I guess I am not going to do any real garden work today. It is just so wet out there.

Yesterday I did a little work in the garden. I put up the low tunnel hoops over the onion bed and covered the hoops with bird netting. It actually is more to protect the onions from our cats, who like to lie down on top of the onions even though every other raised bed is free and clear and they could go to any of those. I also thought that if any of the thunderstorms turned severe, the onions would be protected from hail. Now that the netting is up, I'll leave it there until the onions get so tall they're poking through the netting, which usually happens by sometime in April.

I also weeded the poppy/larkspur bed, where there were tons of small weeds covering the ground. I didn't get it all weeded but I got a lot of it done. Mostly I pulled henbit, corn speedwell, Queen Ann's Lace, chickweed, annual bluegrass, Carolina geranium, plaintain and hoary bittercress. There also was some sort of grass with a wider blade whose name I don't remember. Might be barnyard grass. I cannot believe how many little weeds had sprouted and grown in the last couple of weeks. There's tons of small larkspur and poppy plants there, so once I get all the weeds out, they'll grow and spread a bit more and hopefully shade out any future weeds that try to sprout.

Since I have shade cloth on the greenhouse I carried all the flats of plants out to the patio so they could have sunlight yesterday, albeit sunlight filtered through heavy clouds. I'll do the same today once I'm sure the rain is finished with us.

I got my 5-gallon bucket of garden tools out of the potting shed yesterday and poured everything out on the ground so I could reorganize all the tools, putting them in the various pockets in the bucket's tool organizer. That took a whopping 5 or 10 minutes.

I'm starting to wonder how I'm going to get the planting done. I have a beautiful vegetable, herb and flower garden growing.......in flats in the greenhouse. It will be nice to be able to finally get all those plants in the ground......maybe sometime next week.

It rained on and off all night last night and for a little while this morning, so we're back to full mud mode again.

There's hope in our forecast. Currently, there's no rain in our forecast for next Mon, Tues and Wed. I hope that doesn't change.

Usually I am in full gardening mode by now, or often, struggling to fit in gardening tasks in between grass fires and wild fires. This year, with all the rain, we aren't having very many fires, but then it also is too wet to do much gardening. Sometimes you just can't win.

I am bored and climbing the walls, antsy to do something....but what? It is a good day for splashing in mud puddles, but that's not something I want to do anyhow.

You're undoubtedly muddier there than we are here, and we have plenty of mud. Rain is always a blessing since too much of our state remains in drought too much of the time, but I sure wish the rain would stop for a week or two and let everyone get their planting done.

Can't do squat but haul in my compost dirt and fiddle with the seedlings! I think I'll ignite the compost pile, today, and straighten up the garden shed.

I've been outside stomping around in the mud and the puddles. It isn't as fun as it was when I was a child. I'm no longer really fond of being muddy or having wet feet.

Bon, I found a nest of mice in my garden shed yesterday. That's the first time that's happened in all the time we've lived here. I was not a happy camper.

I'm going to try to pull some weeds in the garden this afternoon. The ones in grade level soil likely aren't pullable, unless I want big globs of mud with them, but I think I'll be able to weed the raised bed.

I also need to harvest asparagus. At least something is happy in the cool mild weather, and its' name is Gus.

Our two plum trees are through blooming, and now there's three peach trees in bloom and the orange tree has buds but no blossoms yet.

The cool weather is nice as all too soon it will get hot, but I wish we'd get some sunshine today.

No compost or garden shed for me. I underestimated the time of potting up! Holy mackerel, how'd I get into this mess...

I am about to go nuts also.

I did get out and move what was left of a burnt brush pile and tried to move a mulch pile, but the ground was too wet and I was afraid of getting the tractor stuck, plus it was making ruts in my lawn.

I also planted a row of garlic. I know it is much too late, but it was in the shed looking terrible. I just leaned over the edge of the garden and pushed the cloves down into the mud.

I also called about compost, shavings and shredded leave. The compost wont be ready for two weeks or more. the leaves and shavings are ready as soon as it gets dry enough to get in to them.

I winter sowed a bunch of things and now they need to be divided up. I started purple sprouting broccoli because somewhere I got that it was 35 DTM. NOT! I'm going to try it as greens and start more in July. Maybe some will bolt so I get more seeds. Soon there will be lots of greens and I will plant the lettuce table tomorrow. Babysitting today, last time he helped in the garden he ate a handfull of dirt, LOL. Might make a sandbox for him today.

If y'all were here you could have made him a mudbox. Or a swimming pool.

Purple sprouting broccoli is an odd duck. Clearly, it does better here most years if sown in fall, but you never know. With as flakey as our weather has been, it might at least flower and then give you seeds. I have had Piricicaba broccoli survive all summer long in morning sun/afternoon shade, so you just never know what might happen.

I've been fighting pneumonia. My spring garden is a wreck, so far. Weeds are growing where veggies should be growing. I had garlic, some taters and some spring greens in, but that's it.

(No worries. A shot in the butt and a prescription @ $15.00 per pill and I feel much better, now.)

I hope you do feel better. I did not get pneumonia but had the flu 4 times this year. Finally I got a Dr that is helping me to build my immune system. Its hard to get anything done when you are sick.

I finally had the time and perfect weather to get in the garden yesterday. It is so good to see it coming together the way I have been picturing it for 2 1/2 years. With the fruit tress blooming it is a beautiful place to be.

kim

It looks like I may have to buy some plants and plant them in containers. The lawn and garden are mud, and raining now with only 4 days of the next 10 with no rain forecasted.

wbonesteel, I am sorry to hear you've been under the weather and hope you continue to feel better and better and better so you can wage war on the weeds.

Are y'all getting rain there? I know your area has been very dry and with some water restrictions in place.

Kim, I tried to have a perfect day in the garden yesterday, but mostly had a perfectly muddy day. I forged ahead and did all the gardening work I could, but I was a pathetic muddy mess when I came indoors. Then, to add insult to injury, it rained overnight. Because, you know, all we needed was more moisture.

I am headed outdoors to plant a couple of the raised beds in a little while and I am going to do it even if I am standing ankle deep in muddy water. The raised beds are wet, but workable. The grade level soil and pathways are lakes and creeks. I wish I could save all this moisture for July and August when there likely won't be enough.

Larry, You have my sympathy. While we don't get as much rain as you get at one time, we're getting it several days a week. I'll look at the 7-day or 10-day forecast and be all excited because I'll see a string of rain-free days back-to-back a few days out there. Then, a day or two later the forecast changes and we don't get back-to-back rain-free days.

I've mostly been weeding as all the moisture is making weeds sprout everywhere and I feel like I'm starting to win the weed war. However, it is a big garden and that's a lot of weeding left to do.

I hope to get all my raised beds planted this week, which really won't be too hard. I've already got a third of them planted. I don't know when, if ever, the grade level soil will be dry enough for planting. Even the corn has gone into two raised beds. I'm trying to plant some of each type of veggie I grow in raised beds just in case this is a year when the rain never stops falling. The issue with that, of course, is that only half my garden has raised beds, and I generally reserve a large portion of those raised beds for tomatoes. If I am not careful, I'll fill up all the raised beds before I plant a single tomato plant.

With the warmer and windier weather we're expecting for the next couple of days, I'm hoping for some significant drying out of the soil. However, it then is going to turn right around and rain again.

Maybe we all should have just planted rice.

Dawn

lol 'rice' All I could do was frown at the radar yesterday hovering over area where I know people live :(

Rain has put a kink in my gardening plans too. Three times now I've had to postpone hiring two guys to help my son build 11 new raised beds in my back yard. (I have finally accepted my physical limitations and realized that I can either hire some help and get this done in time for gardening this year, or spend another year messing around on my own while rabbits and dogs ruin everything faster than I can grow it.

Anyway, my back yard is just a mess with all the mud. The only gardening I've been able to do is in the two beds we built last fall. I planted peas, onions and radish about a week or so ago and everything is up and doing well. (By the way, Dawn, I took your advice on presprouting peas and it worked great! They were all up in just over a week.) I'm going to plant lettuce today, then those two 2' by 8' beds will be full.

Hopefully next weekend it will finally be dry enough to build the 11 new beds, then I will be busy planting all my seedlings as well as planting some stuff from seed. So fat the weather forecast looks hopeful!

With the water restrictions here in town, I was going to try some root crops and spring greens and hope for the best. The last couple of weeks, it's been damp around here, though.

I did a lot of prep work in most of the beds last fall. A modified hugelkultur w/ in-situ anaerobic composting. Mixed in composted manure for extra nitrogen. Hopefully, this prep work will help to retain moisture in the beds.

The soil in our beds looks better and better w/ each passing year. Dark, almost blue-black color where the shovel smooths it out. Multiple earthworms in every shovel full of dirt, now.

I wish we could switch weather for a day or two. We could use some rain here and let yall dry out. We had a light sprinkling the other day which was great. I catch rain here at home for my seedlings but at the barn I don't have a storage system set up yet.

Shelley, I'm so glad pre-sprouting the peas worked for you. Mine all are in the ground now, and the first round I planted are growing pretty well. I just planted the second round a couple of days ago. All the pea plants are taking swimming lessons this week since more rain is in the forecast beginning in a couple of days.

Warren, I was wondering how bad the watering restrictions had gotten. About the only time Duncan makes our news over here is when they're talking about the watering restrictions.

We had a bumper crop of earthworms this spring too. I think they enjoyed having all the moisture that fell in fall and winter. I've never seen as many in March as we have this year. Of course, maybe it is just that they had to climb up to the uppermost layers of the soil to get out of the rainwater.

Our soil improves every year too but then a really wicked drought year like 2011 will set it back a bit. In that awful summer, it was as though the heat ate up all the organic matter in the soil, despite the lack of moisture. I've worked hard to get it back into decent condition.

Two big trees in our woodland (which is 10 acres) collapsed this winter. Tim wasn't terribly happy, because cleaning up the deadfall is a lot of work, but I was thrilled because I know how much soil improvement I can get our of those dead, partially decayed trees. I'll be finishing two ongoing hugelkultur beds with wood from those trees. I guess dragging deadfall out of the woods is something I can do for the next couple of days while the garden soil dries out.

Kim, I wish we could send you our excess moisture. Our garden slopes a lot so I've been working in the uphill portion of it. Now that the upper beds are filled, I'd like to work on the middle ones, but they are too wet to work, and the pathways are like little irrigation ditches filled with water, so I'll have to find some other way to get some work done tomorrow. The lower beds are just pools of water, and the grade level soil is a swamp. All that rain I wished for last winter and spring when it just wouldn't fall? It's here now.

Dawn

Last I heard, we were on class 5 water restrictions. Not supposed to water anything. Ruined my garden last year. Late this winter, things got a bit damp, though. Haven't had a lot of rain - just a good soaking on a semi-regular basis. Most of the storms seem to go around us or else we just catch the edges of them, now and then. Last summer was dry as a bone, here, imo. I hope that changes this year.

I designed the front garden to retain moisture. Difficult to see in pics, but the center of the garden is several inches lower than the edges. Like a big shallow bowl. The top 4" - 6" or so of the beds gets awful dry, but underneath that, things stay moist.

Got irritated with the local town council a couple years back. They got everyone to cut back on water usage. People cut back on water usage, then, city revenues dropped & the city couldn't pay their bills, so they raised the rates. (insanity rules)

Most of the material I used in our beds last fall came from the brush I cut down on the city lot next door (It was a fire hazard, only ten feet from my bedroom). There was a lot of tree bark in there, too. I'll use all of the loose stuff in the fence beds in the back yard, later on, when I'm feeling better. The brush piles are now half their original size. Hulgekultur is a good use for the brush and U didn't have to pay to have the brush hauled.

I might have a go at mowing & trimming the grass, tomorrow. See how it goes. If it feels good and doesn't set me back any to speak of (relapse), I'll start working in the garden, again.

We still have our fruit trees, strawberries, asparagus, blackberries, raspberries and other perennials. We'll always get something out of them, now, no matter what happens. Peaches'll be a good crop, this year. This'll be the first year for cherries and mebbe the apples, too. Persimmons will take a few more years, though.

As always, lots and lots of flowers. :) The rose bushes have survived and should put on a decent display, as well, for young plants.

Wbonesteel...good to see you! I am sorry you aren't feeling great, I hope you heal fast!

Dawn, amazingly enough, It is not super muddy up here in OKC. I think we've had less rain than others.

I am slowly working on cutting back all the dead stems. I call it "cleaning up the garden", but I have been leaving most of the debris in the garden, just chopping it up a little finer. I am a really lazy gardener! I tell myself I am creating mulch in situ. Please no one tell me differently!

I cannot imagine Class 5 water restrictions, but knowing you and having seen how lovely and well-designed your garden is, I am sure it will be spectacular despite watering restrictions. Do they not make exemptions there for veggie gardens? Lots of cities still allow people to water edible parts of their landscape even in the midst of watering restrictions. If we had watering restrictions, I would obey them, but I'd also try to find a way to keep my berries and fruit trees alive somehow. We do catch water off the roof in rain barrels so that would allow a bit of water to keep something alive.

We've never had watering restrictions here (knock on wood!) but are lucky to have a fairly high water table of (unfortunately) very alkaline water here near the Red River. The only water trouble we've ever had has been when a pipe broke and we had low pressure for a couple of hours or maybe even a half-day.

Historically, our water co-op board has been very conservative and will steadfastly refuse to allow new members to buy into the co-op if we do not have enough active wells pumping enough water to support those new members, which I didn't appreciate when we were trying to get our water line in (we beat a new moratorium on "no new members" by the skin of our teeth) back in the late 1990s. I have developed a sincere appreciation for that policy since this then as it means we've never been in imminent danger of running out of water.

At times about a decade or more ago, folks who wanted to build homes in our area had to wait until the water co-op drilled a new or replacement well (or, maybe it was both an additional well and the replacement of another one) and brought it online before they could join the co-op, get a meter and water line installed and build a home. Other water companies that serve other parts of our county have had watering restrictions at times but ours never has. However, you have to restrict your own usage or pay a huge financial price for heavy irrigation in summer. So, in that sense, I have my own watering restrictions because there's a point where I just feel like we've spent enough in a dry summer to keep the garden going, and when I'm done, I stop watering and that's that.

I hope all the dry areas like yours around the state get some of the rainfall like we've had that has been recharging our aquifer and soaking the ground. Last June we were in Extreme Drought after a long, slow dry spell that lasted all of the autumn, winter and spring. It ended in about mid-June, and we have mostly been wet ever since except for a dry spell in late Aug/early Sept.

Even though we seem incredibly we here, the U. S. Drought Monitor still classifies us as Abnormally Dry, so we aren't really out of the woods. I know all too well that our clay soils here can go from too wet to too dry in a shockingly brief period of time.

Lisa, I like your plan and also I do think you are drier than us. I don't think your rain gauge has overflowed a single time this year so far, right?

The more that I can do in situ in the garden, the better the garden gets. I look at our woodland acres where everything happens in situ, and it has the best soil on our property, which isn't an accident. So, while you and I might call it lazy gardening, it also is, in a lot of ways, smart gardening. This is one of my favorite times of the year when the perennials are popping up out of the ground and I can cut off old dead stems once I see the new foliage emerging low on the plants. Yesterday I noticed the echinacea was emerging, and something I planted last spring....I think they are cupheas......also are leafing out. My Texas lantana is leafing out and so are two of the three crape myrtles. It seems early for them, but they're gonna do what they're gonna do no matter what the calendar says.

The down side to all the rain here is that a lot of the fire departments (and ranchers, farmers, and oilfield workers) are getting bogged down in wet soil when they have to drive into fields or pastures or even just into yards. It is hard to do the jobs that need to be done if you cannot drive vehicles (even with 4WD) into the fields. Yesterday as we were driving into town we twice saw pick-up trucks with chains pulling other pickups out of fields or muddy bar ditches.

I hate to complain about rain because we rarely have enough, but this year we've having plenty and it is starting to verge on being too much at one time. I hope we get some of the rain in summer and not only in spring.

Looks like the weather is going to bring more rain this week.

I did get my tomato seedlings transplanted this weekend, so they have room to grow.

I really wish I could get in the garden and get some turnips and beets planted.

I may drag the mantis tiller out and see what it does. If I could just get some ground broke up just deep enough to plant a couple of rows.

Well, I managed to get a few beets, turnips , kale, swiss chard and snap peas planted.

I don't dare try to get potatoes in.

I had to break the little mantis tiller out to fix some ruts.

maybe after this next spell of weather I can get the corn, beans and potatoes. Normally for my area in se ok I try to plant corn the first week of april. Usually potatoes are in the ground by march 17.

Dawn, not a single solitary overflowing rain gauge so far! Our amounts seem to be coming in very small doses, 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch, barely enough to call it rain sometimes. The ground is wet, but it is certainly not muddy.

I planted 2 packs of beet seeds, the soil was not in good shape but will have to do. I also hauled a load of shavings and I am mulching around a couple of beds where the ground is solid enough to support my pickup.

Robert, I planted the early corn seed and 5 kinds of bush beans. They're in raised beds or otherwise I wouldn't have dared. I have had some success using the Mantis to turn over the muddy soil in raised beds so that the lower levels are on top and can dry out some. Today, though, before planting beans, I just used a trowel to turn over the soil this morning and let it dry all day before planting the beans. These raised beds are at the lower end of the garden and I felt like they were too muddy even for the Mantis.

Our chances of rain are low on Tuesday (20%) but higher on Wed (60%) so I aim to get as much planted as possible before the rain arrives.

This afternoon I could tell that we were seeing some drying up of the mud after a full day of sun and heat, but that doesn't mean the mud is gone, only that it wasn't as bad this afternoon as it was early this morning. I'm going to be so disappointed if we get that rain and lose what little progress we've made towards drying up.

Lisa, We are not necessarily getting big amounts, but if you get medium amounts several times a week, it begins to add up. We're above average for the year, which is awfully rare here.

Larry, Our ground isn't solid enough yet to support a truck, and my friend Fred said today he got a tractor stuck in his mud and an ATV as well. Usually his place is more drivable than ours, but apparently we all still have too much mud.

It was so gorgeous today and I worked outside every minute that I could. I always scoop up all the previous year's mulch-turned-compost out of the pathways in Winter or Spring and put it on the raised beds, which leaves my paths naked. So, this week, one of the main projects is to add new mulch to the pathways before weeds begin sprouting there. I've got 5 pathways mulched now with a combination of chopped/shredded autumn leaves and grass clippings, with a ton more pathways to go. I hope to get a lot more done tomorrow.

Somebody in Love County transplanted peppers and tomatoes into the ground today, and it wasn't me! I told him that I was watching both the rain and the cold night at the end of the week and waiting a bit longer before I put any tomato plants in the ground. Of course, it is going to make me crazy that Fred has his planted, but he said he was trying to get it done before this week's rain falls. He doesn't have his onions in the ground yet, though, and I didn't think to ask him if he had planted beans or corn yet. Usually he plants them well before I do but I am earlier than usual this year.

The redbuds are blooming now as the fruit trees finish up, and my daffodils are fading, but the hyacinths have started to bloom so it still feels a lot like spring. Tomorrow may feel like summer.