Boo to lack of moisture and high fire danger! Been really dreading what looks like a drought year. Temps have been all over the place (I know-it's Oklahoma.I should be used to it, but it messes with my sinuses and ears.) I will have onions planted on or near Valentine's Day, though!

Off to chop up more leaves to be used as mulch and in compost piles with goat manure and straw passed along by husband's co-worker. It's supposed to be grown organically, but I'm not taking any chances. It's going to cook and age for a long time before it's used.

Some parts of OK have been in drought since last Spring, I believe, and it generally is worsening. Less than 5% of the state is not in drought or pre-drought (Abnormally Dry) conditions on the latest U. S. Drought Monitor.

Oklahoma Drought Monitor Map

Being in drought does make gardening more challenging, but with irrigation it is possible to have a good cool-season garden in Spring. How well a warm-season garden does if the drought continues will depend on many factors including soil quality and how much irrigation can be done (as a practical, affordable matter) as well as how hot the temperatures get. Drought at 90 degree weather is tough, drought at 100 degree weather is much tougher and the garden yields can be poor. Even when you can irrigate, there are times the soil can get so dry that irrigation is keeping plants alive but not really keeping them producing. When my garden hits that point, I close the gate and walk away and stop irrigating because it is just a waste of money if the plants aren't producing.

At this point, I'm still not in drought, but the Abnormally Dry conditions have crept into the NE corner of our county, so it is likely we'll be moving into the pre-drought color (yellow) on the Drought Monitor map soon as well. We're already substantially drier here than we were just 2-4 weeks ago.

I cannot complain about drought conditions returning. After tremendous drought here from 2011-2014, we had exceptionally high rainfall in 2015 and pretty good rainfall in most of 2016 (but not in July through September). I have been expecting drought to return to our garden in 2017 and will plant as early as possible in an attempt to get the best harvest before drought conditions arrive here and then worsen. I don't intend to irrigate heavily this summer. Once the heat and drought reach a certain point, neither the garden nor I are happy and irrigation really doesn't keep us happy. Sometimes you just have to take a drought break from the garden for the sake of one's sanity and one's wallet. Irrigation gets expensive in the hot, hot summer months especially if no rain is falling at all.]

What I learned in previous drought winters/springs was to irrigate the young plants as needed in the cool, mild weather to get them off to the best start possible. That gives you stronger plants that will tolerate the hotter, drier summer conditions better. If you don't irrigate enough in spring, the plants, if they survive, will be very small and weak going into summer. In the droughts of both 2003 and 2005, I didn't water enough in late winter/early spring and learned what a mistake that was when the real heat arrived and the drought intensified.

My dad's family raised enough food with dryland farming (no irrigation) to feed a very large family in the 1910s through the 1930s, with lots of drought and the Dust Bowl. It wasn't easy---they slaved away at farming all day every day from sunup to sundown---and in the few photos of them we have from that time, they all were very, very skinny. In the tough years they survived mostly on field corn and pinto beans, which they often ate at every meal. I don't know how they did it, but I guess they managed to do it because their farm was their only food source so in order to survive they had to grow enough to keep themselves alive. I don't think I could raise enough food dryland farming to keep my family alive!

Here is the 8-14 day outlook for both precipitation and temperatures.

8-14 Day Temperature and Precipitation Outlook

Dawn,

There are some indications that we may get into a slightly wetter period on or about Feb 25 through mid-March. It might be colder than normal at that time, too. Some things may be setting up in the atmosphere now that take about 3 weeks to translate to our sensible weather. We'll see if it happens. We can all sure use some water.

Lee

Woo hoo! Thanks for the update Lee. Things are looking pretty dry in so many places and we've been having lots and lots of fires. I hope everything comes together and the wetter pattern happens.

I'm kinda loving the warm days but would love them more if they were wet and warm. Today's 82 degrees feels so hot, but obviously it feels better 32 or 42. Unfortunately, it is waking up the fruit trees too early.

Thanks Dawn, I don't feel so bad having continuously watered my mulch and the soil. It feels crazy. I checked and the mulch is doing well and am able to slow down. I planted old buckwheat seed, like tons of it, and also some daikon radish seeds. Maybe I can get some roots and something living in that soil now to help barricade from windy drought before the cold weather comes back in. Later, I'll seed out lots more and interplant my veggies that don't mind sharing.

I can't buy any more hay right now. Every day I go out and retrieve something ... leaves .. cut down spent Johnson grass .. anything and pile it up aside the garden. I keep doing this every day. My son was like, Mom, why are you not composting these? Every spring I have the kids water the compost pile while I build. He's noticed my aberrant behavior. I tell him, we're digging in extra wet kitchen scraps and using most of these cuttings and yard trash for mulch. The leaves break down fast but are excellent for the soil. I put the leaves down first as they seem to dry faster and put grassy mulch above. Every time I scrape those leaves off the lawn I wonder if there will be any more this fall or if the trees will defoliate in early August to conserve energy. I recall not having fall foliage in Autumn for several years. When they returned it was almost alien.

Thanks wxcrawler. Any rain is fine by me. I fear we are at that point, like in 2011, where moisture in the air evaporates before it grounds. Please let us not get that way again, big sky dudes!

I'm in Payne Co. I can see and feel the drought like an ominous ghost skirting around the trees.

bon

All we can do is hang in there and wait for the rain to come, and then rejoice whenever, wherever and however it shows up. January and February usually are fairly dry months anyway, which doesn't help, but then more rain usually returns in March and April. Some drought years, though, we haven't gotten good winter/spring rain until May. Let's hope this is not one of those years.

I don't worry too much about well-established trees. We've had well-established trees handle drought even at the exceptional level for a long time with no damage and no irrigation. It is only in the really extreme situations like the summer of 2011, with excessive heat for a prolonged period combined with much-below-average rainfall that we've seen real drought damage with good-quality trees. Now, with trash trees---they often don't tolerate drought as well. Every year is so different and sometimes the response you see in trees will vary a lot depending on what sort of challenges they've faced the last couple of years prior to the beginning of the drought.

While it is discouraging to see any tree drop its leaves in drought during a time frame when it normally would have foliage, what we have to remember is that this is a survival technique trees use to help themselves survive drought. So, while it isn't fun to see it occur, it does mean the tree isn't going to give up without a fight.

The good thing is that drought never lasts forever, though sometimes it seems like it does.