I just looked at Mesonet. 103° feels like 112° Hoping what i have left in garden makes it one more day. I have new tomato plants about 20” tall, new zuchini blooming, green beans about 3” tall, PEPH peas still making, beautiful okra producing daily, new okra and peas about 6” tall. I have one new cucumber plant, and 2 old ones that are covered with aphids, however they also are covered with ladybugs and larvae. I’ve decided to take a chance on them and leave them to the Lord and the ladybugs. I am so excited about the cooler forecast - I just hope it is correct. I plan to remove the shadecloth and let things grow this week. Don’t give up yet!

We are supposed to have a "cool down" on Tuesday, so Tom will probably mow. I'll be at Pilates, so won't be helping with that.

I'll be watering every evening.

This afternoon, I'm going to up-pot my lettuces and arugula.

I started taking an electrolyte powder. It's flavorless, but still bothers me. Maybe it will help with that thirsty feeling I always have. It's gritty and yuck, tho.

Doubling up on it today will probably in order.

It's just miserable out there. I feel for the animals and homeless.

And plants.

We put the shade cloth over the Vego beds. It's okay, I think. It's 50% and one bed still gets sun in the late evening when it drops. That bed has hot weather things, tho. Tomatoes, peppers, and basil, so maybe it will be okay. The other bed will have cool season things that I didn't get planted yesterday so will probably plant tonight. I need to top the bed with some bags of compost first. I have the bags just need to open and dump them on.

Tom is not thrilled with how it turned out. He wants it to be less flowy. So, might run some type of rope through all the grommets and figure out how that could work.

Portland is at a sunny 73 right now. Doesn't that sound nice? My son went to Tillamook Forest yesterday. Just lovely.

I'm not a procrastinator but keep putting off going outside to start the up-potting. It's really not going to get much cooler this evening, so might as well get out there.

Oh, I did get the hinged hoop bed ready for the kale and collards yesterday.

That's what's on my list for this week in the garden.

Daughter, and her friend, Jerry, and, grand daughter came over and brought lunch. Jerry drove in some T post for me to tie rope to to secure my downed okra, I think the kids still need to freeze more okra. My cousin and her husband came over to get some habanero peppers for pepper sauce. I have had a good day, I love to visit with people, especially family.

I got some bunching, onions planted and cabbage. I over seeded the cabbage pretty heavily so I feel like I’m gonna have to thin that quite a bit. I cleaned up in the garden a little bit, moved the duck housing out and did some trimming and grass pulling. This week I will get all of the seeds planted that I have laid out for fall garden, except my onions. I went through my seeds and have them ready to go one little box every day to plant. That way I don’t have too many seeds out in the heat.

Kim, what kind of bunching onions did you plant? I use to buy Lisbon bunching onion seeds off the bargain rack at Walmart, Ace hardware, or some place like that. I have good luck with those seeds every time I planted them.

Its raining again here, I think we have had rain the past 3 nights. so far this has been a much better gardening year for me than last year, but I am not sure what the rains will do to my sweet potato harvest. Seems as tho I have read that you need to cut the water off for the last month, have any of you read or heard of that?

Glenda, it seems like your garden is doing pretty well! I'm hoping it survived yesterday. I'm glad my chickens all survived. It was just brutal.

I have a cat who lives in a catio mostly. Normally when we get near 100, I bring her in for a couple of hours between 3 and 4. I was later getting out to her. It was closer to 4. She was panting and foaming at the mouth. She is okay now, but it was scary. My other outdoor cat find soil to stay cool (ish).

Anyway, let us know if your plants survived, Glenda.

Larry, I'm jealous of your rain.

I told RIck that we're the only idiots outside yesterday. It was a little after 4, I think, when he came over. We both up-potted seedlings (in the shade) and watered. I put the soaker hose on the peppers for an hour or so. And the sprinkler on half of the garden for an hour, but did hand water a few other things on the other side plus pots and the Vegos.

People did begin to emerge from the houses after 7. Still ridiculously hot.

I got the bags of compost dumped on the Vego, but didn't get it planted.

Right now, the peppers look okay in the KG and the new Sungolds. They're maybe 8 or 10 inches tall and making blossoms. They do get shade in the afternoon. Most everything else is pretty rough except a few herbs and the roselle.

Have a couple of cuke seedlings popping up and one Seminole plant. Probably already mentioned that.

Not much that's new really. I will plant the cabbages and kale and collards in about a week. They're getting to be a good size.

Be careful out there. It's not supposed to be as hot today (yesterday at my house was 105 and heat index of 111. The hoop house was 115 at one point.)

Drink plenty of water. I drank 2 quarts in 4 hours yesterday and took that electrolyte stuff. Feel pretty good today as far as hydration goes.

Larry, when do you usually get your first frost? I think as long as they have a few dry days before pulling them, and get to cure for 10 days or so outside in sheltered area they'll be fine. I usually put them in our hoop house on cardboard to cure for those 10 days or so, but bring them in before the first frost to finish out in the utility room.

I wait as long as I can before pulling them out.

But, I'm no expert. This is only my 4th year of sweet potatoes.

We're doing okay over here. We were out in the heat working this weekend pulling a couple of stumps out of the ground and taking care of yard work. Not much time for the garden with all of that going on. I think we're all tired of the high heat, so this little cool off should be a nice break.

For reference, I've got an Arizona cypress that is showing heat stress. I guess that summarizes this summer pretty well. There has been lightning and rain all around us, but never ON us.

The cowpeas just keep on keeping on, so we're picking those every few days. We seeded out some more in the corn stumps because why not? The sweet potato vines are looking good, but I don't know if they will make great tubers. Baby bubba starting to produce in the raised bed and looking good. Eggplant looks a little bleached out, probably tired of the heat also.

Hi y'all.

Kim, I'm sorry about your duck.

Larry, here's a link to the sweet potato boards. It doesn't say anything about not watering at the end, temperature seems more important. https://sweetpotatonetwork.boards.net/thread/53/cure-sweet-potatoes if this doesn't work for you, let me know and I'll cut and paste it.

Jennifer, do you add compost to the top of the vego or in each planting space? Also, do you water from the top? I bought all kinds of stuff to use in a garden on the ground, but I think that we may be past that. I'm interested in your vegos or maybe the straw method Lori "Darling" uses. Neither seem to me to be the most efficient for water usage though.

I tried to post something last week and lost it.

Well, I Googled vego beds and they aren't what I thought they were. I thought they were the round barrels with holes for planting. I actually bought an Amazon bed like that this year which is still in a box somewhere. Sigh.

My grand daughter and I both have been trying to "Fix" my computer, and I still cant get it to do as I want, so I stuck the picture in first, rather than making a long post and then losing it trying to get the picture to post.

Amy, thanks for the link. I will read over it and try to learn something.

Jennifer, my first frost date is around 10-30, and, also, I would have loved to given you some of my rain. I am also told that we have more coming. I hope that the next rain comes without the strong winds.

I try to dig my sweet potatoes around the first of October. I do not have a good curing area, and I have to store my sweet potatoes in the house, most will be stored under our bed. I expect more potatoes this year and may send some home with daughter and grand daughter

The picture I posted above is where I sprayed some Johnson grass out in the pasture to have some dry tender to start a fire to burn the the limbs that i, and mother nature have removed from the trees in the lawn, and maybe other areas. After I burn the brush I will plant something in that area, some of the plants will be a fall food crop.

I started a few more cool season seseeds to try and keep up with the grasshoppers. I need to cut some weeds down and clean up some more of the garden.

Still need more rain before I plant anything in the garden.

I go out every night to the greenhouse to try and find grasshoppers that find their way in. I usually find several.

This heat just takes any motivation out of me. My garden is full sun so it's brutal on it.

Josh, do you have issues with aphids on your cowpeas?

Amy, I have a Greenstalk that has pockets. There's 5 or 6 pockets on each layer. The layers come apart and are currently apart. I'll just top them with the compost. This is my first year with it. I do like it a lot. It will probably be most useful in spring and fall for lettuces and greens. It was wonderful this past spring. The summer is a little tricky with it. I did plant bush beans and they did fairly well really. Now, I'm just waiting for the lettuce seedlings to get big enough to plant in it...and for it to cool down a bit.

I also enjoy the Vego beds too so far.

I'll take your rain, Larry! It's so nice to get good rains. I can do other things in the garden and just enjoy the garden instead of spending all evening watering.

I only keep my sweet potatoes in the hoop house until the day before the first frost. Then, they go into my utility room in cardboard trays.

My daughter messaged me today and wants me to bring onions to her tomorrow. And then, messaged a bit later and wants cherry tomatoes.

I like that she wants garden food. I'll make a gardener of her someday.

The weather guy just teased us with a forecast of highs in the 80's at the end of the 9-day.

I hope he's right.

I noticed that the rats, or something is eating my Covington sweet potatoes. I did not notice where they were eating my purple or Red Wine Velvet sweet potatoes, but I am not sure if I have any of those. The Covington are pushing up the soil and the rain is washing the soil off of the potatoes.

I have heavy foliage on the potatoes, which may create a better habitat for the rats.

I pried that first clump of potatoes lose from the mud, and this is what I got from that one plant, there were a few smaller ones left, but I was not going to fight the ants for them. I still have 6 weeks of growing season left I should get a pretty good harvest if the critters would leave them alone.

I really don't want to harvest this early because I want the extra growing time, and I still have potatoes under our bed from last years harvest.

Robert, I agree about the heat. I am having a harder time dealing with the heat each year.

Jennifer, I did not have as much trouble with aphids this year, but I have a great herd of grasshoppers.

Y’all sure do stay busy.

Larry it's probably voles eating you r sweet potatoes. They look like rats .

My sweet potatoes didn't have much water all summer so I don't know if I'll get much of a harvest. I hope they grow a bunch in the next month.

Robert, I have seen them so few times, I really don't know what they are, or what to do about them, but I have found what I thought were gopher hill, but I have no luck at all at catching them, I use to be pretty good a catching gophers, but I have sure lost my tough.

My sweet potatoes have had more water this year than in many past years, but that could change. In the past dry years I have had to plow my sweet potatoes out of the ground with a middle buster or a field cultivator because my soil was so hard. the past two years I have added a little compost or potting soil to the planting hole and then have been able to dig by hand, I hope that works this year, or the kids will have to dig them. I get a lot more damaged potatoes when I have to plow them out. I just looked up a picture of a vole, I believe that is what I have seen, but I have seen none in a year or two, just damaged potatoes.

Larry I thought about using a middle buster but figured I'd get a. Lot of broken ones. I usually use a garden/ potato fork. Sure helps if there is moisture in the ground. My clay turns to concrete.

Robert, I have often said that my ground would go from soup to sidewalk in a week without rain. It is really not quite that bad, but I understand completely what you are saying. The past 2 years I have been mowing the potato vines with the zero turn mower, then digging the potatoes with a potato fork ( the compost or potting soil in the planting hole has helped the digging), then, chopping everything with a disc, then tilling back into the soil. The spot where the sweet potatoes are is the newest addition to the garden. I started this addition about 4 years ago because of my concern for food insecurities, and the soil is slowly improving.

You may note that in the picture of the sweet potato bed that I have (4) !/2" rebar stakes at each ends of the rows, the 2 outside stakes have an orange hay string strung between them, those are to mark my rows. I bought a brass stream nozzle to go onto the end of my garden hose, and with that nozzle I can sit on my stool and spray all the planting area, the idea being to keep the soil along the row somewhat damp in order to keep the soil lose enough to dig, after starting doing this I have been able to dig my potatoes with a digging fork, and getting much less damaged potatoes. These Covington potatoes, the 2 farthest rows, were planted on 4-24, if I had know that I was going to have this much rain I would have planted them later.

I think that you will have a crop of potatoes even tho it is dry, you may not get the pounds of potatoes you want.

Hi Everyone. I'm about to leave my office and head over to the school, but wanted to say hi.

Hope everyone is enjoying the coolish morning. I would like to be home to work outside.

Have a good day.

I am hoping to do a little trimming and piling the brush this morning, but this old man is pretty beat up this morning. I mowed the lawn late yesterday, My mower rides like a log wagon, and a sad thing about a zero turn mower is, although they will mow slow, it seems as tho the longer you mow the faster you go, and with my rough lawn a person if beat to a pulp by the time the job is finished.

I did notice what looked like a sparrow hawk fly up out of my sweet potato bed and land on the fence. I hoped I would see that he had a vole, but could not see that he had anything. Although I glad to see the hawk in the sweet potatoes, I cant help but fear for his life, because the grass hoppers in that bed are big enough to kill a good sized hawk.

Jennifer, I had severe aphid problems last year on cowpeas. The zipper cream pods were jet black from a couple hundred feet away they were so bad. I had to spray with sevin to kill them off because they would have decimated the plants quick. This year? Not much to report on the aphids. We really haven't had issues. Which makes me wish I had planted some cantaloupe :/

Kim, here’s the beautyberry you gave me a couple of years ago.

Isnt she pretty? Its at the back of our property under a sterile mulberry.

Jennifer she is beautiful. I so wish I hadn’t killed mine last year. It was huge. Maybe I can get a cutting from my sister. FYI chickens love the berries.

I searched the place looking for beauty berries before the fling, I found some, but was afraid I would not have room in Jerry's pickup.

My okra is getting too tall to pick, is it too late to cut the top out of it and force it to branch out an start producing again? I would not do all of it like that, and I don't remember of hearing anyone else doing that. I can keep pulling it over to pick it, but its a little hard with an artificial shoulder.

Larry my okra has taken a growing spurt too. I have never cut the tops out to make it branch out and was wondering the same thing. My new green beans, peas, and okra plants all look scorched, not sure if they will survive. The cucumbers that were covered with aphids are beyond help but I’ve been picking ladybug larvae off and relocating to other places in the garden. New zuchini is loaded with blooms

Josh, that is interesting that you haven't had an aphid problem this year.

And I think it's interesting what they choose to attack each year. I do realize there's a variety of aphids. The ones on my milkweed are bright yellow.

Speaking of cantaloupe, Rick picked 3 last night and I finally got to eat a good one. It wasn't the best we've grown but it was really good.

Larry and Glenda, our okra isn't the best this year for some reason.

Kim, maybe at some point you can get a cutting from this one since it was originally yours. That would be sorta sweet.

Last night I watered and planted golden beets, salad turnip, carrots, and radishes. The compost that I almost always buy was clumpy this time, so I broke it up as best as a could and topped with everything that I had bits of....vermiculite, peat moss, seed starter--stuff like that. Then topped with a nice potting mix.

Hopefully they'll do well. It's a first year for this Vego bed, so I don't have high hopes.

I would especially like to get some golden beets. I've never had luck with them.

Next year this bed should be much better. The lower half of the bed is chicken droppings, kitchen scraps, etc. Once it breaks down fully, it should be great.

The kale and collards look about ready to plant, but I need to smooth that soil in that bed too.

That's about all from me.

I work late today, but am doing a 10 day fruit and vegetable only diet and am not cooking. Tom is fixing his own steak dinner.

I'll exercise and water some more. I love the day after a good rain. I don't have to water and can work on weeding and tidiying up.

But, I don't see rain in the forecast.

Jennifer, that would be awesome.

I think that I could just about live on fruit and vegetables. I don't know it is age related or my taste have just changed. Our favorite place to eat is Olive Garden, and we always get the soup and salad.

The deer visited my sweet potatoes last night, but they did not eat much. I have my fence charger and most of the post set up ( i seldom take them down ), but I will not hook it up till they cause more damage they are now, but I am uneasy about my knuckle purple hulls, they are starting to bloom, and the deer love to pick peas.

Larry , deer never bothered my peas but would mow the okra down to the ground. I had to put a 8' fence around my garden.

Coyotes would get every cantaloupe right before getting ripe.

Robert, before I started using an electric fence in the wildlife garden, I had a row of purple hulls that looked very nice, I decided to come the next morning and pick then when it was a little cooler. I got over to the pea patch and found 2 pods, and a bunch of deer tracks. My neighbor has trouble with the deer also, he also put up an eight foot fence to keep the deer out.

I have had pretty good luck with an electric fence keeping the deer away, but there is not much that will keep a hungry deer out other than a tall fence, but all I have to do is keep them out of mine, and let them go eat one of the neighbor's garden.

My carnage and sugar peas are coming up nicely. No sign off the bunching onions. I want to order some more onions and SOW true seed has free shipping through Saturday. I need more of the 1015 type yellow onion. Those are my favorite.

I picked some Zipper Cream peas and jalapenos today and got them ready to freeze, I hope. I just shelled the peas and cut the stems off the jalapenos, they will go into the freezer without blanching. Next year I hope to try the large Jalapenos.

Army worms have arrived.

Well that was supposed to say cabbage

Hi Friends.

Sorry about the army worms, busy1.

We got up and went out to cover the kitchen garden pathways with wood chips. Normally I do this in the spring. These 2 Chip Drop piles are unsightly. There's grass and weed growing up in them. We want to tarp it all and let it break down. So even though the pathways didn't really need woodchips, by putting down a thick layer now, maybe I won't have to do it in the spring. Hopefully. From now on we'll just bring in wood chips each year and spend time getting it all done in a day. With Tom's help, it only took 2 hours. Basically we woke up and went straight out. I feel good about crossing that off the list.

I still need to put some down in the native garden behind the shop on the perennial side.

We slept in until 730. I felt so bad yesterday that I went to bed at 9:30. It was a long workday, and we did our grocery shopping, and Rick and I watered stuff.

I feel great today. After having a day with a nagging headache, it's such a great feeling to feel good. I did sorta "cheat" on my fruit and veg only diet yesterday. I had a slice of Ezekiel Bread and an egg. It felt like I needed something to help with the headache. I'll get back on track today. Only 4 more days. And overall, I do feel better like I always do when I do this little "diet" for 10 days. But I know it's not healthy to do this for too long as it lacking certain nutrients.

Does anyone watch Lidia's Kitchen? She is just so enjoyable to watch. I love her stories about her Grandma's Garden in Italy. Her story is quite a thing...from escaping a communist situation that her family didn't want to live in and living as a refuge too. She was born in 47, so is 77? Her mother lived until age 100. Probably healthy from garden, made from scratch food....and good wine. And good genetics too.

Something new in the garden: tiny turnip and radish sprouts. They're in my Vego beds and were sown on Wednesday.

No sign of carrots (of course!) yet or golden beets.

My carrots like to show up the following year often. LOL

I probably won't do too much outside with it being so hot now, other than watering tonight.

I need to clean out the refrigerator. There's a hundred peppers of varying kinds. We'll never be able to eat them all. There's still a lot in the garden too. Blessing for sure. But too many right now.

(Oklahoma Gardening is on TV now and she's talking about fall gardening. She suggested all the ones that I just mentioned above.)

Of all those strawberry runners that I tried to root in water, only two survived. They're tucked into the Greenstalk now.

The mother plants are making more runners now, but I'll just try to tuck them directly into the soil.

We have some beautiful apples this year. (So odd that we never got rust????) I'm thinking about slicing and freezing them.

And there's a few oxymels that need to be strained. And the eggs need to be put into cartons.

So, that's what's on my list today.

What are y'all up to?

I’m sorry about those Army worms too. We have so much to fight don’t we? I went out as soon as I woke up as well. I do much better if I garden then come in and eat. Bacon and fried apples. I planted and made a video for my channel. I’m a day behind but I’m am out of sorts since Richard died. I jumped back in with both feet today. I cleaned up pots. Freshened with plant tone and got after it. I discovered many sprouts from plantings the last two weeks. Basil, bunching onions, peas, beans, cabbage. One pot I layered kitchen scraps soil from desert willow pot, rabbit poo and new pro mix. Added a sprinkle of fertilizer and plant broccoli and dill. After I edit my video I’ll know what I planted where lol. Also found a blackberry stalk about 3 feet long. Wonder if I can propagate that.

Robert, I am sorry that you have the Army worms to deal with, I have had to spray them 2 times in the past 20 years. One of those times was just in the lawn, I did not find any in the pasture. The first time I think we sprayed around 300 gallon of Eight, I think. That first time was, maybe as long as 20 years ago, so I am not sure that I am right on the name of the spray I bought. I have heard that a neighbor about 2 miles away has Army worms on his place.

Kim, I have not grown many blackberries, but when I did, the ones I had produced on the canes that came up the year before. I would cut out the old canes once they had produces. If I wanted to increase the number of canes coming up, I would push a shovel down into the soil and do some root pruning, that seemed to make the plant produce more canes, but that has been over 30 years ago, and my memory has gotten a little cloudy.

I have not been feeling great, so I have not done much, but I have a list longer than I will ever get done, but I think that is true with everyone.

Larry, I think when it gets a little cooler, I am going to transplant this into my in ground bed. Currently it is in a pot. And with a Vitex in the same pot believe they need more room. And it is something I can always dig up and take with me later when I move. Because that is still the plan and goal to get on my own land. I am going to attempt to freshen up all my pots this fall that did not get fresh soil in the spring. And some of my containers have half as much soil as I begin the season with and I really don’t remember putting that much compost in those pots. But my okra and watermelon seem like they’re only about eight or 10 inches of soil in that pot now. And they are not loving it.

Kim, I got 8 mineral tubs ready to plant this morning. I am still going through a learning curve on growing in containers. At this point I don't do near as well in containers, but they seem easier. I have 4 more tubs that I would like to plant in.

I wish that I had brought a start of my berries with me, I dont know what kind they were and cant find anything like them, they were the largest and most productive berries that I have ever seen.

I was looking at my sweet potato bed, and thinking that I might mow about 4-6 feet off the north side, and till that area for fall garden. The 2 north rows of potatoes are Covington, and they seem to already have a good crop of potatoes under them, and I would only mow to within 4' of the north row anyway.

I have harvested nearly all the peas and beans that I planted between the sweet potatoes. I did not get near the harvest that I would have gotten from a row of peas that long, but it was in an area that I would nave not gotten anything from, but would have still wanted to weed and keep clean, so I intend to try it again, but next time I will only try peas because they produce on a stem, mostly above the plants making the peas easier to harvest. So far I cant see that walking on the potato vines while harvesting the peas has harmed the potatoes that much, I will know more about that when I harvest the potatoes. The pea vines are starting to die and drop their leaves now and the potato vines are filling in, and you can hardly tell that I have had peas planted in them, and when I mow all of the vines and till them in, I doubt that the soil will know the difference.