I think it may be a negative that I know our own local weather so well that I can predict when we're going to go lower than forecast. Yesterday's air was so dry with both low dewpoints and low relative humidity that I told the family after dinner that I expected freezing temperatures again this morning, despite a forecast low of 36 (which they RAISED, lol, to 39 shortly before we went to bed). I knew there was no way our low would be 39 or even 36, and this morning awakened to an official overnight low of 30 at our OK Mesonet station and a low of 33 at our house. The sun isn't even up yet, so the temperatures still could drop a degree or two around sunrise. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. So, it is depressing to have been right about that overnight low because I'd rather be happy that we stayed above freezing. I don't worry about the freezing cold nights as far as cool-season plants are concerned---they can handle those. I don't worry about the freezing cold nights as far as warm-season plants are concerned because the soil temperatures are too cool to plant those yet, so the warm season transplants are warm indoors at night. What bothers me about the cold overnight lows is that they do contribute to how slowly or quickly the soil is warming up, so as long as we stay cold at night, it doesn't matter so much how warm the days are if the soil temperatures are rising very slowly because of the cold nights. That cold overnight slows down the warming of the soils and keeps them from reaching good temperatures for planting as quickly as I'd like. We haven't even reached our average last freeze date here yet....that is not until next week....so I just need to be patient because I know that, statistically speaking, we're pretty much right on track. It is just that I always hope for early warm weather.

Hi Krista, It is good to see you posting again. Congrats on the great compost! I was loading up some compost yesterday to move from the compost pile to a hugelkultur bed I've been working on and it really was lovely compost. I'm going to give the excessively rainy autumn and winter weather some of the credit for that because the pile stayed nice and moist, which helps it break down well. I get none of the credit because all I did was pile up stuff in that spot all summer and into early fall and then leave it alone....no turning of it because of the snake issue and this pile is near the "timber rattler highway" that runs directly from our neighbor's woodland onto our property and straight to my garden. I also don't worry about whether a compost pile has the right mix of browns and greens. I just pile stuff up and let it rot. That is what you call lazy or casual composting and it works well for me. I bet that 90% of the timber rattlers I encounter have come along this highway right beside my compost pile, so it isn't my favorite area....but it is directly across the driveway from my garden gate so is a great place to have a compost pile close to the garden as long as you're just piling stuff on top and not turning the pile, which in turn stirs up the snakes. March usually is the latest month that I can remove compost from this compost pile because of the abundant snake traffic, but it usually isn't the timber rattlers I run into early in the season---it is copperheads and rat snakes. The timber rattlers usually aren't too active until summer.

Fungal issues with tomatoes are just going to happen. The longer you grow tomatoes in an area, the more likely they are to happen. These diseases can overwinter on plant debris above or below ground and send off spores that can travel on the air. Yes, it is depressing, and also very hard to combat. I've had the best luck by rotating tomato plants from the front garden to the back garden, which is part of this year's plan, but I also cannot imagine my front garden without some tomato plants in it so I will have a smaller amount in the front garden, though they will not be in the same beds that had tomatoes last year.

Most years my plants get hit at some point by Early Blight despite the fact that I make a good faith effort to space them far enough apart to have good air flow and mulch heavily. I also remove the lower limbs to reduce the chance of soil splash, but y'all know how it rains here....in a good thunderstorm the raindrops are hitting them mulch and bouncing up high onto the plant foliage despite the lower limbs being reduced. It is what it is and we just have to adapt. Spraying the plants alternately with copper (organic) and chlorothalonil (synthetic) can help but because I hate, hate, hate spraying anything on the plants in my garden, I usually don't do it. The smart thing is to spray the plants on a 7-10 day schedule from the first day they go into the ground because both copper and Daconil work best as a preventive---they cannot cure a plant that already has Early Blight or any other fungal disease. Well, clearly I'm never going to be that person that sprays regularly. I'd just about rather lose all the plants than spray anything in my garden. So, I plant early, hope for the best, plant tons of tomato plants so we can enjoy a bountiful harvest and expect to lose some plants to fungal disease all along the way.

While Early Blight is the typical issue here, sometimes in a wetter or more humid year we will have Septoria Leaf Spot and that hits the plants harder than EB in the years we have it.

One issue with all fungal diseases that affect tomato plants is that they affect all nightshade plants, including daturas and horse nettle. Well, we have fields around us for miles and miles with horse nettles and other native night shades growing in them, and I like to grow daturas, so I've just learned to accept that the fungal diseases always are around. Oh, and these diseases also can survive on things like garden tools, stakes, tomato cages, etc. so once they are in your area, you're pretty much stuck with them.

This year I am going to plant at least 30 tomato plants in large containers, hoping to practice a somewhat limited form of crop rotation that way by planting them someplace other than in the ground in the front or back garden, but since the fungal spores go airborne, they'll likely get hit anyway. I'm thinking about lining up those containers in a third fenced garden area behind the barn-style garage. I often leave this area fallow, but want to use it for something this year, so am thinking about covering it with 6 mm black plastic and then putting the tomato plant containers right on top of that plastic. I need to make a decision about whether or not we are going to do this pretty soon. It might be far enough from the front garden that prevailing wind patterns won't carry the fungal spores back there, but it would be just 20 or so feet from the larger fenced back garden area, although that one has less trouble with fungal diseases.

Nancy, With the school gardens I've seen here, most of them are pretty much abandoned by the kids the minute school is out for the summer. I hope that doesn't happen there. I'd love to see your school garden do well all season and draw kids back to work on it and harvest from it throughout the growing season.

Jennifer, Wouldn't a couple of months of this weather (albeit with slightly warmer nights) be heavenly? Some years we actually do get that from mid-March through mid-May in the years when it doesn't get too hot too early.

I hope y'all got a lot accomplished. I know we sure did. There's always so much more to do on a large piece of rural land, but we just plug along slow and steady and manage to stay fairly caught up as long as it doesn't get too rainy to mow the pastures.

This is one of my favorite times of the year when new wildflowers pop up almost daily. I wish they'd all be in bloom at once, but that's just not how it works, so I try to enjoy each in its own time and place.

I'm about to go check our forecast for the rest of the week, already knowing they lowered our nighttime lows for the next 2 or 3 nights. Still, maybe now they'll begin to stay above freezing.

Historically, this week is a bad one for wildfires here and so far it has been really quiet (knock on wood). We are greening up quickly, so I think that by the end of this month, our winter fire season, which sometimes can last until late April or earliest May, might be over before it ever really starts. Tim thinks that is wishful thinking on my part...and maybe it is, but I remain hopeful. The same moisture that has made the early greenup possible also makes the ground too wet for the fire brush trucks to get into the fields so it does complicate firefighting if you have grass fires and wild fires, and I am not saying there won't be any---just that I think it is going to be pretty quiet and low-key overall. I cannot even believe we are almost to April. Granted, February and its miserable weather seemed to drag on forever, and the cold, windy mess that had been most of the first half of March was no picnic either, but a definite change in the weather is occurring right now and I know we all are so relieved and so thrilled to finally have some good gardening weather.

Have a good day everyone.

Dawn

Dawn, I loved hearing about the house. I've always loved history, and admire those people who can do that kind of remodeling themselves.

Nancy, your school "job" sounds like so much fun. I'm hoping to retire at 63 (still mostly on track for it) and find a second career like that. I enjoy my job now, don't get me wrong, but I want to do something that is just for enjoyment.

Took my tomatoes and peppers for a walk yesterday. Sat night I put one flat of them on the front porch. They're protected from wind & sun, but still get enough to be a little beneficial. The plan was to leave them out while my brother's girlfriend and I went to the store. Only we got home and I got distracted by one thing or another, and didn't remember until about 10 pm. Oops! But yesterday they didn't look any worse for wear, so I guess it wasn't as bad as I expected. Yesterday I took them and another flat outside, potted up a bunch from the new flat, and only gave them an hour or so. Depending on how I feel when I get home (it's been a long weekend) I may take them back out for a little while this evening.

Backreading now...

Amy, what do you mean by "primed" with your spinach? I can't get my stupid spinach to germinate.

I found some great deals at a thrift store too, last summer. While Ethan looked, I tried on tops and jeans. Found my favorite pair of jeans there--they are Loft brand.

I might try to rebuild my greenhouse. It was actually pretty simple to set up. Rebuilding it with bent bars might be a challenge. I've thought about just putting the cover over some shelves and move the entire thing into the shop when it's windy.

Hi Mimi from Owasso.

Nancy, my tansy is coming back too...it never really completely left. Also, parsley and cilantro. And another herb that I can't remember it's name. It's leaves taste like cucumbers. Did you start valerian again this year? If so, do you have extra plants? A puppy dog named Josi ruined mine last year.

Good job on the trellis, Rebecca. What will be planted there?

Congrats on the compost, Krista. It's funny the things that excite gardeners. I'm still thrilled every time my scraps and leaves make compost.

Dawn, I opened up the umbrella on the patio table and found a wasp. It didn't attack me like they sometimes do when disturbed...or not! Sometimes you just go near their nests and they attack and you didn't even know they were there. I was standing on a chair and my face was right next to it.

Nancy, it's so hard to get focused when we have a perfect weather day. "I need to go here and do this" and "but I need to do this first", "but what about this?" That's how I was yesterday. Running around excited about everything.

I hope I didn't miss anyone or anything important. Backreading isn't easy while posting at the same time.

360 Farms was delightful. I learned so much about elderberries. I suspected the reason my elder "sticks" didn't make it last year is because I didn't leave them in their pots long enough to make a good root system. Brent confirmed that for me....especially in my soil. I got confused, as is completely understandable when it comes to online advice and elderberries (or any other plant quite honestly). Y'all I could talk all day about the things he told me. He helped me choose pots with multiple plants, so I'll be separating those this week and planting the biggest plants directly in the ground. They have good roots and are ready. I only bought 3 pots (and some soap and tea) and don't need 9 elder plants of this variety, so will probably have extras if anyone is interested in them. I've offered one to Dale and Carrie, but I'm not sure they want it. Carrie is checking with Dale. They have one elder bush already and their space is limited. So...I will prob have 5 or 6 plants to share. (I say "probably" just in case I screw something up. lol)

This Ranch variety is only supposed to get 5 or 6 ft. tall. Does well in "bad" soil. It has a mysterious history. It was "discovered" at an old homestead near Bartlesville and it's uncertain where it originated other than that.

Brent said to plant in full sun (yes, full sun in Oklahoma). His wife (so annoyed that I can't remember her name and she is a sweetheart) said to keep it well watered for the first two years... and he said not this winter, but next to prune it to the ground! Gasp! Gasp!

Nancy, I mentioned you and she remembers you. :) It was so fun to look at their hydroponics greenhouse and so interesting how it works. She keeps herbs year 'round and uses only her herbs to make their teas and soaps.

She also invited any gardening groups to visit.

Yesterday, we put the cages up for the peas. I'm using my extra tomato cages (because I'm only growing 8 this year) for pea trellises. We staked 6 cages where the onions and then melons were last year. I'll plant the peas around the cages. Half of the peas have sprouted, so they'll be planted this week. I started them in those store-bought lettuce/greens containers. The containers have a handy lid already attached.

Also, my store-bought cabbage plants went in. Hoping to do carrot and radish today.

Hey, does anyone use livestock panels to make those hoop trellises between beds? It makes an adorable tunnel of vines--those kind? If so, do you have any advice? It seems most people use the 16 ft ones, which I'm wondering how we will get them in the back of Tom's truck. Maybe roll them up?

Yesterday at Walmart, there was a very young man buying seed starting trays. He then chose potting soil. I wanted to direct him to the seed starter mixes, but didn't want to look like a total creep who was watching him. Do y'all ever do that? Watch what other people are looking at/buying at the garden center. lol

Once it warms up, I'm heading outdoors. Suppose I should do some laundry or something until then.

Just a quick note to H/J. we "arch" the cattle panels in the truck. Ron says they're tight enough to stay there (they are pretty stiff.) We buy one or two every year. Right now some are laying over the tops of beds I planted to keep the dogs from digging. I have 4 groups of 4x8 beds that butt against each other making 16' beds. They are wood beds. We brace the arches between the beds and then pound rebar stakes (you can buy 2' long precut rebar at Lowes). The paths between the beds are 4 or 5 feet wide. We have made a free standing arch by bracing then between rebar or T posts. We also do a vertical trellis with cattle panel on 2 beds for tomatoes. I will come back with pics later.

Priming spinach...Dawn shared a link, last week? Soak seed overnight. Dry on a coffee filter for 2 days. You can store in an airtight container for a week. I put my seed in the ground after 3 days this time. I had a lot of old seed, planted thickly, hoping to get a decent stand.

Hi Mimi, we'll talk later.

It's a Bartlesville day.

Ok, arch and trellis pics.

Straight trellis. Wood (2x2?) Attached to Tposts and hung with those nifty hangers. This had pole beans on it later, but I also use it for tomatoes, tying them to the trellis.

Arch

Another way I've used the panels. Tomato plants are tied to the stakes.

And a shot with stuff growing on an arch.

Oh, on the right you can just see the straight trellis from the first pic. I truly love my arches. I plant cow peas, pole beans, cucumbers, Korean squash on them and they make covered tunnels by mid summer.

BTW, I have not tried this, but it's worth thinking about for next year. Hairy vetch cover crop before tomatoes.

I've got a lot of ground to cover, and not much time to do it so this may read as rather disjointed. I spent almost all day Saturday and Sunday in the garden and I needed it. I wish I could do it again today. I accidentally hardened my tomatoes to cold overnight. At last check, our low was forecast as 40* but at sunrise our thermometer read 34. I had planned to let the toms spend the night outside on purpose, so they were sitting on the bricked-in BBQ where it does stay a little warmer, but I was a little stressed by temps dipping 6 degrees lower than forecast, as I'm sure they were. Normally it seems like we stay slightly above the forecast low by 1-2 degrees, so this was surprising to me. Maybe they changed our forecast yesterday afternoon and I didn't notice.

I made room for a bunch more mineral tubs so this year, I'll have a total of 19-20 going, up from 11 last year! I'm excited because that gives me space to grow almost everything I'm heart set on for this year. I'll be down on the okra count since I lost the south wall to plant edibles along, but I'll squeeze in some.

I spent most of Saturday moving the heavy already filled tubs around to the new spot I designated for them, then my day yesterday was spent planting cool season stuff then mixing soilless mix to fill the new tubs. I still have quite a few to fill though.

You'll never believe it - or maybe you will - I finally have 2 egg yolk tomatoes sprouted! I planted them on 2/19 so it's about dang time. Funniest part of it is that a couple weeks ago, I dropped the tray they were in. Thankfully it didn't damage any of the other toms that were going well at that point, so I just scooped up the dirt that was dislodged from the egg yolk's cells and dropped it back in. However, so much of it was so finely scattered that I just swept it up and into the garbage. I'd given up on the egg yolks by then so I didn't worry about it. The two cells that have the least amount of dirt left - those are the two where the toms have finally sprouted.

Jill is a birder apparently. Don't know how because no one ever saw her jump, but she got a bird Saturday night. I was in the shower and heard commotion. My mom had been outside smoking and stuck her head in to yell for Ben. He ran out and as he approached Jill he could see she had a bird, but with another step closer, she decided she was going to lose her feast and choked it down in two gobbles.

Jack found something in the yard yesterday, either a mouse or a small rabbit. He didn't manage to catch it, but as soon as I took him out this morning to do his business, the only business he was interested in was sniffing around the spot where it was able to finally dodge him.

Not to be outdone - I had ants in the kitchen AND a stickbug in the tomato bed. So there! Ha! My tumbling composter had produced enough compost to cover the tomato bed 1" deep, so I lightly raked in the leaf litter I'd scattered on the bed in early fall and then topdressed with the compost. Later, I was working on the soilless mix for the tubs and spotted movement in the corner of my eye in the tomato bed. I can't spot something sitting still if it's camouflaged well even if it has a flashing arrow pointing at it, but movement is a different story. I crept over, expecting it to be a piece of leaf waffling in the breeze but wanted to be sure and noticed it was a stink bug. Grrrr. I was able to catch and kill it but I hope there aren't more.

I didn't have ants in the kitchen until I came in from the garden completely exhausted. My mom had to work yesterday, Keegan went to church followed by other activities with her BFF and was gone all day and Ben had gone to help a friend roof a barn so I had the house and yard to myself and next thing you knew it was 5:30. BTW - here is a great crockpot soup recipe for the days y'all want to be in the garden until or past 5:30.

When I went in, there were ants all over the sink. Keegan emptied the dishes that had finished while no one was indoors and I reloaded the dishwasher. When I reached for the dish detergent under the sink, I bumped something which of course caused a couple of things to tumble out and I noticed that the floor of the cabinet looked wet. I started pulling things out and sure enough, it was. After pausing to Raid the ants, (Raid, I know but...) I lined the cabinet with brown paper sacks to locate the source of the leak and it was one of the filters for our osmosis water purifier. It was just replaced about 2-3 weeks ago and I guess has been leaking since. Ben is in charge of getting Culligan out today to fix that but there was already mold developing so if Culligan doesn't cover the repairs, we'll be hollering at the guy who repaired our cabinets when the motor under the dishwasher gave out and started leaking a few years ago. So, while I hate them, this one time the ants turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Dawn, I need to search houzz when I have a chance for a refresher on your orange oil remedy so I can pull out all the organic stops. Running the oil diffuser with peppermint oil near where they were coming in seemed to slow them down some. So did obscene amounts of raid, which I would rather not use, but it gets the job done when I'm annoyed out of my skull, tired and ready to nuke them into oblivion.

Oh, back to the toms. The reason I was going to let them stay outside is I wanted them a little acclimated to cold because I was thinking of putting them in early - as in next weekend - since I was going to be at my uncle's funeral the weekend I typically try to plant them. Well, people trying to piggyback (freeload) onto my trip have canceled my plans to go to my uncle's funeral. I wish adults would act like adults but with some people that is asking too much. So I'm trying to focus on the positive which is that I can stay in the garden that day and plant tomatoes and think about the time that I had that conversation with his friend about tomatoes that I found out wasn't really about tomatoes. I am going to try to pull together a small little memorial here so we'll still pause to think of him that day.

There was something else on my mental list I wanted to include but it's escaping me now. Congrats to the newlyweds and welcome to the people who I don't know here already.

I use the 16' cattle panels also, and haul then in my pickup, arched. I do attach a rope or tie-down for safety. i also have a 12' trailer that I can use to haul them with them being arched. I have a frame built on front of the trailer that I can slide them through and haul them, or any long material without being arched. I do however secure about anything I haul to keep it from falling or blowing onto the highway.

I tilled the east end of my north garden. ( I had sweet potatoes there last year) . My soil is still to wet to work, but working helps it to dry.

HJ - that Roots and Refuge youtube channel, source of the clear totes for lettuce video, uses cattle panels in the way Amy describes. You might take a look. After you turned me onto that channel, I watched a lot of her videos on days when it was too cold to be in the garden.

Source for lettuce/greens plants in the OKC area? I see the big boxes have Bonnie available but I'd like to buy from someone more local if possible.

Megan I have watched all rnr. She is so easy to follow.

I trying to get motivated but right now I am just tired and sore. Some days are better. I pushed through a full 40 hour last week. IIts my first. Sounds kinda

Roots and Refuge also has an Instagram page, if you’re on there.

HJ, right now the trellis just has 2 sections of snow peas planted, but this summer it will have green beans and cucumbers.

I am so sore after all the work this weekend.

My WS jugs are starting to pop, just like I thought. Cosmos are leading the pack, but zinnias and calendula are coming in second. I think there are a few tomatoes there too.

Jen, It is a lot of fun watching them make one little discovery after another. I wish the walls of that house could talk. I just explained to them yesterday what the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are and that they should be able to locate one from 1932 or 1933 with their house on it, so that's something they plan to look for when they have the time. Many are in the Library of Congress online and accessible but when we looked yesterday briefly, all we could find was earlier ones from the late 1890s and the street names were different then than now so we didn't really know what we were looking at. I think they are going to try the local library and the local historical society to see if the maps are maintained locally. And, as a neat trivia thing....there is an old Ardmore Public Library (no longer used as a library but owned by the Garden Club Council and used for meetings) in their neighborhood built by Andrew Carnegie that is just a short distance from their house.....and their neighborhood is the historic Carnegie neighborhood that was developed, so to speak, around that library. There's signs telling you when you are entering the Carnegie neighborhood. The more we sit and talk about their neighborhood, the more I learn about it.

My tomato plants were out for 7 hours today and will get 8 hours tomorrow. They're hardened off enough to wind and sun to go into the ground but the ground still is too cold, and Thursday night looks pretty cold....and we have the kids all week and so far I cannot manage gardening and taking care of the kids, pets, house, laundry and meals all at the same time, so gardening is on the back burner. The tomato plants really want to be in the ground though.

Jennifer, There's two herbs I can think of that taste like cucumber: salad burnet and borage (there's a blue-flowered form and a white-flowered form).

I try NOT to notice what people are buying at the stores because otherwise I have to bite my tongue and not offer unsolicited advice.

Megan, Just reading about how busy you've been wore me out. I'm sorry your plans to attend your uncle's funeral were ruined. Perhaps your garden is the best place to be with your memories of him on that day.

Larry, Our soil is awfully wet too, but today it is down to being only 97% saturated, so it is getting better at the rate of about 1% per day. Some of the puddles are about to dry up, and water no longer is seeping into the 300' long driveway from the adjacent property that sits higher than ours so I am seeing improvement. There's still fire ant mounds popped up everywhere, so they think or know it is too wet to go back underground.

billstickers, I'm not in the OKC area so hopefully you'll get a response from somewhere up there. I like Red Dirt Plants, based in Guthrie, and we see their plants at local places that aren't big box stores and don't carry Bonnie Plants. Specifically, I can get Red Dirt Plants at Atwood's. I don't know if y'all have Atwood's up there, but if you go to the Red Dirt Plants website or Facebook page and ask, I bet someone can tell you who has their plants up there in the OKC area.

Kim, Clearly you're getting better week by week. Hang in there. Hopefully you won't have lifelong problems from the shingles like some people unfortunately do.

We are seeing more and more insects out daily, so the warm-up is progressing at time warp speed. Today we saw the first cranefly, or mayfly if you prefer that term, though we usually see them long before May. Other than carrying plants out, watering them, and then carrying them in late in the day, I did no gardening. I did do tons of kid things....playing...feeding kids....washing dirty kids....sending kids upstairs to put on their pajamas and get ready for bed....we decorated outdoors with sidewalk chalk, played with cats, blew bubbles, played with dogs, played with baby dolls, playdough, slime, etc., worked on Lillie's current craft project, which involves making your own geode (from a kit she received as a birthday gift) and we ate. We ate a lot. Apparently really busy kids have to eat every hour or two. I wish we had spent the day gardening, but they were too busy for that.....tomorrow is another day but I don't know if I'll make it to the garden then either. I need more hours in the day or something.....and more energy....and I guess I need to wake up earlier because the kids were up before I was and they were worried that the deer herd was milling around waiting for me to come out and feed them. Do y'all have any idea how many creatures I feed before I get to eat breakfast? Deer, rabbits, birds (wild birds and chickens too), dogs, cats and children. By the time I eat breakfast, it is almost lunch time, and then I have to carry out the plants and water them. Maybe I should get up at 5 a.m. when Tim does and try to get things done before the kids wake up. In a week or two, they'll be moved into their new house, and I'll miss them so much. Right now my day revolves around them when Jana and Chris both are at work, and we do have so much fun together.

I did feel like I was sweeping the floor endlessly. Tim mowed yesterday so there's grass clippings, and we had frost, so they were wet. Then everyone was in and out, in and out, in and out all morning, and we tracked in bits of grass, leaves and dirt. I probably could start a new compost pile from all the stuff I'm sweeping up.

Dawn

How did I miss the "priming spinach" thread?!

Amy, I knew one of y'all had those hoop trellises. I remember pictures from the past. Thanks for showing them again.

Megan, I did watch those videos from Root and Refuge!

It's an interesting channel for sure, Kim. She does so many things. I'm not sure how she homeschools too...but she does.

Her channel caught my eye because mine is Root & Roost.

Rebecca, I will be sore tomorrow. No doubt. I'm about to take a hot Epsom salt bath. I worked so hard today, but it was amazing. I love it. I want a month of it. Have you peas sprouted yet? I need to put mine out soon.

Oh! I'm such a dork. I do NOT have 9 elder plants. I have the 3. The ones on the side are just side branches...but for some reason that is good. I misunderstood. We planted two today.

Took my tomatoes for a walk again, so they could sunbathe while I dug up grass in the bed I'm expanding. Originally I had a bed running along the front of the house and fence that was about 2-3 ft deep, so I can reach the back to mulch. But I don't have enough room for everything (story of our life, right?) I got about a dozen or so iris when I first moved here and planted them in this small area in the corner of the porch. Well, apparently they LOVE where I planted them, so I'm going to spread them out along the entire front of the house, plant the daylilies in between them, and then have some space in front of that for annuals (or peppers, lettuce, basil, etc.) Also when we get ready to sell this place, the established perennials will make it look nicer.

Now off to find this youtube channel and watch a little before bed.

Jen, That sounds so nice and I do think the established perennials will make the house look nicer when y'all decide to sell it someday. Nice landscaping always helps. And, yes, it is the story of our lives that there never is going to be enough space to plant everything we want. Well, technically, I have the space--acres of space---but mostly left in its natural state since it takes a Herculean effort to amend the red clay soil and also to fence in everything to keep it safe from the wildlife.

Jennifer, Now THAT is the proper use for Epsom Salts and is how I use them as well----in the bathtub, not in the garden.

I'm sitting here watching The Weather Channel and the images out of Nebraska are just so devastating. How in the world does anybody begin to recover when flood waters have swept away their homes, their farming equipment, their livestock, and perhaps everything they own? It is mind-boggling and the mainstream media is doing a poor job of covering it adequately. Every time I'm tempted to complain about how cold it still is at night and how the soil is wet and slow to warm up, I need to bite my tongue and count my blessings and be grateful we even can be discussing when to plant....because the ranchers, farmers and gardeners in Nebraska are enduring such hardship right now, and who knows when or if they can plant anything this year. And, let us not forget, all the floodwater has to run downstream so I suppose the surge of flood water will just keep traveling south and eventually affect new locations.

One good thing about Oklahoma's lack of heavy snowfall most years is that we don't have to deal with flooding related to sudden snowmelt.

I'm just waiting for the sun to come up and the air temperatures to warm up a bit so I can carry out the tomato plants for 8 hours of sunlight today. The longer their day in the sun, the earlier I must carry them out to start their day. Of course our overnight low went lower than forecast, which has been a trend we've seen all winter long, so instead of having a low of 42, we have hit 39 here (and glad it wasn't colder) and 35 at our Mesonet station. These cold nights are why our soil temperatures are so slow to warm up this March, or maybe I'm just spoiled by how warm last March's soil was. The difference? This year's soil temps are 9 to 15 degrees cooler than they were last March, depending on whether you're looking at the average or the max. Of course, March isn't over yet and our soil temperatures still should come up a bit. If we were having last March's soil temperatures now, I'd be out in the garden this morning putting tomato plants in the ground. That's certainly not going to happen with the current soil temperatures! The sunshine is warming the soil, but the cold nights chill it right back down again.

Is it Spring yet? Almost, but the soil isn't feeling it yet.

Dawn

Billstickers - I agree on the Red Dirt plants and the Westlake Ace Hardware stores carry them around OKC. If you happen to be north of the turnpike, I would suggest a trip up to Guthrie to a little shop called Teracotta - you can find them on Facebook - they'll be opening for the season in a couple weeks so you might need to get greens at Westlake but for me, it's worth the trip for the warm season plants. Nothing super unique about them I don't guess, but they are a couple miles from the Red Dirt greenhouses so the plants they carry are about as fresh from the greenhouse as you can get. Their prices are also far better than OKC prices - at least North OKC/Edmond/Deer Creek prices. They're $0.50-$1 lower on 4" pots so it covers that gas to get there pretty quickly. It's a cute local shop and there are several good places to grab lunch in the old part of Guthrie while you're there. If you want to make a day of it, you can tour the Masonic Temple. Such an interesting story of how that was built in the early days of our state.

Dawn, I even forgot to mention that Saturday evening when I came in from working in the garden, I shampooed the living room carpet so it could dry overnight. All my weekend work is what I'm using to explain why I performed so poorly doing my workout/PT this morning. I skipped yesterday then today I was feeling the burn more than I have in recent weeks. Once on the treadmill, I just didn't have the oomph to kick it up to a run, so I walked and added hand weights. Now as I'm typing though I can feel that has translated into some tightness in my arms. Opps.

Kim I think I've seen all the Roots and Refuge videos too. Or close to all. They're easy to put on and just let run.

Its only Tuesday and I'm already running a list in my head of all the things I'm thinking about doing this weekend... and would rather be doing now. I'm a little worried that I won't get to because the forecast is calling for thunderstorms. On the one hand, I'll be disappointed to lose a weekend in the garden but on the other, it might be the only thing that keeps me from waiting the additional week to plant at least some of my tomatoes. For the last month, my gut has been telling me that the tomatoes need to get in the ground the moment temps permitted it so I'm already chomping at the bit.

Noticed the bradford pears this morning are on the brink of full bloom. They probably will be by the end of the day. I think the plants and other animals were as ready as the rest of us for this nice weather.

Have a great day everyone.

Ooops, 2 blackberries and 2 hazelnuts at Tractor Supply today. And dog food, and some square tomato cages and some pruners. And then to Atwoods, where I bought lettuce seedlings. I told myself I didn't need the pretty flowers. I could have gone nuts. Looked at tomatoes. I know I don't need those. And peppers. Almost bought a jalapeno, but didn't. Mine haven't sprouted yet. Couldn't bring myself to pay .99 for a beet, even if there was more than one in the pot. We know they all grow from one seed and can't be separated. They had Bonnie plants outside and Red Dirt in the greenhouse. The plan is lettuce seed direct seeded today. Soak some more seeds for starting. Need to go check the weather, still rain tomorrow? Rain tonight, maybe tomorrow.

We blew a good garden day yesterday by going to Bartlesville, but got our business taken care of. Ron goes for his wound check tomorrow and probably back to work, so had to be this side of Wed.

Ants in our kitchen, too.

I am rather incensed that I have not seen more coverage of the Nebraska/Iowa floods. It is heartbreaking. Does anyone know where Sand Hill Preservation Center is compared to the floods?

Happy gardening.

I went to Atwoods in Ft. Smith today hoping to buy some Red Dirt plants. They did have some nice Plants,but all were single pots at .99 up. I seldom pay that much for a plant, so Madge and I went to Sutherland, which is about a block from Atwoods and bought (2) six packs of plants. They were too high also, $3.78 per six pack. It looks like Bonnie is pushing Red Dirt out of this area. Up til a couple of years ago there was a nursery near Cameron OK. that was my #1 spot to go, ( M & M greenhouse ) ,but they are no longer in business. ( or, at least they looked empty the last time I checked on them)

Farmers Co-op in Ft Smith is a pretty good place to buy seeds and plants but I wish they had a larger selection to chose from.

I will try to get a seed starting spot set up in the house so I can start the hard to find plants, maybe the others also. I get a little bent out of shape running here and there looking for plants, only to find few of what I want.

I did not get any gardening work done to day. By the time I went to see mom, then to Ft. Smith to see my neighbor in the hospital, then out to eat, them running around looking for plants, I had done all the walking I can do in one day.

Another great day...except for the wind.

Tom took the day off so we could get some projects/chores completed. When OG&E replaced the power pole, they hilled up a mess of red dirt clods around the pole. We couldn't fix the chicken pen/gate until that was dealt with, so we dealt with it and fixed the chicken yard. I was tired of squeezing through a ridiculous opening while trying to carry waterers and such. Done. Fixed. Check.

We built another raised bed. This one will be for cucumber this year. And will get one of the livestock panel arches. Yay!

I planted the just spouted peas and weeded some beds. Good thing, I don't need to worry about the back garden yet. Most of the tomatoes and jalapenos are going back there.

So, when I was on the far side of the coop, fixing another issue with the fence, I heard a noise. Got up and looked but didn't notice anything. Then later, I did notice that the patio table umbrella was missing. I looked east. I looked west. No umbrella in the yard or anywhere. Okay, so Tom must have taken it down because of the wind. A bit later, I mentioned it to him and he said he did not. We couldn't find it anywhere! Until we walked to the front yard! It was in the front yard! It must have blown OVER the house. What in the world?! It would have been interesting to see it happen. So glad it didn't hit a car.

So one nice thing about starting peppers and tomatoes so late is that they can start being hardened off once they sprout. Mine are just getting their true leaves but are spending a lot of time outdoors. This may be my new way of doing it.

We did various other things too, like dragging out the water hoses and getting them set up. There are no freezes showing for the next few days.

Things I didn't get done. Planting all greens in their bed. Sowing radish and carrot seeds. Cleaning out the strawberry patch.

I'm going to work at the Home show this Friday with Dale, Carrie, and Bill. I hope Bill brings a good assortment of herbs. I need to replace some of mine and it will save me a trip to PW, although, I do want to go to PW sometime in April.

Ethan and his girlfriend are going to the aquarium in Jenks tomorrow. I'm a little nervous about him driving out of town without an adult. Ha! Technically he is an adult. His girlfriend's parents are allowing them to date now.

I'm going to Edmond to have lunch with Mom, sister, and a cousin.

Daughter is going to Jamaica for a friend's wedding. She promised she will stay at the resort.

That's about it for now. Hope everyone had a good day. I'm taking another Epsom salt bath tonight. Gardening is hard work.

I have to work all week. Everyone keeps coming in and telling us how beautiful it is outside. We can also see it through the window. Grrr.

Larry, For years and years it has seemed like Bonnie is pretty much pushing everyone out.....and I don't know why the solution is either, other than growing as much of our own as we can. I still buy quite a few plants though.

I hope that both your mom and your neighbor are doing as well as can be expected. I am sure that your visits mean a great deal to them.

It was a grandkid day and the 4 year old wanted to do nothing but arts and crafts, for which she's able to sit still for surprisingly long periods of time, and to play with baby dolls. And so we did. No gardening at all except carrying plants out and in again. I "think" (and certainly do hope) that the next three days are mine to spend in the garden other than if it rains, and I am sure it will rain.

We dried up another 1% today----with soil saturation at 96%, but I'm sure the rain will put it back at 100%. I just hope to get plants in the ground before that happens. They can sink or swim on their own after that.

Amy, SHPC is in Calamus, IA, so I think they are okay. If you look at a map, they're sort of due west a county or two from Chicago, so that makes them far enough north that maybe they'll be alright as flooding goes? At least I hope so. I don't want to be guessing wrong on this......as I cannot imagine what would happen to all their heirloom poultry they've been preserving for you so long. I think that if anyone knows, George will know for sure.

I was trying to figure out how to know if they're okay, so I went to their webpage (figuring, if nothing else, maybe no news was good news). The last update that Glenn put up on their webpage sounded pretty good. Here it is:

Sand Hill Preservation Center News

I wouldn't say you blew a gardening day. After all, you got to do some garden shopping so that ought to count.

We don't have any ants in our kitchen. Should I feel left out? Those little ant bait traps that sell at the grocery store (I think they contain borax) work really well, but we've always used orange oil and peppermint soap with great success when we have an ant invasion during persistently wet weather.

Megan, We are just simply used to aches and pains in the Spring as we become more active than we have been in the winter, but we're also old so we have a lot more aches and pains than we once did....and that is hard to tolerate and accept. Tim works out in the gym at work in spurts, but it is an on and off sort of thing and he always seems to have extreme soreness when he starts up with the weight lifting again, which he did just last week.

Bradford Pears here are moving on to leafing out now. They do look so pretty in bloom, but it doesn't last long.

Our hollies are about to bloom now. When that happens, we have a huge bee convention that lasts for several weeks as various holly varieties come into bloom one after another after another.

I put up two hummingbird feeders today as they are getting closer to us daily. It seems like last year I had the first feeders up about a week before they arrived. I just hate to wait for them to show up first before I realize they're back and then I don't have food for them when they arrive. The male ruby-throated hummingbirds usually show up in a small horde first, and then feed voraciously and fight over who is the boss of the feeder. A couple of years, though, the rufous hummingbirds have shown up first.

The kids both were off today (Chris came home from working a 24-hour shift and headed straight for the new house as soon as he changed clothes) so spent the whole day (until just a few minutes ago) blowing insulation into their attic....95 bags of it. It wasn't well-insulated before, but it is now. Lillie went with them and helped them, and they're all just totally exhausted and just now eating dinner at 10:30 p.m. That is, I think, their last major project before they move in, other than Chris redoing that closet floor and he is hoping to get all of that wood sanded tomorrow. They did find what is left of the chimney in the attic, so now we know where the fireplace once was....and it wasn't where we thought. It was in a storage/utility room that sits just east of the kitchen and also has the attic access thing in it. We're learning more and more about their historic neighborhood and it is totally fascinating. If only the walls of those houses could talk.

I will not be disappointed if the rain misses us. They've had it in and out of our forecast over and over again, but it is back in again and seems more likely to fall. I guess the most I can hope for is that we get only light rainfall amounts.

Dawn

oooooooo, blackberries. I'm envious. Thanks for the photos--and, by the way, your yard and plants look beautiful! Is Oklahoma really that green in the summer? :)

Are you all doing catch-up in your yards? I certainly need to be. But I spent all day today organizing and counting seeds. If you all saw FB, the "school" had a delivery of seeds from Burpee. It was from a little grant for 501c3 organizations, apparently. Just random seeds. I don't anyone who needs 120-150 packets of carrots. LOL I wasn't even going to accurately count the carrots! One packet of cucumbers? WHAT? And lots and lots and lots of different things.

I finally finished just now. I was bummed by the timing, as we already had gathered all the things we'll be growing. It's not a real school school, Dawn. Well, here is THEIR definition of themselves: Free (Christian) Literacy, Fitness and Recreation Program. They don't teach anything regarding the Bible or religion, the Christian I think refers to the fact that the teachers, the founders and the volunteers are Christians. I think. Interesting. I'll have to ask them about that.

I am SO tired of sorting, organizing and planting seeds! But apparently I love it, as I'm still doing it. :)

I love love love that it is SPRING!!

Thank you, GOD!!

Clematises are SO interesting. Some of the more interesting of perennials. I have a weird one, can't remember the name of it. . . very exotic. But leaves kind of show up randomly. . . some 4 feet up, some 2/3 feet up. . . Some sprouting a foot away from the main plant.

Not too many plants sprouting up. . . the bridal wreath hydrangea just began it's first blooms. Elderberries are sprouting up a couple side shoots. I'm happy about that. Spring is here, I am confident in saying. I have a new spring in my step. . .

Facebook reminded me of a pic I posted 8 years ago of a handful of cherry tomatoes. Big difference between now & then. I'm pretty sure that's the plant I bought late fsll & kept on my kitchen table, then moved in & out every day. But now I'm even more antsy to get going.

Oh, HJ. Yes, I can spare one of the valerians!. I only planted two tiny pots, but they both sprouted well.

I saw that photo, Jen and thought SURELY that wasn't from 8 years ago this time of year. WOW!! I GUESS big difference. Remarkable.

It's a cool 50 here right now. I need to get things hardened off and out, hardy annual types of things.

So the North East contingent of OKGW is meeting Saturday at 1:00 at Siegi's Sausage Factory, 8104 S Sheridan Rd, Tulsa. We call ourselves the Sisterhood of the traveling plants, but brothers and spouses are welcome. Mimi, come join us! It would help if we knew who might join us so we can arrange a table. Nancy's bringing extra plants, but you don't have to bring anything.

Aw, really makes me wish I were still in Tulsa! Enjoy your lunch!

And for today's "this day in history" lesson:

March 2011 weather was unseasonably warm. There were 6 days where the daily high was in the 40s and 3 days over 80; the rest of the time it was 50s-70s. And it only dropped below freezing 5 times during the month. The latter half of Feb was also above average, with highs mostly in the 60s and 70s. That was also the year that most of July and August was above 100, so early warm ups do have a downside.

Here I was, moving all the hardy annuals out to their new home in the totes on the deck, happily minding my own business, getting out the next batch of seeds I need to get onto the grow cart; Garry had received his inlet valve for the side-by-side GE fridge, and set about doing his repair for the problem of not getting any water out of the water dispenser.

He got all done and nothing happened. RATS. Back to the drawing board. We just spent the past hour (hour-PLUS) watching entertaining videos about what the problem could be.

I guess he'll go get the hair dryer next, in hopes that the waterline to the dispenser is frozen. Fingers crossed for that.

Now maybe I can gather the next seeds to be planted.

Larry, few things aggravate me more than running from store to store looking for stuff and not finding it! I hate it when that happens!

I'm enjoying reading all your threads and ongoing life stories. Megan, I am so sorry you'll miss a trip for your uncle's funeral, but peace and blessings to you on that day. Hugs.

Dawn, regarding the salvia and growing it. Only thing I can figure is that I used my little squeeze bottle for watering instead of a mister, and may have washed the little seeds down too deep. I may try another round.

HJ--Valerie, I'm thinking! Wasn't the hydroponic set-up amazing??? I know Brent said to cut the elderberries back second year. But mine did so poorly the first year, I'll wait until next year to cut back. Frankly, they are just now beginning to really take off. They're awfully small, still, but now both have 2-3 additional shoots at the bottom. Yay.

I have stuff. Everywhere. No idea what most of it is! Hahaha! But good stuff. What a riot.

Happy gardening all!

We learned about refrigerators today. Now there are some mighty smart people in our group. GDW and I weren't 2 of you. For those of you who have side-by-side refrigerators with a water dispenser. did you ever wonder how the water gets from the fridge to the freezer OUTSIDE door? Go open your freezer door and wonder about it.

When one of us goes on a mission regarding some appliance or another, we might as well give up the notion of doing ANYTHING else until problem is fixed or appliance is thrown away.

Based on the videos we watched, Garry went to work on the freezer/water dispenser with the hairdryer, for about half an hour, before conceding defeat.

So THEN he came back to the computer room and we watched another few videos. Then he was trying to figure out how the water line went from the main water line going into the fridge, over to the freezer side for the ice maker and the water dispenser, so I looked and looked and looked for a diagram. And we got up and went over to the fridge and tried to figure it out. Back to the computer. Aha! Found a diagram. And watched an entertaining video about how a guy takes out the water reservoir, along with the water lines to the freezer. But the guy's arm kept getting in the way in the video. It was SO funny. GDW says, "Well, get your arm out of the way, idiot!"

At any rate, we got the general idea. So we quit, in order to think some more. I was sitting down getting ready to get back to seedlings, happened to glance over at Garry, just as he was hitting the water dispenser button for the upteenth time and water shot out everywhere. He jumped back and exclaimed, "We got WATER!"

We laughed. And laughed some more. I shook my head, "Oh ye of little faith. You were so sure there would be no water, you didn't even bother to use a glass." The line had apparently finally thawed all the way out.

But the inlet valve we ordered and installed today really was part One of the problem. The water dispenser valve actually WAS dead. GDW double checked it with his multimeter and sure enough, water dispenser side dead. So we ordered it and then of course couldn't use the water dispenser for the five days it took to get the new inlet valve. We figure that during those five days of not being used, the water line froze. And that it just took a while after GDW's hair dryer treatment for it to thaw out enough to work.

So much for plants, yard work and seeds today. I wish one of you had been here to do a fast video of us, chairs scooted up close to the computer, watching videos, and then the action shots. And the expression on his face when the water came spurting out. We love/hate these appliance things. You know?

Definitely seeing activity in my jugs. Cosmos, calendula, painted daisies, zinnias of all kinds, bachelor button, poppies, mini sunflowers, snapdragons, and a few tomatoes - SS 100, super Sioux, and creole. Squirrels dug through the uncovered salad boxes too. $%¥{$@%& squirrels. I set the lids back on kind of askew, so maybe that will protect them while not letting them get too hot.

Anyone is welcome to join us Saturday. The more the merrier! There’s usually some seed and/or plant trading going on. Or promises of such. Seigi‘s is German food with a fabulous meat market attached.

My johnny jump ups are still alive from October.

So sorry, Rebecca. The dumb squirrels just won't leave your garden alone.

Nancy, yes, Valerie is her name. And, yes, the hydroponics set up is so amazing. Do you remember the variety of elder you have? Is it John? I do want to try another variety in the future. Maybe several more varieties. haha.

Oh, and, Nancy, if you only have two valerian plants, I don't want to take one. But, thank you! You're sweet.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Plants, have fun at your meet-up. Take pictures to share with the rest of us.

I had a great lunch and visit with my Mom, sister, cousin, and niece. After coming home, I went to the garden and planted all the "greens" seedlings. The bed is full and looks nice. Tom needs to get that hinged hoop built soon. (I don't want to push it on projects. He's played along nicely this week.) I want to put insect netting over it...and would like to use plastic on it over the winter to try to keep salad greens going all year.

Other than that, I sowed radish and carrot seeds. I dumped a ton of carrot seeds in the bed. I've had a hard time with carrots...and these are older seeds.

My chickens are really laying right now. I'm so thrilled with it. They are having 11, 12, 13 egg days right now. I'm sorta excited about hatching chicks again this summer. The only bad thing, is it takes the broody hen(s) out of the egg laying business for awhile. Hopefully only two hens go broody, like last year. I really don't need more chickens this year and Jean Luc Picard is enough rooster for me. I have a friend who will take my chicks though and they eat their roosters, so it's not a problem for them.

The spinach is finally coming along. Where am I going to put it? I'll have to think on that....maybe a large Smart Pot.

I have an idea about blueberries. I really want a blueberry bush. I might make a fb post about it...see who in Oklahoma has had good luck with them.

And, I want a fig tree. I saw small one at Walmart for $10.

So...there was a dead bunny under Tom's truck yesterday. Finbar stayed out all night. (Not my choice.) This morning there was a bunny head next to the back porch. So disturbing. Finbar stayed out all night last night too. Guess what? Finbar isn't going out at night. No more bunny murders. I'm not sure how he managed to kill a rabbit. And I don't want to think about it too deeply. He does chase chickens, but hasn't attacked one yet.

Not much to report from here. I up potted a half dozen tomatoes yesterday and will need to do that with some flowers this evening too. I have a few radishes and spinach sprouting outdoors but am mixed on whether to bother with trying to get more going this far past the Extension’s recommended planting dates.

Here is a pic of the containers that were added to my garden this year. We’ve been tossing around nicknames for it... Potterville and Potstown. Any opinions on the name or other ideas?

Nancy, you can watch You Tube videos through the Roku on your regular TV. Message me if you need more info.

I didn't feel well yesterday so did nothing all day. I was cold all day.

Maybe I can plant lettuce on the "tub table" Ron put together. He put dirt in the cat litter trays and buss tubs I had and set them on a pallet table. Only he didn't drill holes first. So I drilled holes through the muck Tuesday, maybe it has drained now.

Ashe County Pimento finally sprouted yesterday and one of the eggplants. I should go see if anything is up this morning.

Larry, I am so glad you found your light table....and stop blaming Madge! Tim always tries to blame me for things he misplaces in his garage, and 99% of the time they are things that I've never touched. I agree that getting old is not for sissies, but it is better than pushing up daisies.

It was beautiful here today as well---sunny, warm (76 degrees this afternoon!), lots of clear, blue sky, though clouds are rolling in now. There was barely any wind. I wish we had more March days like this. The downside of the warmth was that wasps were out flying around, but I didn't bother them and they didn't bother me. There also were a lot of butterflies and bees out, so I certainly wasn't alone out there in the garden.

Amy, I hope you're feeling better today. I grow lots of things in flat, black cement mixing tubs set on top of a deck box in my garden. I started out growing lettuce in them, and that is what they have this year, but I've also grow some of the mini-tomatoes in them, kale, Swiss chard and even flowers and cotton last year. The deck box was for storage before we put the new shed in the garden, but after I moved everything from it to the shed, I looked at it and thought it was just the perfect height to hold the cement mixing tubs.

Megan, I kind of like Potterville myself. This is a strange year for cool-season crops. I have planted much less of them than usual merely because I was planting so late. At least I finally was able to plant this week, though the soil still was surprisingly wet, and there's supposed to be quite a bit more rain coming in a couple of days. The new plantings may get waterlogged, but at least they will have a chance to sink....or swim.....and if the rain kills them, I won't replace them. I'll just move on to the warm-season stuff.

Jennifer, We had a dog named Honey (Jet's mom) who was a stray and apparently had learned to fend for herself before we took her in, and she would kill a rabbit, eat it and then leave the head of our front porch Welcome mat. Yuck! She and I went round and round about my opinion that she needed to stop killing rabbits, but eventually she did. I did make it clear to her that I was not happy, and never was going to be happy, about finding rabbit heads on the Welcome mat. I assume she left them there to show us what a great hunter she was.

Rebecca, Sorry about the squirrels. I hope you all have fun and enjoy your get-together. Your Johnny Jump-ups look nice.

Nancy, It is nice that people can learn how to fix their own appliances nowadays and it is so easy to order parts online. Tim has gotten really good at fixing the washer and dryer, which is necessary since they don't make them like they used to.

Jen, I'll never forget the spring of 2011. Had we been smarter, I guess we would have seen it as an omen of the summer to come. All I remember is it was abnormally warm and windy together at the same time and it was roasting and toasting people's tomato plants as they were trying to harden them off. I answered more questions about environmental damage on tomato plants that spring than ever before or since. I also remember we hit the 90s the week after Easter, while we were at an all-day, all-week fire training thing at Lake Murray State Park. I was up there feeding firefighters snacks, drinks, lunch and maybe dinner daily (it was a lot of food we hauled up there every day....) and rushing home in the evening, trying to get the last of my tomato plants in the ground, making very little progress in the heat and wind. It is a big issue, mentally, when you're putting tomato plants in the ground and it is 88 or 90 degrees. So discouraging, and sure enough, the plants I got into the ground earliest that year produced the best and the ones that went in later produced the worst because it got so hot so early and then stayed hot. If we never have another spring and summer like 2011, I'll be happy. The last really bad one before that was 1980 and I remember we felt the same way then, and it remained our worst summer ever until 2011 beat it.

I saw the photo of your tomatoes on FB and it reminded me of the years I grew winter tomatoes and winter peppers in containers, but I decided it wasn't worth the trouble and stopped doing it.

I've got my cool-season crops planted and all the tomatoes (all 180 of them) potted up into red Solo cups. I'd been stalling on potting up, hoping the soil would warm up so quickly that I could skip this step, but nope, the soil is still too cold so all the tomato plants are potted up now. I am tired after the last couple of days, but it is the good kind of tired.

I made it inside in time to watch the local news on our favorite local channel (a CBS affiliate only to discover that March Madness is on instead of the 6 pm news. Ugg. I could completely miss all the basketball craziness and not miss it at all.

Dawn

I brought a pepper plant in this winter, only because it still had fruit and was in a pot. So it'll go back out for year two. But I really didn't put much work into it, just dump some water on it every now and then.

In the process of potting basil seedlings. I currently have 50, and at least that many more to go. Minus all the ones I'll kill before SF, I should have plenty to share.

Megan, I vote for Potterville. Put a Hogwarts banner on the fence. Okay, that might be too much. (not for me but for your HOA)

I don't have much else to talk about. I left the lid on the pea seeds that were barely sprouted. The cooked. They are in one of those lettuce containers with a hinged lid. I stuck them in the soil just to see if they would...live.

Oh my! So, does salvia send roots out for a mile?! If so, why didn't someone warn me. Today I noticed that something was poking up through the half-broken down cardboard and wood chips in the pathways of the garden and it was attached to long root things. They were all surrounding a small circle bed that held a salvia last year. I pulled out as much as I could. Salvia probably isn't a good thing to have in a veggie garden. Maybe WAY out along the fence line.

In 2011 I remember major snows in January and February. Then...that summer. Wasn't gardening then, but kids couldn't play outside until near dark and even then it was still so hot. We were still in town then. Ethan was 10 and his piano skills improved so much that summer and we did jigsaw puzzles. Mason worked at Earlywine pool and even working as a lifeguard at a pool was miserable.

Jen, I overwintered tomato plants and pepper plants in the garage before we had the greenhouse. I'd drag them into the garage to hopefully stay above freezing at night, and drag them back out into the sunshine every morning. They did bloom and produce fruit, but it took forever for it to enlarge and ripen and wasn't worth the time spent dragging them in and out. Later on, with the greenhouse, I had more success with them, even though I don't heat the greenhouse, but they still didn't produce that many fruit and I found the flavor only marginally better than grocery store tomatoes. I could grow small tomato plants in pots in the greenhouse or sunroom all winter, but they just don't get enough intense sunlight and heat for the flavor compounds to develop, so I decided there's no point. At the time we had home-grown greenhouse tomatoes with poor winter flavor, I went right to the store (Central Market) and bought winter heirloom tomatoes grown in greenhouses (hydroponically, I'm guessing, based on their flavor or lack of such) in Texas to see if they tasted like mine. They did. While they looked beautiful in the full array of heirloom colors, they didn't smell or taste like tomatoes. They had very little flavor at all, though their texture was better than standard grocery store tomatoes, and my taste buds could detect a off-taste that I thought made their flavor worse than our home-grown winter tomatoes. I gave up on the idea of fresh winter tomatoes at that point and just began to enough during the tomato season that we can have tomatoes for cooking or dehydrated tomatoes to toss into salads. A person can heat a greenhouse, home or sunroom enough to produce ripe tomatoes, but we cannot easily give them light with the same intensity as summer sunlight. I wish we could.

If you avoid overwatering the basil seedlings and keep them warm, they shouldn't die! Well, unless cats sleep on them or dogs eat them, because I do know firsthand how hard pets are on flats of plants. My cats think any flat of seedlings surely is meant to be a cat bed planted just for them. They drive me crazy crushing flats of plants, and you cannot keep cats out of a greenhouse when the doors are open for air flow.

Jennifer, Whatever the long roots you're dealing with might be, I don't think they are salvia roots. My salvias, and I have many perennial ones in the veggie garden, have neatly contained root systems that do not cause problems with anything else. I have salvias that have been in the exact same spot in veggie beds for 10 years and their roots never have been found anywhere except directly beneath the salvia plants, so I suspect you have some weed sending out long roots beneath the cardboard trying to find a place to pop up and grow. In our earlier years here, ragweed did that in my garden. I'd find one small plant, go to dig it up, and find long running root like things that would extend out 12' or more just a couple of inches below ground. If I left them, eventually ragweed popped up above ground all along those running root things, so I dug up every bit of those roots in order to get rid of the ragweed and haven't had it pop up in the garden since then. If salvias sent out long roots, I'd encounter then when I'm planting veggie transplants or seeds into the beds, often only about a foot from a salvia plant, and I never have found any of those sorts of spreading roots. My salvia plants in the veggie beds are either in corners of the beds so they are easy to plant around or they run like a border along one side of a veggie bed. If you watch your salvia plants enlarge each year, you will see they grow in a clumping form, sending up new basal shoots, not in a running form by sending up shoots off long roots. This is why perennial salvias usually are propagated from cuttings, division of established clumps or by breaking off heels (small pieces of a clump with a little bit of root attached and basal shoots popping up off that heel). I wish that salvias would send out long running roots that would sprout plants....I'd love to have many more salvias and that would be a great way to propagate them.

Today, after I carry a billion flats of plants out to spend the day sitting in the sun, I hope to spend most of the day in the garden with my four year old helper. That probably means we'll have to work around whatever time SpongeBob is on TV though. : )

Based on the forecast it seems like today might be the last good day to work in a non-rainy garden. The rain in the forecast for overnight and the early morning hours tomorrow likely mean no gardening tomorrow, and then on Sunday we have plans that preclude the possibility of me even stepping foot in the garden. Then the rain returns anyway for Sunday.

Here's the 7-day QPF with its forecast rainfall amounts:

7-Day QPF

At least the forecast shows warmer temperatures lie ahead for a change.

Here's the 6-10 day outlook:

CPC 6-10 Day Temperature Outlook

It doesn't really matter to me if the 6-10 day or 8-14 day outlooks show average temperatures or warmer than average temperatures just as long as they do not show below-average temperatures.

I'm just hoping the cold nights stop hanging on so firmly as they have been as they are keeping our average soil temperatures from climbing as quickly as I'd like.

Despite the cold nights, we're really greening up rapidly now, and I keep telling Tim that I think the winter fire season is almost over, and he keeps saying it isn't. Of course, technically speaking, we now are in the spring fire season. We did have a grass fire/small wild fire in our neighborhood last week (and, in fact, it was at a place located on our road, about 2 miles north of our house) and I believe it was started by someone mowing a pasture, so they probably hit a rock or something and then a spark set the dry and dormant grasses on fire. Then, because we still are so muddy, the first fire truck on the scene got stuck in the mud as soon as it drove through the pasture gate. It was bogged down in mud up to its axles. That is pretty typical of what happens when we are immensely wet here. I actually think we are starting to dry up nicely now with the help of sunshine and warmth. All our driveway puddles dried up yesterday, and now there is only one large puddle at the southwest corner of the garage, but it really isn't in the driveway....it is just off the driveway. I have to walk through that mud puddle, which has resembled a small lake for the last 6 months, to reach the back garden, so I'm just focusing on the front garden for now, and will switch my focus to the back garden in another week to 10 days, even if it means stomping through the mud to reach it.

Dawn

Everything I've potted up has moved into the garage, though I'm quickly running out of room. Aldi has those little greenhouses on sale next week so if I can find one I'll pick it up and use that to put everything on. Then next year I can put it & the one inside in the garage and not have to worry about cats. They may be worthless in our area as greenhouses, but they do have their uses.

I'm stumped then....if it's not salvia. It's not like any of the weeds I've dealt with. I'll try to get a pic of them. It's not ragweed. I do have ragweed that pops up and its root system is impressive. These are not so complicated--just a somewhat straight runner thing and a little bit of green sprouting at the place it peeks up. The strawberry bed is next to the salvia bed. But usually strawberry runners move along the top of the ground, but maybe because there's wood chips in the pathways, they went under so they could touch the soil. I don't think so...but it's (almost) definitely something that's come from something I've planted.

I need to dump the chicken poo hammock and then I'm heading out to the fairgrounds. Luckily they are indoors this year. Last year, they were outside and it was so windy.

Jen, those greenhouses probably aren't worthless as greenhouses, but they need to be scooted in when it's super windy. I think that's what my neighbor does. I haven't tried to repair mine yet. My other neighbor has a nice permanent style greenhouse. She has a lot of tropical types of plants that they put around their pool area in the warm months. It's lovely. They all live in the greenhouse during the winter.

Dawn, our area has missed the heavy rains. We don't have puddles. The soil is plenty wet, but it's not muddy.

I've enjoyed Spring Break. I worked yesterday, but other than Sunday, it's the only day. I'm sad that it's over. Next week will probably be a booger. I won't get my beloved Monday. (I will, of course...because it's a day of the week, but not in the same way.)

These are not the best pics, but what is this? The little green sprouts are all attached to that root runner thing.

We were sort of leaning toward Potterville, so y'all are apparently mind readers!

I didn't get anything up potted last night as planned but it was for a worthy cause. If you're familiar with post-op care, my FIL has an ice machine and his gave out. I took care of a friend after he had surgery a few years ago, so I ran to his house, then to my FIL with the borrowed ice machine. I can't stop and see either without chatting for a while so the sun was down after doing all that. Rule is that Friday nights are fend for yourself nights, so since I won't be cooking dinner, I should have time for potting tonight.

The nearest mesonet station shows soil at 100% saturation today, but my raised beds (2ft high) will need to be watered anyway. Rain is in the forecast for us for this evening if I believe the local mets (which I don't), but it's still only a trace amount and not a great chance. Similar story for the rain on Sunday. Before long it will be time to get the drip irrigation running but for right now, I can keep up with watering. Soil temps in my containers are doing good too. Measured last night and the tomato bed was 59* an hour or two after sunset.

More news is starting to come out about what Nebraska farmers are facing and it might be worse than we feared as many of them were storing their corn locally - trying to wait out the market due to the trade war with China. Here's a Reuter's article. It shows a picture of Chinook helicopter being loaded with hay to provide relief. Just a terrible situation. I have a friend in Nebraska who has been sharing lots of local updates and it really is unbelievable.

Well, it's getting difficult to type and eat my lunch. Have a great day and a great weekend!

Megan, I am so concerned about everyone in Nebraska---of course, I think the farmers and ranchers are getting the worst of it, but then there's all the local businesses whose livelihood depend on the farmers and ranchers too. It is so heartbreaking and so devastating and really, simply stunning, when you read the first-hand reports and see the videos and photos. My mind is boggled. How in the world does anyone recover from such utter devastation on so many fronts---not just the loss of their financial livelihood, livestock lines they've been breeding forever, buildings, equipment, land that may be silted, badly eroded and ruined for some time in terms of being able to use it properly and start working on recovery, etc., but then the loss of homes, personal belongings, family heirlooms, paperwork, etc. Then there are the communities that will be crippled with overwhelming financial needs---roads, water treatment plants, and other infrastructure that need to be rebuilt, etc. My heart goes out to all the people there, and I think Nebraskans overall are such good, strong, salt-of-the-earth folks who are used to taking care of themselves and their neighbors, and I worry about the mental and psychological toll all of this will take on folks like that who aren't used to asking any form of government for help. They are going to need all the help they can get.

There is the larger worry about other states too. Water flows downstream, and all those crazy-heavy winter snows are going to melt, and then the ground will thaw in the cold states, releasing even more water that currently is trapped as in-ground ice, etc. The flood outlook for much of the country looks really bleak for the next few months. My mind goes back to 1993 and the massive flooding that year, and I wonder if this year's flooding could come close to that. At the present time, only mild flooding is expected to touch Oklahoma so I don't think most of us have to worry about flooding, but we still do have heavily saturated soils already and our rainy season really hasn't begun yet. It really doesn't take flooding to create garden struggles---just heavily saturated soil alone will do that.

I read an outstanding blog post about the spring flood outlook on WU yesterday, and it was very sobering to read it and to think about all the lives potentially to be affected by the coming Spring 2019 floods.

I hope you have a productive weekend and can get gardening things done. After a productive last couple of days, I feel much better about the spring garden overall, even though my soil moisture still is horrifically high, even in my raised beds. I am trying to file away all those concerns about soil moisture in the category of "that which I cannot change" because even well-amended, raised beds that function just fine 90% of the time still are going to be wet after months of being 100% saturated plus. At least there are no puddles standing in my raised beds.

Jennifer, I will start by saying that I do not believe four o'clocks form long running roots like that--they form huge potato-like tubers that can get to be the size of a human head in just a few short years, but....having said that, those little plants, including the one you're holding in your hand, look quite a bit like emerging four o'clocks....not seed-grown four o'clocks, whose cotyledons are quite distinct and not visible in your photos, but returning four o'clocks. So, I guess the question is whether or not you have any four o'clocks to compare these little plants to, and if not, what else do you have growing that has similar foliage. I think they are a weed because those little heart-shaped leaves look so familiar, but I don't know the name of them. What I remember about them is that I removed little ones like that from our garden by the hundreds for several years in our first decade here until they finally all were gone.

The thing about those little greenhouses is (a) they don't keep plants warmer outdoors at night unless you run a heater at night because the plastic has virtually no heat retention value and they are too small to have enough mass inside to hold heat....so on freezing nights, without a heater, plants will freeze; a person might be able to mitigate that a small bit by placing them on a concrete or stone foundation like a patio or a corner of their driveway though. (b) Strong wind will bend them, break them or carry them away---I have seen this happen to people over and over again who loved their little portable greenhouse until the first strong wind it faced destroyed it. Sadly we have no lack of strong wind here in OK in some months. (c) The smaller a greenhouse, the harder it is to properly regulate the temperatures inside, so keeping the plants warm enough at night and cool enough during the day is a real challenge. Even small hard-plastic 4' x 6' greenhouses are hard to regulate (I had a neighbor with one and an uncle with one) temperature-wise. I know folks who have gone off to work happily, leaving their plants in their little portable soft-plastic greenhouses like this, only to come home on a hot Spring day and find the plants pretty much roasted, toasted and dead or dying because they forget to unzip the door to release heat or they chose not to unzip the door because the morning air was so cold when they left for work. A person who is home all day and who can unzip the door and open it to vent out heat might have more success with them, but there's still the issue of them not holding in heat at night. I always like them when I see them and picture plants inside sheltered from the wind and then toy with the idea of buying one just for hardening off plants right inside the garden, but I don't buy one because I know how hard it is to regulate temperatures inside my much-larger hoophouse style greenhouse, and it has 4 operable vents for air flow and cooling and two walk-in doors that can be opened to facilitate air flow and cooling too, and I have a large evaporative cooler I can roll into it and use as well, and I've been gardening long enough to know the smaller the greenhouse, the harder such temperature and air flow regulation is. The best use for these little things is either inside a garage or barn to protect seedlings from cats, mice and such, or inside a house if cats are a problem, or maybe inside a larger greenhouse or hoophouse for plants that need extra cold protection or perhaps if you need to do serious plant propagation you could do it inside one of these because you could hold in the humidity better in such a small confined space---sort of like a propagation chamber.

Be grateful you don't have standing water...it breeds mosquitoes and ground that has been saturated for months develops a sour smell that smells worse than a swamp. I am sure that all the grasses and wildflowers are dead in the areas where water has been standing almost nonstop since September. I always hope for rain to miss us here during March and April when it is time to plant because wet, soggy clay is hard on seeds, often rotting them before they can sprout. I can water if we are too dry, but I don't have any way to extract excess moisture from the soil. When I was planting brassicas this week, I hit standing water about 2" lower than the depth at which I was transplanting seedlings, and that is in a raised bed, albeit a raised bed at the lower, more soggy end of the garden. Sadly, that well-amended clay seems to wick moisture upward from the wetter ground beneath the raised beds. So, my brassicas may not make it and if they don't, they don't, and I'll just move on to the next thing. I am worried about what Spring rainfall will do to an already soggy garden but rainfall is one of those things over which we have no control. The sad thing is that we could use this moisture in June, July and August, but those are the months when rain can become quite rare to almost nonexistent.

Jen, I am watching our forecast and thinking that the cold nights are almost done with us, so maybe you can squeak through this Spring without having to do too much more plant protection. Our soil temperatures, at least in the raised beds, are coming up pretty rapidly too. We just need for the nights to stop dipping into the 30s because that is keeping the soil from holding its nice daytime temperatures, which are in the 60s. I probably could plant tomato plants in the ground today, and certainly could plant them in containers, and feel like the soil mostly is warm up for them, but our average soil temperatures keep lagging behind our daytime soil temps because the nights are still slightly cool on some nights.

We also haven't had much really strong wind....say, gusts in the 30s or higher, since the bomb cyclone moved on, so I'm hoping that March, which did come roaring in like a lion here, is now sedating departing like a lamb. This has been a pleasant change as the tomato plants are out all day long now and get enough wind to toughen them up but not so much wind that they are damaged.

It is supposed to rain on and off here all day, so there's probably no hope to get in any gardening at all. At least everything that I transplanted into the ground earlier this week should get some nice light rain, and hopefully no big downpours or I'm going to have to build raised beds on top of my raised beds, which would be ridiculous.

Almost "everybody" is back now....Purple Martins, hummingbirds, monarchs, etc. to add to a plethora of bees, bumble bees, wasps, yellow jackets, all kinds of moths and butterflies, craneflies, etc. This week Spring absolutely exploded into being here, not only in name, but in the reality of the flora and fauna, and it is so good to finally feel like I can start spending at least a part of every day in the garden. As long as the grandkids are still living here, it likely won't be all day every day because the 4 year old gets bored after about 4 hours of gardening time, but Chris and Jana are working on the last big project---that 14' long closet that is almost big enough to be a room and, once they finish that, they can move into their home. I'm going to miss them, and I haven't minded adapting my garden time so I can spend more time with the girls---it truly has been a gift to be able to spend so much time with all 4 of the---the big kids and the little kids---over the last month and the house undoubtedly will seem too quiet, too empty and sort of lonely once they are gone.

Dawn

Well, Dawn, we have puddles now. It's been raining for awhile. :)

I'll just keep pulling those little runner things out. I have no idea what they are. First time I've seen them in my garden. Super easy to pull out at this point. I just can't find the source of them. It's almost like they have a center point ...and they all lead to that little bed the salvia was in. But, it's not salvia, so I have no idea. I checked with a girl from PW at the home show yesterday and she didn't know either.

I think, for me, the little greenhouse was to be used for hardening off purposes. I still want one for that and I hope I can repair my crumbled one. If not, I might just get a shelving unit and put the cover over it.

Hardening off this way is much easier. Starting seed later so they can get real sunlight and wind almost from the start. haha. I'm sure it has it's negatives too. My plants are smaller.

The home show was a lot of fun. They people are very different this year (at both shows). There are people who are truly interested in gardening and, I think, they come out just for that "booth". They are at all levels of gardening experience. I just want one of the "prop" greenhouses that Quality provides. Nice. Not in my budget. I'm so ready to take a trip to PW, but I'll wait until April when I feel better about planting some warmer weather herbs and such. I saw on our forecast that we have a chance of a freeze next weekend. WHY?! I hope that changes.

I picked up swiss chard and a couple of spinach plants yesterday at the home show. Because I didn't start swiss chard and because my spinach is slow. Oh so slow.

Finbar darted out last night. My hands were full of plants so I couldn't grab him. He didn't come back...and he still hasn't come back. The two times he stayed out all night, he was waiting at the door in the morning. My hope is that he is somewhere dry and is waiting for the rain to stop before coming home. My worry is that last night, the dog to our east was really upset at something. She doesn't usually bark like that for so long. Their property has a pond and trees behind it.

We have a couple of owls around...and one was on our property two nights ago (In fact, I was worried it was in the coop) because I heard them calling to each other. It's so upsetting when they don't come in at night. (cats not owls) It's so dangerous for them to stay out all night. I've been making him stay in after the bunny incidents...and just because he needs to be indoors at night. He was too quick last night while my hands were full.

And Marjorie was moving slowly this morning. She talked to me, though. Maybe she is just an old lady (like me haha) and it takes a bit to get going in the morning.

Okay...need to get chicken food now. Off to TSC. Hopefully won't bring home baby chicks.

Edited to say that Dawn, I'm sorry you will miss your kids when they move into their home. I can tell how much you've enjoyed having them live with you. If my house was big enough, I would want my kids and their spouses and their kids (once my kids are married and have kids haha!) all with me. Not likely to happen. But, I'm glad you got to have this experience with Chris, Jana, and the girls. I'm sure you've grown even closer to them.

H/J, is there wisteria near that bed with the strange plant? The description made me think of wisteria. If I'd known how invasive it was I would never have planted it. On the other hand, it is one thing that has survived in the area where everything else dies. Wisteria sends out underground runners that can pop up a long way from the mother plant.

This will be year 3 trying to finish off the Wisteria Formerly Known as Godzilla. There are runners p still coming up on the other side of the house! The Revenge of Godzilla is going to be the death of me. Brush killer only works if you get every last runner.

Think any grand gardening plans just got derailed by the car shop.

I began a post yesterday afternoon and kept getting sidetracked. Eventually, of course, I lost it altogether. It's remarkable how it was winter winter winter and then suddenly spring! I'm glad it wasn't suddenly SUMMER! Not yet, anyway. We had the cool day and rain we were expected to have; the rain has been on and off all day.

The time while raining was well spent, meeting Tulsa group for lunch. As always, so good to see them.. I'm in the middle of a cold, so no touching or hugging and I sat at the end of the table. And we were without electricity this morning, so no dressing up or cleaning up to go.

I can't fathom having hummingbirds here, Dawn. Sounds very strange to hear you say everyone's there.

And yes, I know it will feel so strange, lonely, quiet for a few days with the kids moving on. I'm so glad you had this time with them.

Did Finbar make it back yet, Jennifer? Darn cats! As it gets warmer, I expect it will happen here, too. They already use the house mostly as a fast-food joint and a place to crash for a few hours at night.

My nose is running and itchy. I'll catch you all tomorrow!

Oh Nancy, I'm sorry you're sick. Hope you feel better soon. SO glad you had a good visit, though.

Finbar did make it back. We went to Sams and TSC and by the time we made it back it had stopped raining and he just...appeared. Thanks for asking.

Rebecca, you have car issues? So sorry.

Amy, I've never planted wisteria... that I'm aware of anyway. I just keep pulling those suckers up. I left one just because I want to see what it is.

It's thundering again. We had a nice afternoon. Walked the dogs and worked outside. We only got a half inch of rain so the garden wasn't muddy.

The ladybugs are all over the henbit. There's tons of them and they look like the regular ones...not the Asian ones.

I keep forgetting so say that my Dad is from Nebraska. I have family there-. Their town is okay, though. Truly good people. I've never known better.

I didn't bring home baby chicks. TSC was totally out! Phew.

Jennifer, I am glad y'all got some rain, but not too much.

We got about 0.20" this morning, but all the rest of the rain and hail have missed us and I'm not sorry that it did.

It has been so nice having the kids here, but it will be just as nice to have them living 30 miles north. We still likely will see them every week or every other week so it will be fine. I have had to explain to Aurora several times today that they are not going to live here forever---that they will be moving into their new house soon. I am not sure she understands why they are working so hard on that house if not to live in it. I keep telling her that they are getting the house ready for all of them to move into together. Today she said she was staying here when the house is done, and I told her no, you will move with the rest of your family when it is time. lol. I think she has gotten so attached to our dogs and cats that she cannot bear the thought of leaving them.

.Nancy, I hope you're feeling better soon.

Spring did just explode here...there were signs last week, like the cedar waxwings migrating quickly northward, and the robins clustering and eating here the week before. Not sure if they were migrating or live around here, but after 2 or 3 days they were gone.

It is strange to have hummingbirds back this early, but they've been moving north pretty quickly on the tracking websites so I'm not surprised the first ones are here already. I've been expecting them. Same thing with monarchs---they are getting ahead of the sprouting of the milkweed. I really don't understand it, but apparently some of them are really eager to make it further north this Spring.

Rebecca, I hate it when cars act up like that!

That wisteria may live forever. I'm not sure that anyone, anywhere, ever has been able to kill a wisteria on purpose. Good luck with it.

Did any of y'all get hail like Megan got at her place? I am glad the hail wasn't bigger and the damage wasn't worse.

We're going to a birthday party up in the OKC area tomorrow, so I'm starting next week's general discussion thread tonight. Feel free to start posting on it whenever you want.

Dawn

Once again last night I didn’t get my gardening/potting up done. My FIL was admitted to the hospital yesterday with pneumonia and we needed to run stuff to the hospital. This morning when I got up, it was raining and then I had a hair appointment. After that, I went by Mia’s to get some bamboo to make plant stakes. It wasn’t long after getting the bamboo unloaded that we were hit by the thunderstorm that rolled through Edmond. It poured hail. I’ve seen it hail hard and so much that it covered the ground but I’ve never seen it come down that fast. There’s a video on my Facebook page if you’re curious. Luckily I had just moved my seed trays indoors about 20 minutes before so they didn’t get beaten. I could smell garlic when I went in the backyard and it got pretty neat up. Most of my recently planted plants - kales and lettuce - were small enough that I think they actually came out okay or that at least they’ll bounce back as long as they didn’t get frozen. At sunset there were still piles of hail in some places.

So just another uneventful (ha!) 24 hours for the Huntley household.