HI Roxanne. Congrats on your 1/3 acre. It looks like you're off to a good start with all the plants you have in pots. I'm just 3 years into a "real" garden, although I had one "real" garden many years ago when my father in law was still with us. He loved to garden and tilled me up a nice spot. I had no idea what I was doing, but loved it even back then. Why did it take me so long to "garden" again? Well, there's some answers for that, but no one really wants to hear about it, I'm sure.

My garden is full of spider mites too this year. It seems that many people are dealing with them. Spider mites are such jerks.

There's some people here who have tried straw bale gardening. Maybe they'll show up in a bit to offer advice.

When you say you're teaching yourself about herbals, what do you mean? Just to grow them? Cook with them? Heal with them. I'm just curious.

Welcome! :)

Hi Roxanne! I'm in Tulsa too. Congrats on the 1/3 acre. I'm kind of happy for my smaller city lot, because that purposely limits how much I can grow. Otherwise I'd go nuts with it and not be able to take care of it all. I envy your berry bushes. I love berries, but with my squirrel problem, I'm sure I'd never see any.

Must voice opinion. QAL =evilness, destroy, burn. Invasive, burrs on legs, burrs on dogs, reseeds everywhere.

Hi Roxanne!

I have tried the straw bale gardening. It did not work well for me. Granted, it was 2015 and 2016, which were VERY wet springs and that may have been part of the problem. I grew potatoes in them in 2015. Everyone elses potatoes drowned, so getting a harvest at all was a miracle. I also grew tomatoes in them that year, and those plants were delayed by the weather. Tomato plants didn't thrive till their roots hit the soil beneath, so the bales acted like very deep mulch. It served it's purpose, I got to try about 10 more varieties that I didn't have room for otherwise. Broccoli and cabbage transplants never grew at all in bales. 2016 I put 5 bales together, long sides touching. I think they built up heat. The two plants in the middle bale simply died. The others produced a little, but they were never happy. They were all determinates. So my advice would be don't butt long sides against each other. Ok to have long rows with short sides together. I would put them on soil, especially where you might want a bed or in ground garden. ( I put 2 beds where the tomato bales were and they are the best beds I've got. They were made with the lasagna method.) I would cut out a tube like hole in the bale, set the tomato plant deep and fill around it with good soil. The tomato will grow at first like it is in a pot, then the roots will go into the soil below. It is hard to keep a straw bale moist in heat and wind, you will have to pay attention to irrigation. Supposedly the bale decomposes into compost. Mine never did what the pictures of straw bale gardens show. By the end of the season they were starting to fall apart and made great mulch, but no compost to feed the plants. So you will also have to feed them a little. Oh, and yes, Bermuda grass WILL grow right up through a bale.

Hi everyone! :) Thanks for your opinions, advice, and congratulations!

Hazel - stupid spider mites! And to answer your herb question.. to heal with. :) I know medicine started there and I'd like to be able to use them that way again. :)

Hi Rebecca! I haven't had much come from any of them yet; they are still young. But I'll watch for squirrels! Does netting work?

Dbarron - not many plants and I cut the flower heads off after they curl. So far so good!

Amy - TYSM for that hay bale gardening info/experience!! Hubby said his parents dug a hole in the middle, used miracle grow soil, and planted the tomatoes that way. Watered them with more miracle grow every day or week (he's not sure) and they always had more than plenty of fruit! They both passed before we meet so I can't ask. But I always thought he sounded crazy until just recently when I realized it is one gardening technique. I appreciate you jumping in! I'll keep it all in mind because he wants to try at the new house. :)

Roxanne, I make herbal tinctures and such. My most used is a yarrow tincture. It can also be used dried.. Anyway, I could ramble on and on about it. :)

H/J, start a herb thread and ramble. I'm interested, too.

Okay, Amy. I can do that. :)

Wow Dawn! Thank you for all the info! I did not know that about the heat and spider mites nor did I know about the fire blight. I'll be sure to read up!

Regarding the QAL, it's definitely Queen Anne. I labored over the identity and confirmed by the carrot smell. Plus no purple anywhere. But I can definitely see what you mean. Thanks for the warnings!

Hazel - I'll look for your herb thread!

Hi Roxanne,
It certainly appears that you have made great use of the space you have! Good luck with the Glenpool property! Welcome to the Oklahoma Gardening Forum.

George

Dawn, your lack of moisture is probably why you don't see Hemlock :)

I know. (sigh) Not that I am complaining about not having hemlock, but I'd like to have the kind of moisture that it needs. Our lack of moisture probably is a reason I don't see plenty of other things I'd love to see. I am so jealous of those of you who get consistently more moisture.

Our rainfall for the entire year so far is around 19 or 20". You probably get than in one month in some years. : ) The rainfall we get isn't enough. We do what we can with what we get...and that's just life, I suppose.

Dawn, I was complaining to a friend the other day, that rain simply makes me mow more often. Of course it makes me have to water much less (lol)....but seriously, I have to plant things that can tolerate poor drainage and have to get creative to grow things that don't like overly wet roots. It's all a trade off.

I really can't even think of planting xeric things. Well, I can think of it, but they quickly pass on, if I do.

dbarron, And we have been complaining it is too dry to mow because if you hit a rock (a constant issue for us rural folks with gravel driveways), a spark can start a fire. Ask me how I know this? (grin) I stomped out that little fire fast (thankfully, I was wearing leather boots) because it would be too embarassing for the fire chief's wife to have to call 9-1-1 because she accidentally started a fire in their yard or pasture. So, we haven't mowed our front pasture but once this year and it is all tall, dead or dormant stuff, with tons of wildflowers gone to seed. It would burn like crazy if it caught fire, so I'm hoping we somehow get the magical amount of rain that is enough to make it safe to mow again but not so much moisture that you cannot mow.

I can't grow many xeric things either, oddly, because of our dense, slow-draining clay. If we were more desert-like and never had heavy rainfall, I could, but what I have learned is that xeric plants that are happy 90% of the time will die in those odd years when we get 12" of rainfall in one day or 24" of rainfall in one month. I walk a fine line with xeric things, and have the best luck with praire plants that tolerate clay. Poppies, oddly, do great in the clay except in the very worst years when the entire plant rots off at the soil line, so except for 2015, I haven't had a bad poppy year in a long time.

I wish we could have your rain for a month, and you could have our lack of rain for a month. You'd get a break from mowing, and we'd get a break from brown, dormant grasses and not being able to mow (maybe).

The 7-day QPF always seems to overpromise and underdeliver rainfall, so I take it with a grain of salt, but I'd be lying if I said it doesn't have me hopeful for some rainfall on Sunday-Monday or beyond. A few days ago they were showing us getting 4.2" over 7 days, then backed off on that amount a lot, then sort of put most of it back. What usually happens is they show us getting a lot of rain, and then the rain moves E, N or NE. When that happens, I suspect you are getting "our" rain? (grin)

I'm definitely not naive enough to think we'll get the 3-4" in our forecast, but I'm hoping we at least manage to get an inch.

As we left home to go out to dinner last night, there was a severe thunderstorm in the NW corner of our county moving east and later on a bit more south. When we got up out of the valley onto high ground, I could see that storm and it looked like it might make it to our house. It kinda did---we got a trace of rain, but when your rainfall is less than 1/100th of an inch, I'd say the storm missed you. So, it missed us but it came close. Close only counts in horseshoes though. Still, August tends to be so dry at least until mid-month that having a close call with rain is sort of exciting. We did get the rain-cooled air, which is better than not getting it.