I am sick in bed again. So reading about your gardening adventures makes me feel so much better

Here's a bump about peppers:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2104035/bell-pepper-varieties-for-oklahoma

Rick

Jennifer, I have pulled violets by the baskets full and just tossed them in a ditch and they lived and spread so YES they transplant easilly 👍and I have noticed a bit of color change depending on the soil

Rick, I am glad you mentioned peppers, I think I still have a flat of bell peppers and a flat of egg plant on the front porch that I need to do something with.

Jennifer, we have something that looks like wild violets that grow around the north end of our house and around a flower bed in the front lawn, they seem to take a beating and keep coming back. I have been so busy this year that I have not noticed them. We were not allowed to water anything late last summer, they may have died.

I am sure we are planting more than we can care for this year. We have started a lot of seeds in the greenhouse, now, setting these plants out requires watering and neighbor cant keep up. I got all the area we plan on planting ready today, maybe tomorrow I can have time to get my watering rig going.

This old man cant keep up this pace. I am old and worn out, my equipment is old and worn out.

Dawn's thoughts on peppers are interesting. My very limited experience is that the hot peppers produce better in July, in hot weather. So I don't feel nearly as rushed to get them in the ground and to take advantage of the same tomato " window ".

I just planted peppers Sunday, about three weeks after I put the tomato plants in. And I have some more I'm holding. Just no need to rush.

I've grown a variety from seed I got from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, called Charleston Bell. I think I grew it a couple years ago, that's when I bought the seed, but anymore I can't remember my own name, so I've no idea. I know I planted a bell pepper that produced far more than we could use.

Charleston Belle Sweet Bell Pepper, 0.3 g

I never get to all the plants that I want, but it seem as though I always start more plants than I have room for. I just have two small gardens at the house which about 25' x 30' each. I can plant more plants in that space than we can use ( we don't can anymore, we may hot bath tomatoes and pickles). I give quit a bit of stuff away.

I have the wildlife garden, that started out as small grain for the wildlife, but when Covid hit I started planting food in it, thinking that friends or family may need it, but so far that has not happened, but neighbor has sold quite a bit of stuff from it. I have several small gardens within the wildlife garden, which total about 2 acres. We have now started making gardens in areas where the land is very rough on the 60 acres where I live. By cultivating the land we are smoothing out the the rough places that erosion and wildlife have caused in the past 70 + years.

I am not sure how this land improvement project will work out because this is the first year I have tried it, but what I have started is a project suited better for a young man. ( I stayed on a tractor yesterday till I am beat to a pulp).

I will go over to the greenhouse to check on the plants, then think about which of the 100 projects I want to work on next.

Starting to see some broccoli heads forming way down low on a few of the original plants that survived peter rabbit and weren't replanted. Some spots in the cab/caul/broc row have been replanted several times over due to wind also. Spring here might be a little too rough for those guys. We'll probably do it again this fall to see if things are easier. The weather is just so damned bi-polar here. Looking now, I see a low of 32F forecasted for this Sat.

Brassicas can handle it . Hold off on tomatoes or be ready to cover.

Rick

Hwy20, spring is always rough here. not only from the wind, but also from the unstable weather.

The broccoli that is producing the button heads may not produce anything but button heads, but if you are like I am, you will enjoy the button heads more, they seem to have a longer stem, and I like that part better.

I just checked our forecast, and Ft. Smith shows 39F for Sat. night. Judging from past history that could mean 33 or 34 here. We also have a good chance of rain before the weekend, which we need. Neighbor is putting so many plants in the ground it is hard to water all of them.

I went over to the greenhouse to try to salvage some seed-stock plants, neighbor did not grow up in this valley like I did and is not as afraid of the crazy weather as I am, so I wanted to save back a few plants for seed-stock.

Rick, I lied to you when I said I had a flat of bell peppers and a flat or egg plants on my porch. When I got back from the greenhouse I took a quick inventory of my porch and found 4 flats of bell peppers, 4 flats of egg plants, 40 sweet potato plants, and over a dozen of potted plants waiting on garden space. I have been holding back plant my home garden because we often get an unexpected freeze of frost in late April.

I got my first Covington slips this morning. The Covington are just now starting to wake up, I got 10 slips this morning, that brings out total up to about 344, if neighbor does not plant them too soon we will have more than enough for a good crop this year. The 185 Red Wine Velvet plants in the greenhouse are growing like weeds.

The mesquite just now broke dormancy in Lubbock. Low temps this weekend but my kids have already planted out. They didn’t ask me so I guess they will learn. What works and what doesn’t

Forecast now saying 35. That will work. I've had tomatoes out for about 10 days now.

Onions looking great. I've been using dixondale's fert program on them and they seem to be responding. Beets & peas growing well, original broccoli get bigger everytime I look at em. So is what i'm seeing buttoning? Hopefully it produces a real broccoli head and not a tiny one. But with this weather...I wouldn't doubt it.

I don't ever remember potatoes getting this big this soon, but it's encouraging. All in all, it isn't as bad as it started out and now I can tell things are probably gonna do well so long as we avoid a drought.

I've got just under 200 toms out now. Too much to have to cover and I'm not there to do it anyway. And have some more toms to put out if I don't have to use them for backups.

I got potatoes up that are too big to cover now.

Onions are doing ok so far. , could look a little better. Maybe I need to do a little side dressing.

About brocolli buttoning , if they button then they are pretty much done except for some outshoots. Same for cauliflower.

I'm glad that it's not too wet like it's been for the last several springs , but we do need some rain.( in reasonable amounts)

Rick

I need to catch up here, but will do it tomorrow.

But, want to ask farmgardenerok about the wild violets. Did you throw them in a ditch that has shade?

Our forecast has been updated to 41 being the lowest for the rest of the month, which makes me happier

I would like to work around the house tomorrow. It seems as though I use my spare time working on one of our gardens, but I think that I have caught up till around the first of may.

Rick, that is a lot of tomatoes. I don't know how many we wound up with, we can get by with 50 plants, maybe less. Neighbor trades a lot of his produce for other produce, and tomatoes is one item he trades for often. Squash, cucumbers, okra, and pumpkins seems to what we have the most of, but Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes should be pretty good items for us this year.

We have a stray dog hanging around the wildlife garden, today neighbor came up with the idea of making a home for that old dog in the wildlife garden, in hope of keeping critters away. Neighbor has more faith in that old dog than I do, but I am all in. I am afraid that when we start feeding that old dog, if will get fat and lazy, and the coons will just come up and eat from the dog's dish. Maybe we can make the dog a sign " Will work for food".

Jennifer the wild violets do best if not in full sun however i have some that have spread into the yard and get several hours of sun a day. No, we don’t spray or water our lawn. We live on a farm and have more chores than time so don’t encourage a lawn that needs mowing twice a week. Start you a few violets in a semi-shady spot and next year you will have them everywhere to transplant.

Updated lows for Saturday in Norman are in the 40-42 degree range. May have dodged a bullet. I put a few tomatoes in the ground on 3/21 and they look great. Fingers crossed that this is the end of the really cold nights

Just in time to start worrying about large hail.

Rick

What Dawn said about fertilizing peppers is very interesting to me ....,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,.....

" It also might help to know that peppers are one of the few crops that can produce so heavily that they may need to be pushed along hard with lots of fertilizer. When I was a younger gardener in Texas, the extension agents and garden writers/horticulturalists emphasized over and over that peppers were one of the few veggies that you could fertilize so heavily that you almost burned them, and they'd still produce and, in fact, would produce very heavily. " .............................

I pulled a bone head stunt this year ( not unusual ) and fertilized my tomato and pepper seedlings with Miricle Grow Performance. It totally slipped my mind that the potting soil contained fertilizer. It burned the young tomato plants ( and they've recovered just fine ) but had no apparent impact on the peppers. I could not tell you if it boosted their growth, I've nothing to compare it to.

I've still got three pepper plants to put into the ground. But way too windy today and its gonna cool off for the next few days, so if I did plant them today, they're not gonna do much. Just wait till next week. They seem to be doing fine under the grow light.

I have my tiller about ready to go (I hope). I need to go to town and buy fuel and oil, then, hopefully get the house gardens ready for some root bound plants.

We are in pretty good shape on the other gardens because we can work then with a tractor.

We have another 1/2 acre of squash planted now ( seed )

We need to plant close to 200 roselle, depends on how many are already given away, they like a lot of water and the greenhouse is getting too hot for them. It is surprising how well the sweet potatoes are doing in the greenhouse, they seem to handle the heat better than anything we have in there.

I caught up on reading all the posts now.

Larry, I wish you lived closer and I could buy plants from you.

Kim, I hope you're feeling better.

farmgardenerok, if we ever get some rainy days, I'll pull up a few of neighbor's violets and relocate them at the back of our property. There's a tree behind the chicken yard that might could provide enough shade for them.

I really would like to have a forest behind me, although I know that would present it's own problems like deer.

It's been a whirlwind of a couple of days. We took the kids on a field trip yesterday to the Science Museum. And today had the Mad Scientist come to our school and also Finding Words is here. It's a training to help people learn to interview children. They "borrow" our children to practice.

Anyway....I'm skipping an event tonight and going home after work. This introvert needs some recharging time.

I get super clumsy when I'm tired--both mentally and physically. I nearly ripped a couple of fingernails off two nights ago.

None of my peppers are planted yet. I'm shooting for next week or so. Maybe around May 1. They aren't that big yet, but look healthy.

I only have a couple of the Ashe Country pimentos. It's a very tasty and pretty sweet pepper. Two or three of the Doe Hill sweet pepper. It's a small, yellow one. And, the name of the bell variety has slipped my mind, but I have several of those.

And some Craig's Grande jalapenos. And a purchased habanero.

In the future, I would like to grow many varieties of peppers, but this isn't the year for that.

I do need to take inventory to see how many jars of the various pepper products remain in the pantry. The pepper jellies seem to be the biggest hit with my family. More so than the cowboy candy types of things.

The roselle jelly is not everyone's favorite, so there's a lot of it still remaining. I'll dry and make tea with the roselle this year instead.

My daughter likes blackberry jelly the best...and I'm out.

I had an hour the other night to work on the flowerbeds at the front of the house. They weren't bad thankfully. Got those cleaned up--just need to add a bit of the cottonseed hull as mulch and find a couple of shrub types of plants to put there. I would like something evergreen....but finding that is difficult especially if size, alkaline soil, mostly shade tolerant requirements are in play. And, I'm trying to find something native. There are dwarf oakleaf hydrangeas, but they're not evergreen, of course.

Also, got the porch flowerpots planted in part.

I'm a dork and still have a red and snowflake welcome mat out, tho. A little Christmasy.

Looks great with my Easter wreath.

I do like the front of the house to be a little tidy....and what I consider the backyard. The rest of the property, the wild jungle look is my preference.

Jennifer, neighbor wanted to plant roselle to bring in bees, he and I have different ideas on gardening. I think roselle are pretty, but need too much water to really look good. I had rather plant zinnias and sun flowers, I think they are easier to grow. We will have all 3 in different areas, because my wife, and neighbor like the roselle, and I want something like a timex watch, "that will take a lickin and keep on tickin", thats where the sun flower and zinnias come in. I often have to string a hot wire to protest the flowers.I am not sure if the wildlife will bother the roselle.

Baseball size hail (HELL) maybe heading here in the OKC area. Maybe a tornado trying to start up.

Sirens are sounding off. A funnel tried to drop down and lifted back up. Moore and north Norman.

Rick

HELL!!!. Softball size now just south of Norman around HY 9 .

And another tornado warning again in Norman.

Rick

Its all gone west and south of me, but there's more storms at Lawton. I am getting some rain. Got a few hail stones but it was very very scattered.

Violent , large tornado around Cole , OK just south of Norman heading east doing damage with debre cloud.

It's a wedge turning left towards Goldsby ,Noble and south Norman.

The sirens are sounding off AGAIN in Norman.

HELLLLL!!!!!!

Rick

I am sorry y'all are having this terrible weather. We may be getting your leftover weather, we often get your weather about a day later.

We got tomatoes planted just in time for the bad weather. We planted 9 Sungold, 40 + Beefmaster, and a few others that I dont remember the name. I expect we still have another 200 to go.

Larry that's about where I'm at with tomatoes.

The town of Cole , OK got hit. It's in the news.

Rick

I just got hail, a lot of it, it went on for a long time. Dime to occasional quarter size hail. Very heavy rain. IDK what this will do the garden.

Glad to get the rain,but why can't we get it without all the storms.

A- hole weather as always.

Rick

And it's not over with yet, Shawnee is next in line.

Rick

Large violent tornado coming into Shawnee.

Rick

Shawnee is getting hit. I-40 is shut down.

Rick

Wow. What a night. Lots of rain and hail here, but thankfully no tornadoes at our house. We had some golf ball sized hail. It will be interesting to check the gardens tomorrow. My car is in the shop, but I'm sure Tom and Ethan's have damage.

I'm happy that our power stayed on.

Checked in with Jen and they are fine. Rain and hail at her house too.

Hope everyone else is okay.

No dents in the truck, garden looks fine. Knocked off some leaves but everything made it through, possibly with no setback.

That was some evening. Every time I thought we'd made into the clear, another storm would show up out nowhere.

And I really hate seeing those storms track up I-44 from Chickasha, living on the south side of OKC, those are the most worrisome.

On another note, I planted cucumber seed a week from today. Nothing popping up yet. Being frugal and not wanting to see anything go to waste, I saved my seed from last year, put it in the freezer, but now thinking I should've just spent a few bucks and bought fresh seed. If this I've planted doesn't germinate, then I've lost two weeks.

Crazy weather night. So sorry for those impacted by the storms. We got off easy in west Norman. Some small hail, heavy winds and rain, but no significant damage to the plants. Try to stafe safe everyone.

Lots of hail and rain here. The truck has a bunch of dents in the hood but no broken glass. Didn't get a chance ot check the car but I don't see any broken glass on it. Biggest casualty is the garden. Looks like all the tomatoes I had planted are gone, most of the extras too. I still had a few in the shed so I may be ok. If I can, I'll go out this evening and start taking inventory. Maybe I'll have enough to replace what I've lost, otherwise I'll be mooching off everyone at spring fling. At least I know that I can start seeds and get them to a good size; I'm hoping to do a plant sale next year and help pay for my garden supplies that way.

I am glad you guys are okay, we did have any rough weather, but we often run a day later than y'all.

I wish I was close enough to share plants with y'all, even after losing 100's of plants when the greenhouse got too hot, we still have more than we need.

I had a Dr. appointment this morning, and on the way back through town I just had to stop at the Farmers Co-op ( that's my candy store) and check the seed supply. I bought 1 1/2 pounds of mustard seeds, then checked the bargain tub and bought an ounce of Ashley cucumber seeds, thinking that I have never grown them. When I got back to the car I had already forgotten what I had bought, when opening the sack to check on my treasures, I told Madge " I already have at least 20 hills of these that are 4 inches tall", Madge just smiled and said "yes and you probably have a lot of other stuff that you don't remember planting.

I had better go check on the greenhouse, neighbor may not be home.

Last night was definitely rough for a lot of people in central OK. I was watching Reed Timmer's live stream...yikes.

Package of my cucumber seed said it should germinate in 7 to 10 days. Today was Day 8 and nothing. I'm thinking I need to get to Home Depot and buy some fresh seed.

Lynn, I think you still have time, I don't know how old my seeds are but I am thinking they are surely over a year old. I buy a lot of my seed from the old seed tub a the Farmers Co-op, I did not check the price on the cucumber seeds I bought today, but they are normally from $0,69 to $1.69 for an once package, all the plants I saw were at least $1.00 each, most were much more.

We got some nice showers this afternoon, I doubt that there was much run-off, but they wet the ground about right to water the plants.

We got more tomatoes planted today, and pulled a few more sweet potato slips. Hopefully tomorrow I will feel like planting some in house gardens.

I may have planted them too deep. One seed package said 1/2 " and another said 3/4", and honestly, when I'm diggin in the dirt I can't get that exact. They could be an inch deep. And the soil that covers the seed is loose and it will compact after watering. IDK, how deep they are.

But today will be day 9. I will give them 14 days.

Lynn, planting too deep is easy to do, I try to plant on the shallow side, which works well for me, except for the critters that dig. Crows soon learn that there is a tasty tidbit on the other end of that corn shoot, but planting deep seldom saves it, they just have to work a little harden to get it.

My neighbor is a good example of someone planting too deep. This is the first year he has has used his greenhouse for starting seeds, and he had read that planting deep gave you more roots. When I went to up-pot his egg plants, which took for ever to come up, I found that he had taken about a dozen seeds and dumped into a single cell, then dumped a good inch of potting soil in on top of them. We wound up with a ton of plants, but we waited too long to get them.

Well, I did not intentionally plant them deep. Just don't think its reasonable to fine tune the depth. Hopefully, they start poppin up this weekend, but I would like to see some warmer air temps.

Value your youth, this getting old and still trying to till an over grown garden, sucks. I have one more tiller to repair, and then I start the repair on my small tractor. I bounce back and forth from one project to another, The sit-down jobs get top priority, but there is not many of them. The job I do the most is, installing a rear end in this recliner.

Our rain was not near as much as I thought, it was a big help, and I saw no sign of run-off.

Our turnips are large enough to pick small greens, they may not be fit to eat.

I hope to plant about 18 or 20 sweet potatoes plants today or tomorrow.

I typed up a post last night but lost it. Can't remember everything that was in the post now.

Yesterday was just perfect weather wise. Absolutely lovely.

School is out today so I took the day off from my other job too. Usually I'm home on Tuesday but we had the field trip to the science museum. Very much enjoying being home alone. Getting stuff down. Just the regular stuff--deep cleaning cat boxes, laundry, watering house plants--nothing exciting.

I did get the extra room cleaned this morning. It feels so much better now. It's my "office" type of room. And it holds my light shelf and collection of curiosities. I enjoy reading in that room and writing in my gardening and herb journals. But it had gotten dirty and I've avoided working in there lately. Now, it's clean and I've already made a pretty with some flowers that were in my flower press.

The storms crushed a couple of tomatoes and broke limbs off several others. I think MAYBE only two are completely destroyed, though.

If any of you are going to the Spring Fling and you're not on the Facebook group, will you let me know. Trying to decide how much meat to purchase and smoke.

Thanks.

Kim, praying for you! <3

Alright, broccoli gurus. Here is a pic of one of the plants I had mentioned a couple of days ago. The head is getting bigger, but I don't know if this is buttoning or not.

Hwy20, that is not what I would think of as buttoning, but I don't know much about broccoli. Did you start the seeds or is it a purchased plant? I can't see the picture very well, but it looks good to me.

I potter up 72 more egg plants this afternoon. Neighbor is just going nuts with his greenhouse, maybe I should say that we both are going nuts with his greenhouse, it is easy to start more plants than you can care for.

I don't know what we are going to do when it gets hot and dry, he is young and can work like a slave. Neighbor can do more work in an hour than I can do all day.

Hey old, the one in the pic is from seed that I started back in Feb. I've had to play shuffle in that row since i've started with the weather, but that is an original.

Speaking of hot & dry, we haven't seen a spec of rain in I don't know how long. That ain't gonna play well after last year. Forecast looks wet for next week though.

If the head doesn't get any bigger than a quarter then it's buttoned. If it seems to be getting bigger just keep an eye on it and harvest it before it starts making yellowish flowers.

Looks to me like it's trying to produce.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/vegetables/broccoli/buttoning-broccoli-heads.htm

About rain , looks like we're going to get more than we want next week.

Let western ok have it where they need it.

Rick

We have 3 days next week with a 50% or more chance of rain, but that is not enough to help us now. I plan to loading my RTV with ( 2 ) 55 gal drums tomorrow to water the plants we have planted. With the plants small it is easier to drive down the row and water the plants with a water hose attached to the drums.

Some of our planting and soil prep will have to wait till we can get the in ground plants watered. The plants in containers are sitting near a hydrant, we can keep them water pretty easy for the time being.