Hi and welcome to the forum. I can feel your pain about leaving your garden and your plants. It's rough I know, but look at it as an adventure! A new home, new plants, new friends, and now you can legally be an OU fan, lol.

Is ther any way to take some starts from some of your plants with you? Maybe dig up a few bulbs?

Again, glad to have you with us, it's kinda slow here right now, but I'm sure more will check in later.

Well, welcome home!
Welcome to the forum too!
I feel your pain. Sounds like a WONDERFUL garden. I'm in my second season with a new garden, in previously unused soil and am still breaking sod in parts of the garden. I'd be sad to have to move now, and it's nowhere near as well developed as yours.

I grew up in NJ, in a part of the state that had almost no rocks. Here, I use a grub hoe/pick to break sod for the first time and to remove rocks in order to be able to plant. But it is gratifying to see just how fertile this soil is. It's great right from the start!

George
Tahlequah, OK

PS. Check back in when you can. There are some very good and helpful people here.

Thanks for the welcome.

Rebel - I am actually thinking of digging up my asparagus and my blackberries. I spent a lot of time on those babies, and almost can't bear to leave them behind.

George - I know all about those rocks. I fought them for most of my young life. Up here in KS, I had a layer of Kansas limestone about 6 inches down. I picked that stuff out down to about 18 inches and began composting in place. I run wide rows ('bout 40 inches or so) and I continuously sheet compost in the pathways. I have pretty nice soil now

Mexico Huh? I lived in Honduras off and on from 86 until 91, then continuously from 93 until my little place got wiped off the map by hurricane Mitch. I kind of taught an informal organic gardening and food preservation class down there. I say informal, because at first the locals all called me that "crazy gringo" for taking all that basura and build my compost piles. After the crops started rolling in, they stopped laughing and began coming to me.

I also lived up in Jersey for a while. On Long Beach Island. A place called Holgate. A whole different experience gardening on the shore.

Once again, thanks for the welcome y'all. Now I don't feel as bad as I did.

Welcome back to Oklahoma and welcome to this forum!

I hope that whoever buys your place in Kansas truly appreciates the incredible garden soil you are leaving behind for them! Oh, well, think how much fun it will be to start over with a new place and new challenges!

We've been here 8 years and I would hate to leave and start over somewhere else, so I truly do sympathize with you.

If you garden organically, or even semi-organically, the critters will flock to your place. I am in rural southern Oklahoma and we have tons and tons of wildlife: everything from frogs, toads, snakes, skinks and lizards, to bobcats, coyotes, ringtailed cats, ferrets, gophers, moles, armadillos, possums, foxes, raccoons (unfortunately), and even the occasional mountain lion and wild pig.

I am sure you will love it here. Okies are terrific people and gardening is always challenging and interesting here, especially since the weather is so unpredictable and wild.

Dawn

When we lived in Mexico I taught some classes on basic gardening, seed saving and small animal husbandry, at a small Bible Institute. "Crazy Gringo" must be sort of a universal nickname! One time I planted some Guayabas on the grounds, though no one was growing them nearby. The fellow in charge of student work hours refused to have them watered, and we were in the desert. I asked him "why not?" He replied, "Because they won't grow here." Well, I watered them myself until their roots reached our water table. They grew and, 8 years later, we had bushels of guayabas. By that time he had forgotten his earlier comments and was very pleased to propogate them for others. I never could get enough organic material for our desert soils.

George

>>"Huh? I lived in Honduras off and on from 86 until 91, >>then continuously from 93 until my little place got wiped >>off the map by hurricane Mitch. I kind of taught an >>informal organic gardening and food preservation class >>down there. I say informal, because at first the locals >>all called me that "crazy gringo" for taking all that >>basura and build my compost piles. After the crops started >>rolling in, they stopped laughing and began coming to me."

Yep, "crazy gringo" is a universal nickname. It generally don't last long though once you get to know the folks and they see you mean them no harm.

Desert soils are tough to amend, but you did it. It is the love of the soil which drives us. It is the challenge of growing things that people say won't grow there.

We cannot change people by force. We can, however, demonstrate to them and let them make their own decisions.

Jeff

I'm so pleased to hear what you're all saying! My husband is interviewing on Monday for a job in Oklahoma City. I currently live in Southern California, was in South Bend, Indiana before that, southwestern Wisconsin before that, etc. I too garden organically.

How much rainfall do you typically get in a year? Are you in a drought? (Our area just had its driest year since record-keeping began in the 1800's. I forget the exact amount but believe it was under 2"--perhaps quite a bit under.) What's the hottest it usually gets there in the summer? Anything else I need to know up front about gardening in the Oklahoma City area? I particularly enjoy growing perennials, fruit trees, and of course tomatoes.

Thanks,
Jennifer

Jennifer,

I am a couple of hours south of OKC so my weather is a little hotter and drier than OKCs, but they are basically similar. I am sure someone who lives in OKC will give you specific numbers for average annual rainfall, etc., but I'll tell you what I can.

Here in southern Oklahoma (100 miles south of Oklahoma City), we average about 36" of rain a year. Since we moved here from Texas in 1999, we've had as little as 18" to 20" in a drought year, to around 40" in a really rainy year. Most years, though, we are in the low 30" to 31" range. We have drought years fairly regularly, but get a good rainy year every now and then to make up for it. This was a rainy year, with excessive rainfall in many counties and flooding that ranged from minor to very severe.

Spring and summer weather tends to be beautiful....except for the tornadoes that are all-too-common here. Summers are VERY HOT, with highs in the upper 90s and lower 100s, and nighttime lows in the 70s and 80s. Winters are not too bad most years, but very cold and icy at times. Droughts are pretty common.....maybe 4 or 5 years out of ten. They range from minor to severe.

This year we had more rain than usual and cooler summer weather than usual in most, but not necessarily all, parts of the state. OKC (and some other parts of the state) were slammed repeatedly by heavy rainstorms and flooding.

Our growing season is very long, but the extreme summer heat often shuts down tomato and pepper production in the middle of the summer. If you can keep the tomatoes and peppers alive through the worst of the heat, though, they will begin producing again in the fall. Some people plant new tomato plants in the middle of the summer for their fall gardens.

It helps to think of the gardening season here as several mini-seasons. You can plant cool-season crops in the winter and early spring, and warm season crops from mid-spring to mid-summer. Then, you can plant some cool-season crops and some warm-season crops in mid-summer for the fall garden. Succession planting, and planting that is very carefully timed to work with the weather, will give you months and months of bounty from the veggie garden.

Tha main problem here with fruit trees is that late blasts of cold weather often freeze the blossoms or small fruit that have formed. I get a good peach and plum crop about 3 out of 5 years, and get a good pecan crop about 3 to 4 out of 5 years.

The weather here is VERY ERRATIC so the 'averages' are not always helpful. We have very, very mild earthquakes every so often (usually in the 2s or 3s on the Richter Scale) although most people don't even notice them when they occur. Wildfires are NOT a common problem here, certainly not the kind of wildfires you associate with California. However, they do occur. We had a horrendous wildfire season in 2005-2006, but years like that are very rare, and tend to follow prolonged drought.

Since we moved here in 1999, we have seen single digit temps some winters and 110 degrees plus on the hottest days of some summers. In general, though, the winters are fairly mild, springs and falls are lovely, and summer is just hot, hot, hot.

Because our weather is so erratic, it is almost never dull.
Gardening here is challenging, but not as difficult as you might think.

This year, I planted my tomatoes a month earlier than usual because it was very warm in March, and then had to take extraordinary action to protect them from a very severe late cold spell in mid- to late-April. As of today, I still have about 30 tomato plants in the 'fall garden' that are still producing, despite a few nights with temps in the low 30s. It was a good year for most of the garden, once the flooding rains ended here. It was a good fruit and nut year too.

Weather is a BIG DEAL in this state, and we have an excellent weather tracking network called the Oklahoma Mesonet. You can find it by googling. There is also a lot of climate data on the website of the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, which you also can find by googling. On those OCS web pages, you can access a summary of the climate and weather data by county. (Oklahoma City is, I think, in Oklahoma County.)

Hope this info helps.

Dawn

Dawn, thank you so much for all that excellent information! If my husband gets the job, I'll have a wonderful headstart on gardening knowledge for the area. I really appreciate your taking the time to give me so much helpful info.

Thanks,
Jennifer

My husband got the job in Oklahoma City! He starts Monday and I'll be joining him in January. (This happens every time we move. He goes off to the job and I have to coordinate things for the move. Such is life. But he's planning to come back and oversee the movers this time, so that'll be a big help.)

Anyway I just wanted to say thank you again to Dawn for the information, and to tell you all how much I'm looking forward to being a part of the Oklahoma gardening forum. All these new friends already--how lucky am I.

Jennifer

Jennifer,

Congrats on the hubby's new job! I hope y'all will be very happy here in Oklahoma.

This forum is pretty quiet now, but it livens up a lot as the spring planting season approaches.

Our winter weather is very erratic...everything from snow to sleet and/or freezing rain to 80 degree days in February, so be prepared for anything (and everything!).

In what has been one of my longest harvest seasons, I harvested what might be the last tomatoes from the garden yesterday....about 80 in all, in anticipation of freezing temps overnight that, in fact, did not arrive as forecast.
From the first ripe (container-grown) tomato in late April to the final ones (maybe) yesterday....what a great tomato year! With the next chance at a 'hard freeze' about six to seven nights away, I might get to harvest a few more, but I'm not counting on it.

Keep us posted on your progress as you prepare to move here!

Dawn

*cues twilight zone music*

Alrighty then - I have a sister named Dawn, and a half sister named Jennifer Ruth.

Trubbadubbado,

OK, now that you are moving to East Texas instead, I must say that I am going to miss you. I hope you'll come visit us and chat with us anyway. Once an Okie, always an Okie, right?

Dawn

Yep, pretty much. Though the truth be told, I was right on the border between AR and OK. It was kind of weird because the front of the house was in AR and my bedroom was in OK.

It made for some interesting games.