There IS this shiney thing out there today. I need to go out and pull all the plants out of their shelter and make sure they aren't drowning.

I planted Fowler bush beans the other day and they are sprouting. The Royal Purple are not. It is almost time for the spinach to bolt. Do any of you freeze it? The big chore for this week will be planting tomatoes. Maybe peppers, too. I need to dig the weeds out of the flower beds and throw some annual seeds in there. I don't understand how you can get reseeding flowers, when the weeds want to take over. The only thing blooming is the new comfrey plants. I still have pansies in the front and ice plants blooming in the front. There is a collard blooming, which should help out the pollinators. It seems like all my greens are ready at the same time. The volunteer garlic looks way better than what I planted.

We went to Bartlesville yesterday and placed Mom's ashes in the niche in the cemetery. I wanted to wait till it wasn't cold and miserable but it was still rainy and cold wind on May 10. We had a long visit with my brothers and sister and my dad.

Everyone have a good week.

Thanks, Amy, I sure hope it's a good week. The weather looks nice...almost on the verge of being hot. 70 with sunshine really is my fav temp.

Good luck with your tomato and pepper plantings. What is the deal with spinach. I have the most terrible time with it. Mine that is barely big enough to harvest looks like it's bolting too!

Weeding. I need a full two days in the garden to get all of the weeding done. I actually enjoy weeding if I can sit in the shade.

We took the top soil off the whiskey barrels and added fresh soil (Finbar used them as a litter box). They are planted up so prettily. I stuffed them full of beauties and added rocks/stones in all the empty spots. Hopefully that will keep Finn out of them. I also put a plastic box with some of the old soil on the shop porch...maybe he will use that as his litterbox.

My other issue is chickens. It's not just Rosslyn Kaye now. I'm pretty sure they are flying over. Maybe there's another hole in the fence. I turn my back for a minute, and they're out. They're scratching up the beds around their pen and I want to get those planted, but don't dare until I figure out how to keep them in their yard. So annoying. The 3 broodies went back to the main flock tonight. They put themselves on roost bars so maybe moving them out for a week broke it. I sure hope so. I suspect someone will try it again, but if I can hold it off until June, that would be preferable. There is something really fun about hatching out babies, but I just don't need babies right now.

The garden plants look good except the peas. they are so yellow, although have flowers and peas (that will be harvested tomorrow).

We had a good time at the banquet although we didn't stay for the dance. I had to work today and wanted to be home early last night. Ethan got a really cool award. The Louis Armstrong Jazz award. It's sort of a big deal and he was thrilled to get it. He loves jazz music. I feel like any of you who are my FB friends already know everything going on in my life. haha. We were tagged in a lot of pictures and I wanted to post a couple more myself, but will wait.

Hoping to quickly finish up some housework in the morning and get outdoors. Our last band meeting is tomorrow night. It feels weird. It seems like I was just the freshman Mom who was confused by OBA, OMEA, etc., etc. ,etc. Where did the time go? It truly seems like it was just last year.

Hope everyone had a good day. Mom's Day is wonderful and hard too. Thinking of you who are experiencing your first Mother's Day without your Mom. Hugs to you.

Nancy, Well, my garden is almost 200 miles south of yours, so of course there will be some differences in the timing of various plants. It probably is most obvious in spring. I look at my tomato plants that have been in the ground for about 8 weeks now and marvel at their size, but then why shouldn't they be nice and big after two months in the ground? It just doesn't feel like they should be this big yet because we've had nothing but rain and clouds for so long and I think all the gray skies and cooler temperatures have made me feel like we're stuck in March or early April. I'm looking forward to seeing how they do with actual sunshine. It would be nice to see how they do with somewhat drier soil, but I don't know if that will happen. We may not get to dry up very much before the rain returns this weekend. Any cool season plants that are left in my garden now are on the clock to hurry up and finish up as the heat sets in this week. I have found that trying to baby them through the heat and carry them as far into summer as possible really isn't all that productive, so I don't do it. That means my garden is entering a time of transition now where cool-season plants will be finishing up and warmer season plants will be going in.

Mosquitoes were horrible yesterday afternoon. I hadn't put on any mosquito repellent and I didn't really want to spray any on me so late in the day so I just gave up and came indoors.

I wish there were easy solutions to kill mosquitoes. The best predators we have here are dragonflies, bats and purple martins but I think we'll have tons more mosquitoes than they ever could eat this year.

Amy, I have frozen spinach and it works quite well. I just triple wash it, blanch it for 2 minutes, drain off as much of the water as possible (water seems to cling to it and I usually end up patting it dry with paper towels to remove as much as I can), pack it into containers (leaving 1/2" head space) and put it in the freezer.

In order to protect reseeding flowers, I weed constantly. It is not an exaggeration to say I weed daily. If I don't, the weeds absolutely take over and then I cannot see the reseeding plants popping up. I've been weeding all spring as the weather allows, but still am not as caught up on weeding as usual for mid-May.

I have noticed that in the south border alongside the garden fence where I'm slowly planting more perennials and less annuals, I have a lot less weeds since the soil gets disturbed less often. I have been really slow to plant perennials in our clay because even when it is well-amended, they just don't like it. Oh, they like it just fine in general when nothing extreme is going on, but throw in one of those days/months like May 2015 when we had 24" of rain that month and 12" of that in one day, and perennials can keel over dead in a heartbeat. So I never plant too many of one new perennial until I've tested it over a period of 2-3 years. Then if that specific perennial survives the wild swings from soggy wet clay to dry, rock-hard clay and no rain, I add more of the same kind. That makes converting for annuals to perennials a slow process. So far, the big winners are daylilies, autumn sage (some varieties, not all), meadow sage 'lyrical' and hardy hibiscus. This year I've added more daylilies and more autumn sage to the garden. The dianthus has formed huge mounds that have been in bloom for a couple of months and they look spectacular now. They'll survive summer and go in and out of bloom all summer long, but they never look as good in summer as they do in spring. For me, dianthus is fairly short-lived---maybe 3 or 4 years and then either excess rainfall over a prolonged period gets it, or drought does. I'm trying to get away from having to plant a lot of annuals each spring or to rely on reseeders because then I can mulch very heavily around the perennials and have even less weeds. That's mostly only in the big border though. All my other beds get annuals tucked in here and there among the veggies for color and for the beneficial insects.

For Mother's Day, the kids and grandkids gave me a Lowe's gift card because they know I always want to buy more plants, so I bought 3 really large salvias and 3 medium-sized ones. (Imagine how many flats of annuals I could have bought for the same money! Oh well, the perennials should last a lot longer.) The large salvias are your typical ones with a bluish bloom and must have been in full bloom when they arrived at the store, but aren't in bloom any more. I'll cut off all the spent flower heads when I plant them this afternoon. They are not May Night (which tends to die here if it rains much in winter at all), but are called April Night and I'm hoping they'll fare better than May Night in our soil so I didn't just waste my gift card. The smaller ones have pinkish-rose colored blooms and will be a nice contrast to all the blue salvias I have in that bed. I have some Russian sage in that same bed, but they really needs better drainage than they get so they are surviving but not necessarily thriving. The daylilies are an iffy thing too even though I love them. Voles will devour them in a dry summer, so I don't spend money on the fancy ones. Chris and Jana have a long daylily shopping list they've been working on to order for planting this fall that is nothing but fancy ones that rebloom and I know that once they get theirs planted and blooming, I'll have serious daylily envy. The obvious solution would be to ditch growing potatoes and fill that tall raised bed, lined with hardware cloth, with daylilies, but I'm not ready to give up potatoes just yet. We could build a new tall bed lined with hardware cloth along the north garden fence line and I could grow daylilies there.....that might be a nice winter building project.

I saw tons of penstemons at Lowe's and I do love penstemons, but they abhor our soil so won't even survive one summer if it is a rainy one. I passed them by, but if we built that tall raised bed at the north end of the garden, I could plant penstemons with the daylilies.

I'm sorry you had bad weather for your outing to the cemetery. I wish it had been better weather for y'all. I hope your dad is doing well--I know he must miss her terribly, as do all of you. When my dad died, my mom just seemed bewildered and befuddled for months (if not years)---she just didn't know what to do without him---after 52 years together, her world was upended. I know I cannot really comprehend how that must feel.

Jennifer, I think it will feel really hot because we aren't used to it even though the temperatures will be nice. Yesterday it was only 82 or something but the humidity was high and Tim and I were dying out there. We're only supposed to go up to 84 or 85 here by the end of the week, but our temperatures tend to over-achieve when the sun is shining, so we'll see.

Spinach (and most other greens) bolt as a reaction to the combination of longer day length and temperatures. The magic numbers for spinach are a day length around 14 hours (at our house, today we'll be just 7 minutes shy of that) and daytime highs of 75. Since we have no control over daylength and temperatures, we just have to accept that spinach is short-lived in Spring. It does much better as a fall crop. If you can get it planted and growing well in the fall before day length hits the Persephone days, then you can just continue harvesting it all winter. Some years fall spinach here gets huge (in the nice autumns where we have adequate rainfall and don't stay in the 100s and upper 90s through September).

Your chickens sound like they have Spring Fever, and who can blame them? They've waited out the long monsoon season like the rest of us. Mine try to sneak in through the garden gate every time I leave it open, so I try to close it behind me when I go into the garden. They cannot fly over the fence, but every now and then one of them manages to dig and scratch in the softer sandy soil at the west end of the garden and come under the fence. That hasn't happened so far this year though.

Congrats to Ethan for winning The Louis Armstrong award. I am sure he earned it through all his hard work, talent and skill. It is so nice to see someone recognized like that. I enjoyed seeing all the photos y'all were tagged in and it looked like it was a fun event.

Time flies doesn't it? Carol described it really well once, saying that time is like a roll of toilet paper---unspooling slowly in the beginning, but then more and more rapidly as the roll gets smaller and smaller. I thought that was a great description, but I hate to think of it that way as we get closer to the end than to the beginning.

I would like to work in the garden all day, but Chris is dropping off our longest granddaughter as he heads down to Fort Worth to pick up their new tropical bird (to replace the one that died a couple of months ago). She'll be here a few hours, but I hope to go out and plant after she goes home. It really is too muddy to do much of anything out there anyway. Otherwise, she and I would spend the whole morning in the garden. I'm just hoping it will be a little drier by afternoon.

I have more to say about how we spent Mother's Day, but she'll be here soon so I need to get off the computer and get all the animals fed.

Dawn

So, the Mother's Day story.....after we first spent the morning running errands and delivered our extension ladder to Chris' house (we have a pickup truck, he doesn't) so they can spend some time this week painting the upper gables of their home's exterior, we returned home and spent the afternoon trying to hack back the jungle encroaching on the fenced front garden. I have complained loudly and long for at least 3 years about how badly the entire northern fence line and half the western fence line are being compromised by the approaching woodland (it has infiltrated what once was an open 10-15' wide area we kept mowed as a buffer between garden and woodland) and this has happened since 2015. Tim just lets it all go in one ear and out the other because the only outdoor work he really likes to do is mowing, so I pulled the Mother's Day card and said "what I really want to do today is to cut back all that stuff growing through the fence line". lol. He really had no choice then except to fire up the chain saw.

We cleared the western fence line quite a bit, and this included trees growing into the fence and through the fence. The issue was that some of these small trees (maybe 15' tall or so) had poison ivy growing up through them. So, while I was trying to pull down some of the limbs that Tim had cut, a big branch of poison ivy came down with them and slapped me across the face. I went indoors and triple-washed my face---first with the Technu Poison Ivy Cleanser (twice, as per label directions), then with orange GoJo hand-cleaner because it has grease cleaner ability plus little bits of pumice in it so is good at washing off the urushiol from the poison ivy. Then I poured rubbing alcohol on a paper towel and thoroughly wiped my face with it, over and over. So, hopefully what I got for Mother's Day was not poison ivy....we'll know in another 2 or 3 days.

Later on, after we were done and knowing how much we'd been in poison ivy, I grated up some Fels-Naptha soap and washed all our clothing we'd worn while doing that work. I think the Fels-Naptha (which long ago had the naptha removed) soap removes poison ivy's urushiol from clothing better than regular laundry detergents, which is why I used it. As a bonus, those clothes smelled so good after they were done---they smelled like laundry freshly brought in off a clothes line.

For some reason, though, after I had triple-washed my face following the poison ivy contact, once I went back outdoors, the mosquitoes wouldn't leave me alone. They were dive bombing my face, in particular, from all angles....and especially my eyeballs. It was crazy. I lasted about 15 minutes of slapping mosquitoes away from my face and went indoors. Clearly something in the Technu Poison Ivy cleaner, or the GoJo, or the rubbing alcohol was attracting them. It was late afternoon and we wouldn't have worked much longer outdoors anyway since we were going to grill steaks for dinner, so I went inside and Tim only stayed out about another half hour before the skeeters drove him in.

We still have most of the northern fence line to go, but at least the western fenceline and northwestern corner area are cleaned up and should get better sunlight now. Tim only destroyed one tomato plant by dropping a large tree limb right on it. It was a Greek Rose in a container, and honestly, even though I had to prune off 90% of it, I wasn't that upset. I always expect plant casualties when he is anywhere near the garden with power equipment.

So, I think Mother's Day 2019 will be memorable for the poison ivy and mosquitoes for sure.

My daughter uses the Fels Naptha on her skin instead of technu. It's cheaper and seems to work better for her. She's very allergic to Poison Ivy. She's so paranoid she cuts the soap up into little chunks so any oil that might be on the soap won't get on her if reused.

My mom is super allergic to PI, and swears by Zanfel. Pricy, but she thinks it’s worth it.

Hey Everyone. Hope you enjoyed the weather today and had time to spend in the garden. I did. Time for bed though. Will catch up tomorrow.

I always have used Technu and it has worked great, but since I had the Fels-Naptha, I thought I'd use it for the laundry too. I could have used it on my skin, but since I'd already triple washed before I thought of it, I decided I'd save that for the next time....because there will be a next time. There always is. So far, so good. No itchiness, no rash, so I'm hoping I lucked out. I've never had very much of a reaction to poison ivy, so there's that, but I'd rather avoid even a minor PI reaction, especially during prime gardening season.

We cannot step foot outside for 5 minutes without wearing mosquito repellent. Ugh. I hate it. As much as possible I spray it on my clothing instead of on my skin, but that means wearing long pants and long sleeves on days that are topping out in the mid-80s. This weather is going to turn me into a morning gardener really quickly.

Rebecca, Everything looks nice and green. May is just the best month for garden beauty!

Jennifer, When I've had a good day in the garden, I'm too tired to do anything at night except collapse into bed as well. Hope you got a good night's rest.

I harvested three more tomatoes yesterday, so they are starting to pick up the pace at which they are breaking color, but so far it is all Early Girls with everyone else lagging behind them. Perhaps the most amusing thing about this spring's garden is that the Early Girls actually are the earliest, because most years either SunGold or Cherokee Purple, or both, beat the Early Girls. These are Bush Early Girl plants so maybe they are more consistently early than standard Early Girls since they don't put much energy into foliar growth.

I am so enjoying the sunshine and the lack of rain. I know the rain comes back in the Fri-Sat time frame, with a chance for severe weather with it---this is May in Oklahoma after all---but I'm going to enjoy every good hour of sunshine we get between now and then. We still have water and mud simply everywhere, but it is easy to ignore it when the sun is shining. I don't have to waste any potential garden time mowing either because it is still too wet to mow. I refuse to mow if it means walking through standing water to do so.

The flowers in the front pasture are transitioning from the mid-Spring blooms to the late Spring blooms. It amazes me how consistently this happens every year---no matter how early or how late we warmed up or how wet or how dry---the wildflowers stick to their own timing.

The daylilies are about to bloom in the garden. They're on time as well. I always think they are too early when they first start blooming, but I mostly planted early-season and just a couple of mid-season varieties in the garden border, so they really aren't too early at all.

For everyday fun, I clip off all the asparagus plants at the ground daily. Despite what I've read for many years (which goes like this "if you want to take out an established asparagus planting, just mow it a few times with the lawn mower and it will go away"), it is not easy to get rid of it. Ours must have endless amounts of stored energy. I can clip it off at the ground one morning, and the next morning, new spears are a foot tall. They are getting thinner though, and fewer and fewer are coming back over time. A gentleman who gardened a few miles north of us passed away about a decade ago. I wouldn't say anyone really is cultivating his garden that much....like they aren't going out and planting it that I can tell, but they keep it mostly weed-free and tend the perennial plants in it, which mostly are herbs and asparagus. Despite the lack of attention, some of his asparagus plants still are there, though I'd say about 75% are gone now.

The high school kids graduate tonight. It seems too early to me, but then it always does. When we were kids, graduation usually was right around the end of May or, occasionally in a bad snow year when we missed several days of school, the first week of June. I think all the schools in our county and the ones in Carter County finish classes this week. Lillie is so excited that summer break is so close---she's just counting the days.

I feel like something is changing in our weather. The rain-every-day pattern seems to have broken, and we're getting sunshine instead of endless clouds. And heat. Definitely heat. I am thinking the worst of the rainy Spring is behind us and maybe all we'll have from this point forward is average rainfall. Perhaps El Nino is beginning to fade a bit and that would have a positive effect on us. They had been saying it would persist well into summer, but I'm not feeling it any more. (Not that El Nino cares what I think or feel.)

So, we're trading in cloudy skies, constant rain and the ever-present threat of hail and severe thunderstorms/tornadoes for heat, mosquitoes, high heat indices and air quality alerts (DFW metro has one today)? I'm not sure the latter is much better than the former, but we'll take it.

Have a great day, everyone.

Dawn

I've been staring at this plant for a week now, trying to figure out what I planted there, or what I planted last year that could possibly have sprouted there. I've solved the mystery, it's a potato plant. Now for the second mystery: where did it come from??? I haven't planted potatoes in the last 2 years, and last time was when I still had the garden in the back. So now how do I have potatoes growing in my front bed??? On the bright side, I'll have a harvest of potatoes soon.

I woke up to rain this morning. WTH. It was supposed to be south of I40. I am way north of I40. We were going to plant tomatoes today. If it stops soon enough I still might. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow.

Harvested spinach, turnips and lettuce yesterday to make room for tomatoes. Sigh.

Our weather guys are talking about another stormy pattern starting next week. Maybe that’s just for us up here? They say to enjoy the sun this week.

I need to get mulch out, pick up more compost, get the beans and squash in, and more cucumbers. And I still have flowers to put in.

It was amazing to see how much the rivers and creeks were up all over Oklahoma and Texas this weekend. Creeks were rivers and rivers were lakes. Seems like we saw the worst between south Tulsa county and I-40, but everything was running high. The lakes up here are not going to have much going on Memorial Day weekend. Campsites, docks, and boat ramps are all under water.

Texas has much prettier roadside flowers than Oklahoma.

Jen, I have had very tiny potatoes that I missed while digging survive for at least 3 years and pop up in a bed that third year even though I grew no potatoes in the bed for the previous 2 years. I don't know how they do that, but it happens.

Amy, At best, the models and the forecasters are professional guessers and it doesn't take much to bust a forecast. Tim says that instead of being surprised when they are wrong, we should be surprised when the forecasts are right. He might have a good point there.

Rebecca, Well, it wouldn't surprise me if the rain comes back and if y'all get it we probably will get it, but that doesn't mean it will be the really heavy, heavy rainfall. This week's projected rainfall totals, via the 7-Day QPF, looked pretty sad on Sunday but had improved a lot more by last night, which was the last time I looked at the QPF. Our expected rainfall here had fallen by almost half. I don't even want to go look at the QPF again for fear they've raised the numbers again.

The lakes down here are in the same shape. They were talking on the news today about all the folks who keep their boats in leased docks at the lakes....the docks themselves are under water, so the boat owners have no access to their boats. That's kinda sad. Whether it improves enough for Memorial Day weekend remains to be seen. Our largest local lake (Lake Texoma with a surface acreage of 93,000 acres) has lots of camping areas, picnic areas, boat ramps, etc. closed, and the Corps of Engineers is being very careful with water releases so they do not flood folks downstream any more than they must. That means that while they are releasing water, it is at a fairly low rate compared to what it could be if they opened up all the flood gates. The rivers aren't as bad, but we haven't had heavy rain in several days, so they have had time to recede some.

The reason Texas has such gorgeous roadside wildflowers is that they have been working hard to protect their wildflowers since the 1930s when TXDOT hired its first landscape architect. How awesome is that? Even that far back, they developed policies for their mowers so that they would delay mowing and also mow less often so that as many wildflowers as possible could set seed before the mowing occurred. Since then they've probably spent many millions of dollars sowing wildflower seed/grass mixes formulated for different geographic areas and maintaining them. Texas has over 5,000 wildflower species but, of course, not all of them grow everywhere. Many cities and counties have joined in the effort by sowing their own wildflowers along roadsides. I love it down there. Wildflower-related tourism has become a huge business in Texas, and the folks down there (those who maintain the roadside wildflowers) are very serious about maintaining great, healthy habitats for the birds, bees and butterflies. I applaud the state of Texas for choosing to invest their money in native forbs and grasses instead of just planting bermuda grass and using herbicides to keep everything else down. I do think Lady Bird Johnson also drew enormous attention to the wildflowers with her support for them and with her co-founding (along with actress Helen Hayes) of the National Wildflower Research Center in the early 1980s (one of my favorite places to visit) which is now called Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. It is about 10 miles outside of Austin and is a must-visit any time we are in the Austin, Texas, area. I love Texas wildflowers so much I often overseed our front pasture with Wildseed Farms' TX/OK Mix, and sometimes with their Firecracker Mix and their Pack of Poppies. Life is too short to not have wildflowers. We do have some lovely wildflowers in OK, but I don't see them being planted heavily and maintained here like they are down there.

So, today I was out in the garden (of course I was, right?) enjoying the weather and getting some work done, and then I heard that horrible sound....the sound of a little tractor across the road. I didn't even have to look. I knew without seeing it that it was dragging a yellow tank behind it. I am sure the tank contained a herbicide because of the location where the hired hand was driving that tractor....including a couple of passes up and down the fenceline across the street from my garden. Fortunately the wind was very low at the time, so I'm hoping for the least amount of drift possible. It is rare that there is no drift at all, but last time all we had damaged was a few catnip plants (they are about as sensitive to herbicides as tomatoes are) so I am hopeful that we'll be that lucky again. All these years I have hoped the herbicide usage around us would decrease and we'd have less and less trouble with drift, but have found the exact opposite to be true. I really think that the only solution at this point is to put up a big dense border of shrubs between the garden and the road to see if that will help. I guess I'll start shrub shopping. At least, after two decades here, I have a pretty good idea of what survives in our red clay and what does not.

I'm about to head back out to the garden. I don't know how long I'll last---the temperature is 84 degrees and the heat index is 86 and my body prefers the mid-70s inside the house. I wish we could climate-control our gardens. The older I get, the less I like the heat and I never liked it that much to begin with.

Been offline for a bit, hope all is well with everyone.

I recall people asking about sand plums. If you are in the Edmond area, there are a number of sand plum trees at Mitch park along parts of the walking trails - I've been told no one picks them.

Lots of yard mowing here, strawberries, asparagus, and snow peas are delicious, onions bulbing and garlic scaping, everything is planted and doing well. Wasn't sure how much the rain would impact things, but it seems to have been a worry for nothing.

I'm trying to better about reading up on here, but have just been too busy.

What a wonderful thing Texas has done for the state, for the environment, for the pollinators, and for the beauty. How can we get this done in OK and the other 49 states? Some surely have programs similar to TX. I need to read up.

We are in the middle of a great big mess. We can't take the boat out, not too much happening in the gardens. So we decided it's time to tackle the deck. We plan to do it in 3 sections. And so it's upside down now. We moved everything from the back third to the middle third; there are some lawn chairs even out in the yard. LOL Then I moved stuff from the plants third (the sunny part) off the deck onto the flagstone area. I need to deal with all the "stuff" out here. . . from occasional paraphernalia like binoculars, fishing shoes, knee pads, fly swatters, insect spray, My small box of gardening stuff and fertilizers, bags of supplements. . . . blah blah. What do you all do with all that kind of stuff? I think I'll look for a smallish wood cabinet for stuff near the tables, and maybe a smallish bench with storage underneath for the gardening stuff.

We have complications. . . didn't realize we needed to let the deck dry for 48 or more hrs after power washing, so there's that. And now I've realized I got the wrong kind of stain. I got semi-transparent and should have gotten solid stain. AGGHH. Already opened one 5 gallon can. It worked fine on the pillars out front but isn't going to work back here. So I think we'll take the other 5 gallon can back to Lowe's and see if we can get a solid stain in the same color. AAGH.

I have three great Husker Red Penstemons. I took the smallest one to the school, since it's too shady here for them. But I have to re-locate the other two--they are REALLY in an area that's too shady! Major rearranging out in the beds while the porch is drying, either from water or paint/stain.

Yes, we're loving the warm weather, too. But I tell you, I had on a jacket this morning for a while.

Okay. I made it through Dawn's Mother's Day story. I sure hope you don't poison ivy, Dawn.

Oh, and I saw Rebecca's pictures. Thanks for sharing them. I love to see other people's gardens.

I should be able to catch up the rest of the way tomorrow. I didn't have anything to do tonight, so I took advantage and did a clean up of the coop. Not the "in depth" clean up it needs, but it is much better. I also found (I think) all the spots the hens were slipping out.

Did about an hour of weeding in the onion bed. Walked the dogs. Just now came inside and did the dishes. I am hungry and should eat some dinner now. Probably just a snack because it's after 9:30. Crazy.

flavorless tomatoes

What are wild tomatoes?

Dawn, I could understand if this was in a location I'd planted them before, but the front garden was built last summer, in the middle of the front yard, so there's absolutely no way these are leftover potatoes. Any yet, there's no doubt they're potato plants. Only thing I can think of is I dumped some potato peels in the garden over winter and some had started to grow eyes. Can you grow potatoes just from a peel?

I've worked for two days in my garden. It has just been too wet to get in there until yesterday. Weeds everywhere. Finally got squash planted this morning. Will plant cucumbers this afternoon. Dawn, how long until I can plant okra and corn? I am in southeastern part of the state. Thanks for advice.

madabouttomatoes, It sounds like you have had the right amount of rain to make things grow without it being too damaging. It is about the same here, as far as the areas that were planted before the rains began---that would be the front garden. The back garden, though, has been too wet since 9" of rain fell in September and never has had a chance to dry out, so I cannot step foot in it right now---it is a jungle of weeds, and the sandy-silty soil back there is so wet and mushy it is like quicksand. I'm thinking it will be a fall garden and not a spring or even a summer one, but for that to happen, the rain must stop at some point so it can dry up.

Nancy, I think it works in Texas because they have done it for so long and it is automatically built into their Dept of Transportation budget as it has been for decades, so who is going to ever want to slash that from the budget, especially now that the wildflowers are a proven tourism attraction? The wildflower program there is firmly entrenched. Texas is so very different in budgetary terms than OK---they tax the oil industry and use that money to help pay for stuff, for example. Here in OK, the oil industry owns the legislature and is minimally taxed, so we cannot even pay for education and give our teachers a living wage---so where would this state come up with money to spend on seeding wildflowers? I just don't see it ever happening. And, honestly, if the OK legislature decided to follow Texas' lead and spend money on roadside wildflowers, I'd hope the people of this state would tell them to spend the money on the education system, the hospitals and health care systems, the roadways, etc. Wildflowers (sadly) are a luxury Oklahoma cannot afford until we have a better revenue stream. Of course, Texas also has tons more people, hence tons more industry and well-paying jobs, and tons more tax money to collect---for example, our 2019 population here in OK is just under 4 million compared to Texas' population of just over 29 million. Lots more tax revenue there than here.

Maybe a deck box would work for all the stray paraphernalia that clutters the deck? I have a deck box in my garden and it is immensely useful. The one we got was purchased at either Sam's Club or CostCo and is about 5 or 6' long and doubles as bench seating if needed for that purpose.

I find stain and paint a pain in the neck to deal with at times. It is hard, at times, to choose the right color and the right type and then get home and use it and find out you do like how it looks or, worse, you don't.....good luck getting that stain exchanged. I hope the new 5-gallon container is the right stuff.

Jennifer, Here is it Wed evening, so it has been 72 hours and I never broke out or started itching, so I think triple-washing paid off. I am so relieved!

I am sorry. Those tomato researchers are IDIOTS if they think they have found a genetic reason for why tomatoes are so bad. The reason grocery store tomatoes taste so bad is that they harvest them fully green, before they reach the breaker stage, and color them up using ethylene gas to turn them red. They do this because if they harvested them red, say just at the breaker stage, the tomatoes would ripen and get squishy before they could travel from the growing fields, through the sorting, washing and grading stations, to the packing stations, to the trucks or trains or whatever carries them an average of 1500 miles to grocery store distribution centers and, thence, to stores. So, grocery store tomatoes (the ones sold for fresh eating, especially slicers) are unripened tomatoes chemically turned red because that is what is required to get the tomatoes from where they are grown to grocery stores. That is why they taste bad. I'm not disputing all the genetic stuff they found in their research, but I doubt if it is the actual reason grocery store tomatoes taste so bad. Truthfully, when I was a kid in the 1960s and grocery stores got their tomatoes from local growers who lived and farmed just outside of town, we had awesome tomatoes from the local grocery store---they were red and soft and smelled and tasted like tomatoes. You took them home and sliced them open and they were flavorful and juicy and did not have rock-hard texture. When Big Ag got involved and consolidated the tomato-growing industry, they put those small growers out of business and ruined tomatoes forever. Another reason is that the tomato breeders prioritize shelf life, size, and shape over flavor---so we get oddly shaped almost square at times tomatoes that fit perfectly into shipping boxes....because that is what they bred for, and we get tomatoes that can last for weeks on a counter, because that is what they bred for, etc. and we don't get flavor because they are not breeding for flavor. We get tomatoes that were bred to be rock hard so they can be harvested by giant tomato harvesting machines that swallow up entire plants and spit out tomatoes (green of course). There of tons of amateur tomato breeders breeding for flavor and giving us tons of open-pollinated tomatoes with great flavor because they breed for flavor and aren't trying to make a fortune off patent-protected hybrids that do everything except taste like a tomato. To find their tomato varieties, you have to seek them out....and I do.

Wild tomatoes are native tomatoes, mostly from South America, especially Peru and Ecuador, and are very similar to some of the fruit from native nightshades we have in pastures and alongside roadways here in OK. All tomatoes are descended from them---first because locals selected the wild strains with the best size and flavor and begin breeding them with each other, and then later the seed companies (by the early to mid 1800s) were doing the same thing. Many of the earliest tomatoes were small and yellow and the fruit were pretty hard, so when a larger one that might have been a mutation or whatever came along, they tried to use it to genetically breed larger fruit. Along the way, flavor enhancements also happened. I read all about tomato history in Andrew Smith's book, "The Tomato in America" maybe 15-20 years ago. Alexander Livingston was an early leader in the tomato field, using his breeding techniques (which are simple, compared to all the fancy genetic things they do nowadays) to give us great varieties like Magnus, Paragon and Stone. After reading a book by him, "Livingston and the Tomato", I tracked down all of his tomato varieties that I could find and grew them for quite a few years. They have such great flavor compared to modern-day hybrids, and part of the proof of that is that their seeds still are available today.

Jen, If the peeling had an eye, I suppose it could have happened.

Mammyjames, You can plant okra now. It is much too late to plant sweet corn for a summer harvest---if it matures after we are hitting the mid-90s, pollination is impeded and you get flat, inedible kernels, a condition often referred to as poor tip fill. We had that happen in 2011 when even people who planted on time in March-April didn't get corn because the weather got too hot too early. The time to plant sweet corn would have been March 25 (for SE OK) through April 30 (for NW OK). You can wait a couple of months and plant it July 15 for a fall harvest. That timing is important because your seeds will sprout and grow and by the time they are really to silk and tassel, the daytime highs should be below 95 degrees. Could you sow sweet corn seeds now and hope we stay cooler than average and you get sweet corn from a late planting anyway? Sure you can, but it is very risky and likely a waste of space, so I ditched spring corn and will plant for fall if the back garden isn't still flooded then. The high temperature at my house here in southern OK was 87 today, so 95 is not that far away, right?

I worked in the garden a few hours today, mostly planting perennials and annuals, filling in bare spaces in borders, etc. and I planted flowers in a few containers. Tomorrow I'll weed and work more on maintenance type stuff. There is so much to do before the next round of rain arrives in the Fri/Sat time frame.

Our local TV met showed us disagreeing precipitation models and sided with the model himself that projects a lot of rain on Saturday and even more early next week. I hope he chose the wrong model to believe (but he usually chooses the right one). His forecast was for a lot more rain than the daytime TV met had discussed at lunch time.

Dawn

I couldn't concentrate on the article about tomatoes, Dawn, and had planned on re-reading it tonight. But didn't. And won't...after your explanation.

Nancy, your deck project had me nervous since you first mentioned doing it! LOL. Those types of projects are always nightmares for us.

Mammyjames--weeds, yes! I have them in abundance too.

I got home around 8 tonight and walked the dogs and then did a quick look about the garden. All okra seeds are up. The first cucumbers are beginning to show up. The asparagus is still abundant and so oddly crooked. It's never been so crooked before. I wonder if it's because I didn't cut the late fall ferns completely to the ground...and the new spears are having to work through the old ones. Does that make sense? It still tastes amazing...and I am thankful for it. But, good grief, It is a producer isn't it? Next year. Next year, I will freeze it. Right now I'm giving away a ton of it.

The peppers do not look very happy, but are surviving. I just hate it, though. It seems like semi-unhappy plants get attacked by aphids, so I'm waiting of that to happen. But hoping for the best.

The herbs are delightful. Wild and smelly in a good way. You can smell cilantro all over our property.

Didn't look at the tomatoes tonight. They are in the back garden.

Tom opened the chicken pen door when he got home from work. Once they leave the pen, they are in the fenced "chicken yard". It is fenced but uncovered. Two hens got out! I'm so ticked about this. I thought I had it figured out last night. Until I figure it out, I can't plant the beds around the pen...and this is important to me! I need a couple of critter cams.

Final concert tomorrow. Senior Sunday at our church and baccalaureate on Sunday. Decorating Ethan's "Senior Sunday" table on Saturday. (I am happy that he is gong to baccalaureate--didn't think he would do it). Then...other than finals and graduation on the 25th, we should be "done".

I couldn't sleep last night...(or woke up about 30 minute after falling asleep) so came to the living room, but didn't feel like watching TV either. And the cats wanted to be right near me. (I'll add a pic in a bit. They were lying right where my feet/legs needed to be). Then Tom comes in and opens the backdoor (right after I fell asleep again) and said, "there's a skunk out there". How did it know that? Was he sleep walking/talking. Ugh! Hoping for a more restful sleep tonight. I'm sure I've forgotten things that need to be done. I just hope they aren't the most important things.

I'm so tired. I suppose all of you are with playing catch-up in your gardens. I enjoyed your above post immensely, Dawn! SO informative! Thank you! Re deck box. That rang a bell and I thought, now where have I seen a deck box? Just came to me--my kids in Mpls. A small one of those would work fine for my garden stuff. I think shelves or drawers are required for all the miscellaneous junk by on the other end of the deck. Thanks.

I have green beans (Triomphe de Farcy) and okra sprouting. I'm taking half to the school and half for here.

Yay. I guess my acid treatment for the hydrangeas isn't going to work. . . I'm just seeing a bit of color and it's lookin' pink. I'm going to get some more azalea food and keep feeding them. Grrrr. Having said that, the hydrangeas are trying to make up for poor performance last year. they're enormous and are covered with potential flowers.

I find deck stain/paint exhausting and nerve-wracking. We are talking $300-ish dollars for the deck. But yes, we drove to Lowe's in Muskogee (a 40-minute one-way trip) and traded our semi-transparent for solid stain. We planned to use the semi transparent for the railings and many pillars, columns, and so forth. But they didn't have the solid in the same color, of course. So we guessed on the color from the color pamphlet. We got home and began. Mind you, time is of some essence. We'd like to be done by the time rain hits, on Saturday. WHOA. Slight miscalculation on the color--part our fault, part the mixer's (or more likely, the color chart). It was way too red. It could hardly have been too dark, but it definitely had to be BROWN. And we agreed that it was not acceptable. We put the chart next to the present color of the deck, and then the red part. And came up with the color we should have selected (haha, "Oak Brown." DUH. Oak brown for the couple with 99 oak trees in our yard.) So back we went. God BLESS those ladies in the paint department! First, the guy who first waited on us tried, but color tweaking must not have been one of his specialties, so he turned it over to the gals. They tweaked and tweaked. Finally we got a color that all four of us--GDW and I, and both of them--agreed was pretty close. So we returned home.

YAY! It is a PERFECT match to the color it was before, We all did good! It isn't a match to the semi transparent, but it goes with it, not fights with it. So I began painting the first third. GDW even helped. He began on the top railings. Then when sweat was dripping into my eyes, he spelled me on the deck floor.

I don't see how we can meet the Saturday deadline, considering we really have to let the deck pretty much dry after power-washing. Directions recommend waiting 48 hours at least. We gave it almost 30. I mean it FELT dry! LOL And they recommend 24 hrs of drying time for the stain. We thought we'd cheat this evening and move furniture very carefully over. THEN I noted it felt a little sticky and GDW had to agree, and then I looked back and saw we'd left dusty footprints in moving the furniture. I freaked. Said, "Okay, Garry. We need to stop!" I explained my worry was that it was sticky enough that our dusty footprints would be etched permanently. So he acquiesced. Then I had to crawl along and dust off all the dust. AGGH. I do believe in taking risks, but I've been down that etched-in dust stuff before. (Pollen in MN)

I am now the expert on what kind of stain one needs. You all got questions or are unsure, let me know. :)

But, oh, is the part of the deck we have done (slightly over a third) gorgeous!! YAYAYAYAY! That shaded part hasn't been painted in 10 years. The part that's in the sun. . . whole different story. I repainted it 3 years ago--as well as the pillars out front, and the railings in the sun and the deck steps down into the yard. BUT--I used semi-solid stain. So the solid stain should last longer. If I have enough left over, I'll put two coats in that area.

I almost did perfect with labeling everything I planted this year. I'm making progress! And I got my first tomato. And it's not even in the raised beds. It's over with the herbs in amended soil. And wouldn't you know, there is not a label on it or near it. And it wasn't from SF, it was definitely one I grew. So I guess maybe I'll be able to identify it sooner or later. I thought that was hysterically funny. Figures.

I barely even had time to do a walk around in the gardens today. But loved what I saw unfolding out there. Cheers and love.

HJ, that's not Finbar, is it??? Looks like a cartoon cat. Yet I am certain it is Finbar. Is it a weird picture? If it's not, Finbar is far more fine-boned than "Tiny." Oh! Now I see them both. How very very sweet!

Nancy, It's a weird picture. Finbar is "hugging' Juneau...and his big belly is showing. He is such a mess. He has a morning ritual of climbing a tree while I feed the dogs and chickens. Once I get out the can of wet food and show it to him, he comes down from the tree and comes indoors to eat. He's a brat. I've made him that way. I own it.

LOLOL, will respond tomorrow.

Nancy, I saw a CSI where blood from a murder changed hydrangea color....;)

H/J, I would clip your chickens wings. Of course, I had escape artists, that got out any way.

I haven't been sleeping well, either. Weird dreams. Yesterday it was a bomb threat. Today, my 87 year old mother was camping in a van with the Mark Harmon character from St. Elsewhere.

Speaking of escape artists, Honey has been getting out regularly. Yesterday she got back in. She is either jumping or climbing the fence. Thinking electric fence now.

Northbound Hwy 75 buckled yesterday. I almost went to Bartlesville, too.

Time to get out there.

Did the blood change it to pink or blue? LOLOL

Actually, I have the one Eileen picked up for me, you know. I put it in a larger pot just with potting soil added. And it began turning purple! DUH! Potting soil must have the perfect Ph.

I actually cleaned the garage gardening area today. I should have taken before and after pics. Anyway, it is AWESOME now. AND I found hydrangea acid toner and ran out and poured it onto the hydrangeas in a last-ditch effort, but expecting it not to have an effect since the blooms are all out and getting ready to pop into flower.

Nancy you idiot. The potting soil turned Eileen's potted hydrangea from blue to purple. DUH. Yay. . . So maybe I'll end up with at least purple ones, anyway out in front. Probably too much to hope for blue for the ones in front, but I also poured some toner into the potted one, too. Bet I can turn it back to blue.

Did you two discuss an electric fence, Amy? Wow, Honey!

My cats are brats, too, HJ, and like you, I own it. The biggest brat on any given day could be each or any of them.

Garry power-washed most of the rest of the deck this morning after we moved stuff. After tomorrow morning when I paint that area, we'll only have a fifteen-foot swath to do at the end of the bed near the flagstone. That will undoubtedly have to wait until Sunday or Monday. We were hoping to get it done before the rain Saturday but not gonna make it.

Second tomato is Cherokee Purple. So's first tomato on different plant. I found the label. Worked too hard today. Yep, definitely. I need to start more green beans; I took them all to the school this morning. And HAVE to get tomato cages going.

I thinned out the nicotiana, and they just began blooming; they're so pretty--that'll probably come to a halt with Saturday's rain if it's bad, and it's supposed to be.

Jennifer, The asparagus is going bonkers for the same reason everything else is---all the rain. This is the sort of production we'd get if we had record rainfall from Sept to May every year. Well, except those folks whose gardens flooded and washed away.

The cats look so cozy.

Y'all will be super busy the next 10 days or so until graduation. I bet it goes by in a whirlwind.

Nancy, At least y'all finally ended up with the right color! It is worth the time to get to get it right.

Chris and Jana were back and forth from their house to Lowe's to buy so much paint while painting pretty much every room in the house that all the paint counter people knew them by sight and remembered which colored paint they needed for which room. They had trouble guestimating how much paint to buy for rooms with such high ceilings, and it seemed like the walls were dry and really slurped up the paint too, necessitating a whole lot of buying just 'one more gallon'. Luckily, they didn't have to drive a long way to get more paint like y'all had to drive to get more stain.

Jennifer, At least Finbar is predictable!

Amy, Uggh. I hate odd dreams like that and spend way too much time trying to figure out what they mean.

It seems like Honey's goal in life is to keep trying to find ways to challenge y'all.

If y'all already have roads up there buckling from the rain and floods, what in the world will it be like after Saturday's heavy rain? Then, more rain comes again on Tuesday. Yuck. Here's the current 7-day QPF (which updates multiple times daily, so will change):

7-Day Qualitative Precipitation Forecast

Well, I guess the good news is that nobody in Oklahoma is in drought.

Nancy, Maybe you could get hydrangeas the color you want if you grow then in really large containers (like molasses feed tubs or cattle stock tanks) where you have total control over the soil mix (so you could make it the pH you want), watering (adjust the pH of water before you water the plants), fertilizer, etc. It would be time-consuming but I think it could be done.

I've been working so long and hard in the garden to get ahead of the rain and it is so danged hot and humid here---88 degrees today with a heat index of 90. I gave up and came in around 4 pm. I did get a lot of miscellaneous chores done, and quite a lot of weeding and pruning too. By pruning, I mean cutting back any asparagus that dares to sprout. The asparagus bed is full of flowers for hummingbirds and butterflies, and I intend to keep it that way. That whole bed needs to be weeded---maybe tomorrow.

Big Boy (the stray black cat who may be a wandering cat from a neighbor, a barn cat who is tired of fending for himself or a dumped cat turned semi-feral) had a swollen paw for a couple of days, but it did seem like he ate when I fed him. Then he wasn't around for a couple of days, and when he came back, the swelling was down and he has a big copperhead snake scar on it that matches our cat, Shady's, 18-year-old copperhead scar on his groin area. When Big Boy acts both hungry and sleepy, I put him a dish of food and water in the garage and he cheerfully trots in there to eat. He'll spend the rest of the day sleeping in there. He usually shows up before a rain storm and wants to be put into the garage and have the door closed. I guess it is his safe space. I really think he belongs to somebody and just comes here for extra food, or because he's in the mood to fight with Pumpkin and Tiny Baby. Really, he doesn't want to fight but THEY do. Now there's three more cats following him over occasionally. I don't intend to adopt any of them, but I'll feed them if they are hungry. I just put cat food out back by the deer feeding area, and they eat back there with the deer, the wild turkeys, the bunnies and anyone else who shows up.

The garden is so full of butterflies that it boggles my mind. As strange as it may sound, one of the favorite flowers of several species of butterflies appears to be the chive flowers. I deadhead them as soon as they go totally beige/brown so that the plants will keep producing new flowers for as long as possible. With poppies to deadhead as well, I spent a lot of time deadheading this week.

I am too tired to think straight, which is a typical post-gardening thing for me after I've spent too many hours in the garden. I ought to mow the grass tomorrow so Tim won't be worried about how he's ever gonna get it mowed with heavy rain due on Saturday and again on Tuesday. I might mow. Oh heck, I'll probably look at the grass as I walk to the garden and at least say "I ought to mow". There's no way in this world that mowing is going to take precedence over gardening. It just isn't.

Dawn

The tomatoes are in the ground and have some chicken bedding mulch around them, but not all caged. One tub of extra plants is under the table so if these get hailed on I have back ups. They are slated to go to work with Ron on Mon.

A FB memory came up the 16th with pictures of my 2015 tomato pots all planted. I wondered if it was the first or 2nd time they were planted, so I looked at the 2015 album. Sure enough, on the 22nd there's a pic of all the pots on their sides in an attempt to drain them. I sure hope that doesn't repeat this year. No maters in pots this year though. And, I will close the back door and say I'm done if it happens again. I just don't have the energy. I need to go to Cherry Street Market and get some herbs now.

All the bean seeds I planted are up.I really need to pot up the peppers. They don't look good. I don't know if I have the energy.

Multiplier onions, not walking onions, but the ones that grow in little bunches in a circle. I got some last fall from SESE. They are bolting. It was my understanding it was rare for them to set seed. Or do you think the seeds would be sterile? Still too early to harvest.

I need another glass of water and a nap. I pulled the wicking shirts out yesterday. Helps a little.

Stay safe tonight and tomorrow.

Potatoes. Is this a problem?

Our internet is out so I’ll catch up when it is back.

Are all your potatoes like that Rebecca? Just curious--I can't help you out. . . calling all potato experts. Having said that, it's a banner year for healthy-looking and giant potato plants here. I jus t hope there are some actual potatoes beneath the ground.

Yes, Amy let's all be kept safe. And my fingers are crossed for the rain to miss us! LOL Our daughter north of Pryor has the lake rising, and it's now about 8 feet from the steps to her deck. Really crossing my fingers for her and said a a prayer, too.

Amy, I hear you I hear you I hear you. Need energy pills. Now. You always have some new exotic thing, seems like, that most of us don't. I love that.

Fascinating about Big Boy, Dawn. . . and very comforting to me to know that cats can survive a snake bite. Hahaha, just realized we got Big Boy and Tiny Baby. Too funny. Our Tiny is probably having identity crises since Garry gave him two more names, so now he's Tiny Fluffy Ruffles Dude. And Garry and I both are partial to Ruffles.

Our yard is also full of butterflies already. I'm loving it, and have seen more bees now. And the lady bugs and dragon flies and lotsa wasps; thanks for talking about wasps, Dawn. . . got a question. There is a tiny little flying thing about 1/8" long. It looks to be red with black wings or vice versa. Do you suppose that could be a wasp? I don't see hordes of them but have seen several.

Dawn, you said you were too tired to think straight. I say that every single time I work all day out in the yard with the plants. Now today, we worked about as hard as we have since I got married and moved down here. And yet tonight, we weren't too tired to think straight (well, I might be now. . . lol). First I went out and weeded a little; then about 10 am, I painted the large segment of deck. Garry worked on the railings. I was tired after doing that and so we took an hour break. But then I mowed the lawn and he weed-whipped all around, for the next 2.5 hrs. I laughed at you, Dawn, talking about mowing vs gardening. There is only one reason I like to mow every Friday--that is to show off the beds. I have no regard for lawns. Our lawn is Bermuda/fescue/weeds--probably 40%/10%/50%. I digress. We finished that by 3 pm.

Then I decided I needed to shower and wash my hair. And Garry asked where we'd eat out (that was a given, because I'd been wearing four days of gardening jeans PLUS paint all over them; as had he. Thus, it was a given we were gonna either throw our jeans in the garbage or laundry; therefore made sense we'd be taking showers; therefore made sense we would be going somewhere to have dinner.) I said I was out of ideas, to give me some options. So he did--the one I liked was half a mile away at the Whitehorn Cover Marina. Then checked and sure enough, they're closed this weekend because of high water. I was crestfallen. And not willing to go to any other restaurant, except Chili's in Muskogee for my Quesadilla Explosion salad. But we'd already been to Muskogee 3 times in 5 days (and twice on one day), and so couldn't just go there without an excuse. Then it dawned on me, Dawn, (lol), GARRY! Didn't you have light fixture on our list? The light bulb went off immediately for him. He laughed and said, Chile's? I said YEAH. He said yes indeed the light fixture was on the list. So. we left, made a quick stop at Walmart for dry cat food and barbecue sauce (Head Country). Then on to Muskogee. Lowe's--grabbed the light fixture thingy. Then on to Chili's. We order the full baby back rack and a Quesadilla Explosion salad. And he orders an El Preseidente margarita and I order a 9 oz pour of the house cab. Now the funny thing is that last time we did that, a month or so ago, we weren't crazy about their BBQ sauce. But we ARE crazy about Head Country. So half-way into Wagoner, Garry blurts out, "Head Country!!" I said, "WHAT?" He said it again. I confessed. . . "I have NO idea what your talking about." He said, "Ribs at Chile's, remember?? We decided we'd bring Head Country." Brilliant! Thank you GARRY! But Garry says, do you want me to turn around and go back to the house? I laughed and said, "Heck no, we'll just buy a new one at Walmart." And we did. I stuck it in my purse and when we finally got to Chili's, and ordered, sure enough the server asked us what kind of BBQ sauce. GDW said, "Head Country." She laughed and said, "Don't we wish. We don't have it." I said, "No prob--we do," and showed the bottle to her. We all laughed. Absolutely delicious meal.

I'm freaked out all of a sudden. I have two gray cats out. I just heard a cat scream. Not like a fight, more like a death scream. Nothing to be done about it tonight. I sure hope they show up by bedtime. . . two prayers for two gray kitties.

Cheers all, and love and laughter and joy, always!

Cats are here. I hope all the nearby cats are, too.

Catching up...

Amy, I am considering clipping their wings. If I catch one of them flying out, that will decide it. It very well could be that they are flying out. These are the smaller hens escaping. The white leghorn, the brown leghorn, Stella (buff Minorca?), one of the easter eggers. However, it could be a small place they are squeezing out. The smaller hens tend to be "flighty" and they can squeeze through small openings. So, it could be either. IF I could just catch them doing either. I know it's happening at the front of the chicken yard.

Sorry you're not sleeping well. That's not fun. I've heard several people mention having weird dreams this past week.

And congrats on getting your tomatoes planted.

Nancy, my hydrangea flowers are still green. There's several of them, but they haven't opened. I'm so excited to see what color they will be. They were blue when I purchased the plant 2 years ago. I didn't have flowers last year because I pruned it incorrectly. I've scattered acidic stuff around it. We will see. I like pink flowers, but of course, I would prefer blue...just because it's more of a challenge to get the blue ones around here.

Also, glad your cats are okay. It's always a risk when they go outdoors, but Finbar is miserable if he can't go out. Juneau is happy to stay in.

I'm glad you're making progress on your asparagus, Dawn. Are you keeping a small patch of it? I think I've figured out my issue with the very crooked spears. It has to do with the way I pruned the ferns last year. I didn't cut them completely to the ground. The new spears are trying to push up through the woody remains of last years ferns. I have an interesting picture of a curled spear coming up IN an old fern.

Rebecca, I'm not sure about your potato plant. I'm not growing potatoes this year, but I do remember that they have turned yellow and/or gotten brown spots on them almost every year that I've grown them. I still got a harvest though.

I'm about to take a nap myself. We decorated Ethan's table for Senior Sunday this morning. Tom is smoking meat for my cousin's daughter's law school graduation. And I have a few minutes to myself to look at garden web.

My flowers are happy. My veggies are okay. I have neglected some maintenance things in the garden so will work on that beginning week after next. Especially the pathways. New wood chips need to be put down because the cardboard has disintegrated and weeds are beginning to pop up. I don't want my hard work last year to be ruined.

We didn't get the hinged hoop build, so my greens are being eaten by critters there's still enough for me to harvest, it's just not as pretty. I don't mind eating holey greens. I triple wash them and they are fine. Better than fine because there are chemical free.

Remember when I asked about my strawberry plants growing tall? LOL It's that "mystery plant" that turned out to be salvia coming up in the middle of the strawberries. So funny. Whatever variety this salvia is, it's a trooper. One that I don't want near my veggies ever again, though.

The strawberries are doing very well.

The peas are goners. I think I could have had a great harvest had I got them planted in February AND put them in a raised bed. The weather is right for them, but their location is wrong. Seminole pumpkins will go there after this wave of rains.

Cucumbers and okra are up. The Armenian cucumbers aren't though. They were planted just a few days ago, though.

The onions are okay. They need to be fertilized but I don't know which fertilizer to use. I'm out of the Dixondale one. Normally, they are harvested towards the end of June. I will put melons there. I might tuck melon seeds in between them in a couple of weeks to get them going. OR maybe put the seeds in little pots outdoors and transplant after harvesting the onions.

Peppers aren't happy. The pimentos have small fruit, but aren't putting out new foliage. I will probably remove the fruit. They were so beautiful a couple of weeks ago and now they are stunted.

The tomatoes are okay. I put additional mulch around them and clipped the lower branches. The one from you, Dawn, has developed some brown spots. But, it still looks healthy and is making new blooms and fruit.

Some of the beans have brown spots too. Ugh. Can't I just get a harvest of beans?! Why do I have such a hard time with them?

The herbs are nuts. I need to cut some of them way back.

The cabbage is getting holey too. But is growing well despite it. I have no problem picking little critters out of my cabbage at harvest time. Once again, chemical free.

The columnar trees will not have flowers or fruit this year. They are full of pretty leaves though. And they are growing in height. The largest one is taller than me now. They've just recently started getting some rust. The apple trees are one thing I use a chemical product on. I sprayed them with a "rain proof" fungicide yesterday afternoon.

The fig tree is about the same. Kane has a fascination with that tree and tries to eat a mouthful of leaves every time we walk him past it.

The elder tree near the back garden has some yellowing leaves. Maybe too much rain? It stays wetter back there.

The little chaste tree looks like it will put out some flowers this year. How fun.

The Jane Magnolia has finally produced some leaves. It lost all leaves and blooms when I planted it. I was afraid it had died.

I think that's all. I did a mental garden walk around. Oh, the jalapenos look okay. Better than the sweet peppers.

Now, time for a short nap.

Peggy is gone.

Just some feathers left.

I know I say this about all of my hens, but she really is my favorite hen. Or was. She was the sweetest one that liked to be held and would talk to you.

I'm sorry H/J.

Amy, I do not want for this to be another 2015 so just stop all that crazy talk. The idea it could be is just horrifying and I'm not really expecting it to happen (or maybe I'm just hoping it won't happen). Really, though, the ground has been heavily saturated since last September, so I don't think it would take as much rain in May this year to leave us in the same terrible condition that 24+" (highly variable across the county that month, but 24+" at our place) left us that year. I really think we're almost there already. Every time it dries out at all, more rain falls. I have onions in the highest raised veggie bed at the top of the garden that are starting to rot just because they never dry out. There's nothing we can do at this point but wait it out and hope for the best.

I have had multiplier onions set seed---maybe 6 or 8 years ago---and a couple of the seeds sprouted, but not many. I'd just blame all such oddities on this year's weather.

Rebecca, It is the early stage of some sort of disease. Based on the tiny spots on some of the leaves, it could be septoria leaf spot or bacterial speck or bacterial spot. It is too early to tell. I'd just remove all those yellow leaves to prevent it from spreading. You cannot cure the plants once they have it, but treating the remaining foliage regularly with a fungicide would be the way to slow or stop its spread. You could use Serenade (Bacillus subtilis), copper or GreenCure (or a homemade baking soda spray) if you want an organic fungicide. If you prefer synthetic, Daconil or Fungonil would be the lowest impact (you can harvest the same day you spray with them) or either Maneb or Mancozeb, and those both have a 5-day pre harvest interval.

Nancy, I hope the lake doesn't get to your daughter's house. Having the water just 8' from the deck would make me extremely uneasy.

I'm laughing at the nickname Fluffy Ruffles. We have had more cats survive a snake bite than die from one, but much depends on where they were bitten and how much venom was injected. Ranger is the primo survivor, having survived (via very expensive vet care including being hospitalized for a week) having her face largely paralyzed by the venom. Her eyes remained paralyzed for almost a month but the vet let her come home after a week, telling us he did not even know if the paralyzed eyes would improve--there wasn't much in vet medical books or journals about such a thing.....and he is a cat specialist, so if this was a common snakebite thing, he would have known. Shady is our longest-lived cat snakebite survivor. He is close to 19 years old and was a year or two old when bitten, so he might argue he is the primo snakebite survivor here, but he never was as sick from the snakebite as Ranger was.

It is hard to guess what your tiny flying creature is, but it sounds like a predatory wasp, so definitely a good garden helper.

It is horrifying to hear that cat scream when your cats are out. I'm glad your cats are okay. Our worst cat scream wasn't even our cat screaming. It was my first cougar encounter, outside, alone, well after dark, calling our old daddy cat, Emmitt Smith, to come inside on a January night. We hadn't been here but a couple of years and didn't even have an outdoor security light (though we quickly got one after this). Anyhow cougars have an incredibly distinct roar that ends with a sound like a lady screaming---I heard it on TV growing up all my life because one of Fort Worth's nickname was "The Panther City" so in the 1960s and 1970s a lot of local businesses used panthers in their TV commercials. So, I called Emmitt and got a cougar roaring back at me. I was petrified because it was so dark it could have been 20' from me and I couldn't see it. I slowly backed up to the house and opened the door, calling Emmitt one more time. He didn't come. Tim was inside the house watching TV and never heard it, but the next day, two neighbors named Bill and Betty who lived 3/4s of a mile up the road stopped by to see if I as okay. I asked how they knew---they said they heard it and figured from the sound it was around our place. They wanted to be sure I knew what it was. Emmitt showed up 3 or 4 days later, after I'd given him up for dead, with a hunk out of his back....like he had been skinned. His hair never really grew back in that spot and he looked like a half-bald cat for the rest of his life. Foxes also make a screaming sound, as do bobcats when fighting. All of those are sounds no one should ever have to hear when their pets are out in the dark.

Jennifer, Nope, I am trying to get rid of it all. After about ten years of overdosing on it, I'm just trying to clear that bed and put it to good use with plants that will produce a harvest the whole growing season, not just for a couple of months of it. It is really hard to get rid of asparagus though, as the roots grow together (at least ours have) into one long impenetrable mass.

Onions prefer something higher in nitrogen. Blood meal would work if you have that, but any fertilizer will do. They really aren't all that picky. The thing with nitrogen is that the number of leaves and the size of the leaves determine the ultimate size of the onions, so lots of leaves and lots of big leaves are the goal. Those leaves will give you your onions. Once the onions begin bulbing up, they literally are drawing in the energy from the leaves, a process that continues long after the neck softens and the leaves begin falling over. This is why we leaves the leaves to turn yellow and brown on the plant....their stored up energy is flowing into the bulbs to feed them.

Brown spots on tomatoes or potatoes or anything else wouldn't surprise me at this point---higher moisture years generally mean tons of viral, bacterial and fungal diseases, and the older the plants get, the more susceptible they are. I'm seeing reports of brown (or purple or maroon) spots on all sorts of plants right now---it is just that kind of year and it only will escalate as we heat up.

Beans are very disease prone, but I ignore diseased leaves (I'll pull them off if those leaves obviously are dying) and still get a great harvest. One key thing to remember is that edible plants are not ornamental plants and often will not look that great at various stages in their lives---that is okay---they don't have to look good to produce a harvest.

I hope you enjoyed your nap.

Oh, I just saw your comment about Peggy. I am so sorry. Are you positive she is actually gone? If there's no sign of her body, she might have had something grab her but then she got away and will show up. We have had that happen before, and sometimes it takes a scared hen a day or two to come out of hiding and show up.

No gardening here today...lots of wind and rain. We have the girls here, so after a late, lazy start to the day (a really late breakfast) we went to see the movie A Dog's Journey (sequel to last year's A Dog's Purpose) this afternoon. It was so good, and Lillie and I hardly cried at all (except each time the dog died.....which is over and over again as it is reincarnated into new bodies to continue its journey). The ending was beautiful though, and the skies were trying to clear off to the west as we were arriving home. I mean, no blue sky or sunlight, but lighter, higher clouds that weren't dropping rain. We have 1.75" in the rain gauge, so there will be no gardening or yard work tomorrow either.

Monday is supposed to get pretty dicey, weather-wise, so I don't know if any work will get done. The Convective Outlook for Monday has a large portion of OK in the 'Moderate' risk area for severe weather, and Moderate in this case is worst than it sounds, as the scale (from least to worst) is: Thunderstorm, Marginal, Slight, Moderate and High. We rarely get a High risk day anywhere in the USA---maybe a few times a year, and Moderate always is serious enough to be of concern. I'd like to think I can go out to the garden Monday morning and harvest, maybe weed a little, talk to the drowning plants before Mother nature dumps more rain on them, or something. I think (hope!) the rain will be late in the day, but with this weather, who knows? Everything is lush and green if you just stand and gaze across the countryside, but if you look up close, there's a lot of leaf spot diseases on lots of stuff--I don't just mean in the garden but in the fields and yard and all that as well.

Dawn

I dug our first potatoes yesterday. The Yukon Golds look like Kennebec or Russets, but they were good anyway. Had been concerned because tops were so large afraid they wouldn’t make potatoes. However, even though they are small and were in raised beds several of them - reds mostly, already had a small brown spot in the center. Due to all the rain I’m sure. We got another 1 1/2” today. Not good. My okra and cucumbers look spindly and yellow. Really really enjoyed those 2 days of sunshine and dry weather.

Thanks, Amy.

I believe Peggy is gone, Dawn. I'm not sure where she would be hiding. She is...was a very large bird and somewhat slow compared to the others. She never left the chicken yard. She was heavy--a cochin--and not flighty. She liked to hang out at the back of the chicken yard.

I had a strange premonition of sorts this morning. As we were driving into town, I noticed there were no hawks out. It was raining, but I said to Tom, "I wonder where the hawks are. They're usually hunting at this time (I see them as I drive to work)." I had SO much on my mind that it's odd that I would even notice the lack of hawks on the power poles.

So, after my short nap, I decided to do chicken surveillance from the dining room window. I wanted to see how Rosslyn (and the other 3) are escaping. I sat for about an hour. (Boring) and watched them. Then, noticed that Peggy wasn't out. So, decided to gather eggs for my neighbor who is out of eggs and look for her. I said, "Peggy, are you laying an egg?" and opened the coop door. No Peggy. I could see something at the back of the chicken yard. It was her feathers.

I had gotten lazy about letting the chickens stay out in the yard on Saturdays while I run errands, etc. NOW, they will be confined when I'm not home, especially tomorrow morning when the hawks come looking for breakfast.

At first, I wondered about a coyote jumping the fence and getting her. She IS a very large hen...and seems like too much for a hawk.

However, when I went to deliver eggs to my neighbor and told her what happened, she showed me a huge hawk nest behind her house. It's a straight shot south from our chicken yard about 3 acres away. There's babies in that nest. Anyway...I'm not sure how hawk parents do their parenting, but I'm afraid their little family had Peggy for a meal.

I know they have to eat, but it makes me sick and sad. She was probably so scared and wondering where I was and why I allowed this to happen to her. She was the tamest. She was slow and that's probably why she got caught.

Jennifer, I felt so sad for your Peggy. And you. Hope against hope that Dawn might be right and that Peggy's hiding somewhere.

We only got 1.25" today, and after tornado scares, the rain settled into a nice steady rain. It'll be a long few days ahead.

Dawn, yes, daughter was a nervous wreck; She said they're letting more water out of the dam now, so that's good.

I got some weeding done early in the day, before the rain moved in. And that ended gardening here.

Ahhh, HJ, I see you posted before I finished this. Still so sad. XOXO

farmgardener, I've been thinking about digging potatoes early for that same reason---I worry that maybe they're getting too much moisture, even in a tall raised bed above grade level---the rain just won't quit.

I don't see how all our yellow, spindly plants can take much more.....my sugar snap pea plants are producing, but the plants look like they are rotting off right at the soil, and I think I'll probably pull them later this week. They are in a barely-above-grade bed near the bottom of the sloping garden and everything further downhill from them probably isn't going to make it either. If I pull the peas, I think I'll come back and add something to the soil there....maybe some sand....maybe some soil conditioner (fine bark + humus)....or something, anything, to lighten up the soil, fluff it up and maybe keep it drier. Otherwise, there won't be any point in planting anything there to take the place of the peas because the soil is still so wet....and Saturday's rain didn't help and Monday's will just make things worse. I have been planning to put pickling cucumbers there as a succession crop, but unless the soil can dry out more or I can amend it to help it dry out, or build it up higher, or something.....then nothing is going to thrive there until after the rain stops falling. If the rain stops falling. What if we stay wet all summer like in 2015?

The sunshine was lovely and so was the warmth, though it got a bit toasty at our house at 88 degrees, with a heat index of 90. I missed the sunshine yesterday and got tired of the same old same old gray clouds again.

Jennifer, With hawks that close, I can see why Peggy may have been taken. I am so sorry.

When the hawks are hot and heavy around our place (they sometimes have the gall to come and sit on top of the chicken coop's roof!), I make the chickens stay inside their fenced chicken run because it has a bird netting top. The chickens don't like it, but after they fuss a bit and realize I am not going to come open the gate and let them out to free-range, they get over it and get busy digging and scratching and looking for yummy surprises to eat. Really, the coyotes are a lot harder on our flock than the hawks are, but it isn't because the hawks don't try. It is just that all our trees and shrubs give the chickens lots of cover from the hawks.

I really want to rip out our 20-year-old landscaping around the house and redo it. The shrubs we chose were, by design, large tall ones that eventually would attain tree size (and they have) and we desperately needed shade and cover for the poultry when we put in the landscaping 2 decades ago. Now that the tiny trees we planted two decades ago loom over our 2-story house and shade both the yard and the house pretty well, we can redo the landscaping and put in smaller shrubs that won't become such huge monsters since we're no longer desperate for shade. I've been holding off on doing that, though, because I worry taking out all the big hollies will leave the chickens too exposed since they are used to running under the hollies when they hear the hawks nearby. Maybe I'll do one side of the house per year for the next 4 years, so the chickens only lose 25% of their big, tall shrubs per year. That would give them time to adjust to younger, smaller shrubs and learn to take cover elsewhere. It seems strange to plan the landscaping for the chickens instead of for us, but I've always wanted to do what I can to keep them as safe as possible. I think it is time, though, to redo the landscape no matter what....probably this fall, as right now doesn't seem like a good time to plant anything in the nonstop rain. I wouldn't want new plants in red clay soil to drown the first year.

Here where we live, the hawks hunt all day long until they have found enough food to satisfy them and their young, if they still have any in their nest. The adults feed the young birds by carrying food back to them...usually meat, which generally means mammals of some kind like squirrels, rabbits, voles, etc. but they'll also prey on birds and snakes.

Poor Peggy. She probably just got busy foraging and didn't notice whatever predator got her until it was too late. Hawks can pick up surprisingly large birds. We had one try to grab a large guinea once when Tim was only about 25' away. I think the hawk had a hard time getting a good grip because of the guineas feathers....Tim managed to run over and grab the guinea right out of the hawk's clutches in a literal tug of war. The hawk finally let go and flew away when it realized Tim wasn't going to let go, and the guinea was fine, though it lost about a quarter of its feathers.

Nancy, Hopefully they can release enough water to make up for whatever rain keeps falling.

We didn't get as much rain as feared but we certainly didn't need any of it. I dread having more rain fall on Monday as we don't need it either.

Dawn