Oh Larry! I hope it doesn't, but I understand the "plenty that needs to be done." I was just walking back to the deck thinking I need to cut down half of these plants and start over. I've been doing that with the catmint, 4 o'clocks and nicotiana. Meanwhile, starting over with tomatoes, and some flowers for the school. I have roselle and more cardinal vine for the school AND for me.

The sound of the tree frogs and locusts gets crazy loud! They get so loud, at times I don't come out in the evenings.

I transplanted six little tiny Swallowtail cats this morning, as they were totally out of food (and I'm totally out of dill now. LOL).I need to get some planted! I love dill. So do they, obviously. They will have to learn to love parsley or fennel. I had read conflicting information on whether they'd eat a different host plant; one of the butterfly experts told me I could transfer them since they were so little, but to leave the two big instars alone. I did--and both were gone this morning. I doubt I could recognize a chrysalis, so didn't even try, as "it's a jungle out there."

I didn't know how difficult it might be do dig up one of the passion vine sprouts, so got two dug up. Brought them up here and potted them up. Yesterday morning I was delighted to see both were doing great--but one of them had two tiny fritillary cats on it, so I took it right back down to the general clump. I got a good laugh out of that. I'll choose a different little sprout.

So it has been a couple intense butterfly studying and reading days. I'm excited to see if I get any monarch cats, as the milkweed is finally doing well this year.

Now something not so lovely going on. There is a dead body under our deck, as evidenced by the smell wafting up. And I feel safe in saying a critter didn't crawl under there to die. I'd say, rather, that some darned CAT left a body there. I hope it was a little critter so the smell will be gone sooner rather than later! BRAT.

I finally have enough tomatoes to do a bit of canning, so will get busy with salsa. Have a lovely week, everyone!

I sure would like some rain. LOL Can you imagine me saying that a few weeks ago?!

I have the soaker hose on the back garden right now. I don't have a proper drip irrigation system.

Some of you saw the FB post about the mystery squash. Pretty sure it's from a Halloween decoration. I have a cast iron cauldron that I fill with small pumpkins as a centerpiece for my dining table. The pumpkins are thrown into the compost at the end of November.

It's a vigorous and pretty plant full of fruit, so I'll just leave it alone. It faces the street and helps the garden look lush and nice to passersby.

Thanks for your advice on last week's thread, Dawn, about the gifted tomato plants. The healthiest two were planted in the same bed that has pole beans. It also has a hot banana pepper plant and the gifted pink Brandywine tomato (which does have fruit and blooms. yay!) Most of the carrots were pulled so the two tomatoes went in their spot. There's a lot crammed into that bed. My garden is pretty full right now and stuff is just randomly stuck in empty spots. ANYway, the two tomato plants look pretty good today.

I'm still harvesting beans. Another Yay! I'll try to freeze more tomorrow. Dawn, when you mentioned on last week's thread how many feet of beans you grow---wow! I would like to have that many too. A couple of years ago I thought I would like to increase the size of the garden, but I doubt that will happen. Maybe if we win the lottery that we don't play, I could hire someone to come in and build it for me. But, it's doubtful I'll win the lottery that I don't play. haha. SO, I need to grow my very favorite things. Things I want to eat often. Beans is one of them. Cabbage is not. I still have cabbage to pull. I need to get that done soon or the Seminole pumpkins will climb all over them. I like cabbage, but don't eat it often. I like corn, but don't eat it often. So, we should not grow those things.

If I was 30, maybe I would increase the garden size. I probably would. Even if it's just a regular garden and not the kind of garden I'm building now. In good news, I still have room for 2 or 3 raised beds and could easily squeeze in a few containers here and there.

I say all of that... and then watch me till up another garden spot this fall. LOL! It would be fun to figure out how to grow food for the chickens.

But, as of today, I think we'll just keep working on the gardens we have and not increase.

A gardener can changer her mind though, right?

When I say "garden" I mean food gardening. I will be increasing the spots for flowers in the "backyard".

Tom and I are starting the Arbonne 30 day challenge, so we are trying to prep our food tonight. I'm going to try to eat some meat this week. At least some salmon maybe.

In sad and disappointing news...I walked out to check on the chickens about an hour ago and Jean Luc Picard was clucking to the hens...and they were all staring at something on the ground, under a feeder. It was a little reddish blonde chick. Dead. It makes me so sad. Poor little thing. I'm not sure what happened. I checked on them at noon after work and before fixing lunch and there were no chicks. Maybe I didn't check well enough. I don't like to disturb the hens too much especially since we are near the end. Tuesday is Day 21. But last year they hatched at Day 19.

It's interesting because it's like Jean Luc was telling the hens to leave it alone. It was not pecked on much, that I could see. And it wasn't fluffy. I wonder if it had started pipping when one of the non-broodies borrowed a nest to lay her egg...and the non-broody "helped" it out of the egg and pulled it out to the pen out of curiosity.

But, there's no way of knowing.

Because there are five broodies now, and five lower nesting boxes there is no room for the layers to lay their eggs. So everyone is fighting for the nesting boxes. Ignoring the fact that there are five upper nesting boxes sitting empty.

Anyway, we are moving all broodies except Rosslyn Kaye who just went broody a couple of days ago. This isn't ideal, but it's too busy in the nesting boxes. IF I can get one hen to accept her new spot and stay on her eggs, I'll put all eggs under her. I hope they can all accept their spots and we can be done with this soon.

We will not do it this way next year.

Larry and Nancy, I didn't see your posts earlier.

Larry, I hope your garden is okay! We all have other projects to do, but those are for non-gardening months. ;)

Nancy, I hope your smelly issue goes away soon. You seem very busy. I have a hard time keeping up with you. haha!

It's thundering here. and the wind picked up. Rain maybe?

Of course it's when I moved a hen and eggs to the funky, dog kennel area. I did it after dark but she is aware that she's not in her nest. I sure hope she settles down. And I hope the new roof on the kennel keeps rain off of her. If we get rain.

Update on the chicks. I heard peeping and ran to the coop and found Stormy pecking at a little blonde chick. I took the chick from her (maybe she was just trying to get the chick under her, but I don't think Stormy is a good Mom. The chick came indoors. with me and placed in a brooder. I went out and got the remains of the egg. I'm sure it's Stella's egg! I couldn't be more thrilled. Stella's egg is white and teardrop shaped. I am sad if Stormy's pecks were innocent. I put her on the roost tonight and hopefully she will stop this broody nonsense.

When I went to move the hens to their "apartments", I found that Blossom had a little black chick under her. I moved Blossom and the chick. She seems to be a good mom so far, so I put the little blonde chick under her too. I watched for awhile and Blossom seemed to handle the loud chirps (of course the chick is loud...she's Stella's offspring) of the chick just fine. Didn't get upset. I'm hopeful.

More on this later.

Well, the deer found my electric fence last night. It looks like they came from the east and headed west, ( where they will find the garden I planted for them). I have used the electric wire for years and it has been broken many times, so when I splice it, I tie it loose so it will pull away rather than break. If the wire pulls away repair is very easy, only slip the wire back through the loop and bend again. After the deer hit the fence a time or two they decide to eat somewhere else.

The heat really gets to me. I hate to work outside when the grass is wet, and by the time it dries it is too hot to work long. I do okay mowing on the rider, but I stay away from the push mower except for very small places. I dont do weedeating, but I will use roundup. When you get old you seem to look for the easy way out.

Slowpoke I admit to Roundup also. My husband has always weedeated ALL the fencelines and around every building and shed, and around all the trees and even the pond dams and around the edges of the ponds (we have 3). On our farm that adds up to 4-5 miles of walking and carrying a huge gaspowered machine. He is in his middle 70’s now and won’t give up his desire for perfection- so we have compromised and I spray a lot of Roundup. When I weedeat with Roundup it lasts a few weeks to couple of months and saves him several hours of work every week. It doesn’t look as neat but it satisfies him. I don’t consider it easy way out / just a matter of survival.

Hello! It's been 10 hours since someone posted here?!

Everyone is busy.

I had a decent morning in the garden. Got a few chores done. Things are looking okay out there.

Spent more time fretting about chicks. So far we have 4 living chicks. One is in the process of hatching. Actually, I think two are in the process. The one that is further along is in a green egg. I hope it makes it.

I didn't really sleep last night and I probably won't sleep much tonight either. I'm so sleepy, though. I can't get my brain to settle down. We had a snake lurking around the coop. I still can't tell bad from "good". Any snake around baby chicks is bad. It was a small snake, but still. Tom killed it. I hate, hate that. But it was dark and we didn't have a bucket with lid handy for relocation. I don't know why that dumb snake's death makes me sad. It would have been sadder had it tried to hurt the chicks.

Fowler bush bean and Black Seeded Kentucky Wonder pole bean--I recommend.

I'm behind again because the last grandchild just left around 6 p.m. after staying for 6 days and 5 nights. Her sister stayed for 3 days and 2 nights. We had a ton of fun, but I think it will take me a week to recover from trying to keep up with a 4 year old and a 10 year old 24/7. I love them and would have them here all the time if they wanted to be here, but it sure wears me out.

Larry, Neighbors who use herbicides are quite vexing, but I try not to let it upset me when they kill or damage plants. What good does it do me to get all wound up over it?

I hope your garden is okay.

Nancy, I agree about how loud the racket is at night. I can't stand to be outdoors listening to it all at this time of the year---it is like sensory overload.

In my garden, the swallowtails always prefer dill first, then fennel, and then parsley. I guess that works out okay because the parsley tolerates a lot more heat than the dill does. The fennel does pretty well in the heat most years too. Next year I want to grow more for them...perhaps add rue and golden alexanders. We had our first Monarch cats a couple of weeks ago. They are gone now, and we're on our 7th or 8th round of swallowtail cats. It is a great butterfly year so far. I think the dill is starting to burn up in the heat though.

I hate that dead animal smell and when you live with a lot of wildlife it is unavoidable....and then you get the vultures circling and circling overhead looking for it. I faked out the vultures last week. I threw out some leftover spaghetti (no meat, just tomato sauce) on the compost pile out back of the barn, near the deer-feeding area. I figured possums or coons or skunks would find it and eat it that night. Nope. We came home from someplace and saw the wild turkeys eating the cracked corn meant for the mourning doves, and 6 or 7 vultures devouring the spaghetti. That just made us laugh. Who knew they would eat leftover spaghetti?

Jennifer, We are crazy dry here, so it doesn't surprise me that you're hoping for rain. Our ground, which stayed saturated pretty much nonstop from last September through May now is very dry....painfully so....and cracking everywhere. It amazes me how quickly things can change in the summer.

For our first 10 or 12 years here, I was constantly enlarging the garden. Maybe for 13 or 14 years. I finally made it bigger than I really could manage, but then the shade was starting to intrude on 2 sides of it to the point that no veggies will grow there, so we've given back a lot of those two sides to native plants (I want to move in the fence accordingly this winter, shrinking the garden down even more). A huge garden was necessary when I was canning and preserving so much food, but I think I'm over it. Tired. Burned out. Etc. Succession planting flowers this year has been so much fun and has paved the way to only plant flowers and herbs in the front garden next year. I am so ready for a change, and I didn't think I'd ever reach the point that I'd largely give up veggie growing. Well, I may not be giving it up---but, rather, taking a bit of a break for a couple of years.

Now that there's only me who will be here at home tomorrow, I plan to take out the rest of the bean plants, harvest what I can, and move on. I probably also need to harvest okra and tomatoes. I did harvest some tomatoes today, but only those in the containers up by the house. Might need to harvest peppers too. I'll need to get out there and get it done early because even the mornings are uncomfortably warm/humid now. I just don't like dragging the grandkids out to the garden at the height of the snake season. Today's snake visitor was a rat snake on the south-facing side porch. I know why he is there---one hen has been laying her eggs on the porch. I think she thinks we won't find them and she'll build up a nest and hatch them, but she's wrong. This snake showed up too late and there was no egg there for him to grab, but he didn't really know that so he just sat there and looked around.....and startled me, and sent me fleeing indoors.

Yes, a gardener can change his or her mind any time.

I'm sorry about the chick---this is not uncommon and generally they die because of a genetic defect.

Larry, The deer can be so annoying. I keep asking why they're begging us for food when there's tons of native plants available to them. I think our deer are just feeling lazy.

I don't like the early morning heat/humidity either. I really think it felt better here late Monday afternoon than it felt first thing in the morning. The temperature was higher, but it wasn't quite as sticky. I think we got some rain-cooled air from our west in the afternoon, even though the rain missed our area. We'll take a little bit of a break from the heat any way that we can get it.

We never have used Round-up, but I may start using it. I feel like it is increasingly too hard and too hot to try to keep the bermuda out of the garden fence line. We are getting too old for all this hard manual labor, and the weather is too hot to do them anyway.

Farmgardener, We've all got to do what we've got to do. I certainly understand why you choose to use a herbicide, and especially this year. The grasses are trying to become trees after all the rain, even though our rain has been skimpy in recent weeks. The trees? They are giants. I keep telling Tim that I would like for a very selective tornado to blow through, leave our house untouched, and take out all the trees on the southern edge of the woodland...just for maybe an area about 20 yards wide the entire length of the woodland, which in that area runs for about 1300'. That would push back the woodland from our yard and garden but, who am I kidding, it never is going to happen that way.

I have watched as all our original neighbors here, who were in their 60s-80s when we moved here have aged in place in their homes and now, 20 years later, those that remain cannot keep up with the routine mowing and weedeating. You know, we're 20 years older as well and starting to get tired of the constant need for maintenance, though we'll never give up living here. We'll just let things get more ragged. Many of our neighbors have switched to using Round-up and other herbicides instead of weedeating, and who can blame them? I certainly don't. The maintenance of large property is very draining in every way---time, energy, and even money. I agree that it is a matter of survival. There's only so many hours in a day, and also we only have so much personal energy to use up each day. For so long I have been trying to make our landscape easier to maintain as we age by replacing lawn with groundcover, shrubs and perennials, but I really, really need to step up my game and get a lot more of that sort of thing done. That's my goal for all of 2020.

Jennifer, I agree that no snake is a good snake around a chicken coop.

I did water the garden today, via sprinkler, as it is the fastest way to water all the flowers and herbs, and the tomatoes are all in one section that I still hand-water in order to keep water off their foliage.

The heat indices for the next few days worry me. I've been watching them closely. Our air temperatures really aren't all that bad for July, but then when you figure in the dewpoint and calculate the Heat Index, it is just awful.

I cleaned the hummingbird feeders this morning and refilled them with fresh nectar, and then there was a positively crazy feeding frenzy for the rest of the day. I think the birds were maybe too hot to fly around eating insects and just needed quick energy from the feeders. I sat out in the shade watching Lillie play in the pool for a little over two hours and got to observe lots of hummingbirds visiting the chaste tree and trumpet creeper vines during that time. I just love watching the hummingbirds.

We went to the hospital to visit our good friends this afternoon: he is there with Stage IV cancer and with nothing that can be done for him at this point except to manage his pain, and she has other medical issues. We had an exceedingly lovely visit with her, but he was knocked out, sound asleep for the first time in quite a while, so even though we missed being able to chat with him, we were relieved his pain has been managed to the point that at least he can sleep again. A lot of their family members were there, and it was sort of like a family reunion as we all are not together very often. Shortly after Chris, Jana, Lillie and I left to head back to our house, Tim called to tell me he was going to stop by the hospital to see them. We are blessed to have so many wonderful friends, but watching them suffer through so many health issues is just heart-breaking. I reminded Chris today that Tim and I are about the same age now that this couple was when we moved here and it is disconcerting.....I look at what they are going through and wonder if that is us roughly 20 years from now. Their DIL and I were discussing the fact that we all now are grandparents and our kids are parents and how weird that still feels and how old it makes us feel. (sigh) Getting old is not for sissies, but we all still can laugh about it, and also be grateful we still are here on this earth to age because some of our beloved friends never made it to their 60s and we are so grateful that we have. You know, getting old seems to be the 'theme' of this whole year for us, and I am not really quite sure how to feel about that.

I think everything in the garden that I have planted, except for some of the zinnias, the cosmos, a few cleomes (the last ones planted), some late glads and the candletrees (the last succession planting that I just finished last week) are in bloom now. The plants are starting to fill in so that it is becoming harder to tell where rows of veggies were removed. I tried to stagger the succession plantings of flowers and not plant them in straight rows wherever I could. Oh, and of course the roselles are not blooming because they do not bloom until October.

The grasses along the roadsides and fence lines really are drying out now---not to the point of being scary yet, but getting close to it. We were discussing today at the hospital that we are not ready (mentally or physically) for the summer fire season, but it likely will start soon regardless.

I saw the first big grasshoppers of summer today. They appeared out of nowhere. We still have plenty of small ones in the garden, but the birds have been eating them. I hope they come to the garden and eat these big ones too.

That is all. I need sleep.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate y'all. Watch those Heat Advisories and don't let these wicked heat index numbers get you over the next 3 or 4 days.

Dawn

It is horribly hot and humid, which I'm not used to, here at the barn home. I drink half gallon of sun tea and gallon of water while I am working. I started my job so I cant work as much on the house.

PlantPlants are surviving.

I am late on everything this year, I picked my fires okra today. It looks like it is going to produce. If I start watering I may get a few veggies.

Another half dozen tomato skeletons today. More squirrel treats out.

That time you bend down to pull a weed and forget you have a pocket full of cherry tomatoes.

What causes a tomato plant to die branch by branch?

It is 9:12 a.m. Wed and our heat index already is 95, and it isn't even the highest in the state. Yesterday was pretty bad down here along the river, but I believe today will be even worse in NE & NC OK. I was out in the garden until 8:30 a.m. and the heat index already was 90 when I came in, so it seems like it is going up quickly. All I did in the garden was hand-water all the plants in containers and give a quick extra drink of water to any young plants that I transplanted into the garden within the last week. I pulled a couple of weeds that were easily seen in the open where no snakes could be seek lurking, and that was it for me. My gardening is done for today. The plants look great, though, considering the extreme heat. Of course, the plants feel actual temperatures not the heat indices so they probably are happier than the rest of us.

Last week we had Lillie here at the house from Wed-Sunday. On Monday, she came back with Chris and Jana to visit for a while and we all went up to the hospital to visit our two friends there. Last night they brought her back to stay a couple more days and nights while they're both working long hours. I'm not going to say the pool is the main attraction, but.......I don't have to twist her arm to get her to go out there and swim either. I expect to spend a lot of time out there with her. I'm glad we bought the larger pool--she is 10 years old now and too big for a little wading pool.

Kim, It is so awful, but also not unexpected when we're having such high dewpoints. I think the highest dewpoint we've ever had at our house is 79, and that really is New Orleans or Savannah type dewpoints. This last week? We'd hit 78 and 79 for a dewpoint almost daily. Right now, as I'm typing this, ours is 77 and likely to go higher.

Really all we can do is stay hydrated, and do the same for our plants. Even our dogs hate going outside. I'll put them out in the dog yard for 5 minutes to do their doggie business and they act like I am sending them out there to die. Once they are back inside, they completely ignore me when I try to get them to go out later.

I have noticed that traffic at the hummingbird feeders has just about quadrupled, and we have had plenty of them all along so now we either have a lot more or they are visiting the feeders a lot more. I am guessing it is easier for them in this heat to drink nectar instead of chasing insects around. Plus, the babies have left the nest too.

Larry, Okra is one of the few veggies I haven't already replaced with flowers and it is producing now too. I do love the okra flowers---the plants are almost pretty enough to grow just for the flowers, and then being able to harvest the okra crop is just a bonus. It is too hot for much of anything else, though the pepper plants don't seem to mind the heat too much....yet.

Rebecca, I am seriously hating those squirrels on your behalf. Sorry about the tomatoes and I hope they enjoy their treats so they'll go away and stop being a problem for your plants.

When a tomato plant is dying limb by limb, if the dying limbs are beginning at the bottom of the plant and the disease slowly is progressing upward, it usually is something fungal in nature like Septoria Leaf Spot or Early Blight. Look closely at the brown spots on your leaves. If they are more or less a solid tan to brown with little brown speckles on the leaves, that would be Septoria Leaf Spot, which has been widespread in OK this year because of all the rain. If you see concentric brown rings within the brown lesions, similar to a bull's eye target, that is Early Blight. Either way, the remedy is the same: remove all the diseased leaves so the spores won't move to leaves that currently remain healthy. Then, spray the remaining leaves and stems with the fungicide of your choice, whether organic or synthetic in nature. Copper would be probably the best organic choice and Serenade the next best, and Daconil would be the best synthetic choice and the best overall. Whichever one you choose to use, follow label directions and spray thoroughly, coating both the tops and bottoms of all leaves. Yes, it is as much of a PITA as it sounds to do this. The way these fungicides work is that they coat the leaves to prevent the fungal spores from attaching to receptors on the leaves, so if you don't coat the leaves thoroughly, the fungal spores will find the uncoated portions and attach. Once a tomato plant has a fungal disease, you do not cure it---you just do your best to stop it from progressing upwards on the plant. Often, if you are using fungicides, new growth will replace the diseased limbs you cut off and they will stay healthy. You'll have to repeat fungicide applications for an extended period of time. The labels on the bottles will say how often....I believe it usually is every 7-10 days or every 7-14 days depending on which product you use. I will add that it helps to keep water off the foliage, but do acknowledge that in this weather, between rain and dew, the plant leaves are going to be wet anyway no matter how careful you are when watering. We can only do what we can do, and we cannot keep rain off the leaves.

Well, my computer time is about to run out because I now have a child eating breakfast who expects to go out to swim soon thereafter, and so we shall. The Heat Index here is now is 99 so my goal of making it outdoors before the heat index hits 100 may not occur. This is crazy. I do not remember any time in recent history where the heat index was 99 degrees by 9:45 a.m. This is going to be a horrible day statewide for anyone who works outdoors. Stay hydrated, y'all!

Dawn

Last year I cleaned the Egyptian walking onions from my garden because I did not want to waste my amended soil on something my wife seldom used. I gave away all but a few to plant in out of the way places in hope to keep a start of the plants.

To make a long story short, all the bulging onions I planted in the garden died, while the Egyptian walking onions lived with no care at all.

I don't think a person con kill these onions.

I think you're right, but then I have lost walking onions in our dense red clay (amended with some compost) in wet winters, so apparently I can kill them. Or, at least my wet winter clay can do it. : )

I am here to report that it is hot outside. Are y'all surprised? We have the highest dewpoint here at our place that I've ever seen---it has hit 80.8, which combined with our temperature at that time to give us a heat index of 115. This was shortly before 1 pm. In short, this explains why swimming pool time ended and now we are inside in the Air Conditioning. Meanwhile, our VFD, along with 2 others, has firefighters out on a fire that started when a so-called controlled burn got out of control. I have a couple of thoughts on this: 1) who does a controlled burn on a day when the NWS replaced the already serious Heat Advisory with the more serious Excessive Heat Warning? 2) did this person have a fire break cut all around the area he or she was burning? and 3) I feel a bit grateful Lillie is here because I refuse to drag her off to a fire, so I'm not at the fire. If she wasn't here, I would have had to go to a fire when the heat index was 115. That is a ridiculous amount of heat stress to put on a person's body.

Now, I'm headed off to the kitchen to show Lillie how our YoNannas machine will turn frozen fruit into the equivalent of soft-serve ice cream, except it is 100% fruit.

Y'all stay cool, and here's the Max Heat Index Map if you want to track how hot it has felt statewide today. I really thought one of you in NE OK would hold the title for highest heat index today, but it hasn't happened yet. However, the day still is young.....Oh, and when we got the Excessive Heat Warning and NE OK did not, I knew I probably was wrong about who would feel hottest today.

Maximum Heat Index Today

Then, there's the experimental Wet Bulb map. Here is what it shows:

Maximum Wet Bulb Map

Usually the worst number I see for our county on this map is 93. Today is has hit 95. I turned on the lawn sprinkler for the chickens, where a million wild birds have joined them in cooling off in its cool mist, and have a soaker hose going on the ground in the shade so they can lie in wet mud....and I put ice cubes in their chicken waterer. Anything I can do to keep them cool may help them survive this heat.....

My garden plants are showing some wilting, which relates only to the heat, sunlight and transpiration rates. Their ground is plenty moist.

Dawn

It was stifling with a heat index of 102 at 10:30. Garry and I had run into town for a few things and also stopped for breakfast, so I came inside when we got home and took a nap. Well. Right now is probably the coolest it's going to be today, as it's RAINING. We had no idea. Just came out of nowhere, suddenly. Well, not really. Came from the north--but suddenly.

Dawn, garden plants showing wilting. . . i couldn't resist. I got my first cucumber and crookneck squash in (under the brown plastic chairs). It makes me laugh. I have 5 more small plastic chairs, so will put them out there with the rest of the plants in those beds. It'll look Iike I'm going to have a garden party, right? It's great living out where no one can see how crazy I am.

I'm excited to hear nothing will do away with the walking onions, Larry. I shouldn't have put that crookneck out there. That's asking for trouble. Maybe I'll go pull it out. Meanwhile, I have a Meot Jaeng I Ae Hybrid growing in that middle bed above (c moschata), and it is delicious!

I have been totally sidetracked on butterflies the past couple of weeks. We don't have the numbers of Swallowtails we had last year; don't know if we will. But I do have around 15-20 cats out in the center bed. And fritillaries on the volunteer passiflora. I'm trying to find other varieties of milkweed. Do any of you Tulsa folks know where one might get plants?

The day flies by when one takes a nap after going to town. Rats. I hate that. Later, all!

HI Everyone. It's hot. LOL

Didn't do much gardening today. Did water a few things and harvest what needed to be harvested: some Juliet tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, okra.

Mostly worked and dealt with animals. This heat is hard on them.

We currently have 5 baby chicks. I suspect the other eggs are duds...or the chick inside died.

And you know what? I was only going to keep two pullets, but if they are all girls (who could be that lucky?) I am keeping them all! haha.

I did the wing test on them all...they are all female according to that. But, I suspect there's some roos in the mix. Oh my. They are cute.

I moved Stormy to where Blossom was with her two babies. Blossom is tandem with Buttercup. Stormy is going to get a couple of store bought chicks tomorrow night. I will be watching her carefully. She will not get off the Broody Train. (but I don't want her to harm a baby chick). I'm going to lose her if she doesn't start eating and drinking again and stop obsessing about her eggs. Anyway, I'm going to Atwoods tomorrow afternoon and picking up a couple of chicks...unless a couple of the eggs that I think are duds actually hatch.

I'm just sitting down from all of the above and walking the dogs.

Y'all be careful in the this heat.

For the first time in our lives here in OK, our dewpoint hit 80....and kept on going, all the way to 80.8. In the past, it was a big deal (and a bad deal) if our dewpoint hit 79. I was dying in that suffocatingly hot air today.....and then our heat index hit 116. That's the highest it ever has been here in our county at the Mesonet station, and our local TV met said tonight on the 10 pm news that it is the highest heat index number he's seen in all the Texoma region in the 10 years he's been here. We've hit 115 a few times, but it seemed like it wasn't possible for us to go any higher until today. So, it really felt worse here than I think it ever has been before. Now, we have hit an air temperature of 116 (not officially at our mesonet station though) in 2011 and I remember it well because (a) we were at a wildfire where at least a couple of firefighters got too hot and at least one went to the hospital in an ambulance, and then when I came home many hours later (b) we had dead chickens, despite my efforts to ensure they were cool enough before I left for the fire. Today's weather felt worse than that because we had an exceptionally low dewpoint that day due to prolonged drought.

Know what you need when the weather is very humid and very hot? You need a rain shower to cool you down. We got three hours of thunder and lightning while mostly still baking under the sun (the clouds were shaped like a doughnut and we were in the hole), and there were multiple flood advisories and severe thunderstorm warnings, and friends on FB in parts of our county or the one north of us complaining about strong winds, hail and heavy rainfall, while we sat there with dry skies. Storms went west of us and east of us and did their best to avoid us, but we got paged out to assist with grass fires caused by lightning in other parts of our county and with a motor vehicle accident that I assume occurred in heavy rainfall. I texted Tim and Chris, who both were at work, to tell them "we wanted rain, we got fire". This is one of those things where you have to laugh or you'll cry. Eventually it did rain here....a whopping 0.05", at most, was in our rain gauge by the time that big rainfall event ended. It was laughable to have so little rainfall that you couldn't decide if it was .04, .05 or .06, so I settled on .05. All our chickens survived today, and I hope they all still are alive in the morning. Finally, when the rain began to fall, our temperature fell into the 70s which felt so good, because it had been 95 at our Mesonet station before the rain and 97 at our house. I think the cool night air, at least, should help all the animals that were stuck out there in that heat today.

Nancy, I have used plastic chairs to provide shade and also as hail protection. Why not? Sometimes we have to use every means at our disposal to fight the weather-related problems.

I hated the stifling air. The dogs hated it. The cats hated it. Except for Tiny Baby who ignored me when I called him to come in and who took off and ran from me every time I tried to get close enough to him to bring him in. He finally came in after the rain started, but grudgingly. I think the heat must have fried his brain. Lillie was in the pool all morning, blissfully chilling in the cool water, telling me happily 'it feels like 85 degrees here'. I was laughing at her---she was totally oblivious to how bad the heat was. Oh, to be a kid again.....

We were inside before the lightning arrived because I was getting alerts it was coming. Chris and Jana's neighborhood had such strong storms that the swaying of the trees outdoors set off the motion detectors on their security system. The storms were moving south towards us from them, but very slowly.

I wish I'd had a nap!

Jennifer,

Y'all still have chicks in the stores? We haven't had them in the stores in weeks. In July, chicks become snake bait, so most rural people here want the chicks older and bigger before the snakes really get out and start roaming which, around here, was about 10 days ago. That is when I noticed rat snakes trying to get into the chicken coop and just constantly lurking around. I'd love to have a snake-free summer (or a snake-free life) but it isn't going to happen.

It was too hot to do any real yard or garden work today. I think tomorrow will be better, but Lillie is here, so we have plans to bake cookies and to swim. Nowhere is work a part of those plans.

I've been keeping an eye on the potential tropical cyclone trying to form in the Gulf of Mexico. Right now it seems like it will be heading towards Louisiana, and at such a terrible time for them, with the Mississippi River already near flood stage as it is. Its remains might come far enough east after it comes ashore to bring rain to southeastern or eastern OK in a few days. My garden and I are hoping it comes far enough east to reach us because we sure need the rain.

Dawn

I have fans on the chickens. And a mister in the shade. It helps.

Dawn, Atwoods had baby chicks of varying sizes/ages on Saturday. I sure hope they have some small ones today. (Or I'll get home and Stormy hatched an egg, but I think her eggs aren't fertile/chick died). Both Atwoods and TSC did NOT have the bottle part of those plastic chick feeders/waterers. Why? Why have 1000 bottom parts and not the bottles.

I'm not sure what I'll work on when I get home. Kane got into something when he ran off yesterday and he needs to be cleaned up. I want to do something in the garden, but will probably cook after going to Atwoods. Trying to stay on target with the "clean eating" challenge. Maybe I'll finish weeding the back garden when the shade hits it this evening.

There's three raised beds back there and both tomato beds are weeded now. Just need to do the jalapeno one.

Oh, and I want to start more PEPH peas and maybe some fresh bush beans.

Jennifer, Some, if not all, of the plastic and metal feed and waterer bases will fit canning jars, either pint or quart. At least ours do, though all of ours are several years old. I assume that has not changed with the newer ones. Maybe that is why you're only seeing the bases. Ours fit regular mouth jars, not wide-mouth.

We have had a fan in our chicken coop forever but they only benefit from it at night because the minute I open the door to the coop in the morning, they are out of there. Our coop is in almost full shade all day be design to help them stay cool if they are in it, though a little late afternoon sun hits the west side of it for a few minutes before it is back in shade again. I don't worry about them in the coop so much....but when they are free ranging, they often forget to cool off (like little kids playing outdoors). I employ the use of soaker hoses, misters, sprinklers and home-made puddles for them. If they aren't able to stay cool, it isn't because we aren't trying to give them ways to stay cool. Had I known we'd have a heat index of 116 the other day, I probably would have kept them in the mudroom that day after covering the mudroom bench, table and floor with sheet plastic, but I really didn't see that 116 coming....the NWS had said our heat index would be around 107. They were a little bit off.

When I have broody hens who won't leave the coop on a very hot day, I place frozen 1-gallon jugs of water fairly close to their nests so they can benefit from it cooling the air. I don't put it close enough to touch them, but sometimes some of them will move and lay right up against the ice jug for a few minutes before returning to their nests. Their favorite cooling technique the other day was just to lie on the ground on the moist soil in the shade where I had a soaker hose on a slow drip for them all day long. The moist ground must have felt good because a couple of cats were lying there with them, and one of the cats wasn't even ours....I think she lives next door...or possibly west of the house next door, which means her home's driveway is about a half mile from ours, though she undoubtedly travels the shorter route across the fields.

It is unseasonably cool here this morning. I should work in the garden. I don't know that I will. There's been too many snake encounters lately, which of course, is typical for July, and I have no desire to get bitten by a venomous snake. Gardening here would be so much easier if we didn't have all these copperheads and rattlesnakes. I'm not happy to see any snake in the garden with me, but get about 10 times unhappier when it is venomous snakes. I know the snakes are in the garden at night because my garden frogs are disappearing quickly now, so it is likely some of the snakes are in there in the early morning hours or even all day long as well. I could smell a copperhead in or near the garden the last couple of days when watering, but I couldn't see it.

Dawn

Dawn, do copperheads really smell like cucumbers?

A tomato question. Do Brandwines have double blooms more often than other varieties? You know how they make those funky shaped fruit. Seems like a lot of my Brandywines have that weird shape.

It's 2:30 and my phone says it's 88 degrees out and feels like 89. I'll take that! It was almost chilly here this morning.

Normally I don't keep the fan in the coop on during the day. But with all the broody action, I have been. All of the broodies are moved out of the main coop. They each have a fan on them, though. Most aren't turned on today because it's not that hot.

Thanks for the chick feeder/waterer Mason jar tip.

Atwoods didn't have day old chicks yesterday (I called) but are supposed to get some today after 10. So, hopefully they're there when I head that way in a bit. I have the last two hens in their spots. So...it's up to the hens now. They need to prove they can do this.

Hoping to enjoy some time outdoors this evening.

It started out nice and cool here, too, this morning. But by the time I began mowing, at noon, it was too hot. LOL--you all know how I praise/cuss the shade here. Today's strategy: Only mow where it's shady. Thus, my mowing took from noon-4:30. In several rounds. But it certainly was doable as long as I only mowed in shade! LOL

It has been so interesting, having two gardens--the one here, the other in town. TOTALLY different conditions. And it will undoubtedly be a great lesson for me. The one in town is full sun; shadiest areas are in the shade for maybe 2-3 hours. I find the weather is harsher in human terms. And it's windier than here. And of course, they got the standing water in the beds for nearly the month of June. Sound way to harsh for my tastes! BUT! We have six double cinder block raised beds around the large circle bed. In those beds, we have beans, okra, summer squash, butternut, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes. And then in some shallow waist high beds, we have shallow-rooted flowers. And then in the huge circle bed, we have herbs and flowers, more peppers and tomatoes. A lot of those plants suffered bigtime with the floods, but nearly all lived and are now thriving.

To be honest, the plants, veggies, and flowers in all those beds are mostly outperforming those same plants here. Well. . . . I didn't put any shade to partial shade lovers in THOSE beds. And many of the sun lovers in those beds, I wouldn't plant here. But it's those in-between ones that are so interesting. And worst, it's the ones who need all sun but only get some sun here. :(

Like the milkweed, for example. Friends--are ANY of the milkweed less susceptible to the milkweed pests than the others?? I am so despondent over all the milkweed pests!

Dawn, any advice? Lisa? I have managed to keep the asclepias tuberosa from being eaten totally up this year, but doing my watches at least every other day. But this year I planted several scarlet milkweed, too, in the center bed, and was dismayed today to see swamp milkweed beetle nymphs! I took soapy water out to deal with them, but they're speedy little pervs. I WANT to be a monarch waystation, but HONESTLY! WHAT the heck!? Any cheers or advice or tips?

I’ve given most of the tomatoes a major cut back this week, to see if they will hang on until fall. Septoria is a bitch. Damn squirrels sat two feet from me and watched me do it. They’re taking every special treat I put out, and are still here.

The last storm we got topped one of my Heidis, and toppled my Late Girl trellis. Also, Gardeners Delight is producing like gangbusters, and is laughing off the septoria that’s taking down the beefsteak varieties. Taking note of that.

Had to water today. Cukes are finally taking off. Had to start them in jugs to get any going.

Jennifer, I would not really describe the smell of a copperhead as being similar to a cucumber. It smells like a.....copperhead. It is sort of a musky smell, not as bad as the odor of a skunk, but not pleasant. Maybe it smells a little like a cucumber to some folks, but not necessarily to me. I have some friends who say it smells like copper to them. It doesn't to me. You won't always smell it. I usually smell it when I have walked by one and startled it. Copperheads don't want to tangle with us and usually will slip away if they can, but if they are startled or surprised and can't slip away because maybe a person is between them and their best escape route so that they feel trapped, they'll release that scent. I try to freeze in place when I smell it, first checking the ground near my feet to make sure I'm not about to step on one. Sometimes I can find them after I smell them, but sometimes I cannot.

Brandywines do seem a bit more prone to have fused blossoms (aka megablooms) than many other varieties, especially from blooms formed when the nights still were cool. Usually as the season goes on, the megablooms become more and more rare. The fused blossoms do tend to produce very large fruit, but because of the way the skin of the different fruits fold together as the fruit enlarges, you often end up cutting away and tossing a significant portion of the ripe fruit, so lots of people just toss those flowers before they form fruit. I never do, merely because blossom drop happens so much here once we get hot that I hate to waste a single tomato blossom.

Nancy, If you plant milkweed, you're just going to have milkweed pests. Insects cannot afford to be picky---if they have to eat milkweed to survive, they're going to eat any and all milkweed. I've never noticed that any particular type of milkweed is less susceptible to the specific pests than others are. Like everything else, the milkweed plants and their pests are natural parts of our ecosystem. If the pests are doing too much damage, just destroy them. I leave them alone if I can and wait for the birds or beneficial insects to take care of them. I've never had the tussock moth caterpillars here and do believe I'd kill those things in a heartbeat. Whether you appreciate it or not, the ecosystem is functioning properly. While we plant milkweeds for the monarchs, we also have to expect that anything else and everything else that feeds on them might show up too. I usually don't see milkweed pests until the fields turn brown and the milkweeds go to seed and, in dry weather, began to fade and dry and die back to the ground. Guess what? We're already that dry here. The milkweed plants in the fields look sad and pathetic and the pests are moving to the milkweeds in irrigated green gardens. It happens every year---if you are hungry, you go to where the food is found. Pest-free gardening is a myth perpetrated by chemical companies. A healthy garden is full of insects, both good and bad.

Milkweeds existed on this land before we bought it. They are still here. They'll be here long after we are gone unless someone scrapes the ground bare and pours concrete on it. (What a horrible thought!) Nothing kills them, though excessively dry weather can make the ones in the fields die back to the ground. They often green up and grow again when rainfall returns in autumn. The milkweed in our flower border never dies back to the ground (I hope I didn't jinx them by saying that) but can look ratty if drought gets too extreme and I stop watering because I cannot water enough to help the plants stay in good shape. Sometimes I just give up in the heat and close the garden gate and tell the plants I'll be back in the fall, or after we get decent rainfall, and the milkweeds survive, so if they can take a couple of drought months with no water, they can handle feeding by most pests. Probably not the tussock moth caterpillars, but pretty much everything else.

As for being a Monarch Waystation....don't think of it that way. That's a sort of gimmicky way to make people feel good about growing plants for the monarchs. I want to grow plants for the monarchs to help them, not so I can display a Monarch Waystation sign. (sigh) You aren't trying to have a monarch waystation for its own sake, right? Instead, you are trying to fix a broken (by others) ecosystem by providing habitat. Approach it with the attitude that you are restoring the ecosystem to what it once was and needs to be again and remember that doing so provides a habitat for everything and that will have everything inhabiting it....those insects and creatures we would choose to see and those that we'd rather not see around. It is the way of the world, and they all have their place somewhere in the food chain. Everything in any ecosystem eats something and everything gets eaten by something. Accepting that and not going overboard trying to micromanage the garden 'pests' is so much less stressful, and it is natural. God made the world and everything in it and I trust that he created those darn milkweed pests for some reason that he understands, even if we do not. My goal never has been to have an insect-free garden or landscape, nor is it to have pest-free plants, because such a thing isn't possible unless you use synthetic chemicals strong enough to kill everything. My goal is to have an ecosystem that is healthy, strong and balanced, where I interfere in the food web as little as humanly possible. Make peace with the pests and only destroy those that truly destroy plants, not those that just damage them. Look at it this way: plant asparagus and eventually asparagus beetles show up (and harlequin bugs). Plant brassicas and cabbage loopers, imported cabbage worms and diamondback moth worms will show up. Plant potatoes and Colorado potato beetles will show up. Plant okra and sharpshooters and aphids are likely to show up. Plant squash and you-know =-whos will show up. Plant sweet potatoes and morning glories and tortoise beetles show up. Plant milkweed and milkweed assassin bugs, milkweed leaf beetles, oleander aphids and tussock moth cats show up. It is the way things are.

The older I get, the more I have learned to chill, relax and let the garden ecosystem just be an ecosystem. I have learned I can ignore most pests and the plants will outlast them, so I don't worry about anything except the ones experience has taught me do extreme damage to the plants we grow for a food harvest.. Blister beetles are an example of one you can ignore most of the time. After all, blister beetles are beneficial because they devour grasshopper eggs. However, on some plants (cucumbers and sweet autumn clematis, for example) they can eat the foliage down to nothing, so if they're doing that, a gardener really cannot ignore them. What matters the most, though, is how many blister beetles show up. If I see an occasional handful of them in the garden, I just ignore them. However if they show up by the hundreds or thousands, a gardener cannot ignore them.

Rebecca, It is just one of those years with the Septoria Leaf Spot. It was really hit and miss in my garden, but definitely more widespread than usual (some years I don't see it at all) and, in a most interesting way, I saw very little Early Blight, which is more common in my garden. It is almost like the Septoria Leaf Spot outcompeted the Early Blight for the right to hit tomato plants randomly.

Sorry about the squirrels. I was hoping those squirrel treats would work.

I've always found it interesting that most tomato varieties that produce bite-sized fruit just do not seem to suffer from common fungal and bacterial foliar diseases like the varieties that produce larger fruit do. I've never seen this addressed in technical literature, but have observed it in my garden. These diseases may hit the plants, but the plants outgrow them and never stop producing either.

I watered twice this week and probably will have to do the same next week. It just depends on how much the soil dries out. Tim is already fretting over the coming July water bill (which will arrive here in the first week of August) because, he says, the water bills haven't been at all bad this year and he dreads getting a high one. I laughingly told him to adjust his attitude and just be grateful that the water bills for January through June were not bad and to remind himself that a high water bill in July and August is normal and expected. lol. I also still don't think the July water bill will be that bad--I certainly am watering the remaining veggies and herbs, and all the flowers, much less than I water when I'm trying to keep a ton of tomato, cucumber and melon plants happy in the heat. I think he just needs something to fret about.

It hasn't really felt hot here since that day our heat index hit 116. Of course, the obvious explanation is that after that miserable day, any other day will feel cool by comparison. (grin) Tim wasn't here that day though and was in his air-conditioned office at work, so he missed the worst of it. I think our heat index had dropped into the 70s or 80s by the time he got home because of all the rain storms around us that basically missed us but gave us rain-cooled air. (And, I believe, a measly 4/100s of an inch of rain.) I do think the heat returns at the middle of next week. Since that hot, miserable day, I've felt like our weather has been only warm, not hot, but by mid-week, we'll be hot again.

We need to mow and edge everything tomorrow, and especially all the fence lines and such where the fields really are drying out now. Keeping as much vegetation as possible cut short reduces the fire danger, and we are starting to have fires. By the way, while typing this I have heard some fireworks going off in our neighborhood. Really, people? I think that by now people should have all that out of their system. Apparently they don't.

Dawn