Megan, I've heard that about banana trees. My neighbor was offering trees on FB a few weeks ago.

Jen, I bought some okra seed at the store. Thanks, though! :)

I can't seem to get a good harvest of garlic. It's ridiculous. Isn't it supposed to be one of the easiest things? I pulled one that had flowered and it was more one big bulb--not cloves. I chopped it, cooked it and ate it. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

A FB memory came up yesterday. The tomatoes are way behind where they were last year. I had full sized, ripe tomatoes. This year, I have fruit, but nothing blushing (or whatever the term is). Other than SunGolds.

Thanks for sharing pics everyone.

Rebecca, Very pretty flowers and I'm glad you made it through your routine procedure okay.

Eileen, That's Texas Red Yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora) and it is native to south Texas and northeastern Mexico. It is a drought-tolerant, heat-loving succulent that prefers low-fertility soil and well-draining soil. It doesn't need much water. I have 4 of them---one planted in well-amended clay that has hardly grown since I planted it last year, although it did bloom about a month ago, so there still is hope for it. The three others are in some of the worst soil in my garden and that was on purpose as I thought they would thrive in that particular spot. I bought them slightly larger and in bloom maybe 6 or 7 weeks ago, and they still are in bloom and look great. I planted them for them hummingbirds who adore them. As you probably noticed, they are used a lot in roadside plantings because they don't need much care.

Nicotianas and sweet peas have a stronger fragrance at night, so maybe you've been trying to smell them during the daytime? Some modern-day sweet peas have been bred more for flower than fragrance. When I grow them, I get the old-fashioned ones with a strong fragrance, not the newer hybrid ones.

Amy, We stayed overcast a long time this morning so it didn't get too hot until at least 11 a.m. and I defied reason and stayed out until about 12:30. I got a lot done, and still had the energy to spend the afternoon processing produce (I always feel relieved when there's not a lot of produce sitting around waiting for me to do something with it), doing laundry and cooking. I feel like I had a real productive day.

The heat index values for the rest of this week are going to be pretty scary. I really got caught up on a lot of garden work today, so I can slack off the rest of the week if we don't have cool, overcast mornings. Next week should at least start off better for all of us. I doubt next week's cooler weather will last long enough, but I guess we'll be grateful for whatever we get.

Since it is not raining much here and we're on the precipice of drought, I am weighing all my options. In other words, I'm already trying to decide how much watering is enough and what is the point where I decide I am throwing away too much money on water and need to stop. In my mind, I am committed to watering at least through the end of June. After that, it just depends on whether or not the rain keeps missing us and also on the level of pest damage in the garden.

Nancy, I am laughing at your description of GDW's deadheading and the way he said the plants looked dead after he was done. That's exactly what I always think to myself after a big round of deadheading. Luckily the plants bounce back fast and make a lot more flowers.

Having a freezer full of pre-chopped onions is awesome. I don't appreciate it the way I should in the summer when I'm chopping, bagging and freezing them, but I love it the rest of the year when all I have to do is pull a bag of chopped (or sliced) onions out of the freezer when I need them for cooking.

Megan, That is amazing rainfall. I bet the garden is loving it! It sounds like your garden is doing really well. When a garden is performing well, at least it makes the gardener think all the blood, sweat and tears were worth it.

Bruce, Even though beauveria bassiana has been around a very long time, I've mostly ignored it because (a) you have to spray it on the plants and I prefer plants that are not sprayed with anything, and (b) it is more broad-spectrum than I like, similar to neem and Spinosad. So, I'm still researching and weighing the options. I am finding lots of conflicting info, which does not help. I do think that the fact that it kills mites and grasshoppers puts it on my list of organic products that might be helpful as a last-ditch effort. However, it can be harmful to bees, so is best sprayed at night after they are up for the night. It is really interesting how it does and does not work. Since it is an entomopathogenic fungi, it generally is not effective on soil-dwelling pests because they have developed resistance to it. But then, it is recommended for some soil-dwelling pests like fire ants. There are so very few products that work on grasshoppers that I feel like it is at least worth considering its usage in an epic grasshopper year. It also is very similar to Bt in that it degrades quickly in sunlight, leaving me wondering just how well it would or would not work in our climate. I just know that based on the level of grasshopper damage I'm seeing, and the population we have, I need to have my IPM plan in place and I need to be ready to execute it. One of the few things that is consistent about grasshoppers is that they just get worse and worse as the summer goes on, and they already are very bad.

Today, after I had come indoors, I went out some time later to walk down to the mailbox and saw a sprayer in the field across the road. I sure hope they were spraying a fertilizer or insecticide and not a herbicide. With the direction the wind was blowing, if it was a herbicide the odds are good I'll be seeing herbicide damage on the garden yet again sometime in the next few days. That would be the fourth time this year, and I still have plants to pull that never really have recovered from the third round. They aren't dying, but they also aren't growing---just sitting there looking pitiful. It is time for me to bite the bullet and pull them and dispose of them. Earlier in the day a county spray rig went right by as part of a county road crew. It didn't look like it was spraying as it passed our place---just looked like it was traveling down the road. I could hear them working down the road for quite a while after that, so my fingers are crossed that they weren't spraying within a mile of us.

I picked more tomatoes today, including a few Spudatulas, and need to harvest more peppers and more squash tomorrow. Our soil is so very dry. Without meaningful rainfall, there is only so much I can do with irrigation, and what I'm doing probably isn't enough but there is a limit to how much money I'll spend watering. The garden looks really good and it is producing really well. For me, the issue is just how long I can keep it doing both those things in this heat and with the relative lack of rainfall.

Dawn

Dawn, I am DYING to see what my peppers and tomatoes look like, and GDW is not being much help in talking about them. Thank heaven I will be home Friday evening. But will have one more good day here, getting to watch another double header baseball game. The vegetation/flowers here are beautiful--so plush. But their tomatoes are like 2 feet high. . . just getting started. So fascinating, the differences in zones.

Wish I could teleport myself up here and to Wyoming, spend 2 days, and teleport back.

Your beauveria bassiana discussion was fascinating. I just do not know how your brain holds so much information. Thank you. I will never be there in this lifetime, so thank you again.

Saw the first squash borer moth yesterday. And no, I wasn't able to catch it!

I've sometimes wished I had a video camera set up in my garden to capture some of what I'm working on to be able to post it. The moth chase wouldn't have made it, tho! I'm sure the gyrations I went through trying to catch and kill and still not damage any plants might have been comical!

Meanwhile, thinking about that dang critter roaming freely around the garden while I watch the grands is bugging me!

Looking at the temps forecast for next week makes me wonder if some of my stubborn tomato plants will set more fruit. Probably depends on how much rain we get and how high the humidity soars?

Overall, most of the plants are loaded and will provide plenty of tomatoes, so I'm not complaining!

The cost of the BB and some of the concerns about it will probably keep me from going that route. I'll just hope to get lucky and not lose a lot of plants to grasshoppers, I guess? If I thought one of the bug guns that shoots salt would work with fine filter sand, I'd be tempted to buy one and see if it generates enough kinetic energy to take down a large grasshopper!

Dawn, my garden is doing well and I’m savoring it! Something is out of whack in my system and I’ve been getting fatigued easily. Last night, I fell asleep on the couch around 8 without realizing it and woke up about 45 min later to discover the hubs had run to the store, come back, put everything away, and herded the kid to start her bedtime routine and I was unaware of all of it. I thought I’d dozed for 5 minutes, not crashed for 45! So, if there was a time I don’t need to be slaving in the garden, this is one, which makes me grateful that it’s at a point I can monitor. There’s a long list of stuff I want to do but it will keep.

I accidentally snapped the end off a tomato plant which I put in water so I guess I’m off to an unofficial start on my fall toms.

The dog has been very excited the last two mornings. We have a pair of bunnies that have visited around 7 a.m. to nibble on bermuda and the purple shamrocks in the front garden. DD wanted to shew them off the first morning but I don’t mind them in the front. In the back they’re more likely to eat stuff that was meant for us to eat! If they become regulars, I might nickname them.

I can’t believe it, but my sweetpea flowers are still flowering! They’re yellowing where they’re trellised against the hot brick wall, but the parts that overtopped that and are growing freely away are green and blooming. I cannot find seeds on them though even though they’re labeled heirloom. :( I’ll buy them again next year with how well they’re doing and see if it was a fluke or if this variety tolerates heat again.

I got an unintentional start on fall tomatoes, too. Since I reuse soil, a lot of my wintersown containers that didn't sprout have been recycled. Now I have random peppers, tomatoes, and flowers popping up all over. I leave for camp next weekend so when I get back I'll dig them all up and put in pots until I have space. I don't want to do it before camp since I still haven't conned Cliff into watering for me.

Nancy, I'm laughing about Garry not talking much about your plants. I don't know if it's a personality thing or a man/woman thing or just an interests thing...but that sounds like my husband. I want detailed descriptions of things and I get less than that most of the time. "So, when s/he said that to you, what did their face look like? How were they standing? Or were they standing? Did they say it loudly or softly? Did they emphasize any particular word?" Just change those questions to something plant-like and it's the same thing.

I'm laughing at Bruce too and his SVB chase. And I would be bugged all day thinking about it roaming freely in my garden too!

Megan, I hope you feel better soon. I've been really tired as well lately. It's all I can do to stay awake once I sit down. We've had plentiful bunnies at our house this year. They are Josi's favorite things to bark at--she is obsessed. Anyway, I hope you figure out what's making you so fatigued and find a way to feel better.

Speaking of fall tomatoes. I've have several volunteers come up. They are still fairly small...would those be considered fall tomatoes?

I'm carefully checking the tomatoes for hornworms. I've found one or more each day. I dropped some off in a woodsy area next to Panera in Norman. And some others in some trees near my neighborhood. I hope they make it.

As I understand, some people eat hornworms. Shudder.

It looks like we have highs in the 80's next week and rain chances everyday. Of course, they could change in an hour.

Let's talk elderberries. I saw a post on FB and it made me feel jealous. The thing I thought was elderberry on my back fence is probably hemlock. :(

How's everyone's elder plants doing? Mine aren't doing so well. The two sticks I got from Nancy, sprouted leaves and looked like they were doing okay for awhile. Then, I planted one in the ground where a compost pile had sat. It lost all its leaves. And the one remaining in the pot did as well. The one Kim brought me was so healthy and wonderful looking even had blossoms. I planted it where an old burn pile was previously. It lost all blossoms and leaves. The two that Bruce brought me are still living, putting on a few leaves, but aren't growing much. One is in the ground in the old burn pile area and they other is still in a pot. I am so disappointed about this. Is anyone else having great luck with theirs?

My elderberries are all in pots in the ICU section of my garden and are doing fairly well. I noticed I lost two that were in small pots, but I still have a bunch. One of the ones I potted for my mother is blooming! Not a huge cluster, but still. I probably need to snip it off and let the plant grow stronger roots before it gets transplanted next year.

I plan on taking more cuttings in a month or so trying to see when is the best time to get them to root.

I'm seeing wild elderberry in bloom all over the place, now is the time to take notes on location and then later see about obtaining permission to harvest or take cuttings. Most landowners don't care as long as they are asked nicely!

Well....my garden is slowly coming along this year. I think all of my 1015s have fallen over, but I haven't yet pulled them. Garlic....ehh, we'll see; don't think it's quite done. Kale is perpetually happy (2nd year plants). Carrots are growing and happy. I harvested broccoli and need to now cut the side shoots and pull the plants. Peppers...one has not yet bloomed; the other, a Figitella Sicilia, gifted from Nancy, has a pepper on it - just waiting for it to break a little color.

My tomatoes (6 plants only) have set fruit - well, 4 out of 6 - some are growing nicely. Brand new soil this year - drip hoses - black plastic. This seems to be working well and I'm excited at the prospect of actual tomatoes. Now to wrap them all so the birds and squirrels don't steal my joy(s)!! I think I'm going to give them all some bloom booster in anticipation of our cooler weather this next week....just see how that helps things along.

That's the hot weather update....OH, and I saw a very fat toad just the other day at the edge of my veggie garden! :)

Sharon

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one to kill the Elderberries. Even the one I've had for a few years is looking sad. It may need some kind of fertilizer.

Bruce, I'm a fat old woman who once chased a SVB moth around the garden with a can of hairspray. (It was the only thing I could think of that might kill it that I had on hand.) I managed to knock one down, which I then stepped on. Then, at the dollar store, I got a kids bug net with the intention of catching them. I am not fast enough. Maybe you can get a bug net for the grands?

I want some of those red yuccas. Where the heck will I put them? Are they hardy this far north?

My cooling shirt came today. I just put it on and in a minute I'm going out to check on the chickens.

Had lunch with friends today. Hostess has some pretty blue flowers. They're made of metal, but from a distance you can't tell.

I want some of the little "black eyed Susans" that are growing all over in the ditches now. I don't think they're true rudbeckia. The flowers are little and from up close (the side of the road) they have red or brown centers. MY ditch needs these. I throw dead headed flowers over the fence. I keep thinking SOMETHING pretty will grow there. And I want some of those white flowers of Nancy's, Ammi? Makes me think of my first grade teacher. She pronounced my name with a short a (am) and a short i sound instead of the ee sound for the Y. But one kind is Queen Anne's Lace? I don't want that. Maybe I'll get to see when she gets home.

I need to check on the chickens.

In my mind I’m still pretty agile! In reality maybe not so much?

I’d sic the grands on them, but they don’t place as much value in the plants as Pa does! There would be casualties in the vegetable aisle!

Wow. I'm having a hard time keeping up with the thread lately! I read over everyone's comments, but won't be taking the time to reply. Way too much with too little time!!

Its blueberry season around here, so we went and picked on Monday morning, about 3 gallons. The toddler loves blueberries....and has probably eaten a gallon. Tonight, blueberry cobbler for dessert, and then I'll have just enough leftover to make a little jam. We don't eat blueberry jam a whole lot, and I mainly just make it for pancakes throughout the year, so 1 batch is satisfactory. Now, we may not eat a lot of preserved blueberries, but raw berries? I'll see them, eat a handful, then another....then another....4....5....6.....7.....78. And before I know it I have jelly belly.

Hahahaha funny story regarding these- the toddler loves them so much that he's figured out how to open the fridge so he can raid it of all blueberries. No more access to kitchen...

By the way, fascinating on those tomatoes Nancy. 2' tall! Let's see, I'm 5'9", and my plants are about a foot shorter than me, so they're about 4'9". Over double! Crazy. Mine have grown very quickly. I planted the second or third week of May, and they were way smaller. It's amazing what warm soil can do.

This evening: tying tomatoes up that I left alone and are sprawling everywhere (it's a mess)- oh wait, I'm out of string. Plan B: spray my fungicide and work at handpicking some hornworms I'm finding on a plant.

I planted all the pumpkins I started at the end of May yesterday too. I mounded the soil so it is now 18-24" deep, worked in plenty of cow manure, green waste compost, mushroom compost, and then mulched with the rotted wood chips. It now looks like the fake garden soil I see so much on the gardening TV shows! Our fir tree is nearby, and I'm going to be really interested to see if they will wind up climbing that tree (the seminoles)....It's about 30-40 ft. away.

Other than that, not much going on. I've had a cold of some sort so haven't been doing a whole lot. OH, I harvested all my garlic Tuesday. Almost 80 bulbs, all averaging 10-12 cloves. Happy! I'll get a picture tomorrow of them happily curing on my shed workbench. Fertilizing, weeding, mulching, planning for fall, composting, and mowing lawns has occupied the rest of my time.

I'm loving seeing the fireflies out again on nice, warm nights. Our lows have been hovering around the 60's or just about 70 so it's very pleasant.

Oh, I also planted a zucchini and yellow squash in some feed tubs in a potting mix I mixed up. Need to plant some recently acquired zinnia seed, and some wildflowers in an empty bed I'm not using this year near my squash due to invasive fir tree roots.

Ive got a fat loser of a cat trying to dig up pumpkins so I'm going to go cover those with netting.

Good night everybody.

Jacob, there you are! Was wondering where you were hiding.

Amy, you’re seeing plains coreopsis. It’s the coreopsis/tickseeds with the brown centers. Theres a solid yellow coreopsis but I don’t see it as much as plains. You’re probably also seeing clasping coneflower which has a dark columnar center but not the brown you’re talking about. Mexican Hat is like a cross between the two - two toned petals with the columnar center. Mine just bloomed but I haven’t seen much along the roadside. However, there’s been a lot of construction around my route so that has hampered my viewing. All three are native wildflowers, so if you get them established they should stick around for a long time. If you have a lot of non-native grass in your ditch that might be the reason it’s been a struggle. They tend to tie up soil nutrients to inhibit the growth of neighboring plants.

Jacob, I'm so impressed with your garden. My tomatoes aren't nearly that tall! And my garlic hasn't been so great.

Amy, let us know what you think about your shirt.

Sharon, I have many fat toads this year.

Bruce, maybe I should have left all the elders in pots. I haven't seen any elder plants near me. If you have some locations that you would care to share, I will go take some cuttings and try again. (after asking, of course).

HJ, my two elderberry sticks are not doing well. They put out a few small leaves some time back, but they have wilted. I moved the sticks to a grow bag and nothing is happening so far. Will need to stick them in the ground soon. Just need to figure out where to put them.

Dawn, thanks for the ID.

My 4 o'clocks are blooming. Finally get to see them! :)

Amy. Ammi majus is the acceptable substitute for daucus carota, which IS the invasive real Queen Anne's lace. I'm growing Ammi majus and ammi visnaga. And now I won't be able to look at your or talk to you without thinking "Ammy." LOL

So, does hairspray kill SVBs, Ammy?

How could sitting on one's butt watching baseball for five hours be exhausting? It was so much fun. But I am very sleepy now.

I am so sorry you've had this cold, Jacob. I hope you're firing on all cylinders very soon. Blueberries--well, there sure are worse things to binge out on. Right?

Bruce, in MY mind I'm pretty agile, too, but that depends on the time of day, the weather, how I'm holding my mouth, etc etc. Depends on whether I'd be chasing a rabbit out of the flowers or dragging 40 lb bags of potting soil.

Elderberries. When I left OK a week ago, mine were little but mighty--like 6" tall but 3-4 little branches. Works for me.

HJ. . . . I expect it's a matter of expertise/interest regarding the subject at hand--in this case, gardening things. Now if I were to go on a hunting or fishing trip without GDW, he'd have all kinds of questions for me that I wouldn't have a clue about, you know? LOL To be honest, I have NO expectations about what I am going to see when I arrive home tomorrow evening. Could be anything.

Megan, I kept a couple Pretty n Purple peppers, plus a couple explosive Embers. Love em both, and the little Medusas. But the purple peppers on the Pretty n Purple are suh-weet, aren't they?!

Tomorrow, On the Road Again. . . . XOXO

I put my elderberry starts in a large pit. They don't seem to be doing much, so I might move them back into a smaller container. I wasn't thrilled with what I put them in anyways.

My brother had a girlfriend who lived in Vinita & grew yucca. Hers did outstanding, almost thug like.

Jen, Yuccas are great as long as you have well-draining soil. Sandier areas in our county have native yuccas growing alongside the roads like weeds, but we don't have them like that in the clay areas. In order for us to grow them in our front garden, we had to create a tall raised bed that drains very well. They are very happy there (knock on wood). I'd love to have a long row of them alongside the driveway from the road to the house but it is all dense red clay there and I cannot imagine the amount of work it would take to build a 300' long raised bed for them, so that's never going to happen. Tim would surely kill me if I even mentioned the idea.

Nancy, Have a safe journey on the road!

I think Ammi is pretty, but if I was growing something similar, I'd grow the blue or pink didiscus to add more color to my garden and to bouquets. You can see didiscus in the link below:

Didiscus at JSS

Eileen, You're welcome.

Four o'clocks are awesome. My bloom pretty much all summer until frost. When they get too tall (they are in partial shade and stretch for more sunlight), I just cut them back really hard and they are back in bloom in a week or two.

Megan, We have a lot of plains coreopsis and Mexican hat in our front pasture. They were in a wildflower seed mix I used to overseed the pasture after the drought of 2011 caused most of the wildflowers to die without setting seeds. I love them. Clasping coneflowers are real sporadic on our property. I am not sure if they aren't crazy about the clay or the rainfall/lack if rainfall, but every now and then they have a really good year. This is not their good year. One of the fascinating things about our wildflowers here is how they ebb and flow and change from year to year. Different ones will dominate depending on what the weather is like, so you never know what you're going to get.

Jacob, Sorry about the cold. Hope you're feeling better, and congrats on the great garlic harvest!

Tomato plants are great growers in full sun. When the temperatures hit just the right range, they can grow an inch in height per day as long as they are getting adequate moisture. It always amazes me how quickly they shoot up and get tall once the heat arrives.

Amy, The red yuccas are cold-hardy to zone 5, but they must, must, must have very well-drained soil or they will rot since they are succulents. I found some beautiful ones at Home Depot this year, but Wal-,Mart had smaller ones at the same time. It likely was in early May when they are filling the stores with warm-season perennials. I haven't seen any in those stores since the initial batch sold out.

Sharon, So, you replaced all the soil in your raised bed or did you move the plants to containers? Regardless how you did it, I'm glad you're having tomatoes this year without the problems of some past years.

I hope your 2nd-year kale continues to be happy. When I have second-year kale in the summertime, it usually starts to bolt in late June or July. When that happens, I let the chickens have it, which makes them extremely happy.

We have a fat toad in the garden too and I hope we get to keep him. The snakes are voracious eaters of toads and frogs, so it is hard to keep them around. We also have a ton of tiny little frogs just now showing up. They may be tree frogs, and I assume they are in the garden to eat insects. I don't usually have all those little frogs in the garden, but I'm glad to see them.

I used bloom booster about 5 days in advance of the last cold front and it worked really well as some of the plants did set another round of fruit.

Bruce, I am grinning at thought of an ICU section in your garden. I am picturing little plants with IVs.

Jennifer, Your volunteers are indeed sprouting at the right time to be fall tomatoes. You can move them to wherever you want them to grow for fall, and this next week's upcoming cool spell with rain would be the ideal time to do it.

Megan, Clearly your body was worn out and you needed that nap.

My sweet peas were still blooming too when I took them out. They had picked up spider mites from the adjacent bush beans and I didn't want for them to pass on those spider mites to the nearby SunGold tomato plant.

Bruce, I probably am going to try the BB this year but think maybe I'll try using it in a wide band---maybe 10' wide all around the exterior of the garden fence instead of using it in the garden itself. That has worked for me in bad grasshopper years with Semaspore in the Spring and with EcoBran in the summer, so I hope it will work with Mycostop. I haven't decided yet, and I don't have to decide until the grasshoppers reach a certain population level that I find unbearable in terms of garden damage, but it just feels like it is going to be one of those summers. Not only do we have a huge grasshopper population, but we have the most leafhoppers and katydids that I have ever seen. For some reason, this seems to be their year.

We saw those bug blaster guns somewhere in Sherman last week. It was either in the Target store or maybe at Academy. I almost bought one. Now, shooting bugs would be something that Tim would enjoy doing, and he is a great shot.

Nancy, Before I ordered the product with Beauveria bassiana this week, I really did my research. I have largely ignored it for years because, first and foremost, it is a fungal disease and I keep telling myself I'm crazy to turn loose a fungal disease on purpose, even though it affects some bad guys we don't want in our garden. I have to get my mind conditioned to think that some fungal diseases are good. Also, I've always felt like there was nothing damaging my garden badly enough to make me spend this kind of money on a pesticide, but the massive holes in every leaf in my garden this year is changing my mind about that.

There's nothing worse than seeing grasshoppers literally eat plants down to the ground and they do that here in bad years so I just want to be ready for them. There's already so many of them doing so much damage that it is scary. Rain just keeps missing us and the area of Moderate Drought in Texas near us keeps inching closer and closer to us, and when that happens the drought usually makes it here and the grasshopper population just goes nuts as the fields dry up. They flee to irrigated green areas to survive, but their survival is bad for my plants. So, I just assume that at some point this summer I'll be fighting a big grasshopper war.

I have worked hard in the garden all week y'all, and I think I am going to give myself today off. If I was going to be out in the garden today, I'd already be out there trying to beat the heat. There is only so much heat I can stand and I've had my fill of it so will focus on other things today. The coming cool front/rain cannot get here soon enough. If the rain misses us, I will be inconsolable because we need it so desperately. If we don't get a couple of inches of rain, then the drought is on......

Dawn

I went over to the community garden this morning where there are ripe full-sized tomatoes. Oh my! It's been since November since eating a "real" tomato. So delicious. Just thought I would share.

I wish my home tomatoes would hurry up!

I didn't go into to detail on what I call my plant ICU. Or would that be PICU?

We are friends with the lady that manages our local garden center and I recently hit them up about saving nursery pots for myself and to give to the master gardeners to use for their annual plant sale. When they found out I was willing to haul the pots, dead plants and all, they jumped on it. I guess finding the time and a place to dump the pots was a major obstacle for them. Either way, I've hauled several pickup loads.

A lot of the 'dead' plants have come to life and are recovering. I cleared a spot next to my hydrant and put down some heavy cardboard and moved all the recovering plants and shrubs along with some fruit trees and elderberry bushes onto the cardboard and it makes for easy monitoring.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/it-s-looking-more-likely-we-ll-have-another-el-n883431

My PEPH seeds aren't coming up. Or, just a few of them did. I pre sprouted them and everything. I guess I just can't keep things watered enough. I need to do way better. How lousy of a gardener am I if I can't grow PEPH?

My purchased Early Girls are going to town. They look better than my starts. Everything else just looks grouchy. Kind of like the rest of us.

Cleaned up a dead squirrel this morning too.

There's a blue jay who I think is attacking my mini sunflowers, I assume to get to the seeds. He's going to be disappointed that there are none. I watched him this morning, and in the process of looking for seed he's biting the flowers off the plants. Grr. As if I need another garden pest to deal with.

Dawn, the LB petunias you gave me are just now starting to bloom, but they definitely aren't spreading like you say yours do. They're pretty small.

The front flowers are starting to attract the beneficials. Things were buzzing around the coneflowers, cosmos, african marigolds, and zinnias.

A lot of my PEPHs didn't germinate this year. I figure it was the fact some of them were getting old.

I basically emptied my seed box of southern peas, beans and mustard and broadcast them over and area I wasn't going to plant and use it as a cover crop. The original plan was to let it get up fairly good sized and till it under, but I've since planted a few sacrificial tomato plants for hornworms and a couple of hills of crane melons.

I may end up with a mess I have to mow to be able to get it tilled into the soil, but it should help in the long run!

So far it's been my ladybug factory, since aphids always hit PEPHs and any other southern peas I plant. It has come in handy when I see aphids on other plants. I just let the larva crawl up on my glove and transfer them wherever I see aphids.

I did that the other day and watched as the newly released ladybug larva ate 3 or 4 aphids within seconds of it crawling onto the tomato plant!

I popped in to share some pictures of my native bee house with roughly a dozen holes packed full!

My elderberry is holding it's own with slow new growth. I have them in large pots with other little plants. I give them compost tea weekly and water regularly. The desert willow is my best accomplishment this year (besides the 5 acres ;) ) they were down to 10 leaves or less and they came back and are blooming. They aborted all blooms during the brutal transact so I was so surprised to see them budding out again. I harvested a bunch of herbs tonight and I will wash and dry them. It is such a strange time I am not sure what to do with myself. I have a few prospects for work. I am working the market with a friend vendor on Saturdays. That is something to look forward to.

Jennifer, i'm glad you got to have a real tomato. I think that First Home-Grown Tomato Day is one of my favorite days of the whole year.

Bruce, That's a lot of "dead" plants you're hauling and trying to save. Have fun with that. I am working so very hard to simplify my garden and my gardening life and you're expanding yours....

Rebecca, Tim and I were talking last night over dinner about the coming El Nino because we've been watching & waiting these last few weeks for the El Nino Watch, and we agreed we'd welcome one, but for us, there's still a long, hot, dry summer and autumn to get through at the very least. Conditions here are rapidly deteriorating, and it will be months before a possible El Nino brings salvation in the form of (hopefully) more rain and winter storms than usual. Everyone who has weak-wooded trees apparently has from now until winter to cut out the weak wood and get them ready for strong winter storms. We have a very large dying tree to the north of our house that we need to cut down this summer or autumn then. I'd rather we cut it down than risk having it fall on the house during an ice storm.

I don't know why your LB petunias aren't getting big quick. They do start blooming while very young, but grow like an indeterminate tomato plant---putting on new growth and size constantly while blooming all the while. I have a LB volunteer in the asparagus bed that is about 3" tall and about to bloom. It will be full sized in a few weeks. It grows rampantly in the heat, and this year the ones that reseeded in the main flower border got really big really early because we got so hot so early here. My LB petunias in that border were huge monsters and I cut off at least 75% last week (or maybe it was earlier this week---I've lost track of the days) because they were severely crowding everything around them. Then, since they were volunteers and came up so closely to one another and to some of the perennials, I yanked out a lot of them and threw them on the compost pile. It is possible I've never cut them back as hard before as I did this time, but I know they'll bounce back quickly because they always do. LB petunias typically are expected to get 24" tall and 36" wide, and in my garden they do that, often exceeding the 36" wide and often getting closer to 48". Perhaps it is the wacky weather we've had. It has held back some of my other flowers, but not the petunias.

Your PEPH seed might be old. The southern pea seed doesn't hold as well long-term in packets as many other seeds do.

I keep blue jays (and squirrels) out of the flowers and veggies for the most part by feeding them sunflower seeds, cracked corn and, occasionally, peanuts in the shell. They do love the native plums too. I leave plenty of plums for them on the trees so they can enjoy them. I think this keeps them from terrorizing my garden. I kinda joke and call the wild things I feed The Mafia because they extort food and water from me in return for leaving the garden alone, but I don't mind feeding them---they have to eat something so I'd rather they eat things I put out for them outside the garden than have them raiding the garden. Feeding them might not work for you, but it simplifies my life a great deal.

Bruce, I do love watching the little lady bug larvae prowling around with their voracious appetites. I was laughing at one of them yesterday. It was all over the squash plants and apparently couldn't find anything to eat, so it kept traveling all over the plant, almost frantic to find food. I suggested it move to the beans or peas or something else but it wouldn't listen to me. You cannot help a lady bug that won't listen to you.

Megan, Nice bee house!

Are y'all watching the weather forecast? It is starting to become discouraging. The 7-Day QPF is now showing our county getting less than half the rainfall it was showing 2 or 3 days ago, and the NWS has cut our chance of rain from the 50% chance it once was to just a 20-30% chance on various days. Well, I can read the handwriting on the wall and it doesn't look good for us.

Tim and I went south and did the CostCo-Sam's Club trip today, thinking it would be quieter and quicker on a Friday morning than on a Saturday morning and it was. What was most notable about the trip to Lewisville was how very dry everything is getting down there. They are in Moderate Drought, which is the next step up from Abnormally Dry, which is what we are now. There's so much brown grass and all down there that used to be greener just 2 or 3 weeks ago although even then we could see its condition deteriorating. You can really see the effect of low rainfall and high temperatures on the unirrigated areas now. I'm worried that drought is coming for us. Tarrant County didn't look good. Most of Denton County looked pretty bad. As we went north into Cooke County, it was ever so slightly greener and looked a lot like Love County with a mix of green and brown. I can feel that drought on the move....it is walking towards Cooke County and headed next for us. I hate this summer weather. I even watered our bermuda grass in the southern side yard yesterday because I don't want to have brown grass if we start having summer fires, and y'all know that as much as I hate bermuda grass, it irritates me to have to spend water irrigating it.

The Wal-Mart in Gainesville still had a lot of flowers considering how hot it is getting, and not much on clearance. They also had what seemed to be a fresh, new shipment of fall tomato plants--they were perfectly green and had no diseases and no signs of spider mites or anything else. They had both heirlooms and hybrids. I remember seeing at least three heirloom varieties--Cherokee Purple, Red Beefsteak and Brandywine. I probably cannot remember all the hybrids, but I remember seeing Big Boy, Better Boy, Park's Whopper, Goliath, Big Beef, and Husky Red Cherry. They also had a fresh shipment of basil and watermelon plants. In mid-June, they usually do this, at least in recent years, and they usually only have the plants for a couple of weeks before they are clearing out the garden center and turning their focus to school supplies and school clothing and back-to-college stuff and all that before the end of June. At least they have them, though, and that is an improvement because it used to be if you wanted fresh new tomato plants for fall planting, you had to buy them before Memorial Day and they were neither fresh nor new---just tired old stuff that hadn't sold yet. Just seeing fresh green plants gave me hope that fall is coming. Then I remembered it is only mid-June and that the drought is looming over our area like Attila the Hun, and that hope just died. Our soil is miserably dry. I water and the plants look good for a day or two, and then the effects of the heat and drought start showing again.

The best-looking part of the garden is the former poppy/larkspur/zinnia bed that got about 6" of compost added over several weeks this Spring when I renovated that end of the flower border. I don't think I've ever added 6" of compost to any area at once before and certainly not to an area that large. It is amazing how much happier the zinnias are there than they are in the rest of the flower border further north that didn't get 6" of compost. I'm growing the same varieties, but they are so much taller and broader in the renovated area and have so many more flowers that it is just crazy. It makes me wish I had enough compost to give every raised bed that much compost all at the same time, but I don't. So, one by one a bed gets improved a little bit, but never a lot at one time like this. If I won the lottery (which seems unlikely to occur since we don't play the lottery), I'd just spend the whole windfall on compost.

Dawn

Short road trip, relatively speaking. Worst one hands down (what should have been an 11-hr trip was a 12.5 hr trip.) A 90-minute delay south of Kansas City because of a fatal car accident. 0-5 mph for 3 miles. I knew pretty much instantly what it was. Involved 4 vehicles, one smashed to nothing, a semi with a smashed cab under a bridge, and 2 other cars off in the ditch. I actually wept in the 90-minute delay. And then constant road construction after that. From Kansas City well into OK. I left early this morning and arrived here late. Bumper to bumper traffic 70-78 mph, after the accident, much of that way.

But in time to see the yard, which looks awesome, despite GDW's warnings to me that it was awful. I think he was way too worried, bless his heart. There are flowers everywhere, though a few knocked down. Tomatoes ripening. Corn beginning to tassel; potatoes don't look like they're interested in dying back. Red bee balms everywhere, shastas, 4 o'clocks, ammis. It is glorious despite the few nicotiana, zebrinas, knocked down. SO HUMID here. I thought Mpls was humid--can't hold a candle to this now here. I don't love humid for me, but LOVE humid for the plants and flowers.

I am SO happy to be home. Titan absolutely wiped out Tom and Jerry's welcome homes, and even Garry's. Dog almost knocked me to the floor for like 15-20 minutes. Garry and I could hardly even give each other hugs, and the kitties were obliterated. Made me feel good, actually, cuz GDW is Titan's favorite. Good to know he loves me, too. :) But the kitties have sneaked in and loved me up big-time, as did GDW, LOL

Damn. What a bad road trip. So friends, be careful out there, and blessings to you all.

Welcome home, Nancy!

So...we're supposed to have a hard winter? My weather app changes hourly. Earlier today, it showed no chances of rain next week. NOW, it shows chances most days next week. And the weather guy just said something about rain next week, but it went to a commercial. I guess...it's possible and we'll just wait and see.

In my garden, I'm just waiting on the tomatoes to be ready. One of the large ones is starting to turn colors. There are several SunGolds that are ready. I weeded and put cardboard down and the composting wood chips on top. And watered everything.

That is all.

Welcome home Nancy!

Early girls.

Strawflowers.

Giant coneflowers.

Early girls.

Strawflowers.

Giant coneflowers.

Nice plants!!!!

No idea how those posted twice.

Y’all were talking about LB petunias. I have a few this size, some that are smaller and some that didn’t make it.

Megan, I love your bee house!

Rebecca, pretty pics! Your plants look great.

Alright. How do you all start basil? I've tried multiple seed packets, direct sowing outdoors, starting in trays indoors, and nothing will even germinate. All of the stores around here are not selling basil anymore.

Hmmm...Jacob, I'm trying to remember. It's been awhile since I've started it from seed. It just keeps coming back each year--ALL over the place. I did buy some basil plants from Prairie Wind this year--there were a couple of varieties I wanted to try. They are purple and scarlet.

Maybe try starting it in trays outdoors since it's so hot now. It's one of those things that is picky about being too wet or too dry when it's just sprouting.

I always wintersow it. I have a hard time starting it any other way, especially in this kind of heat.

I grew so many different kinds, Jacob, all in their little containers with seed starting mix, under the grow cart lights. Tulsi, regular common basil, Siam Queen, bush basil, Dark Opal purple, lemon, lime. . . the only one I had a miserable time with was Corsican. Took it 21-22 days to germinate and grew very slowly. Regular basil, bush, dark Opal. . . . I remember they didn't take as long as peppers did to germinate, but longer than things like tomatoes. Good luck!

If you hit control and then b, you will loose your flippin post. WTH.

I have a baby on my lap, so one handed tablet typing is dicey.

Yesterday I worked in the garden until 2:30. Heat index 101. I wore cotton knit pants and one of the cooling shirts. I was also mostly under the umbrella. I was tired and cranky when I came in, but not overly hot. I was just out shopping, in jeans and T shirt and thought I would die. Heat index 101. The actual temp was higher yesterday, humidity higher today. I think the cooling shirt helped, though I was not aware of any "chilling". I think the umbrella was the kicker.

I bought coreopsis seeds, Megan, but didn't get them started. I also saw that there are some in my ditch, way down where they can't mow, just not as many as some other places in town.

Hairspray did not kill the blasted SVB moth. It did knock it down so I could step on it. Too little too late.

Which of the ammi was in your picture? I bought seeds for the major yesterday.

I got sucked in to sales at Renee's and Botanical interests yesterday. BI's sale is over, I don't know how long Renee's sale will be on. I kind of went overboard with zinnia seed.

I brought in an Early Girl yesterday, just blushing. I got the rest of the garlic out yesterday. I finally soaked down the bed and pulled it out of the mud. I broke my hori hori knife trying to chip the bulbs out of that hard dirt. The handle was cracked, now it twists in the handle. Ron might be able to fix it, but my replacement knife is on it's way. I use that constantly.

My four o'clocks appear to have bloomed, but not when I've been out there.I watered most beds yestersday. I had better go, kid is cl9mbing on me now.

That's the taller of the two elderberries. It's about 8" tall. The other one is about 5", but also is healthy.

Garry was right. The gardens are a mess! Big old mess! Bad bugs are having a heyday. So many of the plants are full of holes. Japanese beetles are the ones I'm currently spotting. But there have to be other things, too. Something is devouring leaves on the climbing hydrangea, even! One of the brugs is really getting some bad damage (broadmites?). . . sigh. AND I just spotted a few hundred tussock moth cats on the milkweed. Lucky me, they were just on two stems, so the stems and the cats are now history.

I staked up a few plants/flowers--a few ammis; and cut down lots of nicotiana and many tomato branches. I cut back of couple verbena bonariensis to see if they'll bush out more. I topped off all the basil so they'll bush out some more.

Likewise, Dawn, would love to put that much compost in the beds! Wouldn't that be the best!

All the red bee balm in one of the back beds look great; echinacias, likewise. I have 3 clumps going. I saw the first Swallowtail butterfly today; no cats yet, though, on the fennel, parsley or dill. The ammi are my other favorite flower this year but love the didiscus, Dawn; can see I will be growing some of those! And am thrilled I ended up with enough verbena B, I should be set for them now..

Yes, my LB petunias are living up to their expected sizes, as well. And because I didn't know how easy they are to grow, I planted bunches, so have bunches. I've cut the two biggest clumps back twice already. But, Rebecca, I think I started mine a lot earlier than you did. And there were so many, was able to plant several in clumps. I took out a bunch of 4 o'clocks, as well as some nicotiana. Do not need 500 nicotiana in that bed. lol I made the mistake of planting some zinnias too close to the lantana, which is going gangbusters now. In fact, I made the mistake of putting a whole slew of flowers in the wrong places. Maybe I can spend a day this coming week rearranging.

No. What I need is a flower designer/decorator.

Note to self: Hairspray is not the most effective SVB poison.

I picked a couple dozen Sungolds today, and see that what I thought was a tomatillo is another Sungold. So. Cherry tomato sauce, here I come. Posole will have to be made with tomatillos from farmers market or grocery store. ha. I am beside myself over the tomatoes all going gangbusters. And I am now officially sold on Heidi. I put two of those in and will have MORE than enough of them. The Mortgage Lifter doesn't have that many tomatoes yet (maybe only 3-4?) but one is just getting SO big. I see the Cherokee Carbon get plenty big, too. New Girl is loaded and Big Beef is good. The Sophie's Choice is, too, but the tomatoes still haven't ripened. I thought that would have while I was gone--actually none have ripened yet, except for the Sungolds. Baker Family Heirloom is growing well, but not as many tomatoes on it yet. Carbon is producing several, too. And do I dare breathe that all are extremely healthy for now.

Some of the corn is tasseling.

I just picked 5 Jupiters off the pepper plant. They were small, but near the ground, so plunked them off. Figitelli has been putting some on; Greek pepperoncini, picked five off today. Jalapenos are beginning to appear. Haven't see anything from Numex Big Jim yet.

Herbs everywhere, and I guess I need to be preserving bunches now that I'm home. That's pretty exciting to me. Garlic didn't do great, but maybe close to 2 dozen larger ones, and that many smaller ones. So we should have plenty, despite not growing monsters.

It's so good to be home, but will have my work cut out for me this next week.

Ammy, the flowering ammi is the majus. BUT though I only successfully grew two of the visnaga, I think it's prettier. It looks very lacy, like asparagus ferns. I'll take a pic when it flowers. I think it's about ready.

Control B--beware of CTRL B. Some other key combo deletes them, too, but haven't figured out what I'm doing when I do it. LOL

Nancy, tell us exactly what you did for your elderberry sticks. EXACTLY. lol

It looks so nice and mine, except one now, are dead, I think. Once the sticks lose their leaves are they dead? Maybe I should start with a larger plant or two.

Amy, thanks for the update on your new shirt.

Other than the elderberries, beans may be my biggest disappointment this year. I really though I had it this year. They just aren't producing. I can't tell if maybe a bunny is eating the blossoms and some of the leaves.

So...I had a 3 or 4 inch volunteer pumpkin. Guess what was on it just now? Daddy and Mommy Squash Bug. Seriously, the plant had like 4 leaves and it's already under attack. So glad I'm not growing squash and pumpkins this year.

For those of you doing Florida Weave trellising for your tomatoes, here's a lesson: Keep after them! I ran out of string last week and hadn't tied them for the last week as they've grown. Well, they've grown so much they're sprawling everywhere, and what a MESS it is to get these guys cleaned up. So far I've only split 1 at, and it'll likely recover just fine after a couple days; but boy, what a pain!

I did the same exact thing last year, Jacob. And had a big mess, too. LOL I have a slightly smaller mess this year. My cages were sort of various sizes, and the tomatoes are fairly close together. So some of the cages are actually between tomatoes with the tomatoes staked up to the OUTSIDE of the cages. So far it's working but as they get bigger and bigger, will probably get messier. I ran out of zip ties; hope I can get more tomorrow. The Mortgage Lifter definitely needs more zip ties. Well, I DO have string. :) And the bed is so wide I have 3 rows of tomatoes, with the middle row alternating catty corner from the 1st and 3rd row. i can get to the 1st and second row from the front, but have to get up on the cinder blocks and wind around to get to the back ones.

I wouldn't have used that bed, but had to use it to alternate with last year's planting placement of them and the potatoes. This year put the potatoes where the tomatoes were last year so put the tomatoes in the new wide bed.

hahaha, HJ. Hmmm, let me think. Did you say a little prayer and cross your fingers and are you sure you were holding your mouth right? I planted mine the same day or day before I delivered Amy and Eileen's to them. Which was a week or so after I sent yours to you.

I don't remember, Bruce, if yours had one end angled. The others I got did have one end angled and that was the end that went into the dirt. The other end had to stick up above the dirt, showing a couple nodes (potential branches.) I didn't baby them as far as watering, but did water them every couple days for a while. GDW ran over one of the first two with the lawnmower. Killed it deader than a doornail. Hahaha! But Bruce had an extra he kindly brought to SF. It's the shorter little one. So I have one of the 360 Farm ones and the other from Bruce's stock. They HAVE been slow. I think Bruce's are growing faster.

Hearing about squash problems, I'm glad I didn't grow them this year. As it is, I am being absolutely overrun with bad bad insects. Grasshoppers, the Japanese beetles, the whatever it is that adores all the ipomoea leaves. Maybe I will grow NO ipomoea next year. And they're eating them and already ate all the self-seeding purple ones. Someone stripped the New Guinea impatiens in front of the house--all six of them. I'm not seeing any caterpillars (other than the ones I saw today on the milkweed), saw the tortoise beetles on the heavenly blue morning glories and moonflower vines earlier. I did NOT see what was getting the impatiens. Having whined about all this, to date, I have not seen bad nasty insects in the veggie beds. So there is that, at least. Reminds me of "Field of Dreams," but not in a good way. Build it and they will come.

Plants being singled out for demolition by the little $%^&* insects include my RHUBARB! Dagnabbit. (It's holding its own, but I don't like holes in my rhubarb leaves, all the ipomoea, obviously the NG impatiens, the hollyhock zebrina, brugmansias. They don't like tougher leaves or narrower leaves. Or nicotiana, or ammi, or verbena bon, or petunias, or echinacea. . . lol. Hmm. . . 500 nicotiana out in the center bed, no insect damage? Maybe I just do not recognize a diamond in the rough.

I'm sure my grasshoppers aren't half the trouble yours are, Dawn, or maybe some of you others. But they aren't GOOD.

I mean it. I need a garden bed decorator. I'll grow them and weed. The decorator can put them in some semblance of sane arrangements, taking into account their shade/sun requirements. Shorter plants in FRONT. Taller plants in BACK. I have some "dwarf" sunflowers in the full sun bed that are about 6' tall now. They may have to die so the tithonia has room. And obviously, I need a bad bug expert here.

PS: I didn't see any nasty bad insects in MN. Those guys have it so easy! ('Cept for the 5-6 months of brutally cold winter.) I guess we pick our poison, eh?

I am still feeling really sad about the vehicle accident I saw yesterday. Apparently what started the whole chain of events was the first vehicle being rear-ended, and things went downhill quickly from there. I hope and pray we all remember to drive defensively. I tell you it was downright scary coming into OK from Joplin to Miami. . . there were some crazy fools on the roads. Everyone was driving 70-78, and these crazy fools were zipping in and out like the rest of us were all going 5 mph.

I never minded going across MN-South Dakota-into Wyoming. There were many fewer cars and of course SD and WY are sparsely populated. (I drove from Mpls to upstate NY one year, and it was a beautiful trip, except for through Indiana. . . that was scary.) But Mpls down 70 miles, then Iowa with Des Moines, another 60 miles or so, then Missouri with KC on down and into OK. . .way too many cars. I'm sure not as bad, even, maybe, as where you live, Dawn, to Dallas. But almost makes me claustrophobic, for one, and for another, never know how much the car behind you or ahead of you is paying attention, is sleep-deprived, or drunk--or elderly (LOL!)

I have a chigger bite on my upper thigh, going into its 3rd week. My kids in MN have no idea what a chigger is. That's it in a nutshell.

:) Blessings to you all. Yep, I am beginning to believe that OK gardeners have a very difficult challenge indeed.

Nancy, Welcome home! How tragic that accident must have been. I'm glad you made it home safely and can just picture Titan going all out to welcome you home. I'm glad GDW, you, Tom and Jerry survived Titan's enthusiasm. I hope the animals will leave you alone and let you sleep tonight. They might not want to let you out of their sight.

The combination of heat/humidity has been awful, especially up there in the northeastern quarter of the state.

Jennifer, Winter's harshness can depend somewhat on whether El Nino develops or not, and they usually don't really know if it is truly going to develop until almost December even though they can see changes in the Sea Surface Temperatures months before that. The problem is that sometimes SST changes signal that an El Nino (or a La Nina) is going to develop, and then something happens and it never develops or it develops and is very weak or it just fizzles out before it really can develop. And, its impacts vary a lot and can range from minor to major and everything in between, so who can say, really? They cannot even get our forecast right a week in advance, so I don't put a whole lot of faith in long-term forecasts that have lots of moving parts. I think that we'll know by February 2019 if we're going to have a bad winter or not. (grin)

Rebecca, Nice plants! Are the squirrels leaving things alone now?

Jacob, Start it in flats indoors if that is how you prefer to start seeds. As soon as it sprouts, move it outdoors into the sun so you won't have to spend time hardening off plants raised indoors. Or, direct sow it into a prepared bed outdoors, cover with maybe 1/4" soil patted down gently on top of the seeds, water lightly. Keep an eye on it and water lightly every day just to keep the soil surface moist until it sprouts, which at the temperatures we're having now should take a week or less. I don't start basil indoors any more because it has reseeded all over my garden. This year I thought there were not many reseeding volunteers in the garden, but that was because they popped up late---in May and even in early June. Now I have basil growing in the middle of my Laura Bush petunias and my catnip, and they're all just slugging it out and fighting for control.

Amy, I don't know how you get anything done with a grandkid climbing all over you.

Nancy, Mortgage Lifter is a late variety, so it isn't a huge concern that it hasn't set much yet. In my garden, they tend to start late but set almost all summer even after other large-fruited tomatoes have stopped setting, so I consider their lateness a good thing---it keeps you in tomatoes late in the season.

Jennifer, That is what I'd expect with a pumpkin plant. I think I was able to grow pumpkins and squash like crazy---more than a dozen varieties of each of them each year for the first 6 or 7 years we lived here. Then the squash bugs and SVBs found us and the squash and pumpkin party was over. I've never grown as many since, and mostly only C. moschatas because they can survive the SVBs and can outgrow the damage and diseases carried by squash bugs. In our climate, squash bugs and SVBs are just everywhere and are highly mobile and can travel long distances searching for food. It is just our cross to bear in this region, I guess.

Jacob, And that is one of the reasons I've never even wanted to try the Florida Weave---I doubt I could keep up with it during the peak part of the growing season. I prefer cages because once I set them up and stake them, that's it, they're done and I don't have to worry about it for the rest of the season.

So, y'all, today we had hornworms in our garden. Not tomato hornworms. Not tobacco hornworms. Nope. We had the hornworms of the White-lined Sphinx moth (probably the sphinx moth that is most abundant here in our area), which even is my favorite sphinx moth that I see flying around. I like them because they have a splash of pink on them. These were not the first White-lined Sphinx moth caterpillars we have had in the garden this year. There's been a couple before this. So, let's say that all this season, I've seen two of them in the garden and I relocated them outside the garden. Then, today, I looked across the garden and spotted a bat-faced cuphea plant that had been devoured. Just devoured. I walked across the garden to it and found 3 5th-instar hornworms on it. That was just the beginning. We found 13 hornworms on the cuphea plants, and Tim relocated them to the Back 40 behind the barn. Then tonight I found a 14th one. It was getting pretty dark so I relocated it to the ground beneath my shoe. Ooops. Were these creatures on the dozens of four o'clocks and daturas that we grow just for them? Nope. They were on one of my favorite little flowers that I raised indoors in flats under lights to ensure we'd have those flowers this summer. In all, we found seven of them on that first mutilated plant that I had noticed from the other side of the garden. I'll watch for more tomorrow. Y'all know I am usually very hornworm-tolerant, but I have to say that finding 14 in one day did not make me very happy. That's a lot of damage occurring at once. If the plants are too heavily devoured, they really lack the strength to bounce back. So, I'll be watching more closely for them now. I think they are a bit easier to spot than the tobacco and tomato hornworms because of the color of their spots, which stand out a bit more.

Worried after finding those first 13 that there might be more, I tried to quickly check tomato plants for them. I didn't find any on them, but found a ton of stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs on the tomato plants, especially on the SunGolds. I guess I'll work on that problem tomorrow.

Tim and I went to Spanish Fort, TX, today to the cemetery where my paternal great-grandparents, grandparents and my oldest uncle (I think he was the oldest) and his wife are buried. They all died before I was born but we used to go with my parents, aunts and uncles to visit their graves and tidy them up every June. So, today, Tim and I went back for the first time in a very long time and hardly recognized the place. It is a very old cemetery, and one that never had a perpetual care plan in place, so whatever care it gets is from folks who have family buried there. The grass has largely been replaced over time by Mother Nature with wildflowers. It is so much more beautiful with all the wildflowers than it ever was with just the grass. Someone has cut down all the tall, very old cedar trees, and I used those cedar trees in the past to find the family graves, so it was harder to find them this time. Luckily, as I eventually discovered, the lone cedar tree left in that cemetery still shades some of my relatives' final resting place. The oak trees that grow along the cemetery fencelines are twice as tall as I remember. Tim thinks it has been about 30 years since we last were there, but I think we went once about 15 years ago. Since the cemetery was full of wildflowers, it was full of bees. Tons and tons of bees. Spanish Fort is a virtual ghost town now, but the cemetery, the wildflowers and and the bees remain. It was a great reminder to me that Mother Nature does as she wishes and plants her flowers and other plants where she wants them, especially when there's no one around really fighting her wishes in that regard. And all those bees----while we gardeners may worry and fret about where all the bees have gone, I can tell you where thousands of them are....they are buzzing around the wildflowers in a tiny little old country cemetery that has been in use since at least the mid-1800s. Not many people have been buried in that cemetery in this century....most of the more recent burials are in the New Cemetery, established in 1939, but I didn't see many wildflowers and bees in that one, just a lot of short, clipped grass. If there is a shortage of bees anywhere in that county, it is just because there's not enough flowers elsewhere to lure them away from the old cemetery's wildflowers. I liked that cemetery with its flowers and bees. All cemeteries should be filled with wildflowers like that. It was just such a peaceful place, quiet except for the buzzing of the bees.

Dawn

As wild as my tomatoes are growing this year, I can't imagine life without cages! No way I would be able to stay on top of keeping them tied up using a Florida weave or cattle panels.

Even with cages I still have to corral runaway branches that for whatever reason feel the need to block walkways and cause a mess. Normally, I select an old t-shirt or work shirt and tear strips of material to tie them up, but this year I'm using some hook and loop tape (velcro) I found at Lowe's. I paid about $3 for a 1/2"x45' roll. It hangs on a wire near the tomato bed and I just cut off a piece the length I need and secure the rogue branch. I'll probably grab a few more rolls since it always seems like when I find a product I like, they quit selling it!

Nancy, the angled end of my elderberry cuttings were on the end that goes in the ground. I'll try to post some pictures later of my potted plants. One of the ones I potted for my mother is in bloom. I know I should clip it, but I may just leave it and watch the various stages of fruit development.

I've had the hardest time deciding where I want to plant elderberries, but I've about decided to grow them in somewhat of a hedge fashion along the front of my 5 acres. There are some large red cedar growing there now and they need to go away, since my orchard will be nearby. The cedars provide some visual block from the neighbors across the road and I hate to lose that.

I'll probably plant the elderberries in sections over a 3 year period. That way when it's time to cut them to the ground the 3rd year, I won't lose all of my privacy screen at once.

Why cut them to the ground Bruce?

Here's a very informative article on them, Amy. http://www.twisted-tree.net/elderberry-the-caretaker/