squash in the C. moschata family have the best resistance to squash vine borers, and many of us here grow a variety of moschatas. My go-to winter squash is a C. moschata called "Seminole". I'll link a blurb from SESE below that describes it a little. Seminole is such an aggressive grower it often climbs the garden fence and makes its way up the nearby trees at the northwestern edge of the garden. In fall of a good year it looks like we have pumpkins growing from the trees.

There are lots of other C. moschatas and people here have varying degrees of success with them, but they certainly resist SVBs more than any other kind of squash. Old Time Tennessee has grown pretty well for me, as has Cheese Pumpkin, Long Island Cheese and Cornfield Pumpkin.

With summer squash it is a lot harder to find one that can survive SVBs, but cucuzzi usually does. It is an Italian gourd harvested young and eaten as a summer squash.

Having said all the above, I haven't had a single SVB this year and my squash lives on even though I stopped watering it and am pretty tired of it too. We have native wild squash here that tolerate the SVBs pretty well, but I haven't seen any of the natives in the pastures this year. I think the drought/heat got them before they could grow much and they just didn't make it.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Desc./Photo of Seminole From SESE's Website

If you want to retain your lantanas over the winter, mulch them heavily with leaves, etc, and don't trim off the dead wood until new growth appears. I have done this for years and have all sorts of lantanas return each year. Some of my lantanas are against the east wall of my house, but some are out in the middle of the yard. Last winter, it got down to -22 degrees here. The lantanas returned. I don't know what varieties I have, but they weren't bought as perennials. I have yellow, pink, lavender, orange, and red that return. I share cuttings with anyone who wants to try their hand at starting some new plants. Only requirement is that you come and make your own cuttings. I'm in the Tulsa area.

Sandy