Found George's text message. Sweets were Ginseng Orange, Hopi and RWV (Red Wine Velvet) now recorded here for posterity.

My garden goals are to do better not perfect. So with that in mind I took care of cucumber seed saving. Chickens helped. Then I condensed many Iris to one container. Maybe they will be happy and bloom next year. I have two more containers to fill. That one pot eliminated 12 small pots. I also dumped many pots of soil into small in ground bed in hopes to be able to plant in there this week. So far I purged 30 small containers.

My goal for now is to get water. I am trying to get water to syphon out of a well. I think I can do that and haul the water, but trying to build a garden and have the water to syphon to the garden is another story. the water in the well quickly drops too low to syphon, and to get water to syphon for 800 to 1000 feet is not an easy task either. At this time I am getting by with a small pump that I can run off a car battery, and then hauling the water for 1/2 mile.

I have most of my plumbing done now, and I can syphon to a low area near the creek, but if I try to put a garden there it will flood if we ever get a rain. A solar pump would solve my problem, but we are talking about too much money if I try to go that route.

I haven't looked closely at the sweet potatoes. It was not as good a harvest as 2 years ago. Last year wasn't great either. 2 years ago I did the watering. I would have liked a better trial for these varieties.

There is still a la Nina, which is supposed to effect rain chances through the winter. I expect next year to be dry, too. The mesonet ticker said it is the driest year on record for the state for the period between 6/11 and 10/10. I think I'm going to do some searches here for Dawns statements on drought.

Larry that sounds like a lot. We jump through hoops to have a garden. Amy I’d be interested in those threads too. I am not that great searching on my phone sometimes

This just about does it for my summer harvest. Only the ones in the tractor bucket were harvested today. The other sweet potatoes were harvested Sat. I have placed about 12 gallon of the Sat. harvested potatoes in the house, and I will save some of the better ones on the ground. I hope to save about 15 or 20 gallon for the family, and plenty for slips for next year.

I will harvest some more peppers, and a few tomatoes, and then call it quits on the summer crops. I will try to plant more fall/wither crop, and some cover crop, then hibernate till spring.

I am not sure I can save any of the Arabat squash,( in tractor bucket) but I will try, they were just being eaten by blister beetles and cucumber beetles anyway. The squash would have grown more if I could have put water to them, but I just cant haul that much water.

I bumped up a Dawn tread on drought.

Kim this is how I search.

+oklahoma+okiedawn site:houzz.com

if you want one about something specific put a + after Okiedawn and a keyword, like carrot or water.

Nice haul Larry.

So far .11" of rain.

Amy, thanks, the haul was nice considering what kind of summer we have had.

I would have likes to leave the squash till frost, but the insect were all over the plants and fruit, so I harvested the fruit and piled the vines to spray. I checked the vines this morning and did not see any insects, I will check again and spray if needed. The striped blister beetles, squash bugs, and cucumber beetles were covering the fruit and plants.

I got 4 areas ready to plant cover crops this morning. It is too dry to plant anything, or even work the soil, but I let the tractor idle in first gear with the cultivator on behind. The speed of the tractor was so slow that it did not kick up and dust. If I can get my larger tanks ready I think I can haul enough water to get the seeds to germinate. With the areas busted up like they are, the water should soak into the ground easier. Weather man is saying we have a chance of ran tomorrow.

While I was in the wildlife garden this morning I notices that the deer were hitting the pea vines really hard, there is just not a lot of anything that they like to eat, even our timber is dying. I hauled off a doe Sunday that looked like she was leaving the wildlife garden and met up with a truck, I hauled off a finder flare also. I am glad that if did not cause an accident. I have taken the fences down around the garden and letting the deer eat anything they want, also dumping a little corn under the oak trees. I put out about 2 cereal bowls of corn a night about 200, or 300 yards behind the house.

I have had a great time enjoying training my chickens to work for me. Sections of my front yard/garden are weedy mess. I call them and sprinkle tiny bit of their feed and they go to town tearing out the weeds and fertilizing. It’s amazing.

I have had a great time enjoying training my chickens to work for me. Sections of my front yard/garden are weedy mess. I call them and sprinkle tiny bit of their feed and they go to town tearing out the weeds and fertilizing. It’s amazing. Thanks Amy I just saw that.

Kim, the chickens are nice. I had a pet red hen when I was small, I had a lot o fun with her, she would hop on my lap and eat what ever I had to feed her.

Madge and I just got back from putting food out for, her deer, as I call it. We went on over to the old house and saw the deer as we were coming back home. We had put out corn and sweet potatoes, I am not sure what he was eating, he did not eat the pumpkins we left last night. On the way back I also took Madge by the wildlife garden to show her how the deer have it looking like a rodeo ground with all the hoof prints, there is just not much of anything green for the deer to eat. The deer are not hungry enough to eat turnips, rutabaga, mustard or radishes yet.

Norman got around .2 tenths rain , out east got .36 inch.

Not near enough for this damn drought thing but maybe enough to get my re-plantings up and going at least.

At least the fall fronts are coming down.

Larry , looks like your getting some kind of rain.

Rick

Rick, yes, we were getting a light sprinkle about dusk. We had just gotten home from the wildlife garden. I hurried and picked a 5 gallon bucket of nice sized Covington sweet potatoes out of FEL of the Kubota before the rain got them wet. That gives me (3) 5 gallon buckets of Covington, I can easily get a 5 gallon bucket of nice sized Red Wine Velvet to get a total of 20 gallon of sweet potatoes, plus smaller ones to save for slips and to feed to the wildlife. Grand daughter took a good bit of the RWV , and all of the purple sweet potatoes home with her.

If we dont get enough rain to wet the soil properly, I will plant more fall stuff anyway and haul water to to keep it going till we do get some rain. We will have to get a nice rain to raise the lake enough to permit outside watering again.

Headed to 90 degrees today and I am off so I think I will plant seeds. I plan on covering if I need to. I have plenty of row cover. I will have to cover anyway because grasshoppers are still taking out new sprouts if they get to them. Like my spinach. I thought about next year I have some very low hoops I could get legs for and make a little taller. Cover the whole thing in insect netting. Maybe have a chance.

Kim, I have a problem with getting small plants going also. I at one time I think I had a roll of aluminum screen wire, if I can find it I think I could cover (1) 25' row. With all the stuff you have to have to grow vegetables it sure runs the cost up.

Larry you are so right. I think one salad will cost me $50 off I get one. Really though it’s so worth it if I can get some greens like Moni has I can eat fresh salad every night. Except for cabbage greens go bad quickly in my refrigerator and it’s a tiny one.

I love having the salad beds during the fall and spring. And last year, in the hoop house over the winter. I ate salads every day. It is worth it.

No worries about what is sprayed on it or who handled it or e. coli.

My house got less than a tenth of an inch.

Maybe next time we'll get more.

I know they're saying that we (in Oklahoma since June 11 ) are drier than the dust bowl years. That drought lasted in waves for a decade. Not trying to be doom and gloom, but what are everyone's plans if this continues for a few more years? Will it change how you grow food and garden?

I'm considering Plan A and Plan B. And maybe a few more Plans too.

Hopefully good rains will come back soon, though.

Think we got just over 1/10 here.

Not sure about long term plans, right now I'm focusing on next year's garden. Looks like having my garden just outside the fence isn't a good idea, I've had a couple of our dog guests try to get to me when they're outside. Cliff thinks the barn isn't stable, a few of the boards are rotted through or broken in half. So we're going to take the barn down, fence off the space where it was & use that as my garden. His idea is that if they don't see me they'll be less interested in trying to get to me.

So here's next year's proposed plot. The shed is on the south side, & it's completely fenced on the north & east. So we'll just have to put in fencing along the west side. Since it was formerly used as a barn, I'm hoping the soil inside is better than the sandy crap I'm dealing with now.

The trees on the north side (by the power pole) need severe trimming. Preferably removed entirely but we need to contact the electric company to find out if they'll come trim it for us.

This is the front side (south side) of the shed. I'm going to extend the bed along the building & use it mainly for flowers or herbs.

Second pic didn't seem to go through. Trying again.

I think rain catchment system is imperative for gardening or a deep well. I had a decent system in Quitaque and with the elevation drop and good filter I let it drip through my drip line. It was the perfect setup. And I only had six 50 gallon barrel.

I think we need plan, a, b. c, and whatever. I think Mother Nature is unhappy, and may stay that way for a while. I am working on saving seed, trying to get some type of watering system, and growing food that will store a long time. Today I have been working on my well. This is the first time I have been able to syphon water out of it, and make it work over and over, it was slow, but it worked. If we have another "Dust Bowl days", I am not sure the well will have water, but I am betting that we will still have gravity. I think gravity is a better bet than gasoline or electricity. I had no way to time the flow, but it seemed forever to get 2 barrels of water. My next mental exercise is to try to find a spot down hill to build a garden, or gardens. I will still plan on working with the gardens I now have, the others are just back-up plans.

I sorted out the rest of my sweet potatoes, and I had plenty for (4) 5 gallon buckets to eat, plenty for next years slips, and quite a few small potatoes to feed the deer. Madge and I went down in the pasture to check to see what the deer ate, they cleaned up all the corn and sweet potatoes, but still stayed away from the pumpkin.

I forgot to hit submit on this post, and now I have gone after 2 more barrels of water, this could turn into a full time job, and the pay is terrible.

I know the pay is not the greatest lol. If I hired on as a farm worker and they said work all day every day and here’s a bucket of sweet potatoes at the end of the year I would question my sanity. Well actually I do question my sanity.

Me too.

Rick

I think we need to be prepared for at least one more dry season. I did bump up Dawns drought post and i linked the one in Green country seed savers on drought. Also, look at this one about ollas. There are pictures on the second page. https://seedsavingnetwork.proboards.com/thread/788/ollas-terracotta-watering-spikes-irrigation

Houzz is fighting me again, so TTFN.

I worked for many years costing labor in assembly processes, so I naturally think about the true cost of things, I do the same with gardening. I have never grown anything and made money at it, I have to look at it as a hobby, I love doing it. I have never had a job that I loved as much as gardening.

If I were to look at my cost for this year, it is just insane. my water bill for the garden has been running about $30.00+ a month, fertilizer is over $30.00 a bag, diesel was $4.89 a gallon a few days ago. Now that I am hauling water the cost is more, the water is free, but the cost of getting it to the garden is not, but a lot of the stuff I do is trying to care for the place, and it would be unfair to tack that cost to the garden, but I enjoy it all.

This is a before and after picture of my rutabaga and turnips. I picked a mess of greens this morning and noticed many bugs and aphids, matter of fact there are bugs every where. I am going to haul a lot of water and try to get the soil very wet, then spray bug spray everywhere. I am hoping that by the time the greens come back I will have a lot less bugs.

I am trying to get ready for another dry year. I am going to redo my irrigation tubes, and make some more tubes. The new ones will be made with gravity feed in mind. I would also like to be able to catch rain water, but it will have to rain a lot more than it has this year to do me much good.

Larry, y’all it really depends on how we look at it. If I paid for a gym to get exercise a place to get a tan and counseling it would cost so much more than gardening. And this way I get extra joy from food and watching the beneficial critters.

Pretty sure my neighbors question my sanity.

Larry, I need to figure out how to do some type of drip for my raised beds. Nothing in the kitchen garden is symmetrical, and I like it that way.

It would be hard to do driplines in the SG because Rick likes to use the mantis in between the rows every so often.

I have one rain barrel. It's funny how it won't release the water unless the hose is flat on the ground.

We have a well, but I have no idea how deep it is. I should ask the man we bought our house from. He lives in the neighborhood. It does cost to use it, though, being electric.

Thanks for the links, Amy.

A possible frost next week. I'm not ready.

There's aphids on my cucumbers. Of course there are. Why not? It's a different aphid than the other ones I've seen out here. I do have enough to make a batch of fermented pickles. If I could just get the time to do it. By the time I get home from work, do all the animal chores, fix dinner, clean up, water everything, I'm tired. About 8 or so I just give up. I don't want to do anymore for the day. I want to sit down and eat and sit some more.

Day off tomorrow so I'll visit a friend who I haven't seen since June. Then, hopefully can ferment the cucumbers and maybe even can a small batch of diced tomatoes. I have the dried goldenrod and want to make an oil from it....and then a salve eventually. AND another jar of apple cider vinegar. If it would ever rain, I could use watering time to do other things.

That's been the real time-consumer this year--watering.

Jen, I see one picture you posted...and one post. Did you try to do another post?

Back to work.

Jennifer, wells are nice. I dont have one here, but have one on the back of the property. It is an Artesian well, but just barely flows.

By cutting a trail through weeds and brush like this, to the lowest spot I have over near the well I was able to get a flow like this just by using gravity. I had to use a pump to get the flow started.

This is a picture of the flow without a pump.

This is a picture of the flow after filling those two barrels. Note that the "Y" is lower than the first picture, and therefor the flow is greater because gravity is the power source.

I haul the water to the garden and then hook a hose from the barrel to an irrigation tube.

You could run a tube down your rows, having the tube right up next to the plants and still use the Mantis in the middles. That is the way I use to use the tubes. I think I use to run around 150 1/16 holes off my water hose, that would drop the pressure from around 44 lbs to less than 1 pound. I did not use a filter or regulator. You have to have your garden and tubes close to level. This is one of my old tubes (clase to 20 hears old ).

I am going to make a few more tubes, if you like I will show a picture of how I make them. The new ones will only be changer very little

Good idea Larry.

Rick

Rick, the best gardens I have ever grown were when I used this watering method. I lived over at the old house at the time and used the artesian well, the well water had so much mineral in it that it would clog a soaker hose, so I started making the pvc tubes, some of my tubes are near 20 years old and still work fine. My biggest repairs were snagging them with the roll bar on the tractor and breaking the end off. I kept the tubes stores on top of the tractor shed. one of the modifications I am going to make is to feed end of the tube, no more hanging down in the path of the roll bar. I really cant say the tubes helped the garden that much, but having an endless supply of water sure did.

I believe it.

Rick

Anyone here pickle okra ?

I've found " sweet and spicy " pickled okra here in OKC at Kosmos BBQ Supply and I gotta figure out how to make this or I'll go broke buyjng it.

I was always turned off by the thought of pickled okra. I figured the texture was slimy and unappealing. I was talked into a jar of these while getting some bbq rubs and man, what a surprise. These things are delicious.

Ingredients are distilled vinegar, salt, onions, garlic, mustard seed, peppers, spices, water, sugar. Has calcium chloride, IDK what it does, its a salt variation. And it has tumeric.

Rick and I pickled a lot of okra in 2020. Both the regular and sweet & spicy.

I can look for our recipe a bit later.

Where is Kosmos BBQ supply? Sounds like a place that Tom would enjoy. He has so many BBQ rubs it's insane.

Ah ha ........... you've saved me from a weekly trip to Kosmos ... or at least till I can grow some okra :) And possibly bankruptcy, at $8 a jar I have to be careful with these things.

Kosmos address is 400 S Vermont, that's near Meridian and I-40. Its in an industrial strip center, or that's what I would call it. Same building as H&H Gun Range.

Kosmos sells rubs, sauces, marinades, injections, etc nationally. He started out heavily in to bbq competition but his seasoning business took off big time. He did win the 2015 World Steak Cook off.

He has a YT Channel that's active, hard to tell from his YT channel but I met him in the store once and he's really a humble guy. He wanted to talk about my bbq and know more about me, my dad the insurance salesman would've been impressed.

I've heard him say that he doesn't do a lot of business with OKC people and its not uncommon for OKC people to not know of him. But he's big in the bbq world nationally.

His store sells his seasonings, sauces, etc but also sells other brands. Stuff that I'd have to pay shipping to order in. He's got some smokers and grills for sale and a lot of accessories. Its easy for me to spend too much money there.

Ohh yeah, he also makes a great bloody mary mix :) . I've never gotten anything from Kosmos that wasn't delicious.

HJ, there should have been two posts. The first time the second pic didn't attach so I posted it again. Oh well. Imagine a metal building with an overgrown flower bed in front.

Lynn, I asked Tom about Kosmos and he said all the things that you posted. I don't pay much attention to his BBQ stuff. Obviously. lol

I'll try to remember to find that recipe for you tomorrow. I think it's in the shop in a folder with our canning stuff.

Jen, I saw one pic of your shop with flowers. How are you doing? I've been thinking about you a lot. Your first garden season at your new house was a doozy. And not in a good way.

toot ! , Toot !!

FROST next tuesday/wed morning time frame.

Got anything thing worth covering ,better cover it.

Hopefully it'll be after a half inch statewide rain.

Rick

I told Madge this morning that our min/max must be broken, it showed a low of 39. The temp was up in the high 40's when I saw it, so I did not give it any thought, but looking at our forecast it shows 30 for Tue. morn, did we quit having Fall and Spring?

Rick, I am voting with you for rain, but I could use more than 1/2" of rain, but I have to get my rtv out of the creek first, it is stuck on a gravel bar.

Well I got the rtv unstuck. We were out late yesterday evening checking around the bases of oak trees where we had been tossing a little corn for the critters to eat. It has been so dry here that we have a poor acorn crop. Anyway, we spooked about a dozen deer as we were driving around to check to see if the corn had been eaten. So I decided to take a short cut back to the house, which involved driving off into a dry creek bed and going up stream a short distance, then up a steep gravel bar, and then turning left up another gravel bar, and then be within 300 yards of the house. To make a long story short, Madge is afraid of rough places, so I tried to drive very slow trying not to spook her. Driving slow does not get you through really tough places, and it did not work this time either, and we got to walk back to the house.

Madge apologized for getting mad at me for scaring her ( she knows that I would never do anything that might hurt her ) and volunteered to drive the truck loaded with the tools that I thought I might need, while I drove the tractor, to retrieve the rtv.

As it turned out I only needed a shovel to dig away some gravel so I could drive backward to firm footing, and then drive up the hill with more speed.

All the corn had been eaten from under the trees, so I expect that the deer did not run far. I am glad they did not find the sack of corn in the rtv.

I bought more seed and fertilizer to plant grain rye, but it is too dry for anything to come up.

I feel sorry for the wildlife and hope to supplement their food till we can get a little rain.

Looks like we are in the path of hail and wind, but so far the rain has not been much, still hauling water.

We are expecting rain tomorrow all day and I am as ready as I will ever be.

We missed the hail, but got a pretty good rain, good chance for more rain tomorrow. I don't think I will haul any water for a few days, but need to plant some cover crop.

It rained and is still raining lightly. At 2AM I ran out and put giant swimming pool over chicken coop. And I put some 5 gallon buckets under the eaves. I found my lids so I can cover them and hopefully prevent mosquitoes.