I got my onions planted yesterday! I'm afraid the bed wasn't as prepared as I would have liked, but they look so adorable. About fish emulsion. It's the only thing I had, so I mixed it up with some water poured it along side the onions. Bad idea? I'm really clueless. Have never grown onions. Am afraid the fishy smell will attract ever cat in the area.

We moved one raised bed to another location. I plan on finishing the other three raised beds today--get them ready to plant. Everything is still kind of wet.

The guttering is going up on the house today, so I can start planting those front beds. Any suggestions on pretty herbs that like partial shade? Or vegetables that could be planted in a front "flower" bed. Kale, maybe?

My little seedlings under the grow lights look sad compared to the luscious herbs and plants I saw at Lowes a few days ago. I wanted to buy them all.

I'm so excited to be (mostly) off work this week!

When's a good time to plant pea seeds and lettuce seeds? Is it time for that? I get confused with all the info out there that sometimes seems to conflict.

I don't know about you all, but over here in Arkansas, it's too squishy to do anything...but I *am* loving the warm sunshine while it lasts, before we return to weather that would do credit to Portland, Oregon.

Still have water oozing out of the ground here to do much of anything. Only thing I have planted is in containers.

Managed to get a little fence fixing done yesterday but not doing much else.

Moved all of my tomato cages so I could clear an area for planting potatoes when it dries out a little more. We have lots of work to do and are just barely getting started.

I had to postpone installing my new raised beds till next Saturday due to the mud in my yard. I did haul home the rest of the materials, treated all the lumber with a nontoxic wood preservative, and placed and leveled cement blocks for 7 of the beds. It was a messy job but I was anxious to get it done so everything will be ready for next weekend. I did plant some onions and radish last night, and peas about a week ago, in the two beds I already have built. I also put my seedlings outside yesterday and today on the protected side if the house so they could get some sunshine. Can't wait till next weekend - I hope to do some serious planting next weekend and the weekend after!

I planted 200+ onions, but ran out of room. I only had one bed I could get into, it was too wet but at least I did not sink. I had planned on planting okra in that spot. The soil is not rich enough for onions but I will have to the best I can with it.

I planted peas yesterday, that I had sprouted indoors. My yard is soggy, but the beds aren't too bad. I hope I didn't tuck the peas into soil that will turn to concrete because it was wet. I don't think it was that wet.

Larry, I know you struggle with drainage. Hope it all works out.

We went to Holman's Seed Farm today. FYI anyone in the Collinsville area, they have seed potatoes, Dixondale onions (not a big selection) and seeds you can buy in bulk - in the wooden drawers with metal scoops.

And yes, I'm loving this weather.

Yesterday was the best day of the year so far. Plum tree #1 is about through blooming, and plum tree #2 is mid-way through its bloom cycle so the bees are staying busy. The first peach blossom opened on one tree at mid-morning, and by sunset, both peach trees had a couple dozen blooms on them. The daffodils bloomed before it snowed, but still look good, and the purple martins are back so I got to listen to them all day, which was wonderful. Bees and butterflies were out. Our yard and pastures are greening up quickly thanks to all the rain we had, but we are not yet green enough to be free of wildfire risk. (Poor Woodward County!) In the pastures there aren't many wildflowers in bloom yet, mostly the same old ones that have been blooming for weeks---spring beauties, dandelions, bluets and chickweed.

I'm seeing increasing numbers of bunnies (not inside the garden, just hopping around in the early morning and again in the evenings) and we have tons and tons of birds, partly because we feed them all winter long.

Unfortunately it is weed season, so I'm addressing that by pulling weeds out of the beds and pathways as I do other garden tasks.

Tim mowed the yard yesterday and it really needed it. The winter grasses and weeds were getting tall.

My asparagus is emerging, but that's not news. We ate the first asparagus a week or so before the first snow storm as an early warm spell made it go crazy and emerge then. I then mulched it heavily to cool the soil and slow it down. The new spears this week are not unexpected given that our nights are in the upper 50s and 60s and our days in the 70s and 80s.

Hazel, Cats love fish emulsion, so I close the garden gate to keep them out of the garden for a couple of days after I've used it. They also seem to love to sleep in the onion bed (instead of any of the currently empty beds around it), so sometimes I put my low tunnel hoops over the onion bed and cover it with bird netting to keep the cats out. It kinda works----they cannot sleep on the onions, so they jump up onto the netting-covered hoops and sleep on the netting, using it like a hammock.

Almost all leafy herbs thrive in part shade. I grow dill, fennel, basil, lemon balm, thyme, oregano and rosemary all in part shade. Oh, and chamomile, which in my garden already has emerged and is growing, likes some shade in hotter weather. It blooms, but seems to get enough sunshine in the morning hours to allow it to bloom so I grow it in morning sun, afternoon shade. I do the same with comfrey although in some places I do have it in full sun too. Even borage, which needs some amount of sunshine to bloom, tolerates a lot of shade, but you'll get more flowers if it gets more sun.

You can plant pea seeds now (and as early as mid-Feb if the weather is cooperating) and now is a good time to plant lettuce too. Don't wait too much longer because it usually gets hot enough to make the lettuce bolt in June, or sometimes in May.

dbarron, Much of OK remains drought-plagued but temporarily wet. I think SE OK may be too squishy, but even my formerly-squishy garden has dried up a lot in the last two days, especially yesterday when we hit 81 degrees and had full sun all day long. My pathways are wet, but my beds are starting to dry out nicely, which is a good thing as rain is in our forecast for 5 or 6 of the next 7 days. I'm planting into raised beds, but not into grade level planting areas which are a bit wet still.

Robert and Larry, Y'all get amount of rain that just boggle my mind. I'd like to have your rainfall in summer, but not in spring! I hope this week's forecast rain doesn't make things too much worse than they already are.

Shelley, It sounds like you've made great use of the time. I'm always a total mess in spring...muddy, wet, dirty, etc. I try to shed most of the mud and dirt in the mudroom when I come inside and I noticed yesterday that the mud room is looking muddy and needs a good cleaning....which it can have tomorrow while it is raining. Today I'll be out in the garden.

All my seedlings are on day 4 of hardening off today and are loving the sunshine. It is amazing how much happier they look once they are getting real sunlight.

Bon, lol lol lol. Me too. We're even planning to grill lunch and dinner outside today. We're gonna enjoy this wonderful weather while it lasts.

Carol, You're so far north that I'd expect you to be just getting started now. Down here, the minute the snow melted, spring started busting out all over. It is crazy how fast we went from white snow to green lawn. I'm mostly just scooping up still-wet compost out of the pathways and dumping it on top of the beds. I won't rototill any of them. The compost is so full of earthworms of all sizes that I dare not harm them. I guess that this year the front garden, at least, just converted to no-till gardening, other then the onion bed which did get cultivated before I planted the onions a while back.

Amy, If that soil has some organic matter in it, I doubt it will turn to concrete. Dense clay does that, though. I imagine your peas will grow just fine.

I'm excited about today's weather, but let's all remember the huge wildfire that led to evacuations in Woodward County yesterday and keep our eyes on the skies. There is so much still-dormant vegetation and, combined with the wind today, any fires that start could spread quickly. I hope the firefighters in Woodward County were able to get containment of that fire overnight because today their wind is going to be moderately strong again.

I imagine Me and Larry will be drenched again . 100% chance of rain tomorrow all day.

The fog was so thick yesterday it took till noon to leave. Clouds are still here this morning. If I could get a couple more days of dry weather I could get some planting done. I'm not going to work the ground and make it easier for more water to soak in. I know it would help it dry out but if I can't plant it then i'll leave it alone for now.

We're going to get some of that rain, too. I've been putting off the rest of my potatoes until after.

I just got home from Collinsville Tx and I t was a muddy mess there. Here it is supposed to rain a little and then warm up for the rest of spring break. I hope to get some planting done Fri sat sun. my son got two more rows of onions done so I just have a few to put in here at the house.

I managed to mug in my broccoli, cabbage and some more pathetic looking onions . Left some nice ruts with the tractor too. It was just to wet to try and plant any beet and turnip seeds.

Managed to mow the yard inside the fence. Started to weedeat but didn't want to go to the barn and drag it out.

I made a round a little while ago to make sure no deer or rabbits were in the garden.

most of my tomato and peppers have germinated , still a couple varieties that haven't popped up.

The weather was nice today, even though we did get some rain. I tilled most of the south garden to get the henbit turned in. with it shading the ground it takes too long to dry. My soil was too wet to till but I will have to start working it to get to dry. I got the rest of my onions planted, the total count was about 400 plants which should give us plenty. My north garden may never be dry enough to plant because we are expecting more rain. So far this year I have not planted anything where I had plans to plant.

Larry that's how mine is going. I had a plan all ready but when it came time to plant I had to completely change because of the way the water runs down this one hill through the garden. One thing they can say about gardeners patient and flexible huh

Our chance of rain was 100% too and it rained part of the night and most of the day, on and off, but only really light rain most of the time, so the rain gauge in the garden only has accumulated 0.40" so far. Of course, this rain erased all the progress we'd made towards drying up, and we have rain in the forecast for some portion of every day through at least Monday. I hate to complain about getting rain, so I'll just whine about how I wish it would give us one dry week for planting, and then it can rain all it wants.

I got sunburned working outside for most of the day on both Monday and Tuesday, so I guess I won't have to worry about sunshine or sunburn for a while anyway.

We mowed, too, Robert, until some piece on the lawn tractor broke (it is 13 years old so I am surprised this doesn't happen more often than it does), leaving us with half a mowed lawn. All the front pasture including the bar ditch and frontage along the roadway did get mowed, though, and I expect the part Tim ordered online will arrive and be installed and we still won't be dry enough again to finish the mowing.

I had scooped up all the decomposed mulch out of three pathways onto the adjacent beds, and then replaced the compost with new, fresh mulch on two of the three beds before it was time to go inside to make and eat dinner last night. Those paths are usable today, but the one I didn't get mulched is just one big long puddle.

The asparagus is loving this weather and we're having asparagus for dinner tonight.

I have a lovely garden so far, it is just that most of it is still sitting in containers in the greenhouse. The onions and taters are getting kind of lonely out in the garden alone. While pulling winter weeds from the paths and beds, I've been finding lots of grubs and some caterpillar type worms. I toss the grubs on the compost pile as many of them mature to ground beetles that are helpful in the garden, but I feed the caterpillar type worms to the chickens. Maybe I can dig up and dispose of all the cutworms before they get a chance to do any cutting.

Larry, Last week I tilled the onion bed when it was, technically, too wet to till and it all worked out just fine. I got the onions planted and that bed has enough organic matter in it that the soil didn't turn into big chunks of clay dirt clods. It also helped the upper few inches of that soil dry out. Yesterday morning it looked a little too dry, but I ignored it since our forecast included rain that was supposed to start falling last night (and did).

Kim, I barely plan at all any more except in the most general of terms because the weather usually determines what goes where no matter what sort of prior plans I've made. You not only have to be flexible and patient, but also very resourceful. Gardening is never as easy in real life as it seems like it should be. We just change, adapt our plans, bend over backwards to get things done, jump through hoops to meet our goals, and then people wonder why gardening can be so exhausting! (grin) It really wears us out.

You were in Collinsville, and it was a muddy mess, and yesterday we were in Muenster and St. Jo and they were a muddy mess too, but then it was a pretty drive out of St. Jo and along the river road and back across the Tayovayas Bridge to the western end of Love County. I enjoyed looking at all the fruit trees busting out into bloom everywhere, and we saw deer and wild turkeys, and also skunks (but who wants to see a skunk?).

Our yard is a muddy mess today and any plans I had made for the rest of the week have flown out the window.

I walked outside with one of our cats a minute ago and nearly got trampled by deer that were standing near the back door. Apparently they wanted to complain that I hadn't put out any cracked corn for the doves so they had nothing to steal today. Rain even makes the wildlife cranky.

Dawn I ran through muenster and St Jo on my way home.. Sorta took it easy coming home vertigo was giving me a fit making driving uh challenging but no line crossing so I was good. I would have pulled over if it was too rough. I really enjoy the ride through the country coming home. By time I got here it was colder and drier too. No rain like they predicted for today so far.

Luvcannin-Maybe this will help your ears.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQR6b7CAiqk

oh thank you I have tried several and I need someone to help me make sure I am doing it right. My daughter is coming tomorrow YAY so she can help me. Its the most annoying thing but I figured out as long as I don't move my head I am ok oh and don't bend over.