I planted beets and Swiss chard a couple of days ago. But I haven't watered them in. I'll do that when I see a break in the heat wave. Hang in there!

George

I planted Fall potatoes(small leftover spring potatoes), Kohlrabi, callords and bunching onions almost two weeks ago(right after I stated on here that I was not going to plant till Fall).

I had stopped at Awoods and bought seeds for .01 for a small pack and .10 for a large pack. I bought 2 large pack and 3 small packs for .25 cents. When I came home I told DW that I would have to use $25 worth of water to get my .25 worth of seeds to grow. I see a few collards coming up but nothing else. We got a hard, fast rain about 2 days after I planted, I have no idea where the ths seeds ar now, but still happy for the rain.

Larry

Ezzirah, You can whine all you want and we'll understand. We're all hot too, and our gardens are beyond miserable just like yours.

When you delay fall planting, be sure you watch the calendar and recommended planting dates carefully as you make decisions about whether to plant or not plant and when to do so. In the fall, we are always racing the clock to get a harvest before Mother Nature sends us the first killing freeze. If you wait too long to plant some things, you may have to skip having them this year because by the time it is cool enough to plant them, it is too late for them to mature.

At this point, I don't think I am going to plant anything for fall because of the grasshoppers here. Anything I plant, they will eat within a day or two of it sprouting. When it is a bad grasshopper year, there is no way to have a fall garden and the hoppers will be around until it freezes, so you can't even plant now and try to cover up the plants with row covers until the hoppers 'go away' because they aren't going to go away.

George, I hope the heat wave breaks soon so you can get those fall crops going. Y'all are so much drier there than we are here (how odd is that?) and we're plenty dry.

Larry, With the massive hopper invasion, I might as well just put out a pan of water for them and dump my fall seeds onto the driveway for them to eat. It will save me a lot of time and trouble to just directly feed/water the grasshoppers instead of raising plants for them to eat.

My fall garden is over before it even started, unless a miracle occurs and the grasshoppers suddenly drop dead by the thousands.

Anyway, y'all, I have bigger fish to fry....bobcats, foxes and coyotes are prowling our property, even in broad daylight and even when I am outside in the yard and garden myself, and they are looking for a meal. They are very bold....will run right past me, or even worse, just stand and stare at me as I approach them from several yards away. Chasing them off is keeping the dogs (and the humans too) busy, and the poultry and cats are terrified. Almost all our little cottontail rabbits have disappeared, and I haven't seen the twin fawns in several days and have only seen their mother twice in the last two weeks. It is hot and dry and all the predators are getting very hungry.

On the bright side, we're seeing hummingbirds and butterflies in ever-increasing numbers.

Dawn

Yea for the hummers and butterflies!

Maybe the big critters you have like grasshoppers, Dawn???

I know, the grasshoppers are increasing in my yard, just minutes after I posted that I didn't have as many as last year! My bad......

Actually, it didn't "seem" quite as hot when I went outside today - a nice breeze and lower humidity??? The heat didn't drive me back indoors like it did the day before yesterday anyway.

I know, the tomatos look GOD AWFUL! The beans are virtually gone - probably grasshoppers at work. And I think that SVBs got my pumpkin plant because it is dying back rapidly.

Bugs, beetles, spiders, ants, flies, mosquitoes, green fruit beetles, aphids, spider mites, caterpillars of unknown and known varieties, milkweed bugs and beetles, wasps, are consuming things quickly. The Genistas are back again to devour my False Indigo, and I've picked off as many as I can see. It took 2 months for this plant to recover and sprout again from the last attack, and I'll be darned if I'm just gonna hand it to them on a platter again. I saw a hawk this morning circling the sky above me and I'm thinking they are after my dead and dying garden, LOL! It's really getting bad. The heat lovers are putting forth a valiant effort to try to bring some order and nice blooms.

Is Oklahoma always this difficult for vegetable plants? I mean, is it really worth it? I spent hoards of money this year on containers, container soil, fertilizers, and lots of time and effort to build them up, and I'm not sure I am getting my money back this year. Maybe next? I think Okies must thrive on an inordinate amount of hope that things will improve next year. I hope it's not just a carrot in front of my nose. I'm vascillatin' can ya tell? I'll be happy and hopeful in a minute.

Susan

Susan,

If the big critters I have liked grasshoppers, they likely wouldn't look so pitifully thin. Judging by the appearance of those predators, I'd say none of them like to eat grasshoppers. They like chickens, cats and small dogs in addition to other wild critters that they eat. I've lost poultry to them this year but no cats yet and I'm aiming to keep it that way. It may be time to bring out the guns....and I don't like shooting wild things and would just rather chase them off, but these critters are getting very bold.

There is a path the foxes and bobcats follow right through my compost pile. I've been trying to break them of traveling through there because the path runs alongside my garden fence and garden gate. Every time I make Habanero Gold jelly, I put the discarded end pieces of the habanero peppers and the pepper seeds right in that pathway to try to break the wild critters of walking through there. Does it work? Heck, no, they eat the habanero peppers and seeds every time I put them out...and they eat them the very first night I put them out there. How desperate is a wild animal that it will eat habanero peppers? I'm wondering if their taste bud receptors don't taste the capsaicin?

Our mornings have felt great the last two or three days, but that goes away by 10 a.m. Our humidity is so low that now we are cooling off in the evenings earlier...maybe around 7 or 8 p.m. Our humidity bottoms out in the mid-20s in the afternoon so even the afternoons feel better now than they did back when the humidity was starting out near 100 and bottoming out near 50 or so.

I'm sorry the pest bugs have hit your garden, Susan. That's how it happened here. We've had hoppers since April and in ever-increasing numbers but they were only bothering a few plants and they suddenly (it got very hot) they just went completely berserk!

Yes, Oklahoma is always this hard on vegetables, at least 9 years out of 10. Last year was the good year because most of OK stayed pretty mild even into August.

I'll tell you how a lot of the old-timers do it here. They plant right around April 1st and garden normally through the end of June. At the end of June, they stop watering and just harvest. They've done it long enough that they know that unless they are getting extraordinary production for some reason, it isn't cost-effective to water the garden and try to carry it beyond the end of June. Some of them come back after the autumn rains begin and plant collards, spinach, chard, etc. for a fall/winter garden.

Because I don't have much sense, I keep ignoring their sensible way of abandoning the garden July 1st. Clearly they are smarter than I am. Some years I get away with being dumb enough to try to garden in the July-August heat, but the hoppers are making that impossible this year. Maybe one day I'll wise up and garden from January through June and then October through December and just let the heat and pests have the garden in July-August. I'm sort of doing that this year, but not really voluntarily.

Dawn

I hear you. I love my garden. LOVE it. But I am ready to move.

106 with no rain for 6 weeks, plants don't like that. At all. I hate this weather. I hate the bugs. I am so frustrated.

Jo

I always get a kick out of people complaining about being hot in March or April when we have an 80 degree day. Just think how nice 80 degrees would feel right now!
August 12 is when the average high temps in OKC start falling, (93 instead of 94) WooHoo!

Yippee, Jcheckers - something to look forward to!

Dawn, I'm sure those old timers had their heads screwed on right - unlike me! I am about to give up on the tomatos, but I still have other garden plants to try to keep alive for the butterflies, hummers, etc.

Was just outside with my roofer guy for a bit and I was just about blown away by the intensity of the heat! So different than when I came inside about 9:30 this morning! I don't have a clue as to how these guys are surviving on the tops of these houses right now working with all that heat absorbing roofing tar paper and materials. Yuck, yuck, yuck.

Please, Lord, help me get thru August........

Susan

Do any of you have statistics on the heat this year? The winter was so icy (icey) and cold, and now the summer is as hot as I can remember. I love to walk my dogs in the morning and evening, but I don't know now how long it has been since I have walked them. The concrete on the sidewalks would burn the pads of their feet. They are golden retrievers, and just should not be out in this weather.

I am still getting tomatoes, but my roses have not looked good for ages.

THis is just unbelievably hot.

Sammy

I'm even hot inside my house. It's 104 out right now and my a/c just can't keep up. It's 79 in here right now, which is paradise compared to outside, but we are hot, hot, hot. Our electric bill is going to be earth-shattering.

Jo

Sammy here's a link to a graph from NOAA. 2010 to present

Here is a link that might be useful: NOAA 2010 Climate Graph

My garden has decided, just within the past week or so, to just give up and die. Most are quickly turning brown & crispy and I don't blame them.

My 7-year-old went out to play a short bit over the weekend, shoeless. He now has a giant blister on the sole of his foot from the burning ground. (We don't have grass in a lot of areas so the ground gets hot hot HOT!) Now that is just insanely hot.

Diane

Diane,

I was looking at soil temperatures at our Mesonet station today and I can see why your son ended up with a big blister on his foot. At the time I looked at our soil temps, the Mesonet showed 87 degrees for soil two inches below native sod. For soil two inches below bare soil it was showing 118 degrees. Now, if the soil was 118 degrees below bare soil, how hot was the surface of the soil? Ouch.

My garden's about like yours, only grasshoppers are hastening its demise. I hope the hoppers are enjoying all the veggie plants I've so lovingly grown for them to consume.

August is my least favorite month.

Dawn

Dawn - I usually make it a habit to listen to the old timers' they usually did what they did because it worked! I am writing those dates down, because it seems I go out there and water what is left and I feel like I am arranging deck chairs on the titanic! Every thing is just so died at this point!

jcheckers - *that* is good news and something to look forward to!

Diane - OUCH! for your little one!

I'm with the rest of ya'll. This is the worst summer I've had since moving rural 4 years ago. I've focused so much on the veggie gardening that my flower beds around the house are overgrown and look AWFUL. Now, the garden is dieing and it's too hot to work on the beds.

The only thing I'm watering are the peppers and new peas I planted for fall. The tomatoes are still producing but in less numbers. Last nite I only got a bucket full instead of a bushel. The melons and okra are still producing, but they're on their own. Guess I should water the sweet potatoes a bit to keep them going.

Add grasshoppers to the list of "biblical proportions" that have hit Oklahoma this year. What happened that produced so many of these this year??? I heard that this year because of the heat that ticks are reproducing faster. Is it the same for the hoppers?

Paula

Paula, what are you doing with all those tomatoes? :)

Ezzirah,

You're at least 100 miles north of me, so for you the dates the old-timers here use might need to slide a week later in spring...to maybe April 7th thru 10th for planting? It just depends on your average last frost date there. Here, the average last frost date is about March 27th, although in low-lying areas of our county near the Red River, we have had a late frost the first week in May for 3 or 4 years straight, which makes it hard to plant on time.

Paula,

Are you getting any peppers? Inquiring minds want to know?

Boomer,

I bet Paula is canning them one way or another, and my best guess is she's making salsa. Deer camp is only about, what, 3 months away???? Her DH and his buddies can't go to Deer Camp without salsa.

BOBCAT UPDATE: The big bobcat was back this morning around 9:30 a.m., prowling around the fenced, roofed chicken run and even jumping up on top of the chicken coop. The chickens should feel safe...he's never managed to get inside their pen or coop, but they're having hysterics several times a day, so I think he keeps coming back all day long. He's very tall and very long, but very thin.

After chasing him off, we had a deer standing on the edge of the woods and 'screaming' to be fed, the way they do in the winter if I don't have deer corn out for them in the usual spot.

I think the heat is making our wild animals crazy too.

Dawn

Dawn - Actually, no....not really. They have started recovering and they are blooming....but several are dropping them almost as fast as they come on. I did get about 5 Felicity (not hot) jalapenos last night. The crab grass keeps creeping in because that's the only place getting water since we put in the PVC system. I spent so much time picking plums earlier in the season that I "short-cut" to just mulch...and now I'm paying the price. =(

And yes, Boomer, I'm pulling a "Dawn"....blanch, peel and freeze all the tomatoes at least twice a week! If I don't get enough of my own peppers soon, I'll have to resort to purchased peppers in order to get Salsa made for Deer Camp this year! I've already sent at least 2 bushels home with my mother this year too.

The deer around here are really thin, I've noticed. I would have thought with all the rain and all the wild berries that they would have plenty to eat.

Paula

Paula,

I just can't figure out what's wrong with those peppers. Mine are definitely heat-stressed, but still blooming, setting fruit and ripening fruit. Hmmmm.....did you have nematodes previously in the area where the peppers are growing this year?

Even the little cottontail rabbits are thin, as are the deer, bobcats, coyotes, raccoons and foxes. There 'should be' a lot for them to eat but I do wonder if at least some of them are overpopulated this year after all the plentiful moisture/food last year? Or, maybe it is just the heat taking a toll on them? I guess I'll start putting deer corn and mixed grains and sunflower seeds out for the deer in their usual winter feeding spot on the edge of the swamp (which is not swampy right now).

I make puddles every day for the butterflies and larger watering holes for the larger animals and the puddles and watering holes dry up within hours or at least by the next day.

It is August and times are hard. Brown is the new green.

Dawn

Yes, Dawn - these are in the Original Garden area that we found nematodes the very first year I was here. This is our 4th gardening year and we've heavily amended that dirt and didn't think they were a big problem anymore, but maybe they are more so than I thought. My garlic was in that bed this year too and 90% of it didn't do well either. This is the bed I intend to rest for a year and grow that elbon rye you (and others) recommended. Over 3000 sq. ft of garden is just a bit much for us to tend right now until I can either retire from this job or at least go part-time. And neither DH or my bosses will even consider talking to me about that. LOL

I've about to spray down to repel the skeeters to venture out into the heat. Going to hit the peppers again with some more bloom booster and water. That's about all else I can think to do for them. Remember!!!!....there's always next year! ha!

Paula

Paula,

I was afraid I knew the answer to the nematode question when I asked it.

Remember that 'heat eats compost' so you have to add organic matter all the time or the soil reverts to its previous condition. That's an important thing for all of us to remember because it is easy to think that by amending the soil when we start a garden, we have improved it...and we have. However, organic matter breaks down quickly in a hot climate, so the amending never really ends. If you skip amending for a couple of years, your soil quickly reverts back to what it was back before you began adding organic matter to it. Organic matter breaks down more quickly if you rototill or plow regularly, so switching to no-till gardening helps keep your organic matter from breaking down quite as quickly. With nematodes, amending helps fight them. The more organic matter you add, the harder it is for them to survive and spread for several reasons. Of course, the regular rotation of elbone rye will help too.

Elbon, by the way, is Noble spelled backwards, as in the Noble Foundation, based in Ardmore and with a research farm here in Love County west of Marietta. The Noble Foundation released Elbon rye, Paula, a couple of years before you and I were born, and it has been the go-to organic solution to nematodes since at least the 1970s. So, there's your Oklahoma/Elbon rye connection and the trivia of the day.

There's always next year, and I'm predicting drought and grasshoppers in 2011, so will do everything I can to plant early and 'push' the season so I can harvest before drought and hoppers destroy all my 2011 garden dreams.

Dawn

Dawn, that graph you posted made me very depressed. We're right in the normal range for temps! Augh! My garden is so crispy!! The only thing in my garden that is happy is the crabgrass. I wish we could eat crabgrass; I'd be rich.

Drought AND grasshoppers???? Good thing I'm scaling back...sheesh. I'm incorporating sitting irrigation up early and spraying for preventative grasshopper control in my "next year's garden plans".

We've heavily amended this bed EVERY year in the spring AND the fall. But we till it in too. However, it also gets the mulch tilled in that I lay between the rows also. Well, most of it. This year the tomatoes didn't get they're second coat of top-dress.

How cool about the Elbon! I lived in Ardmore until I was 6 and have many, many fond memories of that town. Lived on E street close to the old dairy (I think) by the railroad tracks (maybe it was a lumber yard?) Town Square with that fountain that changed color was about 6 blocks from our house. We'd go to an old Dairy Queen for dipped cones and sit around that fountain on Sunday nites in the summer. They built a new libray next door to our house after I went to live with my mother in OKC. I've since found out that the house and that library have been torn down. The library was built somewhere else. The other house my grandparents owned is still on Circle Dr. in the outer NE section of town.

I'm going to check out Ellis Feed & Seed here in Norman for the Elbon. If not, I'm gonna call on slowpokegardener aka Larry to see if he's got any left. I certainly don't need 50 lbs. How long will that seed keep?

Holy Mother Mary! It's H O T out there. Had to come in to cool off. Now....back out to pick the melons...

Paula

I have already convinced my husband that we ARE installing drip irrigation next spring. 2 hrs every day to water is just insane in my little garden. But I can't let it go after all the work and love I poured into it.

Jo

Jo, I know what you mean by not letting it go. I dont want to let mine go either, but as bad as it is I am still supplying three families with tomatoes and giving Okra away. If the heat stays like it is it will all be toast.

Paula, I have not even opened the bag of Rye. Its too early to plant the Rye. I went to Ft. Smith and bought the Buckwheat because it was the last bag they had and it is the end of the season for Buckwheat and I wanted to experiment with it this year. I was dumb enough to get out and plant some today.

In areas that plant a lot of Rye they will have it sitting in garbage cans where you can buy it by the LB. The Elbon Rye wont go as far as you think it will, its a much larger seed than Rye grass. I plant it thicker than a farmer would and after it gets a little height to it I top it with the lawn mower sit as high as it will go. This seems to let a little light in to let the slow germinators catch up with the other plants. I catch the tops and till them in somewhere else or place them in the compost.

If you need any of my Rye just let me know. I think I can get it any time, and I bet you can also.

Larry

Paula,

If y'all are continually adding organic matter, maybe your nematodes haven't returned. But, if that's not the case, then I don't understand the underperforming peppers. Maybe it is just the wild weather year.

Just because I'm predicting hoppers and drought doesn't mean it will happen....but, here's my reasoning.....

1) We've just come out of El Nino (roughly in May 2010) and that normally is followed by a neutral period and then a somewhat prolonged period of La Nina, which brings Love County drought. (Maybe it brings drought to all of OK, but often when I'm in drought, much of the state is not, so I'm not sure about that.) So, drought is likely next year and, in a worse-case scenario, it could be starting up right now. Some folks in NE OK could argue that their drought probably started 4 to 6 weeks ago.

2) We have a bad hopper year now, and the bad hopper years usually cycle up and down gradually, not quickly, so a bad year is followed by either a worse hopper year or by one that is slightly less bad, but we don't go from a bad hopper year to a no-hopper year. The last bad cycle of hoppers was 2000-2003. So, if hopppers were somewhat of a problem last year (and they were) then this might be the 2nd year of a bad hopper cycle, so we're due for a couple more before their numbers drop back to 'normal'.

It is such a small world, Paul. Carol is from Carter County and has lots of family still there, although she and I both are originally from Tarrant County (Fort Worth) Texas and she and I both had careers related to the deefense industry. I think Carol and I are sisters who were separated at birth....or we've lived parallel lives or somthing.

Jo,

You can learn a lot about installing a drip irrigation system from the website I've linked below. They have a great catalog, and they'll even help you design your system.

Gardening in OK is wonderful, except for the tornadoes, hail, wildfire, floods, ice storms in winter that destroy trees and turn shade gardens into full sun gardens overnight, and the summer weather in July and August. Except for all that, gardening here is a cinch. OK, so it is a challenge, but we all love it and we all keep doing it anyway.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Dripworks

Jo - also check on youtube. The link that gave us the best info is listed below. This guy talks in plain english that can be interpretted even here in Oklahoma. It's really very plain and simple. We're planning on expanding the workable system a little bit every so often as pay-days allow.

Dawn - well, I must be a half-sister or cousin to you & Carol. The older I get, the more I believe in that six degrees of separation theory. And never more so since I found this forum. It's all very comforting.

Larry - when should we plant that rye? I'm thinking probably late fall? But not too late so that it can germinate, right? I'm looking to you and Dawn for guidance on this because I know I need it bucause I know not what I'm doing! LOL!

Paula

Here is a link that might be useful: How to do Drip Irrigation video

Paula,

Your planting date for winter grass or cover crops might be closer to Larry's planting dates than to mine, but here in southern OK, the Noble Foundation recommends playing rye between August 25th and September 15th. That allows it to make as much growth as possible before the significantly colder temps arrive in late November or early December. One great thing about Elbon rye is that it is quite cold-hardy so you should get great growth in the fall.

Farmers just south of us in Texas, roughly between Gainesville and Sanger, Texas, that plant winter grain crops always plow their land sometime in early August. I think they then wait until rain is forecast and then run out to those plowed fields and sow their seed if they believe the rain actually is going to fall. They can't sow their seed when they plow because it could be rendered ineffective by dry rot if rains are slow to come.

After it rains, which down here might be in late August but more often is in early September, you'll see the little green plants popping up out of the ground very quickly. I suppose the guys here that plant winter wheat do about the same thing as the guys in Texas, but there aren't a lot of wheat farmers on the roads we travel in Love County.

Dawn

Thanks for the drip irrigation links. My beds are going to be a pain to irrigate, because I have to keep snaking up and down, in and out of raised beds, without watering the paths.

I have this website bookmarked from someone in the Square Foot Gardening Forum who is using it in their beds. It seems pretty straightforward, but figuring out how much drip hose, solid hose, connectors etc I need is going to be a pain.

I have a VERY rough idea that it will cost $100-$200 in supplies if I install it myself, but let me tell you, after a month of watering in 100-108 degrees that is starting to sound like a bargain.

The planting dates for the Elbon are perfect for me. I plan to solarize my beds until mid Sept, so hopefully I can get some good Elbon going to kill any nematodes the solarization missed.

Jo

Here is a link that might be useful: Mr Drip

Jo, mid sept. may be the date I am shooting for also.

I wanted to squeeze in a crop of buckwheat first. I planted some 8-4 and it is up now on the 8th, so planted more today.

I want to mix a little Vetch in with the Rye but the feed stores around here dont have their cover crops out yet and I dont want to buy whole bag, but it should be in the bins by the time I need it.

Have you entertained the idea of running PVC under you paths and up into each bed? At my old house I ran PVC about 3" deep to 4 places around the garden and 4 places around the house and flower beds. In the winter I would just drain the line at a valve I placed at the lowest point.

Larry

I'm so ready for cooler temps, and I don't even want to see the weather forecast any more .... just one day after another of 100+ temps. Sigh. My husband helped me set up some 'temporary' irrigation for a couple of areas ... the little bag garden that's way out at the back of our property and the front flower bed that is way out in the middle of the front yard. We bought a package of 2 50-foot soaker hoses at Sam's and I laid them around through the garden areas. Then we connected the soaker hoses to some long regular water hoses and connected those to timers at the faucets. We can set the timers to water for designated lengths of time on designated days. It has been a huge help in keeping those two garden areas from completely drying out and dieing. We're working on a more permanent solution, but this sure does help in the meantime.

Suzie