Thanks, Amy, I don't see any other new thread either, and I don't know how to start one. I think that I push all the right buttons, but nothing happens.

I hope to get around to tilling the sweet potatoes today, also hope to cut off enough runners to plant about 15 in the north garden, that should put me up to 100 plants total.

I would like to pull more onions, and plant something new in their spot, cow peas would be a good choice. I would like to cut my turnip greens and use them as mulch, I have never done that before, but I think it would work. Now it seems as the turnip greens are an insect magnet. I may just try to cut some of them and see what happens, if the greens are drawing insects away from the rest of the garden, I will just leave them, maybe plant more in the north garden.

Larry I am glad you are enjoying that tomato plant. I hope it produces for you. I have given away lots more plants. Whatever I have left I am planting this week. I finally remembered to stop and get my noodle bean seeds. And I found the French filet I wanted. Hope they do well.

Kim, I grew a yard long bean for a long time, someone on this form sent me the seeds, maybe Carol, so many on this forum have been so nice to me, I cant remember all the nice things the people have done, even the ones I have never met.

My grand daughter and her husband were here today. I took her to the pasture garden, I have Egyptian walking onions growing more or less wild out there. I showed her how to butcher the walking onion and plant the stump, and salvage the rest of the onion, parts of them can get tough, but I don't think you can kill them. We raided the garden and she harvested 3 kinds of onions and 1 kind of garlic, then we went to the neighbors and got 3 or 4 kinda of peppers and 3 kinds of potatoes and squash and zucchini to take home. She also took home several kinda of plants.

Grand daughter and husband will be back in a week of two, and we will build them a two mineral tub planter.

Jennifer, I would not be concerned about smelling like herbs till people started licking on me, I might have to start carrying that dog around with me to get rid of the lickers. My daughter has a small yorky that has a skin allergy, he is really a sweet dog, but has a strong odor.

Jennifer, I don't live near Fayetteville, but I go to the hospital at Fayetteville quite often, and I think that is over 80 miles one way. I live south of Fort Smith. The weather in Ft. Smith and Fayetteville is pretty nice now, but there is over 50% chance of rain after Wed. I like Fayetteville, but it is growing too fast for my liking. I don't like being in an area where there is a lot of construction, but we need a lot of new construction all over Arkansas.

I did not get much done today, but I had a wonderful time with my grand daughter and her husband.

I ask Madge why I should even care if the kids liked growing plants, it is really none of my business, but the kids and I had a great time in the garden today.

My niece told me my house and I smell like herbs. Much better than a chemical perfume smell.

Apologies for taking this off gardening, but every time I see the word patchouli , this song from 1976 enters my mind. Year of the Cat, Al Stewart .

And I still don't know what patchouli is , don't think I'd know the aroma.

" Why she looks at you so coolly?

And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea

She comes in incense and patchouli

So you take her, to find what's waiting inside "

If you smelled it, you'd know it. Think Grateful Dead and pot

Lynn, it's funny that you posted that song. My kids say that it's one of my funeral songs. Sorta weird, but it's a thing we do--chose funeral songs. lol

I have a 70's and 80's playlist on Spotify and my kids have heard all of those songs from my childhood.

I specifically remember that song from a TV commercial when I was a kid. It for KATT 100.5.

About the song, I do believe there is one country that has The Year of the Cat on their horoscope. The regular Chinese horoscope does not. I think it's Vietnam....and actually it might be this year--2024. I'll have to google it later to check that information.

The song is probably about that in some way, but I like to NOT know the reason the artist wrote the song. I like songs to be what I get from them--how I relate to them.

Patchouli. Supposedly a hippie thing to mask the smell of pot.

I do have a patchouli plant.

On work computer. Might not post.

Lynn, thanks for bring patchouli up. I did not want to expose my lack of culture, but I did not know what patchouli was, but I have heard of the Grateful dead and pot, I think both are related to music. My grand daughter an her husband both work in music. I have heard my grand daughter refer to their music as being Chamber music, I suppose that must be related to the chamber pot, which I know a lot about. When I put two a two together, I figure that you must sit on a chamber pot when you enjoy chamber music. I have only been to one of her concerts, but I sit in a chair, it was dark in there, and I could not see the others, they may have been sitting on chamber pots, if they were, I bet that their legs were so numb that they had to be carried out of there. Anyone with any learnin knows you cant sit on a chamber pot for two yours and be able to walk away. We all know that part of a grand paw's job is to educate his kin, 5 of the 6 of my adult grand daughters have at least a masters degree, and it is surprising the things they don't know.

I guess you all can see why I am having such a hard time getting the grand daughters on these old beat up tractors and teaching them about the finer things in life.

I have been in the house sleeping, but I should be working. I have holes dug for 6 roselle, 16 sweet potatoes, 27 other plants. I still am not going to be able to use up all the plants I have started. We have more rain and a chance of bad weather in the forecast, this looks like my best work day for several days, but its 91 degrees, and I don't do well in the heat.

I may not be able to get the pasture garden ready for summer crops, if not, I can shoot for a fall crop. We are told that we have another lake on line, but if this goes like it has in the past, the water company will get as many customers as they can, even if it means rationing water in the driest times.

Today was my last day of work. I ate lunch and have been resting. I will garden tomorrow. Carrots need to be prepped. I’m expecting rain Wednesday through Friday. I don’t really need it but I’ll save some. Wednesday I take Sophie to get fixed. Friday 5th grade graduation Saturday nephew party Sunday sister party. What a week.

Glad you could rest, Kim. Today is our last day of school. I'll only work 2 and a half days a week during the summer. I'm so impressed with your carrots this year!

Our trip to Arkansas won't be exactly restful, but I won't be pushing myself until nearly midnight trying to get everything done around my house. Some of it is my fault because I have this goal to get everything cleaned out and organized before the baby is born. I will appreciate it in the upcoming months. If that lil guy can hold off until the first week of June, it would be good. It will give us a chance to finish the shop. It's so close to being done. Anyway, looking forward to the trip. Preparing for the trip is a booger, tho. Anytime you have a garden and animals, leaving the home is a challenge.

Lets just face it. May is busy. Graduations, parties, award banquets/events, end of school stuff, kids sports for some people. I finally got some money slapped into graduation cards and mailed this morning.

Add to that: it's prime gardening time.

As I went out to finish weeding the asparagus beds last night, I almost called the doctor again. "are you sure I don't have lupus?" It's like this every May, tho. That sort of ache that feels like a flu. Tired to the bone.

I guess people can carry the ANA antibodies (me) and not have an autoimmune issue. I also know that Lupus is hard to diagnose. And honestly, I wouldn't take medicine for it anyways. So does it matter?

However, my hands in the soil while weeding the asparagus bed last night was magically healing. Soil is magic.

Speaking of asparagus. How do you all with tilled gardens deal with asparagus?

Jennifer, I hope you enjoy your trip to Fayetteville, it't a pretty area. I enjoy the mountains every trip we make.

I agree that the soil is healing, at least for some people. I did not get a good report my last trip to the cardiologist, but I have known of this condition I have for 36 years, but my life has been pretty well normal, I just have to know that I have to pace my self, but working in the garden is one of my better medicines.

We went to the Poteau Farmers Co-op this morning and bought a few supplies, I bought 10 more bags of Top Notch potting soil, I like the stuff. This is the first year I have used Top Notch, but at 7.59 a 40 gt. bag, it is cheaper than any of the other stuff I have used. I now just amend the planting hole, that is a practice that I started when I lived in town and I was not able to get a truck to my garden, plus I had a much smaller garden then. I can haul 10 bags in the back of Madge'e small SUV, then transfer it to my RTV, and drive it right up to the planting area.

I am still trying to get the rest of my planting done, I don't think that I have ever been on time with anything.

" Speaking of asparagus. How do you all with tilled gardens deal with asparagus? "

I don't.

Mrs Dollar would like for me to grow asparagus, but I just can't find a spot for it. I would have to build a separate raised bed instead of the in-ground garden.

Larry I get that being late. I was born over 2 weeks late so….. it’s raining today. Kinda snuck up on me so no planting for me. I might go poke the new bean seeds in when I am finished with this canner load. Jennifer sometimes I have to rest. My body just doesn’t work the same. I am on a mission now. Using my time wisely. So many projects to do. I did my very first pressure canning ever today.

All done with the carrots. I got 19 half pints and one pint. Next time I will measure how much produce I have before I start. Because my eyeball apparently under estimated by 10 jars. So I was really thinking I’ll be thankful if I get 10 half pints. I even had about 4 cups left over that I put in the fridge for fresh eating and I did a ferment on 2 1/2 pints. If you have never tried fermenting you should because it is so incredibly easy and delicious.

Kim, I was born about 6 or 7 weeks early, and was expected to die before morning.

I planted some yellow straight neck, and zucchini today, and I noticed that the Heavy Hitter okra I planted a few days ago is up.

I wish I had taken a bunch of seeds to Spring Fling, but I figured everyone else was just like me, being up to their ears in seeds.

The rain chased me in, but it looks like it may be stopped now, if so I need to start planting again.

Jennifer, Madge was digging through the extra plants that I still have out under my shade trees in the front lawn, and found a Dwarf Sweet Sue, and a Fred's Tie Dye, I am thinking about planting these two in the ground to see what they will do. I am very happy with the ones I have in mineral tubs, but I doubt that I have any fruit set on them yet.

The weather looks a little rough for many of you in Oklahoma, so far it looks to go north and south of me, but not tomorrow. I am going to set my extra plants on the porch, because of the threat of hail.

Lynn, asparagus is so good, but it's only in season for maybe 3 months. Some people plant strawberries with it or other things.

Larry, I'm glad you found a couple of those tomatoes for Madge. I look forward to seeing how they do for us in the hoop house.

I noticed that we have a couple of small zucchinis that will be ready to pick in a couple of days.

I prefer zucchini to yellow summer squash, but it seems most people prefer the yellow.

Fermenting is easy, Kim. I have a difficult time finding places for the jars though. We fermented peppers a couple of years ago and my people didn't prefer them that way. But, I need to try a few things other than cabbage and cukes.

We got maybe a half inch of rain this morning. Maybe not that much. As much as I like rain, I wish it would have held off. It hampered my coop clean a bit. I did get the coops clean, but their yard right outside the coop was muddy so I couldn't pull everything out to dust off, etc. But, the coop looks pretty good. The little coop with the "escapee" hens, looks MUCH better.

Trying to clean at that time of morning caused SO much drama. There were maybe 6 hens that wanted to lay an egg while I was cleaning their nest boxes. It was absolutely ridiculous. They were yelling at me and trying to find places in the storage side of the coop that is usually closed to them. One got to the top of the shelves and made herself a spot. Luckily, I finished with the coop before she laid her egg.

I think everything is planted now, other than maybe 3 vincas and the 2 blackberries I got from Selena at the SF. There were several basil plants left in the hoop house in their little pots. I crammed them with the others in the garden. None of them look great.

The mallow from you, Kim, is finally planted. The old one is in one bed and this one is in the spiral. I like the mallow because it's perennial but doesn't spread like crazy. That's the sort of things I want to put in the herb spiral. Although, the comfrey that I dug up for Bruce but thought had died, has come back to life. I had this crazy thought of putting it in the herb spiral. The comfrey on the west side of the house has been there for years and doesn't spread crazily, although it does spread a little. I just don't know....

I'll have to think this through.

When we return from Arkansas, I'll get the tomatoes tied up and mulched better.

Sweet potatoes. I need to plant one more mineral tub with them. But, need to get some soil first.

I knew this would happen....one of the mineral tubs that is freshly planted with sweet potatoes have horseradish popping up. You cannot leave one piece of root or it will reappear. I stuck the horseradish into those tubs months ago. The plan was to share them....and I did, but now I've got horseradish trying to compete with the sweet potatoes.

I could use a nap.

The rain shut me down this morning, or early afternoon, and it is raining again. I still have a lot of plants to plant. I cut 24 runners off of sweet potatoes in the south garden to plant in the north garden. I load up the RTV with spare plants and parked it under cover because of the hail threat we had yesterday and last night, but we only had rain. I placed the runners in a flat and placed potting soil over them and placed them in the back of the RTV, so they will keep even it it is a week before I can plant them, but I should be able to get then planted soon because most of the holes I made for them are along the edge of the garden.

I should have taken my blackberries to spring fling, they are Kiowa blackberries, but I got very few berries from them, the produced well, but I have so many birds, and they all like blackberries. I sprayed the vines with Glyphosate a few day ago, and I am digging the vines out, and planting peppers and tomatoes. At least I will get something other than fat birds from that space in the garden.

I have a good stand of okra, the rain really helped it pop through the soil. I normally plant okra sooner than this, but I just did not have a place ready for it. I love the rain that we have been getting all spring, but it has put me behind on soil prep.

I had pull my lettuce and used it for mulch. This morning I mowed the turnips, and pulled several to cook. I normally don't grow turnips in the spring, and these may be stronger in taste than I like.

It looks like the rain has stopped, so I need to go see if I can get in reach of the planting holes I have for the sweet potatoes. I have been amending the planting holes in hope I can dig the potatoes in Oct., my soil packs like concrete.

Well. it's too wet to do anything in the garden, so I thought that I would bore you with some pictures.

I mowed down my turnips this morning. The tops will be used as mulch. I picked these few to cook. I dont expect them to be very good, I expect them to be strong tasting, but I have plenty of onions and garlic to cook with them. I have always heard that turnips taste better after a frost, I have never grown then in the spring, but I ask Madge to cook a few of these tomorrow just to see what speing turnips taste like.

Jennifer, the tub in the center has 2 Fred's Tie Dye tomato plants in it, to the right is a tub with a Dwarf Sweet sue tomato and a Small Pimento in it. I am not sure what small pimento means, that is just what was on the package. I only have 2 Dwarf Sweet sue plants, the other one is still in the solo cup, but you can see that the Tie Dye plant seems to be more aggressive. The little pepper plant may get covered by the tomatoes, it has anothe Tie Dye plant to the right of it.

The first tub has 1 Bush Beefsteak tomato. I have grown these in the past, in the ground, and in a tub, they have done pretty well, but it looks like the Tie Dye may overtake it.

This is my first cucumber to make it this far, the others fell off when they were small. This plant was given to me, it was marked Long Green. I have Long Green seeds, but I don't remember ever growing any plants. I expect Madge will harvest this cucumber tomorrow, she does not like for them to get very large.

Jennifer I get decision fatigue. I am currently making a list of all the seeds that I want to plant and plants that I need to plant. Trying to figure out where to put them in my teeny tiny garden is overwhelming. It rained 2 1/2 inches yesterday and last night so I had to switch gears. I do not like going in the garden when it is wet. So I went through my seeds and got those sorted through what needs to go back in the seed storage cases. I decided I am going to have to pull all my onions even if they are not ready so that I can plant sweet potatoes. I will wait another week on those. Larry those turn ups look good but he threw away the best part. I only eat the greens not the turnip. I tried putting them in soup and in the greens and I do not care for them at all. I didn’t even grow any this spring but I will this fall. I infused the comfrey Moni gave me with my calendula oil. It is great for mosquito bites. I am going to take it to San Antonio when I go and try it on my granddaughter for her little rash. I hope it helps.

Kim, I am not fond of turnips either, but I do eat the root and the greens. This spring I was trying them as a ground cover. The turnip seeds are a big bang for the buck. You can buy a 5 or 10 pound bag of the seeds ( they are packaged for food plots ). That very small seed turns into a big leafy vegetable very quickly, that can be eaten or just used to shade the ground to keep grass from growing. This is my first time using them as a summer ground cover, and so far I like them for that. I expect the greens will regrow quickly, but I needed to be able to walk around my tomatoes. I already have hay ready to toss around the tomatoes if needed.

I have buck wheat as a summed cover crop also, it will grow quickly and draw in pollinators, but the seeds cost more, and I don't eat buck wheat. As far as greens, I had rather have some type of mustard greens, some are mild, some are not, I like them a little hot.

Larry, I have not tried them, but buckwheat leaves are supposed to be edible, used in salads. I had planned to try them this year. If we get help with the garden soon I might still.

Amy, I have never really thought about eating buckwheat leaves, but I don't see why a person could not eat them, and even harvest the growing tip and leaves. The stem is hollow and tender. Buckwheat grows very well for me, and produces seed very quickly. I have planted the seed, and along about the end of the plants life cycle I would drag a disc over it, and have another crop for fall, and at that time I might toss in a little winter wheat or rye.

It is trying to rain again, and rain is expected for several days, so I went out and harvested 185 onions. I piled them on the porch to keep the rain off of them. This spring has been a little too wet for my onions, and I planted them too close to easily keep the grass and weeds out of them.

I should end up with 110 red onion, and 35 each of white and yellow, plus the 155 heads of garlic that I harvested several days ago. I am pushing the harvest times up a little for two reasons, I need the space, plus the ground is so wet that I am afraid of rot. I also planted 33 more sweet potato slips yesterday, which brings my total up to 118 sweet potatoes. The garden was so wet yesterday that I just put on my rubber boots and waded in. I don't like doing that, but in my low location it is something I have to do too often.

I did not harvest any onion sets, I have really not learned what to do with them, they dont make a good head, and as far as a green onion goes, I can accomplish the same thing with the Egyptian walking onions, but I will harvest the sets and chop and freeze them, but in the future I will not tie up the space with sets

More boring pictures.

Amy, here is a picture of my onion harvest this morning. I should have left them in the garden to dry, it looked like we were going to get a hesvy rain, but only got a little. The sun is out and the wind is blowing, the onions would have dried faster in the garden.. The harvest was poor, but the kids have been hitting the onion also, but that is one reason I grow them.

Amy, I mentioned that I had too many options to mess with onions sets, well below is a picture of some of those options.

These are bunching onions and the top-sets of the Egyptian walking onions. In my opinion these are better green onions than the sets that I used, but I am going to try to save seeds from the sets, and see what I can do with them. I also tried to show some of the extra plants I have, I am almost out of room, and I have no idea when the pasture garden will be dry enough to work.

I thought I would toss in this picture also. The tomato plants on the right are Arkansas Traveler, they were planted in my Elephant garlic row, you can see where I replanted some of the Elephant garlic in the upper right corner of the picture so I would have room tor the tomato plants. I some times move my plants like a woman moving furniture.

You can see that the tomato plant on the far end is trying to fall over, it is tied, but not well enough, that tomato plant is a Pink Brandywine. I love Brandywine and Mrs. Maxwell (but I am out of Mrs. Maxwell seeds), but they make very large tomatoes, and very large plants, and it takes extra work keeping the large plants off of the ground. All the plants in the left row are just a mixture of odds and ends, but so far the look pretty good. You might note that on the right of the left row is the lettuce that I pulled for mulch, on the right of that same row is the turnips that were mowed for mulch. And, speaking of turnips, there will be no more spring turnips grown for food, we had some for lunch, it takes a pretty strong man to eat spring turnips. We also sampled one of our fresh yellow onions, it was too mild, hopefully they get a little stronger as they cure, the wet spring may have had something to do with the mild taste.

I have a pill bug problem. Rolly-pollys. I know they have a place in our ecosystem. I know what that place is. But, this bed is infested. You look at it and you see the surface of the soil moving. It’s an old bed thats getting replaced after this season, and is currently holding beets and the overflow onions. I’m not loving the idea of these swarms all over the root vegetables we’ll be eating. But I don’t know what to do about them.

Also, less than half my onions have gotten to any kind of size. Most of them stopped at the pearl onion size stage. All in the same bed, all fertilized the same, same amount of sun and rain. All Dixondale plants purchased locally. I can’t figure this out either. Ironically, the best looking onions are the ones in the pill bug bed.

Rebecca, I have much of the same problem, but I am not too concerned about my pill bugs. I think some of my onion problem started months ago. I did not water or feed my onions early on. Onions are heavy feeders, and I did feed my onions. Pill bugs like damp areas, and onions like even moisture because they have a shallow root system. I think that in my case neglecting to water and properly feed my onions, and letting the henbit overrun the onions caused more damage than the pill bugs. I don't know what you are calling too many pill bugs, but I think every year that I have too many pill bugs, but I can not see a lot of damage that they do. Do you think that you may have another problem that is just showing up along with the pill bugs?

Since the weak F1 tornado that took out my red bud tree, I've had two tomato plants die and 3 more that are dying . Never have had plants die before. Entirely new for me.

Four of the plants are in the same area of the garden, right next to each other.

One of the plants that died had already survived what I think was a cutworm. The stalk at ground level had been eaten on. I can only guess that the stalk was too large for the cutworm or whatever it was. But it was coming back before the tornado.

The others I just dont understand. The leaves on a lot of the plants after the tornado had ragged edges, like they'd been whipped around and beaten up. Most plants came back just fine, except for these four in the same area.

They all had set fruit, one plant was loaded down. Its dying and I hope the tomatoes ripen before it dies completely. And oh yeah, the plants also have the early blight. I can't recall having the early blight before, it seems I've always had the late blight.

Lynn, I am sorry for your sick plants, but the others still look great. I don't remember, but I was thinking you said that you grow Beefmaster, do I remember correctly? I like Beefmaster, but have been out of seed for a few years. I have too many seeds, and when I am gone, I doubt that any of my family is going to fool with a garden. My Brandywind plant has looked sick, and also has bilght now. The plant looked like it had too much water, or something had damaged the roots. I get damage from moles and gophers often. You may have a few sick plants, but the garden looks very nice.

I wondered if these plants had gotten too much water. They're in a part of the garden that doesn't drain as well and water will stand between the raised rows. I pulled back the mulch and the ground was very wet, all the way to surface. I was hoping drying it out would help the plants, so far, can't see that it has.

I also think the early blight may've been from too much humidity. The plants arent gone yet, maybe there's still hope.

Lynn, my first thought when i saw your tomato pictures was herbicide drift. 2 4D. But looking through the pics on this site, could be yellow leaf curl? Of course, tomatoes under stress curl their leaves, so it could just be too wet.

Larry, try salad turnips in spring. You can pick in 30 to 45 days and they're mild enough to eat raw in a salad. Ron likes the greens, too.

Amy, I do think I will try the salad turnips. I think that you and Carol have put me on to a lot of mild, tasty cole crops.

I have not done anything today except go to town for some building supplies, and to take Madge out to breakfast.

Rebecca, Dawn recommended Sluggo Plus for pill bugs. They can be useful and often don't bother our crops, but sometimes they do.

Thanks for sharing your pictures, Larry and Lynn.

We came back early from Arkansas because our daughter's water broke last night at 9:15. We got a message from her husband at 9:44 that "it's happening". Baby was born at 10:13. We came home this morning.

He is such a lovely baby. I could hold him and look at him all day.

I walked the gardens and looked at stuff and grabbed the asparagus. But, I'm pretty tired because it was hard to sleep last night knowing the baby had arrived and I was lying in a hotel bed over 3 hours away.

We had a few sprinkles earlier. . Maybe there's something heading our way now, but it looks like it's fading out and/or going north of us.

Herbicide drift is not the problem. Even if that was possible, it would impact all the plants. Nobody is spraying around here. That would be impossible.

This started after the tornado. They were doing fine up to that point. Leaves are not only curled, but the edges are ragged.

Lynn, your tomatoes just might have had too much water. Also wind really tears up plants sometimes. My peppers are raggedy from the wind, for sure.

I'll make a new thread.