Well, Ron cut out most of the cowpeas. He left the volunteer melons and tomatoes. I think I'll put brassica in those beds as soon as plants show up. Maybe Lowes has them. I never got seeds started. I have some spring planted carrots that have gone to seed.

I haven't been seeing the Harlequin bugs. I know they're there. And there are white flies on the freaking cucumbers. I thought I might actually get cukes this year, the plants looked good. I'm going to have to find someone who grows cukes and trade them for tomatoes.

Went to dinner with kids last night. The plants in the front are surviving. I only see them when I go somewhere, which is maybe once a week. Ron waters. I'm afraid of falling as there's a step up to the faucet.

I'm in love with pool row. I have spearmint flowering there, oregano flowering, garlic chives flowering, passionflowers, celosia, agastache, black and blue...what is that, salvia? Actual salvia, peppermint, rosemary, lantana, nicotiana, don't tell anyone but I've kept thyme alive for 2 years. I need to take pictures.

The Cherokee trail of tears beans are still growing up and seem to be making more beans. I convinced Ron to leave them and maybe we'll have enough beans for a meal.

There was a new asparagus stalk coming up. Do they do that in fall? I don't remember it. It's to big around to be a seedling.

Ron wants to empty the onion bed. It's always had a grass problem.

It's still hot out there. They are teasing us with cooler temps. And a thunderstorm warning last night that LOOKED like it was coming and made noise and I think passed north and west of us. Mutter mutter.

Have a good week.

Congrats Marleigh!!!

best harvest ever : )

garden at home,

blackeyed peas are really close to getting a big harvest. The first handful I cooked for my little toodles. She loves sweet potatoes and beans and peas. she has mastered pinching.

the African x okra is stunted and I am so disappointed. I am afraid the sandy soil is too poor. I did not plant all the seed so I may try some in pots under cover. This variety from Glen laughs at cool weather so I may still have a chance. As for my potted garden My pear and pecan Trees are doing great. I got a free pear tree at Calloway because the main leader branch broke off. It’sa healthy tree with a secondary leader. It has about a2” trunk. Goji and rhubarb were eaten to the ground by first round of grasshoppers. Hyacinth vine is going nuts. Apparently grasshoppers don’t care for it lol. Garlic chives are blooming and beans are struggling.

at daughters gardens

after terrible week of no water many plants died or suffered damage that set them back. What survived is doing great now. Red noodle beans, cucumbers , peanuts, cotton, green okra, porters, white cherry tomatoes, zinnia’s, purple hull peas (4 plants), sweet potatoes, red okra, popcorn and squash.

i will always grow red noodle beans. They are related to cow peas so they just show off during t he heat. So yummy stir fried with onion. My grandson eats the onion I eat the pods and baby gets the peas win win.

i am still planting lots of things for fall

Congratulations Marliegh!

Dawn, did you get rain? Radar looked like it.

Marleigh and family. Say welcome to little Elijah for us! I'm glad you're doing well, and Marleigh, how WONDERFUL that hubby is making great salsa! You must be a rock star teacher!

Okay, I'm now tired of summer squash. I thought about grating it, freezing it, and using it for "zucchini bread," but then remembered GDW and I don't really eat desserts. Well, maybe he would. I'll bake a loaf and see how he reacts.

I didn't go outside today. That's probably the first day in 5 years I haven't gone outside. And it wasn't even in the triple digits.

I've heard you all discussing various okra. May I ask what your favorites are? I grew Burgundy and Stewarts Zeebest this summer. Both produce well, and since I've never eaten okra, I don't have any idea how to judge the taste. And I've only fixed them by roasting, so far. We have 10 okra plants at the school that are putting out a great number.

Since I was never a vegetable grower, this is my biggest confusion. I've no idea how many of any one veggie to grow. I DO know that 2 summer squash and cucumber plants here are plenty for us. I know I didn't grow enough green beans or watermelons. I'm so excited by the garlic we harvested, and this is why--the cloves are really good-sized. We're having a good tomato harvest. There are not a lot of large spectacular heirlooms, but there are a LOT of many of them. And they look pretty good. I expect many will be rejuvenating into the fall.

My yard is a MESS. Flower beds are overgrown with weeds, though I've made good progress in 3 of the 6. It's all I can do to keep the lawn mowed. YES, in the best of all possible yards, I wouldn't have one. But this is what I moved into and inherited. Nearly 1 acre of Bermuda grass lawn, with 7 beds, plus a raised bed area for veggies in a fenced in garden, and then one more raised bed near the carport for flowers. Well, I inherited the LAWN. The beds. . . I made the many flower beds. Too many. GDW and I built the concrete blocks raised beds.

But I must say, this yard is going to be impossible for me to take care of in the near future. Sigh. And for Garry. Not only the property, but the house itself. This house is app. 1900' sq . GDW and I could easily live in 1/3 that much space.

We're growing a magnificent garden at Lincoln. But it has occurred to me that this is a long-term project. And I have doubts about my ability to keep it going.

Amy, where did you go to dinner? Here in Wagoner, I've no trust in the restaurants--but love going to Chile's in Muskogee, because I saw first-hand the way they sanitize the tables and separate them.

I haven't been on here because I've been trying to catch up binge-watching Wentworth. GDW was like 12 episodes ahead of me. So I got up in the middle of the night last night, and watched from 10 am today to now. almost caught up. LOL XOXO to all of you.

Marleigh, Yay! Congrats! I've been checking daily to see if you had posted baby news for us. Welcome to the world to baby Elijah and best wishes to all of you! I am proud of your hubby for keeping up with the harvest and for making salsa. You trained him well.

Larry, I wanted to be able to say yesterday that our heat finally broke and that it was cooler than it had been, but I couldn't. It was horrendous for another day with a high of 103 (better, I guess, than Saturday's 106) and a heat index that already had hit 111 before the National Weather Service finally woke up yesterday, noticed we were cooking along at some high heat down here in southern OK and abruptly issued a Heat Advisory. By the time we had the heat advisory, our heat index had more or less peaked although it stayed around 110-111 for hours and hours. Folks to our east had it much worse as their dewpoints and heat index values were higher than ours, but the rain hit them first and they cooled down first too. Today we are finally cooler.

That's a nice bunch of cucumbers you harvested yesterday. I like your zero-turn mower. I hope that's the kind Tim gets next time he buys one. His current riding mower is about 18 or 20 years old and it really is time to get a new one. It seems like every time he mows, something on that old mower breaks and then he has to order a part and fix it. I keep telling him he ought to get a new one, and he just keeps on repairing the old one.

Either the cows are well-trained or they have you well-trained. Maybe it is a little of both.

Amy, If Lowe's doesn't have the plants now, they should have them soon. They always get them later than I'd like for fall planting, but people who buy them and plant them generally get a good crop. Perhaps it doesn't matter if they're planted a bit late since it usually is a bit cooler when they finally go into the ground and they don't have to fight the heat quite so hard.

I didn't check at the Ardmore Wal-mart on Sunday to see if they had veggie transplants out in the garden center, but they had a small number of potted mums in bloom and some croton plants for fall color just inside the doorway. Tim and I laughed at the thought of putting those poor mums outside in the ground or in large pots on a 106 degree day and didn't buy any. The mums struggle hard enough if you plant them here in September when the highs are still in the upper 90s or around 100 degrees, and it just would be worse if someone fell for the idea of fresh fall color and bought those poor things yesterday. I wonder if they'll have the mums a month from now when the weather will be better for them.

Black and Blue Salvia is Salvia guarantica and it is a beautiful plant. I believe it is hardy only to zone 7 and I can tell you it will die (mine did last year) if you have a very early freeze before it has had time to harden off to progressively colder weather. I have grown it several times and keep trying it, but unlike many of the older salvias I grow, it doesn't seem to like our clay soil in the winter time. Oh, so maybe I should blame its death last year on the one million inches of rain we had all autumn, winter and spring now that I think about it. That problem is more accurate than blaming it on the cold. I don't think I've ever had it last more than 2 winters here.

You and Ron might be able to fix the onion bed by getting the current grass out of it and solarizing it for the rest of the autumn. I'd like to solarize the east end of my garden all winter long to deal with the persistent Johnson grass invasion at that end. It would have been better to solarize it all summer long, but during all that rain, a lot of cosmos, Texas hummingbird sage and zinnia plants popped up there and by the time the rain finally had stopped enough that I could have cleaned it up and covered it with plastic, the flowers were starting to bloom, so I just left it all alone for the wild things....and the flowers remain in bloom albeit heavily infested with Johnson grass growing among them.

We did finally get rain, though the storms looked more serious on radar than they felt in real life at our house. I felt the same way as you yesterday---that they were teasing us with the heat and the rain, but it finally arrived around dinner time. Tim had intended to grill hatch chili pepper hamburgers and sausages, but I was watching the radar and the thermometer and told him I thought it was too hot (who wants to grill when it is 103 and the heat index is 111?) and hail was coming. So he put away the grill, and quickly ran to town and bought us Subway sandwiches because we didn't want to heat up the house by cooking, and then he raced home just ahead of the big storm, beating the rain and hail by just a couple of minutes. It was veering west of us while perpetually looking like it was coming straight at us. The heat was so awful and the storms moved so slowly and kept veering west of us and threatening to miss us for a pretty prolonged period. We watched and listened as folks in our county and the adjacent one got pounded with hail from dime sized closer to us to 2" size a bit further west and north and one severe thunderstorm after another was issued for points north, west and east of us. Then they had wind gusts that we couldn't imagine, but it sounded bad from the things other firefighters were posting on our GroupMe page. I wasn't watching the Mesonet and didn't know the speed at the time, just that some roofs were being torn up. (It turned out the max gust, which missed our place, was 88 mph at our mesonet station and possibly higher further north and west of it.) Finally, after the rest of the county already had had some wicked weather, it got as dark as night at our house while Tim was gone to Subway, the wind came up strongly and I suspect gusts were in the 50s-60s for a brief period, and some wet stuff fell from the sky, with an occasional small hailstone mixed in. I'd love to say we had a ton of rain, but we didn't. Still, we did receive almost 6/10s of an inch in a fairly short time frame and then the storms crossed the river and kept going south. While we got less rain than most of our county, we didn't get the hail in any significant amount or size, we didn't get the stronger wind, we didn't lose power like folks at the west end of the county did, and we didn't have trees and power lines come down. So, for a wicked August thunderstorm, it went pretty easy on our place. Best of all, though, was that the temperature dropped 20 degrees here in about an hour. Last night was the first time we were below 85 degrees before midnight in quite some time. Last week, we were going to bed with temps in the mid-80s and the heat index in the 90s every night around midnight so we were ready for the heat to break, even if it is only a minor and temporary break.

They did tease us last week by saying we'd have highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s this week, and then they backed off of all that and said yesterday we'd have highs in the mid-90s and lows in the low 70s, but that still is better than highs over 100 and lows around 78-80. I haven't looked at the forecast this morning. If they've raised the temperatures more, I don't want to know about it. This was our first real rain in about two and a half weeks (we aren't counting that 1/100th of an inch that fell one day, lol) so we were thrilled to have it. We still are wickedly dry though.

Kim, Considering how hot and dry it has been there in Denton, it sounds like your garden is doing pretty well over all. At least now you know which areas have the sandy soil that doesn't hold moisture as well as you'd like for it to.

Red noodle beans grow and produce well, but we didn't like them nearly as much as cowpeas, so only grew them a couple of years. I'm glad y'all like them since they are doing well for you. It is just a bad grasshopper summer. Ours have come in waves, but the wild birds wipe out each wave shortly after it arrives. They still have done a lot of plant damage, but everything has survived them so far.

Nancy, I'm glad you stayed in out of the heat---those heat indices were pretty wicked yesterday.

When we get tired of squash, I just pull up the plants and put them on the compost pile and move on. For so many, many years I grew far too much of everything and then spent tons and tons of time dealing with the excess harvest, at least until the freezers were full and the canning jars as well. Finally I decided I'd had enough of that and instead of "working for the garden" and being its slave all summer, I'd plant less, control the harvest better by yanking out plants when I was done with them instead of waiting for them to be done with me, and back off from the heavy canning and freezing routine. Know what? I like this new attitude and intend to keep it, although most years I'll have more growing than I did this year and I'll preserve more. The good thing is that since I preserved so much food over the previous years, we still have food in jars and food in the freezer, albeit from last year or the year before. I've always canned and frozen 2-3 years worth of produce in a good year, so it didn't really hurt that I coasted through last summer and this summer. I hope to be a bit more back to normal next year. I really did need a break from the dawn-to-midnight gardening and canning routine and don't ever intend to go back to that heavy of a summer schedule again.

Stewart's Zeebest is my favorite okra because of its high productivity and heavy branching. It has great flavor and texture too, being selected out of Lousisiana Green Velvet, and the pods are not as quick to turn woody on the plants as those of some other varieties. Another huge favorite is Beck's Big Buck, which produces big, fat pods whose size (in terms of diameter) have to be seen to be believed. I love to slice it as if I was going to pickle it, and then to oven roast it...we eat it like it is potato chips, though I don't roast it long enough to make it thin and crunchy like potato chips.

I feel the same way about yard upkeep that you do....hence the big, planned remodeling of the landscape that is intended to ultimately give us a much smaller area of lawn around the house that needs to be mowed. At the rate we are going, this will take us years to accomplish unless we get better cooperation from the rain so we can actually do the work to tear out the lawn, but I'm looking forward to having less to mow. No matter what we do, we'll still have a couple of acres to mow, but we only really keep the immediate area around the house mowed like a lawn---most of that 2+ acres only gets mowed about once every 4-6 weeks. I used to mow all of it, and then when Tim took on the mowing (hmmm, I did it all with a push mower for about 4-5 years and then when he started doing the mowing, all of a sudden we had to have a riding mower....), I relinquished that task gladly and haven't had to mow much since then. He usually mows while I'm gardening or canning.

He accepts we are going to tear out most of the Bermuda grass around the house and replant it with shrubs, ground covers and perennials in beds that will be heavily mulched and won't need mowing, but still gets that deer-in-the-headlights look when I talk about it. I really think he would keep the lawn and still be out there mowing like a madman when he is 80 years old, but I refuse to let that constant mowing be a main feature of our happy golden years. If we can gradually cut the weekly mowing from almost 3 acres down to just 2 or 2.5 acres, that still will be a big improvement. We might start the deck this coming weekend. Oh wait, I had that thought in my head, and then we were watching Yellowstone last night and they said there would be a marathon of this year's shows all day Sunday starting at noon, so scratch the deck-building plans for Sunday. Tim only started watching Yellowstone with me the last 3 or 4 weeks and now is hooked, but he missed the first 2 and a half seasons of it, retreating to his office to watch TV and work on his computer whenever it came on. Now he's wanting to catch up on it, so at least we can watch the marathon Sunday and he can be caught up on this year's episodes. Then we'll have to catch him up on the prior two seasons sometime after next week's Season 3 finale.

I also look at my garden and ponder how much of it I want to keep in veggies and for how long. The woodland trees encroach more and more on it every year, so its west end and north end have shrunk inward for the last 10 years and it still feels much too big to me now that I don't want to spend all summer every summer preserving food. I think eventually it will be almost entirely a pollinator garden of flowers and herbs, and most of my veggie garden will be in large containers near the house, and that probably will be something that shifts gradually over the next few years. After a lifetime of weeding, I want the future years to be less about maintenance of the garden and more about the joy of growing. We might actually move the garden fence inward on the north side this winter and reduce the garden to about 2/3s of its current size. All of my friends, especially the gardening ones here, will tell you, as they often tell me, that it is amazing I've gardened here in this seriously snakey area for two plus decades without getting bitten by a rattlesnake or copperhead. I know they are right, and I want to downsize to containers before that event finally happens. The snakes just love the wild profusions of mixed veggies, herbs and flowers too much to stay out of the garden completely. Plus they love to come and eat the frogs, which ticks me off but it is nature doing what nature does.

I've had the advantage of watching Fred and other friends try too hard for too long to maintain too much of a garden as they aged, and I want to be smart and learn from what I've seen them go through. That means downsizing to a smaller garden earlier in my life than any of them did. I don't want to be one of those people who gardens hard until I fall off my tractor (easy, since I don't have a tractor) and then the kids make me give up gardening. I want to gradually downsize the garden as I age gracefully so it is a smoother transition. lol. One of our neighbors kept gardening even after he lost most of his ability to walk and to stand. He'd drag a folding chair out to the garden and sit in it and hoe. I think he kept his garden going until the year he went into the nursing home. Well, I'm not going to be that person sitting in a chair in the garden and manning a hoe from a seated position. I'm going to switch to containers that will be easier to maintain later in life before I reach that point.

Our house is slightly smaller than yours Nancy, and we always intended it would be our forever home. With the pets and the grandchildren, it seems about the right size although I think at some point if we wished, we could close off all the upstairs rooms and just live downstairs and be perfectly happy. I don't want to move again ever, although if we won the lottery, which we will not since we never buy lotto tickets, I could happily move to someplace new that has cooler summers. I'd be happy in a beach house on the Texas gulf coast, but that's never going to happen. Really, I think it would be too hard to move away from Chris, Jana and the girls, so this will remain our retirement home for all those happy golden years we hope to spend in it.

Speaking of the girls, they are coming over later today to spend a couple of days with us while Chris works and Jana returns to nursing school tomorrow just a few days before the girls start school at the end of this week. We will squeeze in all the swimming pool, water balloon and popsicle time we can before school effectively ends summer for them. Over the past two years, we've been able to have pool fun on the weekends even after school started, but this week will be their last chance to spend endless days in the pool. I think we have had weekend pool fun until the first week in October each year though since it is so slow to cool down for autumn these last few years.

I need to finish this and go feed breakfast to the pets and to the pesky wild deer who are standing out in the yard waiting even now as I type this. Y'all have a good day. We had rain, so I'll be happy for at least a couple of days. Our soil moisture levels probably won't even go up that much, but at least some rain finally fell in August.

Dawn

Monday morning. I spent twenty minutes making a lovely post and it disappeared. here is the recap

Dawn my gardensin Denton two of them are in black gumbo one is in rich compost in fifteen buckets. Although the black gumbo is nutrient rich I have a hard time getting seeds established.

at home on my fil land I have sand. No nutrients. There is Hardpan clay like rock under the sand. My fil used miracle grow every week to keep his garden looking good. I have used s little compost tea but I feel I should have started earlier.

in the panhandle I was spoiled with my soil in Quitaque. From the lead mold out of the woods then the slaughterhouse property. delightful soil.

i am learning and I pray I am not here next year. This is a very peculiar place to live. I am thankful I was here when my mom was and that I got to work on my tiny house but the neighbors....

the garden at my daughters we are going to dump tons of leaves in there. Should I till it in or just tarp it.

Also

W e we got 5/8“ in Denton but not much here in collinsville

I need help. Madge is wanting to make rose ele jelly. I role her that I thought that we should wait till Oct or nov for the fruit to be ready, she says it looks like what she sees on the computer. We could use guidance. Do these look ready?

Thanks

I cant see what I am typing on the tablet, plus it changes what I type sometimes.

I'm a bit envious of your beautiful gardens and the roselle, Larry! It's gorgeous. It grew beautifully at the Lincoln garden last year, but now I have so many flowers, native plants, and milkweed that there was no room for roselle. And what a haul of cucumbers!

I have way too many potatoes all of a sudden. Suzanne dropped some off to us (through the food truck giveaways) and I have ours. So when I opened my homemade cookbook, looking for the newest cake recipe, and it fell open at potato soup, AHA! Normally I don't do soups in the summer, but we love it and have lots of potatoes, so.......................... tomorrow we'll pick up groceries after we get back from Chile's in Muskogee.

Kim, I'm amazed that you can do posts on your phone. That is impressive! How aggravating it must be when the posts disappear. How far away is your garden at daughter's from your garden at fils?

Yellowstone--Dawn, Garry loved that show. He was annoyed when he found out he had to pay for the second season. and wouldn't do it. I haven't seen ANY of it, because I don't normally watch one-season shows; and 2) I had no idea Kevin Costner was the star. LOL Now it looks like I'd have to pay for even Season 1.

I'll be going to Lincoln this evening. I'm fairly confident I'll be seeing Monarch caterpillars--that'll be fun. I saw a dozen or so on my milkweed here today. (I don't have much here yet.) And we have a second batch of bluebird babies in the bluebird house there.

Do any of you take any dietary supplements? We'd been looking for zinc--I finally ordered some from Amazon. Garden of Life Vitamin Code raw zinc. We laughed so hard at the list of ingredients! I encourage you to check it out if you take supplements. It has 24 fruits and veggies, zinc from brown rice chelate, Vit C from a culture, and probiotics and trace mineral blend. I told Garry--"Heck, we won't even have to eat real food."

Soup's done. Later, all!

Nancy

garden of life is my favorite go to supplement company. At natural grocers I studied all the different companies and they seem to be the purest form. And o don’t have reaction to them because there are no pitiful fillers.

being on my phone is challenging. It is why I don’t interact more. When I try to scroll up to see what prior wrote I lose my post :/

i only live 30 minutes from my daughter. I babysit the kids now for my job so I am there at least three days a s week

larr I can’t tell from the picture have your roselle already bloomed?

What type of garlic should I buy

Kim, the roselle have been blooming for a month or more, but I cant tell you if that picture is before or after blooming. Those are in my north garden. Both my north and south garden are in my yard and have been amended well and dont require a lot of maintenance, other than a little water and weeding. I spent quite a bit of time in the wildlife garden, because I am trying to build up the soil and contour the land. The wildlife garden is actually on my daughter land, but she lives about 12 miles away and just lets me do as I like over there. She know that I am increasing the value of her land.

Madge has picked some of the pods, I will try to post a picture. I dont know the names of any part of the flower.

I pulled off the front part of this one and have been chewing on it, sureis sour. The plants on the other end of the row are larger,but have no pods, I think they get more water and sun.

These are the ones we are going to play with. If we mess up we have plenty more.

They are definitely sour

I need to catch up tomorrow. I didn't sleep last night so am trying to sleep tonight.

Hope everyone is well.

It was hot, but not miserable today.

Oh, I think I have an actual tomato hornworm. It looks a little different and has a blue-ish horn.

That's all for now. Be back tomorrow.

Marleigh! Congratulations! I hope Elijah is letting you get some sleep. :D

It's exciting that your husband is canning! Not as exciting as a new baby...but still pretty exciting.

Amy, that one crazy wind last month broke many of the asparagus ferns. After that, I noticed a few spears coming up.

Kim, if you come can with us, you can pick all the okra your car can hold. Providing it's still producing. It should be. It normally goes strong until the first freeze.

Nancy, I was able to put a few jars of grated zucchini in the freezer for bread this fall. My family really likes those types of breads. I make a lot of it during the cool/cold months.

You're probably feeling overwhelmed about your property because it's so hot. It makes everything feel "too much".

Dawn, have you thought about/read anything on gravel in the pathways of your future landscaped backyard? I love the look of the gravel paths--especially the ones with a few stepping stones-- but wonder how well gravel keep out Bermuda....

I'm still excited and energized about having a big gardens--although mine are not that big compared to some of yours. BUT, even I have the back garden that will be my "old age" garden. It needs to be rebuilt. It was made with untreated wood 6 years ago and is breaking down now. The plan was to rebuild it with concrete blocks, but I really, really like the garden beds made with those corner blocks--the ones you just slide a board into. So, that is the plan now. Hopefully that process will begin next month. For now, I'm just going to stack 2 blocks to have a 12 inch tall raised bed. But can make it taller in the future if needed. IF I can find those blocks. A lot of people are building raised beds now and those things are becoming difficult to find. ANYWAY, the plan all along was to keep a small veggie garden back there for future Old Age Jennifer.

If *I* win the lottery (still need to buy some tickets! haha!), Dawn. I want to buy up all the property in our neighborhood and put my family and a few friends in all of the houses....with the hope that some of the younger people will help with the gardening. Yes, it's a dream on so many levels. lol

Larry, I ordered roselle seeds for HU and I to try next year. I know very little about it so can offer no advice, but your plants look pretty!

Nancy, since March, I've taken daily zinc along with my calcium and D. I also take a little Four Thieves Vinegar every morning. I have a new jar of it soaking now, but luckily haven't run out of the jar I made in the spring. My Mom takes it everyday too...and other supplements, but I can't remember what she takes. She gets them from NG. I just peeked at Ethan's supplements. He takes a multivitamin, Zinc, Vitamin C and Yerba Mate--all from NG. Tom just takes a Melaleuca multivitamin.

Kim, I like Garden of Life products too!

I've been out to harvest okra and tomatoes. Got the green beans last night. Today I am thankfully off work so will probably will continue to work on laundry and freezing this okra.

One of the PDCN squash vines died. Well, more than one, but this one had a smallish fruit on it. So, I sliced it up, breaded it and fried it. It was quite good. It was slightly sweet even smallish. Although I'm sure the ripe ones are much sweeter. It was quite pleasant and it makes me wonder about frying up some winter squash. Never thought of that...but the crispy and sweet work well together.

HU, I'm concerned that bugs are eating the beet seedling leaves. They're disappearing. The swiss chard is being chewed on too, but the plants are more established and will rebound. We may need to put out some more seed and throw insect netting over it.

I better get busy or the day will be gone before you know it.

Marleigh, congradulations on the little Prophet, I love Biblical names.

Jennifer, if you need any more roselle seeds let me know, it looks like I will have plenty, okra, roselle water melon, squash, PEPH pea and pumpkin seeds. I hope to rat-hole more by the end of summer.

I think the roselle are pretty also. I think I will try to grow some in the wildlife garden along the highway. Now I am thinking that if I plant roselle, with zinnias in between them, it may be pretty along the highway. The soil is not very good over there, it has plenty of mineral, but not enough organic matter. I have been working in the organic matter, but that is a slow go.

I have harvested most of my cantaloupe, about 6 butternut and one water melon. The okra and roselle are the only thing I have going strong now. The peppers are still producing, but I have not been doing much with them. My daughter and grand daughter come over about every week or two and pick a lot of produce, I think they are giving it to there friends, and I give a lot away.

I may team up with my neighbor next year in the wildlife garden. He thinks I have better soil, which I do. I have been working on mine with cover crops, he has just been adding fertilizer to his, but he has WATER, I have to haul all the water I use over there, and it is quite a chore. He also has a greenhouse. I think I can start enough plants for both of us, and he can keep them in his green house till the weather warms up.

Kim, The difference in soils always is so striking. I had black gumbo clay in Fort Worth, so was pretty used to it and knew that all I had to do was add a lot of compost (and in the beginning I added pine bark fines to hurry the process along) and it would be a beautiful growing medium. Our sandy soil here is tough to improve. Both nutrients and organic matter seem to run right through it and disappear into the center of the earth. Plus, there's the voles that tunnel through it and eat everything....I always thought sandy soil would be great once I amended it, and I guess it would be if I ever could amend it enough, but when you create hügelkultur beds in sandy soil, you end up creating a vole village. It drives me crazy. So, to improve the soil, chop up the leaves with a lawn mower so they are small enough to break down quickly. You can tarp it or not. I usually do not because I want the water to help everything break down and mix together. I suppose in a really dry year, I'd probably water the soil and the leaves and then tarp them just to hold in the moisture so the leaves would break down well. In a really wet winter, I'd do the opposite--leaving them uncovered so they had good air flow and didn't stay too wet and get gross. So, I think you'll have to tailor whatever you're doing to the weather you're having at that point in time.

To get seeds going in black gumbo clay, make a small, narrow trench in the clay and fill it with compost. Sow the seeds in the compost and keep it moist and they'll sprout just fine and then put their roots down into the gumbo clay.

Where are you hoping or planning to be next year? Do you have a plan? I think it worked out perfectly that you were able to be there in Denton as your mom lived out her final time on this earth and you could be close to her in those months. Also, you were there when the newest grandbaby was born which was just so wonderful, but I get the sense that you were happier overall in west Texas. So, do you plan to go back there or maybe just to find a little piece of land (oh, the expense! land there has escalated so much in cost....) somewhere in Denton County. We ended up in southern OK because when we looked at land anywhere south of the Red River....even in Anna, Melissa, etc., in 1997, it already seemed vastly overpriced to us and we were worried the ever-expanding metroplex would catch up with us there. Land north of the Red River in those days was so much less expensive, but that's not true any more either. Back when we bought our land here, we got 14.4 acres for less than what 1 acre of land out in the boonies would have cost us in Texas as the same time. If I had to live in Texas these days, I'd probably look for land out in the middle of nowhere in Montague County. I haven't looked at land prices there, but love the little towns like Nocona, Spanish Fort, St. Jo. etc. Really, Bowie and Nocona both probably are too big for us nowadays, but being in the countryside outside St. Jo or Spanish Fort probably would be delightful if a person could find a small piece of land. Everything out there seems to be ranches or hunting/game ranches nowadays.

We had a pop-up thunderstorm late yesterday afternoon that was mostly thunder and lightning and moving south at a very slow 5 mph, so it stayed close to us for hours and ruined the late afternoon/evening swim time, but we'll make up for it today. The small amount of rain that fell was only a little over a tenth of an inch, but the temperature fell 20 degrees so that part of it was nice. We are at almost 8/10s of an inch of rain for this week, and for August at our house, and I fear they may be all the August rain we get. The days ahead look dry.

Larry, They do look ready more or less. Sometimes I let them stay on the plants a bit longer. I made a ton of roselle jelly and roselle syrup last year.

Here's a photo of a roselle plant from the internet. If you look up near the top of the plant, you see what the blossoms look like before they bloom. Then, in the middle, you see one of the flowers, and down below you see how the roselles enlarge after blooming. It takes them a few days to a week or longer to enlarge as much as they are going to, so I never get in too much of a hurry to harvest them. The red calyx is the part you harvest and use. You can dry it to make red zinger tea, or can boil them and use them to make jelly, jam or syrup. Some people harvest the green seed pods and do something with them. Maybe they eat them. I don't remember. I just throw them on the compost pile after I've boiled everything down to make jam or jelly. You can remove the red calyx from the green seed pod first, but the green seed pod contains natural pectin, so many people like to boil them together to get the natural pectin in their jelly or jam. Then they remove the green pods and use the calyces and juice.

Roselle Plant

Nancy, I think Yellowstone is one of the best dramas on TV today. I kept telling Tim it was the kind of western show that John Wayne would be starring in today if he were alive and working, or Clint Eastwood if he were closer to Costner's age. However, there's a couple of caveats: 1) The language. It is rough and crude at times and turns off a lot of people. I just ignore it because the dramatic content of the show is so good. 2) The violence. Make no mistake about it, there's a lot of it...and sometimes the violence and killing are justified, and sometimes a bit of it seems gratuitous. However, there were some guys who needed to be killed last year, and I cheered when the Duttons took care of business with them. There's only 10 episodes per year so the summer flies by and before you know it, the 10th episode is airing and summer is ending. This coming Sunday there's a day long marathon of the 9 episodes we've seen so far this summer leading up to Sunday night's season finale. I especially appreciate that the show's creator/developer takes great pains to explore all the competing forces who fight for the land around the Yellowstone ranch: the tribal president who wants to take the land back to what it was before the white men took it from his ancestors, the 7th-generation ranching family who has fought hard to make a living there and loves the land and serves as great stewards of it....they will do anything to hang on to their ranch; the city, county and state officials who listen to the developers and start lusting over the money and jobs that various forms of development could bring to the area; the elected politicians who try to walk the fine line of keeping the traditional ranchers/citizens happy while seeking to allow enough development to create jobs and collect more tax money.... There's the endless battle over land and who owns it, who controls it, who regulates its use, who has grazing rights, mineral rights, surface water rights, etc.

This show serves as a great reminder that violence always has been a part of life in the west, even if the violence is less obvious than it might be in a city run by the mafia. I always tell Tim that John Dutton's ranch is run by a cowboy mafia...and I'm not wrong, really. I am sure the show's violence is very exaggerated for dramatic effect. This year there's been more of a focus on the violence perpetrated again native women by predators and killers, which is a very timely topic and something that all of society needs to pay more attention to. John Dutton's daughter-in-law, Monica, plays a role in trying to address this issue in this year's shows.

Well, I have more to say about zinc and such, but two little girls are pulling and tugging me to take them out to the pool, so I'll be back this afternoon or this evening.

Dawn

Thank youfor your thoughtful posts.

Although west Texas pulls at my heart I believe I am to stay next to my church in Newark. I have found an amazing property in Bridgeport I dream of having. Right now I drive 30 minutes to daughters and 70 minutes to church. I would love to tighten that up.

this property I live on has been a true blessing. However it is not my place. Too much screaming cursing and Mary Jane for me.

i just celebrated my 32 straight birthday so I really don’t care for the air quality.

Jennifer I am on my way just say when. Except this weekend I am going to see my little man for his 8th birthday!!!

LOL, Dawn. Thank. you for. your review. I'm sure at some point, we'll be watching it. . . somehow. (Besides, we're from Wyoming, remember. We HAVE to watch it.). But I laughed pretty hard, because we're currently watching Wentworth. It's a women's prison situation and so there is "some" bad language and "some" violence. You know how we were just saying that we have to be doing something else while watching TV? (For me, it's the laptop, usually.). This is one of the very few shows--perhaps the ONLY show--where I can't do that. I had to laugh at one of the reviews that said "Wentworth doesn't just veer into dark territory once a while; it resides there." And TVGuide has "9 reasons why you need to watch Wentworth ASAP." I can't do many violent or dark shows. And both Garry and I are always excited about a good cowboy series or show. Neither GDW nor I could watch Dexter.; I couldn't watch Breaking Bad. In general, we just prefer detective or police series. Longmire's one we like, Bosch. . . . but Wentworth, though violent, has the BEST characters. Great character development, excellent writing. At any rate, I bring it up mostly because of how hard I laughed at your caveats. Too funny. We certainly live in a different world today, don't we?

The young man who bought the A frame across the road from us has been working so hard. He had brought in an enormous container and it's already full. Truck company brought in a new one and hauled the old one out. Snoopy us, we had to walk by and see how it was progressing. It already looks better--and this is after we had picked up a lot of garbage from the front of the property a couple months ago, just because we couldn't stand looking at it. We're kind of excited to see it being transformed. Looks like he has completely gutted the inside. I'll have to take them a "housewarming" dish next time they come. (They're from near OKC.)

I'm not doing much if anything today. I've been doing a lot of good reading, and just got signed up for a class our church will be having via zoom. lol. My first foray into Zoom.

Eight years old, Kim! How exciting. Does he still love to garden? I have spent the past hour studying OK, and to a lesser extent, TX. It's your fault, Kim. LOL. Trying to get a handle on where you are. But then realized I need to see TX, too. I should take a trip exploring OK, but I hate to travel. But I really should see the Ouchita area and the Far East into AK. I've been in the north NE, into Missouri, and on Interstate 35 west and north of Tulsa. As far south as Webbers Falls and OKC. And to Tahlequah once. I really should make myself travel a bit. Wonder how GDW feels. I don't think it bothers him a bit.

I began fiddling with supplements after the trouble with my hip began in March. I may begin cutting some out. If you all had to list ones that you think are good, I'd love to hear. Garry swears by glucosamine. I'm sort of in the middle in terms of how much they may help. I understand that they're outside the purview of the FDA, but. . . .

The teaming up with your neighbor sounds like a pretty great idea, Larry. Roselle. I'm going to see if I can find it for sale online. I just did. No luck yet. I am SO good at spending time doing things other than work. But really, I need to go do some.

Best to you all.

Dawn, do you mind sharing your roseele jelly recipe? Madge tried one off the Web, and it did not turn out as she would like.

Nancy, I expect to have plenty Roselle seed, I can send you some if you want. I would like to wait till I am sure I have good seed. The ones I collected today I think will be good, but I feel the ones I collect later will be better. I am trying to rat hole seeds I bought near $40.00 worth to day at the Co-op. I plan on planting a lot of turnips and greens, if I can ever get some of my junk to running. I now have 3 old tractors, I want to keep a different implement on each tractor because it is hard for me to walk and change implements. I use one tractor to lift and push one implement to align it to attach it to the other tractor. Getting old is not as much fun as I had hoped it would be.

So another post lost.

Nancy I was trying to say supplements are awesome taken if you need them. Always try the liquid or chewable if available. Glucosamine with msm is amazing Not sure why I quit taking it but I have noticed a huge difference since I started taking it again. There are many i take now. The pharmacist told me take the glucosamine msm for awhile then quit if you notice a difference then you need it.

Congrats on your little one, Marleigh!

I used to take MSM for my allergies. Someone told me it would help and I didn't like how benadryl made me tired (this was before you could find claritin in stores), so I was willing to try anything. And my dad swears by glucosamine.

I spent Sunday morning going through seeds to see what I had. We're still doing zoom church so I always have some project I'm fiddling with while listening. I honestly don't need anything, other than I do want to try growing garlic this year. I grew some years ago by planting store garlic that had started to grow & it did pretty good, and I don't know that I've ever had anything other than the stuff from Walmart or Aldi, so I don't know what "good" garlic tastes like. Any recommendation for places to buy it?

Popping up to say we are a Rainbow Light and Jarrow household for supplements. 👍🏼 Always find them to be high quality and reliable, especially since it’s still hard to get herbs from my usual source in this crazy COVID world.

Baby is letting us get sleep, miracle of miracles, so no complaints! But of course, it wouldn’t be 2020 if the mower hadn’t gone kaput yesterday, and something broke into the coop and wiped out most of our flock. You win some, you lose some—because, welp, 2020.

—Marleigh

Kim, The Bridgeport area would be nice. We haven't been out that way in at least 15-20 years so I am assuming it is somewhat more built up out there now than it was then. I hope you can get the land that you want.

Congratulations on 32 years straight! My sister recently celebrated about half that amount herself, and I marvel at how wonderful her life is now compared to how it was before. I feel like she lost so many years and we despaired of her ever kicking her addiction back then, but at least she is on a better path now and is so much happier.

I hope you have a great weekend with your little man celebrating his 8th birthday! Oh, how the years fly by so quickly!

Nancy, I think Yellowstone is awesome, but I did have to adjust to the violence and language because they usually aren't my thing. The deeper we get into it each year and the more we understand the past events that molded these people, the more we understand why they act/react as they do.

It sounds like your neighbor who bought the A-Frame is going to be a great neighbor.

For zinc, I have taken just the plain zinc in Zicam when warding off a virus. Right now, I have multiple bottles of Zinc and Quercetin from Life Extension that I purchased for use as preventive anti-virals when Coivd-19 arrived here in the USA, and I'm saving them for the fall/winter flu season. However, I had so many lingering symptoms from the mystery viral infection last Nov/Dec that kept me feeling like crap well into the new year, and one of them was a persistent hoarse voice (not a sore throat, just hoarseness) that persisted until May. May! So, I bought zinc in May and started taking it and the hoarseness that I'd had for 6 months was gone in a couple of weeks. I don't know if that was a lingering long-term symptom or side effect from the viral infection I had that my whole family now is convinced was Covid-19 (certainly it was Covid-like in the sense that many of the symptoms lasted for many months, especially the hoarseness and persistent fatigue) or if it was something else, but I seriously thought my vocal cords had been damaged and never would get better, and then the zinc apparently fixed it.

Larry, I used an internet recipe because I couldn't find the one I started using in 2008 or so, so I just found one that seemed similar to the best that I could recall. The one I used back then was from an archived bunch of data from The University of North Texas from many decades ago, and I haven't been able to find that archive lately. The page linked below has a ton of roselle recipes. Just click on the words jam or jelly on her list of recipes and it will take you to recipes that are similar to, perhaps identical to, the ones I used last year. I believe the jelly recipe is from the Texas Jelly Making website.

Five Tasty Ways To Enjoy Roselle

Jen, Look on the Oklahoma Gardening Network FB page. Both Bruce and Linda Workman Smith have recommended someone in OK as a great source of garlic that grows well here, but I don't remember what the name of the farm was. I know I saw it either yesterday or the day before. I also have grown several different kinds from both Southern Exposure Seed Exchange and Peaceful Valley Farm Supply and all did equally well here, so it really is a matter of growing several kinds until you find the one or ones that your taste buds like the most.

Marleigh, It is such a blessing that the baby is such a good sleeper.

I am so sorry to hear that something broke into your coop and got much of the flock. It is so disheartening when that happens. Ditto on the lawn mower---they never seem able to make it through a whole mowing season these days without something on them breaking.

The girls are still here but going home in a couple of hours because Ardmore school starts tomorrow. We have tried to wring every last bit of summer fun out of the swimming pool this week, including spending almost 6 hours swimming last night. They both slept like the dead so I know they were worn out, and they had eaten a huge dinner to replenish all the calories they burned yesterday swimming and playing. Exhausted kids + a big dinner = instant sleepyheads. They also made a list for me of things we still need to do before summer ends because there are some things we haven't done....like we haven't fired up the fire pit and roasted marshmallows and made S'mores. It has been too hot for that, but I told them we could fire up the fire pit one of these late summer/early fall evenings when the temperatures are not in the 90s well after dark as they have been until recently.

I remember being a kid and looking at the calendar as school was about to start and thinking of the summer things we hadn't done either. It is always such a revelation to kids that the summer that had stretched out endlessly in front of them when school let out in the spring is now mysteriously ending all too quickly as they go back to school. I still feel the same way as the warm garden season starts winding down too---where did all the months go and how much good weather is left before we get too cold?

Have a great day everyone and enjoy the cooler weather while it lasts. It looks like our end of the state down here cranks back up into at least the mid-90s just a couple of days from now. We had an oddly high number of fire calls yesterday, though most were for motor vehicle accidents or house fires. It seems like Tim is guaranteed to have to rush out of the house to a fire whenever the grandkids are here, even if it has been relatively quiet up until that point.

Dawn

Sorry about the coop and mower, Marliegh. And lovely to have a baby who sleeps.

Ron liked the glucosamine from GNC, no others worked for him and it did not help me.

Neither Home Depot or Lowes had fall brassicas yet. Atwoods still had a Burpee seed rack, with a lot of empty bins.

We got fly strips. We have reached the time of year when 6 come in at a time when you let the dogs in. I noticed the spider that used to live in the storm door and keep the bugs down is not there this year. Ron hates the fly strips because he invariably gets tangled in them.

Blister beetles. They're on a honeyvine that sprung up in a pot on pool row. I also saw brown stink bugs. I haven't researched, are all brown ones the brown mamorated or are these more benign?

Ron acquired an A frame for a swing at a garage sale and the swing I ordered for his birthday in July is supposed to arrive today. (Hand made in Louisiana, not shipped from China). That's my news.

I forgot to mention that the swallowtail cats on the fennel disappeared. I hope they went to do their thing and were not food for something else. There should be plenty of the brassica cats to satisfy the wasps and birds. I should make a screen house for good guys.

I was reading up on zinc. . . and see it's not one we'll like be using, certainly not long-term, anyway. I've been taking SAM-E, glucosamine (and will reorder new one with MSM, Kim). In short, I was taking all that have to do with joint health/osteoarthritis. And finally after 4 1/2 months, I began getting along really pretty well, and still am. The condition is there, but minimal pain most of the time now. I think I'll begin cutting out some of the supplements and see if there's a difference. I DO know that SAM-E is the newest one I added, in early June, so I am it's part of the reason I began feeling better a month later, whereas I had begun taking glucosamine the first of March.

Do any of you subscribe to Consumer Labs? I just signed up for a year's subscription. I figure I'll know what I need to know by the end of a year. lol

On the garden front, same same. Tomatoes, peppers, squash. You were asking about garlic, Kim. Oops, I mean Jen. I got Inchelium Red and Red Toch from SESE last year (both softneck), and I was SO pleased, especially with the Inchelium Red. The cloves are nice and big and fat, even on a few that had relatively small bulbs. I'm certainly not a connoisseur, but liked the taste of both.

Gotta go do stuff. Later!

I had a couple swallowtail cats on the parsley last night. Mom wants some this weekend, so I hope they leave her some. I started another pot of seeds just in case. Also cilantro, romaine, and spinach.

I have to figure out a better tomato ripening spot, other than the kitchen cabinets. They’re in the way. Has to be out of furry paws reach too. Seems that the summer tomatoes are in overdrive trying to ripen things up fast, the middle planted ones are looking great, and the mid-July planted ones just sit there and don’t give me confidence that they will produce anything in time to harvest. Lesson: fall tomatoes should go in my garden no later than the end of June.

Hoping to have a chance to get green beans before a freeze. Trying a combination of pole and bush.

Im going to see what Stringers timeline is for fall brassicas. They just opened back up after a 2 week Covid quarantine, which doesn’t surprise me because no one there ever was masked. They also finally restocked seeds.

Is there a secret to starting coleus from seed? I had a hard time last year.

And I have a datura that lived! I‘ll have to come back with a picture, I just can’t catch it open.

My sun garden is shrinking. Mulling ways to expand it for next spring. I’d like to build a whole new bed in front, but not sure how the neighbors would take to the solarization process.

Dawn, thanks for the info. Madge is asleep now, but I will show her the site when she wakes up.

We have both been tired, I worked on one of my tractors yesterday, and Madge is always working too much. I told her yesterday when we went to Greenwood for a burger, because we were also tired then, that I wanted to " do better". We have had too many burgers the past few months. so we went to Olive Garden in Ft. Smith today. It is the first, enjoyable, "going out meal we have had in months", and it was great. I dont feel right when we go out, but I feel Madge is getting stressed. I can roam around here on the place and feel great, but Madge spends most of her time in the house or on the deck, and needs to go somewhere. She does not get "turned on" like I do by riding a mower or tractor. Madge can walk better than I can so the Mall or Walmart trips her trigger.

I think we should take vitamins, and have talked about getting some, just have not done it yet. I do take vitamin d, along with other meds for heart and breathing issues. I guess the best med for me is diesel smoke, as long as I can climb up on one of those tractors, and cut weeds or sling dirt I feel great. I do think I should have taken better care of myself when I was younger, maybe I would not be so beat up now.

I went into Lowe's and Home Depot both today to try to find Ratchet wrenches. I felt that both places were under stocked, I think we will see more of that. I also have been finding that plants and seeds are not in stock yet, maybe some by the Sept. 1. I doubt that there will be a lot of seed for stores to buy until this years harvest, there does not seem to be a lot of spring stock left. I bought Rape, forage turnips, and purple top turnips yesterday.

I hope to have greens this winter.

I think the $47 for the year's subscription to Consumer Labs is going to pay off. I'm researching all the supplements and herbs and stuff. Amy, haha, guess what I read; that glucosamine often did not help with hip joint pain. They DID recommend SAM-e (that I began taking around the first of June). Larry, Madge and you (and everyone else who takes prescription meds) should be sure to check with doctors before taking supplements, as some interact adversely with meds. On this new site, the first thing I'm reading about them all is the "Cautions and Concerns" paragraphs on them.

Thx, Larry, for the roselle offer. But that's no my problem. I have plenty of the seeds, just nowhere to plant them. It's not sunny enough here, and we're plumb out of space at Lincoln.

How are you feeling now, Rebecca? And Dawn, yeah, it sounds like Covid-19 has been around you all, I agree.

Did you all know you can make sweetened condensed milk from scratch? I did not. And now I do! I don't use it very often, but today needed a can of it. Burned it on the stove while I was editing butterfly photos. Now I can write this and try to burn my homemade batch.

Rebecca, coleus is s-l-o-w! But I do grow my own. No problems with germination, just stays tiny too long. I had better luck 2 years ago. I think because I potted them up early on into Miracle Grow potting soil.

I was sick hearing bout your chicken massacre, Marleigh. Makes me glad all over again that we decided we wouldn't be able to keep them safe here. Is your mower dead or can i be fixed?

Okay, back to dinner. Oh. First. I went through our homegrown potatoes and tossed ones that didn't pass muster--and not that many did. So I have them, but decided to order 5 lbs. Did. Well then Suzanne gave me another 5-lb sack. And yesterday when we got home from picking up groceries, we found another 10 lb bag in the truck . Apparently a Walmart mistake! I was so confused! I suppose I'll own up to them that they gifted us those. LOL We're having hamburger steaks and lots of mashed potatoes for dinner.

Scalloped potatoes, Nancy, LOL. Or potato salad.

Rebecca, do you put the spinach in the shade? I threw some lettuce seeds under the tomatoes, but I see no germination yet. I bought a shelf in a bathroom section that is about a tomato wide and has 3 levels. It's just wire shelves, I think meant to hold shampoo, but it stands on my counter and saves me some space. I also have a 3 level hanging wire basket, though it holds other clutter off the counter.

I called Worley's today. They have broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage and cauliflower. No Collards. He didn't mention kale. I might could get Collards to grow from seed, probably kale, too.

I'm starting to get excited about sweet potatoes. If the yield is as nice as the tops we'll be in business! We had an okra flower yesterday.

A supplement everyone over 60 might consider is b12. I was low on it before my gastric surgery and apparently it isn't absorbed by the body as well as we age. "Symptoms are rare but can include fatigue, breathlessness, numbness, poor balance, and memory trouble." Which pretty much describes me.

I'm going to submit this because I sense I might be about to lose it.

Amy, I do a sublingual methylated B-12. We absorb it way better sublingually, and methylated because of my darn genetic stuff. I also take prescription strength D, methylfolate, calcium chewables, C, and fish oil. Also just started DHEA, because my blood tests said I was low. It’s a ‘lady of a certain age’ problem. Should probably add SAM-E, but I’m already taking handfuls of pills every day.

The spinach and lettuce are in sterilite totes in the shade. I’ll start another one of each in a few weeks.

Hi All.

Not much going on other than work stuff and I'm swamped with that.

The garden continues to produce well really. Some things are dying and/or winding down.

The balance of fall gardening has begun.

The cukes are finally growing. I'm not sure about the West Indian Gherkins. I wasn't impressed with the taste. They are growing and vining though.

There's really just not much to talk about. Just harvesting and watering when I have time.

Facebook memory from 2 years ago came up. This is when I was stuck on the couch with the foot injury. And I had hornworms apparently.

Still do this year. I found a typical one today--the tobacco hornworm. But also found two different ones. These have blue horns that are turning black. They are smaller too. I wonder if they are actual tomato hornworms.

There's more out there, I'm sure, but I didn't have time to take care of it.

We found a pantry that is identical to the one we already have, so Tom and I went to buy it today.

The weather has been so nice. Hot, but not dumb hot.

HU and I will work on some stuff tomorrow evening and then can salsa on Sunday.

That's about all I have to report.

We are trying to get a fall garden growing.

like always with the fall plantings there is problems with the heat and the bugs.

wish was us to ask.

Hu

I had to go repair my electric fence in my wildlife garden. I had fenced in my Old timey cornfield pumpkins earlier in the year I though the dear were getting them, my neighbor said it was groundhogs. I could have had both groundhogs and deer eating the vines, but I am putting my money on the deer, because when I put up the fence the damage stopped. Today when I went over to check, the fence was down and some vine ends and leaves had been eaten. I normally fix my fence where it will pull loose if something hits it, but that takes more time. I did not do that this year. I had one insulator broken and some wires pulled loose, so something big had hit the wire.

I just have not been feeling well for quite a while. I went to a funeral today and had to walk a long way, and stand much too long, it was just a graveside service. I felt like I was going to have to have a hip replacement by the time I got back to the car, and my feet are so sore it is difficult to walk, but a pain pill and a long nap really helped.

I am ready to harvest my butternut and get that area ready for greens. I also want to try to grow some fall stuff in tubs. This tub thing is a big learning curve for me. I know I can do it, but not sure how well I can do it.

I would like to put out some poison for the critters eating my sweet potatoes and cantaloupe, but I dont want to kill a pet or a non-destructive critter. Something like rats are hard to trap.

I think that it is time for me to go to bed, good night all.

Larry, I forget the foot problem... gout? AND in terms of hip stuff. . . check out SAM-E. My hip was killing me 6 months ago. Came on suddenly, and could hardly move. On a scale of 1-10, my pain level was 7-10. Now I can tell the hip is messed up, but taking SAM-E, 3 ibuprofen a day, 3 acetaminophen, ginger, . . . . the pain level the past 3 weeks has been 2-5. Urge you to check into SAM-E and find out how much ibuprofen and acetaminophen you can take. . . I'll continue researching. Blessings to both of you.

Nancy, thanks, I will check with my Dr., I should see one before long. I have 4 Dr.'s I see regularly. I take a lot of medicine for different conditions. I was taken off my Arthritis med.'s over 10 years ago because my kidneys were shutting down. The Dr. said that I would be happier on pain pills than on dialysis. I try not to add any med.'s without talking to the Dr. first. I feel that I have some very concerned Doctors, and they do a pretty good job. It seems that when I start taking one kind of medicine, it screws up one of the other meds. I have also had the same reaction with some supplements.

Yes, I have gout, but that is not my biggest problem. I have a lot of joint pain, and as far as my feet go, there are just too many joints that need repair. I had surgery on one foot and I cant tell that it helped at all. I just have to play it by ear, I try to walk enough to get some exercise, but try not to put excess wear and tear on my body. I have a Delta Reverse joint in my right shoulder, the left shoulder was just repaired without adding any new parts. I think I am getting close to needing some new joints, but I plan to delay as long as possible.

Amy, We've always had various brown stink bugs in Texas going back as far as my memory goes, and the brown marmorated ones are a relatively new invasive species. I am sure Oklahoma has some of the same native ones we had in Texas. I see various brown ones here all the time, and not necessarily brown marmorated ones although I sometimes see one of them here and there. I think one reason that all the talk of the brown marmorated stink bug (and they truly are huge home invaders in the northeastern USA so I understand the concern) arriving in OK a decade or so didn't bother me because we've always had to deal with brown stink bugs...so, eh, what's one more? If a person already has worked (via caulking and such) to keep out the invasive Asian lady bugs, which we have had to deal with ever since moving to OK in 1999, then their efforts will keep out the stink bugs too.

There's a great webpage of Texas' Brown Stink Bugs, and though I looked, I could not find anything similar for OK. Here it is...look at all of them. Some are common, some are rare, but they have to have been seen and documented in Texas to make it onto the webpage:

Texas: Brown Stink Bugs

I'm pretty sure the big box stores here don't get the brassicas until sometime in September, and perhaps not until October. I'll start watching for them and let you know when I see them. They almost arrive too late here. I really think they should be in the stores right now for proper timing of planting them to beat the cold, but they usually aren't. I believe the wholesale growers and retailers might be afraid no one will buy them in the typically vicious August heat, but that is when they need to be planted.

If the cats were pretty big, maybe they've just moved on to the next step in the process. Wasps will get a lot of them though, and so will birds. I've never interfered in the process because I don't want to disrupt the food web, but butterflies are incredibly plentiful here in our rural area so it is likely we have enough to go around. In a more city-like setting where there's fewer cats, I understand why people might feel the need to protect them.

Rebecca, I agree with you on fall tomatoes needing a pretty early start. I like to have them growing by mid-June. They won't necessarily set a lot of fruit in summer, but they'll be big and flowering when the August cool-down arrives.

Coleus is very slow from seed. Takes them forever to sprout and forever to grow. Just press the seeds lightly into a fine, sterile, seed-starting growing medium and do not cover them up---they need light to germinate. If you're sprouting them at 70-75 degrees, they should sprout in 7-14 days.

Larry, I am glad you and Madge are getting out a little bit. I actually think right now is a pretty good time to get out---the numbers of cases from the big July resurgence are falling and the fall/winter cold/flu/Covid-19 season is not upon us yet. Tim and I went to the Olive Garden about a month ago when we were in Sherman to shop at Sam's Club. It was wonderful! We hadn't been in an Olive Garden in years and enjoyed it so much, but it definitely felt odd with all the mask-wearing, social distancing, etc. About once a month we try to go to some sort of restaurant to sit and eat a meal as if things are normal, which they aren't. Back in June we went to Red Lobster, and that was enjoyable too. Honestly, as empty as these restaurants have been when we have been in them, I don't know how they are doing enough business to survive. We do try to be there at 11 a.m. when they open up, figuring that's the healthiest, safest time to get in early and eat and beat the crowd. Maybe they are more crowded later in the day. At the present time I feel safer in a relatively uncrowded restaurant than in a crowded grocery store.

Nancy, I have made sweetened condensed milk from scratch using artificial sweeteners so it is not as intensely sweet as the version made with sugar.

Enjoy all those potatoes. There are so many different ways to fix potatoes, so at least there's a lot of possibilities with them.

Amy, I don't specifically take B-12, but do take a B-Complex vitamin that contains it. A couple of years ago, someone on the Oklahoma Gardening FB page said that after they started talking a B-complex vitamin daily, the mosquitoes started leaving them alone. I was skeptical, but figured for the cost of a bottle of B-Complex vitamins, I could find out for myself. Tim and I have been taking the B-Complex vitamins for a couple of years now and the mosquitoes leave us alone 98-99% of the time. It is as close to a miracle solution for mosquitoes as I've ever seen. At one point, late last summer, we ran out of the B-Complex tablets and thought we'd just wait and buy a new bottle the following Spring. Ha! Within days, mosquitoes were all over us and biting us, so when we were at Costco I bought their huge bottle of B-complex vitamins and we've been taking it ever since. Mosquitoes will buzz around us but 99% of the time they won't even attempt to land on us. I don't know if it works for all people, but it works for us, and I've been a huge skeeter magnet all my life...until now. As long as it continues working, we'll continue taking it. Was a vitamin B deficiency the reason mosquitoes always have flocked to us? Who knows? However, having plenty of vitamin B in our bodies seems to repel them from us now.

Jennifer, Yes, the ones with the blue-black horns are the actual tomato hornworms. They are much more rare in OK than the similar tobacco hornworms with red horns which feed on all the same plants that they do.

Hu, Getting a fall garden started in July and/or August always is the hardest part, isn't it? The heat and the grasshoppers both hang on forever some years and make it virtually impossible. I've started skipping gardening in August for the most part, but that's because it is rattlesnake season. A friend of mine here killed a huge rattler in his yard yesterday, a nice reminder to me to keep my eyes on the ground and to watch carefully for them.

Larry, I'm sorry you are not feeling well. Getting older is hard---the body wears out and hurts more, and seems less cooperative. The energy level changes as well. I sure am learning to pace myself better as I get older. Those glorious days of working in the garden from sunrise to sunset when I was in my 40s and early 50s...yep, those are so far gone that I can scarcely remember them now.

All the news from here, y'all, is not really good news. I am laughing at myself though because yesterday felt like Monday instead of Thursday since the girls had been here for a couple of days mid-week and we took them home on Wednesday afternoon, making it feel like Sunday. So, it felt like Monday all day and then I discovered it was Thursday when the weekly newspaper arrived in the mail, and thus I was overjoyed to discover it was almost the weekend already. (grin) All these August days just run together.

Jana had a very tough day on Thursday, in what was already a very stressful week as her senior year of nursing school resumed this week and there's tons and tons of clinicals scheduled, some of them left over from the spring semester because Covid-19 interrupted that semester. The kids started back to school. They already were having a crazy week, and then it got even crazier. Somewhere around mid-day, Chris called to tell me that his father-in-law had passed away unexpectedly. I don't know his exact age, but think he was a bit younger than Tim and I. We had met him a handful of times and I really liked him but we did have the advantage of meeting him when he was sober (which he usually was not). Chris and Jana were up in the air all day trying to figure out who was going to travel to claim his body, make his final arrangements, etc. and neither Jana nor her siblings had any clue about his finances, whether he had life insurance, a will, etc. so they didn't even really know where to start. He was up in OKC visiting a relative, so that relative headed south last night to bring down the house keys so Jana and her siblings could search his home for paperwork to lead them in whatever direction for planning his funeral. Clearly this is a topic they'd never discussed with their father. Then, about 4 or 5 hours later, Chris called again, this time to tell me that Jana's great-aunt on her father's side had just passed away due to complications from Covid-19. This means that since December, Jana has lost her grandmother (her father's mom) to whom she was incredibly close, then her father's sister a couple of weeks later, and now her dad and her grandmother's sister on the same day.

Every time Chris called me yesterday (a month's worth of phone calls in one day, I think) , the plan had changed and the grandkids were coming here to stay while he and Jana drove to OKC, then they weren't, then they were, etc. I just told him "whenever, whatever, however" to emphasize that they could drop off the kids here anytime 24/7 when and if they needed to and we'd take care of things here on this end. Oddly, just the other night at dinner on Tuesday, Aurora was talking about how great-grandma (my mom) died last August and she misses her, and then she mentioned that Great-Grandma Ruth (Jana's mom) had died last Christmas and she misses her too. She also reminded me that she hasn't seen all her Texas cousins (my sister's grandkids) in a long time and she misses them, and I reminded here that it is because of Covid-19 and we just have to be patient and wait for the virus situation to get better. We spent a substantial amount of time at dinner that night discussing how we keep them both alive in our hearts, souls and memories and I was impressed at how well an almost-six-year-old understands death. We never could have imagined she'd be losing her grandfather a couple of days after we had that discussion.

The cool nights and early mornings here have been heavenly and it is nice the HVAC system has been getting a bit of a break. The heat was forecast to start cranking back up yesterday, but it really didn't do it. There's no rain in our forecast this week, so I need to keep watering everything, but there's two Tropical Depressions headed for the Gulf Coast and expected to make landfall early next week, and one of them ought to send rain up across Texas towards Oklahoma after it makes landfall, probably near Houston, as a hurricane. I'll be watching for that. It seems we always spend part of August down here hoping for a hurricane because it might bring us rain, though we certainly are hoping for a minor hurricane that doesn't damage coastal areas too much as it makes landfall.

I am awake in the middle of the night. I went to bed too early because I was so worn out after a couple of really fun days with the girls, but then apparently my body decided it had had enough sleep and awakened, feeling refreshed, at 3 a.m. There is not much you can do at 3 a.m. except try to be quiet and not wake up your spouse and the dogs. I'd like to think I could maybe fall back asleep for a while, and I think I'll try that now, but the odds are that about the time I fall asleep, Tim's alarm clock will go off to wake him up...and it always wakes me up too. That makes falling back asleep seem pointless. I'm sitting here looking at the thermometer and it shows it is 68 degrees outside---a huge change from earlier in the month when we would awaken to overnight lows around 78-80.

Have a great Friday everybody!

Dawn

A family friend swore they kept him from getting bit by mosquitoes, too. And as much time as he spent outdoors, he should have been covered in bites. So either they worked for him or he was just immune to their bite. I know when I got the B12 shots from the visiting nurses at work, I could tell a difference in energy levels.

Will Rogers Garden is doing a class on seed saving tomorrow. Since our roommate is interested in gardening I asked if she wanted to go. Most of my knowledge has been trial and error/google/facebook so I'm interested to see what the 'experts' say. And Myriad is doing one next Thursday night, if anyone is interested. There are a few things at Will Rogers that I'm interested in growing so I'm hoping they let us gather seeds from them. I always feel guilty deadheading plants in public gardens, I feel like I'm shoplifting or something.

LOL @ Jen. Shoplifting. But, you're right. Some people are so uptight that they would make you feel that way.

Dawn, I'm sorry. That's a lot for your family to deal with. A whole lot. Hugs and prayers to you and your family.

Larry, I'm sorry you're not feeling well. Maybe when it cools down in a few weeks you'll perk up. There's something oddly energizing about the fall. We should be winding down, but it's energizing instead. At least for me.

And I need the energy. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to do all the things people need for me to do.

This is why I'm waking up at 3. I'm not rested and ready for the day. I'm panicked because I'm going to fail someone because I can't be what they need because there's only so much energy a single person can produce and there's only so many hours in a day. and only so many days in a week.

Tonight, we did replant beets (with a plan) and english peas.

The fall beans are up. Some of them looked near death because it's so dry here. We watered them tonight. HU tilled and hoed the rows too. I just remembered that I forgot to water the fall cukes. I'll do that first thing in the morning. Geez. I just need to be home all day, every day. Working and trying to care for a garden is difficult. Very difficult. There's just not enough time.

Tomorrow, I won't be able to garden because I've got wedding stuff to do.

Anyway...

I'm about ready for a long winter's nap. (with my B and BW candles and salt lamps and sweaters and blankets.) Almost ready.

And a pantry stocked up full of canning for the winter.

https://st.hzcdn.com/simgs/5a22f2250f3c79f1_8-8898/home-design.jpg

HU

Lost two posts in a row. Maybe they were too big. But now it's time to go mow and weed. Have a good day, all. Top picture's here, other two of Lincoln.

Thanks, Jennifer. I feel for Jana---she is the only responsible, normal one in her generation in her family--everyone else, including not just her siblings but also her parents and stepparents are substance abusers with constant financial issues, so sometimes it seems that she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders, trying to do the right thing, and she always tries to do the right thing. I think it wears her out.

We have the girls this weekend as Chris and Jana have driven back to OKC again to deal with all the minutiae that accompanies an early (her dad was only 61) and unexpected death. We love having the girls here, but hate that the reason for it is that Jana and Chris are dealing with a big mess. (Note to all: if a person leaves no will, no life insurance, no paid-for pre-need funeral plan, no real assets and not even a bank account that anyone can find, then the surviving family members are scrambling around to deal with the unexpected financial blow of having to pay for someone else's final expenses. Don't do that to your family!)

I asked the girls what they wanted to do that we usually do in the summer months and haven't done enough of this summer and they came up with a long list that included: making and canning catsup, salsa and tomatoes. I may have enjoyed my summer off from canning, but they haven't. I promised them we'd go full-speed-ahead with tomatoes and canning in 2021. Some of the other things on their list are more doable in the short term....having a campfire/fire pit, roasting marshmallows, making S'Mores, etc. We always tie dye clothes together in Spring and they love it, so now they want to do a new round of tie dyed clothing for fall featuring autumn colors and Halloween colors, so I've been gathering what dyes I can find and we'll do that the next time they are here. The stores here are pretty low on autumn and Halloween colors of dye, but I have found black and purple so far. Hobby Lobby was all about autumn, Thanksgiving and Christmas and our brains were still stuck on summer crafts today.

I am sorry you are so stressed. I have periods of wakefulness just like that when I am feeling stressed---like my mind never shuts down and won't let my body rest. I hope that these issues can resolve themselves. You are only one person and can only do so much in one day. Be sure to take care of yourself and focus on your family's needs---the rest of the world can just wait--self-care and family care are paramount. Y'all have Mason's wedding coming up soon, and that is more important than anything at work or at church. It just is. I hope you can destress and enjoy it the way you should be able to.

It is funny you mentioned needing a long winter nap. I feel the same way. I need a COLD night and morning with blankets and hot cocoa, maybe hot apple cider in a cup while I sit on the porch and watch the birds eat. Maybe a little Apple Pie Jam on an Apple-Cinnamon muffin. There is something about autumn and winter traditions that seem so comforting and relaxing after the craziness of the growing season. Today when we were at Hobby Lobby, the girls were drooling over all the autumn décor and I could see them dreaming of a more relaxing autumn as well. I told them summer wasn't over yet and we weren't going to put away the summer décor and drag out the autumn décor until at least September, which to them seems like it is still light years away. I'm looking at today's date on my computer screen and thinking September will be here in the blink of an eye. Eight days from now, I'll be typing "September 2020, Week 1". How crazy is that? It was so hot when we were in Sherman today that we didn't even pop into Lowe's and Home Depot to check out the plants---we all were tired and just wanted to go home. Wearing a mask in this heat seems to suck all the fun out of shopping, so we make each shopping trip as minimal as we possibly can.

HU, That full pantry always makes a person feel so accomplished and prepared!

Nancy, I don't know how you keep up with two gardens and I cannot even keep up with one. The heat is back and I hate it. I just want to lock the door and stay inside until October, or until one of the two hurricanes headed for the Gulf Coast next week maybe pushes cooler air and rain this far north (it probably won't happen, but if I am going to hope and dream, I am going to hope and dream big).

One of the feral kittens caught either a vole or field mouse this morning (I didn't see it, but Jana did). Chris and Jana came over this morning to go for a family jog with Tim and Lillie--two miles for Jana, Tim and Lillie and 4 miles for Chris. I stayed home with Aurora, who is not ready to start jogging (and I agree with her on that....my jogging years are behind me now, and I'm in the achy, creaky joints age). I was happy to hear the feral kittens are earning their keep, but had assumed they were keeping the rodents down as I'm seeing none outdoors, and not seeing many snakes loitering near the house or garden either. A friend of ours killed a timber rattler that was lurking near his bird feeder---we all can assume it was there for rodents that might be coming to get seeds knocked out of the feeders by the birds, but you can't let a rattlesnake hang around that close to your house, pets and people either.

The hummingbirds are hot and heavy now, draining the feeders daily instead of every other day. I feel like the migration is on....there are just so very many of them every single day, many more than we see on a normal summer day. Their numbers have been building for a couple of weeks now and I'm still not sure they've peaked. There are tons of flowers in bloom for them, so between the flowers and the feeders, we have hummingbirds everywhere all day long, and we're all so entranced with them that we can sit and just watch them endlessly. Watching hummingbirds might not be productive and might not get anything crossed off one's To Do list, but it is so enjoyable and satisfying.

You can tell our little kindergarten student is back in school and 'indoctrinated' already. If someone else is speaking, she does not interrupt---she just raises her hand in the air and stares the adults right in the eye as if to say "pick me". She did it during dinner yesterday and at lunchtime today. Her little boyfriend from pre-K is not in her class this year as his family is doing distance learning and she's a tiny bit heartsick over that. Oh, to be that age again and to have so much of life ahead of one to look forward to!

Hope everyone's Saturday has been fun or productive or both. Everyone here has such bad allergies all of a sudden. I suppose it is grasses, weeds and molds. I wouldn't think it would be trees since most of them are beyond their blooming stage. Oh, it might be ragweed too, though I haven't seen any of it in bloom here yet.

Dawn