Lynn, thanks. If the sun is shining on my sensor it reads too high. There is a short period in the morning that the sun will hit my sensor at certain times of the year, only for about 10 or 15 minutes, during that time the temp may read 5 degrees higher.

I went into the center bedroom and up potted 24 very small, sick cabbage plants. and plant about that many Chinese cabbage seeds.

I've had 2 weather stations, well, the first one is still there. Both have quit giving accurate rain numbers. (Yeah, I know, it's because there's been no rain). I think it must have something blocking the gauge, but we can't see anything. I almost bought one that measures rain by drops on the top (no idea how) there's no "bowl" to fill up. Meanwhile we use an old fashioned rain gauge.

Larry and Kim, I didn't mean slow down seed starting, I meant slow down and let your bodies heal.

Busy1, will you leave tomatoes in the greenhouse and if so, will you remove the plastic?

I knew that lol. I push myself too hard some days. But I keep moving because I saw my mom retire and within 6 months she could hardly get up and go.

I didn’t get in the garden today
I wasted time going to look at a van. Man said he would be there but then wasn’t : /

No Amy I don't remove the picture errrr plastic. I add shedecloth error shade cloth. The greenhouse is 16 feet wide and 48 foot long and 12 foot tall. I grow 16 tomato plants for early fruit. The rest goes in the ground outside. I'm growing to produce as much food for my family and sell the rest . We don't buy produce at stores and I butcher my own meat. I couldn't tell you when the last time I bought meat at a store.

Amy , I've had a Taylor electronic rain gauge for the past 20 years. Taylor is solid name in weather instruments, but it gave up the ghost a couple of years ago.

It operated just like the one I just bought. Here's the general jist of how it operates. It has a " teeter-totter " inside. A funnel collects the rain and then drips down to fill up one end of the " teeter-totter " . When one end gets heavy enough, it lowers and empties and the other end starts filling. The instrument counts how many times it goes through that process, and because it knows how much rain is in and end of the teeter totter, it can produce a number.

The station I just bought is not a brand name. I'm skeptical as to how long it will last. But I also know that all of these are made in China and the different retailers put their name on them. So I thought it was worth the $80.

But I love this sensor network.

Because I'm not the best at explaining things , I asked Google AI , and here's what it said

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Electronic rain gauges, also known as digital rain gauges, use a tipping bucket sensor to measure rainfall. The sensor records the amount of rain that has fallen by counting how many times the bucket tips over. How it works

1. Rainwater is collected in the funnel of the rain gauge
2. The water fills up a bucket that's placed on a pivot
3. When the bucket reaches a certain water level, it tips over and empties the water
4. The other bucket moves into place to collect more water
5. Each time a bucket tips, the sensor sends an electrical signal to a recorder
6. The recorder registers the signal with a time stamp

Advantages

• Tipping bucket rain gauges are good at measuring light rainfall and drizzle
• They can record the amount of rain that has fallen over a period of time

Limitations

• During heavy rain, some rain may fall between bucket tips, which can lead to an underestimate of the rainfall

And oh yeah, on my Taylor rain gauge, biggest problem I had was spiders or other insects building nests inside the gauge. There would be this big ball of web that would gum up the lever. Sometimes annually, I had to take it apart and clean it out.

Lynn, that sorta goes along with the thought that I had when you said that Google AI told all about the way the rain gauge worked, but it did not give the method needed to clean the fur out when it had been raining cats, and dogs, I have heard of that happening many times.

This small thermometer that I have is a Taylor, it's cheap, but works pretty well.

Starting peppers from seed is frustrating. I'm on Day 10 after planting about 100 seed, and I've got three plants.

I have a heat mat under them, running it at 85*. They even get warmer during the day when the sun hits them.

Most of the seed was fresh, just got it from Johnnys couple months ago. A small amount was from 2022 and I had some old banana pepper seed from 2021 that I wanted to get rid of.

Peppers test the patience.

So do eggplant. Sometimes a full month waiting

I went into my center bedroom the past 3 days to start peppers, and just had to pull myself out, trying to hold back. Lynn, you and Kim have just tripped my trigger, I am going in and starting a flat of seeds today. I am sort of like a kid at Christmas. I wont be much better after I get the seeds planted, I will be lifting the dome every day to check on them. Although, I did plant some cabbage seeds yesterday, and I have not yet checked on them today.

I wouldn't be surprised if something had made a home in the weather station. But that's what I liked about the one that counted the drops, aside from bird poop, nothing should interfere. (I know bird droppings might). I would have gotten it, but it had no screen. You accessed it with your phone. My husband hates computers, he would cuss every time he checked the temp. My first one accessed that network, I think, but it had to be connected to my computer. I don't remember how long ago that was, but there was a problem with the old computer vs new weather station.

Yesterday I tried to end my post with "ta ta for now" as first letters only, houzz didn't print it. Wonder what evil thing they think it stands for.

T T F

Ha ha it lost the n.

I have never had anything but a visual rain gauge, and they never lasted long because I would forget to dump them, and they would freeze and break.

If I did get a weather station I would have to have my grand daughter set it up. I could do the outside work, but anything about wifi of computer would have to be done by someone else.

Amy, that's funny. Even "ta ta" could mean something. lol

A weather station seems nice, but the thought of it stresses me out right now. Something else to worry about and deal with.

I'm taking a break from work and checking in. Maybe it will perk me up a little. Super sleepy. It's that sorta day.

Tom and I are going to have leftovers for dinner. I made a white chicken chili a couple of days ago and with the leftover chicken, made chicken and rice last night. There's plenty left.

My house needs picking up and laundry needs folding.

The weekend was non-stop. I babysat my grandboy yesterday in Edmond and had Pilates last night....and after getting all the animal chores done, *I* was done.

So, tonight I'm looking forward to working on a small house project and doing the above chores. I put the chicken carcass in the crockpot to make broth, so will need to jar up the broth and freeze. Really should start canning those jars of broth.

Did I mention that I started a flat of 72 peat pellets on Monday night?

Just a couple of varieties of lettuce, the Baby Pixie cabbages, kale, spinach, and herbs. I'll do another round of lettuce in a couple of weeks.

I peeked at the tray this morning before work (I had to open the office and had to be here as close to 7:30 as possible). It looks like the lettuce is starting to germinate already.

That's another task for this evening. Clean off my light shelf. Try to figure out where to put my outdoor succulents that have been living on the shelf since October. Some have gotten too big for the shelf so they sit on the floor next to it. The only window in that room faces north. Ethan's room windows face north and east. Ours face south and east. The east window is already full of plants and the south window is a hangout for cats, so it won't do for plants.

The goal is to leave here by 4 today. But, I want to walk the building first. Three days a week, I've been walking the halls of this giant building for 20 minutes. There are 4 stairwells at each corner. I walk up and down those at each pass. Talk about a work-out.

I dislike working out, but am trying to stay committed to it. It's just so boring.

And there's a million things to do.

I'm shooting for February 19 to start tomato seed. Maybe peppers too.

Jennifer, I use to love to walk, well I would still love to walk if it were not so painful. For six years I had a job walked all the time. I don't see how the city postmen can handle a life time of walking. I can remember a time when no one had hip of knee surgery, now many people have replacements.

I dug out my pepper seeds a while ago. I cant make up my mind on which ones to plant, most will be hot.

Larry, I meant to ask you a question about the slips I have in the jar (the picture from last week). Should I strip all the leaves off of those except the very top leaves? I am going to put them in pots of potting mix. How would you do that? I need to get them out of the water.

I have many more that I could pull off, but I'm going to wait a bit longer.

Jennifer, I only pull the leaves off of the part that I put into the soil, unless they are in my way. I have some runners that are too long, those I plan on cutting 8 to 10 inches off, stripping the down-stem leaves off and placing the down-stem end into water or potting soil. so they will form another plant. If it were planting time I would strip nearly all the lower leaves off and place the slip into the soil with about 3 or 4 leaves on the growing end out of the soil. You still have a lot of time to make more slips. When it warms up a little you can move you slip making to your greenhouse, I don't have that option, but I still plan on having more slips than I need.

Jennifer, I often just remover the runners and lay then in a tray, toss on some potting soil, then lay another row of runners, toss on more potting soil, and continue till I fill the tray. It is hard to lose a sweet potato slip, I wish my other plants were as hardy an my sweet potatoes.

Thanks for the tips, Larry. I'm hoping to get them into some potting mix this evening. Then, wait awhile before starting more.

Jennifer, you are welcome. I enjoy growing sweet potatoes, they are so forgiving.

I got my bulbing onion area tilled a while ago. The weather is so nice, its sunny and in the 70's.

I tried using my 105 count inserts, and had terrible germination. The inserts don't fit down into my trays like I want then to, so I cut one down into (2) 49 count inserts, and it looks like I may get better germination because I don't think that the potting soil will dry a quickly.

While out tilling in the garden, I notice some plants trying to come back after the 10* weather we had. I pulled a carrot that was about 2.5" long, and it looked pretty good. Do y'all have any luck with over-wintered carrots, beets, turnips? The collards are still there, but I expect they may bolt soon.

Whoa...70's? We are a long way off from that up here. It's been wet around here lately with all the drizzle, but I'd like to get my onion patch LIGHTLY tilled/worked as well. We'll see what the weekend brings. I'm not going to be super OCD about cleaning out every speck of weeds or re-emerging cover this year. Just going to get them out of the rows I'm planting and try to keep walkways mowed down close to ground. As long as I don't have bermuda coming up in the garden, that is. I'll bring out the big guns on that stuff.

Glenda, the temp has dropped from 77 to 56, and looking like rain. I had no idea that the weather was going to change that fast, I just thought that it was a good time to try to get a little garden work done. I doubt that we will get any more days this warm for a while.

I don't have much trouble with bermuda in the garden anymore, I keep it killed out around the edge, and seldom find in it in the garden. I keep glyphosate on hand for the fence rows, and spray around the house, shop, and garden if needed, my weedeating days are over.

Red Pontiac potatoes from last June that have been in the walk in cooler are still fresh looking.

Red creole onions that were dug last June and sprouted planted in containers.

You're not going to get a onion to store for a year in Oklahoma. Look on Dixon Dale web site for the variety. Most have a storage life of 2-3 months. A few have 5-6 months storage life. Now think about when they are dug and you'll be lucky to get to December in optimal conditions.

The potatoes look amazing. I would love to have a walk-in cooler. I've researched them some.

My plan is to plant a few fall potatoes in the hoop house bed. It won't make a lot, but it might make enough to take over when the ones dug in June rot. I've done fall potatoes before and they did okay.

I've had Red Creole last until mid/late winter. They weren't super fresh, but they were still edible.

Josh, what variety of onions are you planting this year?

I got home from work at 5:30 and did a few things including cooking dinner and putting the sweet potatoes into little pots. That wasn't a big job because there were only 6. I don't grow the number that you do, Larry. If our ground was a little better or I wanted to use the raised garden space, I might would grow more. My neighbor cans a portion of hers. Oddly, she grows hers in smart pots and they do amazing for her.

I think I've got a bit of a cold. No huge surprise there. The number of people I'm around everyday and the insane amount of illness going around is a lot. Especially since half the people I'm around are children and they don't control their snot and saliva very well. It's amazing I'm not always sick.

But, I'm hitting the elderberry oxymel and normally that shortens my cold by a lot.

Is everyone staying well?

Jennifer herd immunity

Jennifer, I'll probably plant a majority of 1015Y, and I'd like to try Candy this year too. I've never grown them.

My entire family has been sick since fall. It seems like two weeks of back to healthy, then somebody else catches something and shares. Our entire Xmas & NY was sick. Been like a sick ward around this house for a long time. So ready to be done with this stuff.

Josh, have you tried Texas Legend?

Kids do bring in the illness. How many do you have? Sorry y'all have been so sick. Maybe once it warms up everyone can get outside and play. For whatever reason that seems to help.

I looked at the seedling tray before work. I have great germination on the Baby Pixie cabbage. Each pellet has two seedlings.

The Muir lettuce is the same--both seeds in each pellet sprouted. I received a free package of mesclun and it's also sprouted very well. All of those are new seed.

My older seed--Winter Density and Red Winter don't quite have the germination yet. There's some sprouts, tho.

Also, all the kale is up (just did the rainbow lacinato variety. It's my favorite.)

Maybe one spinach is beginning to sprout.

The herbs are mostly nothing yet except a few: Colorado yarrow, Burgundy amaranth, and chamomile. Also, the Oopsy Daisy calendula is peeking up through the soil.

The lavender and culinary herbs aren't doing anything yet.

Larry, I've not really let root veggies overwinter. Onion sets tend to rebound just in time to bolt. Which is fine, because they make a little bulb that's usable, but not storable.

Usually my greens and brassicas are like yours and will bolt once they "come back". Honestly it's why I don't really try to overwinter them in anticipation that they'll do well in the spring. Sometimes they do okay. I do have maybe 4 cabbages left in the hoop house. One is almost ready. The others may or may not ever make a decent head. I still have some in the refrigerator, tho.

Chives. Tell me y'all's experience with them. I've had a little bunch in a pot on the patio and they come back every year so far and don't bolt.

Jennifer, I have not messed a lot with fall crops. Most of my experience has been with turnips by planting them in food plots, as a few times using them for a cover crop in the garden. I use the turnips because the seeds are cheap, and I can buy them about anywhere. I have eaten turnips, beets, and carrots that have over wintered, often with the turnips, very few with beets and carrots, I have just not gotten the fall planting down pat yet. Until last fall we would be om water restrictions in the summer and fall, and without water it is a pain to get fall crops started.

Transplanted 275 Cole crop seedlings

Still a bunch to go but need to find a place to put them

Jennifer, I haven't grown Texas Legend yet, but ol' Travis from Lazy Dog grows them quite a bit. I tried a white SuperStar(?) last year, but between the washouts and the tree coming down on the onion patch during the storm, it wasn't banner year for my onions.

I've got 3 kids running around the house, so I get exposure to a few school grade levels. Never seen so much sickness around me.

When I was much younger I had 2 kids in school. and a wife that traveled to 20+ schools on her job, someone was sick with something all the time. A bug would be brought home, the kids would be sick for 2 or 3 day, and it would take my wife and me 2 or 3 weeks to get well.

I forgot to mention that I bought 3 bundles of onions today, they were fresh, but not good quality. I cant buy anything but Bonnie plants here, many of these onions were too large for my liking. Being as these onions are much fresher than normal, but larger, I am wondering if I place them in potting soil and place the larger ones under the lights for a while, will it keep them from bolting? The 3 bundles cost $20.00, and I doubt that there will be more than 120 onions. I bought 2 bundles of 1015Y, ans one bundle of a red onion, but I don"t remember the name, but there was only one kind of red onion there. I also bought 18 more sheets of 36 count cells because I found that I had a lot less of this size than I had thought.

That's exactly how it goes. Kid #1 licks door knobs at school, comes home and says, "Daddy, daddy, look at this"...AHH CHOOO, right in my face. Kids #1, 2 & 3 all get sick for 2 or 3 days successively, then the parents come down with it at the end.

My issue is that when I get sick, it likes to attack the lungs and start bronchitis. The only time I even go to the doc (well, urgent care) anymore is to get a steroid shot to clear out the lung inflammation.

Yesterday, I sat everyone down and said, "Look, if you like money...and it sure seems like you do, you'll stop bringing this junk to the house".

Busy .. you're a busy guy . Like your green house.

Larry your red onions from bonnie are probably Sweet Red. 1015Y are pretty good onions.

Wayne , Super Star is a pretty good white onion when the weather cooperates like most everything else.

I'm gettin ready to get to the feed store and collect my haul of onion bundles.

Along with some Yukon Gold seed potatoes before the ice/snow hits next week.

Rick

I went to Dr. today for antibiotics. I take meds the year around to help me breathe. I cant keep my 02 up. My test showed that I qualified for supplemental oxygen, but I want to stay off of it as long as I can. I don't think using it with my CPAP would be too bad, but wagging it around all the time does not sound like fun, but I am not complaining, things could be much worse.

I am kicking around the idea of building another light shelf. Fooling around inside is something I can do pretty easy, but, then warm weather comes and I have too many plants to deal with.

Larry, those little seedlings just are so precious. I want to look at them all the time. I'm still thrilled and in awe when each one sprouts.

Josh, I understand about kids and germs. I promise I have to tell kids at school to STOP licking the gym floor! They have no issues with sneezing and coughing directly in your face. It goes right into your eyes and nose and mouth (if it's open).

They're sweet tho at the age I work with. Love them. But, pretty gross and germy.

I probably made my own kids a bit germophobic.

Larry, temperature swings are what causes onions to bolt. Daylight length is what initiates bulbing. The more leaves the larger the bulb. Putting those plants under lights would replicate daylight length and probably cause them to try and bulb up. Not having enough top growth would probably stunt them.

The object of getting large bulbs is maximum top growth with large leaves before the daylight length is long enough to start the bulbing up. Each variety has a required daylight length before they bulb up. I'm just throwing this out there in case someone doesn't know.

That is why it's important on when to plant onions. And planting the right variety for your growing zone.

I have stored the small sets in the refrigerator for planting at a later date for green onions. The white ones stored better than the yellow or red before drying up.

Busy , Thanks for letting us all know.

Seems like I got to learn some things over and over.

And it'll be about time to put onions in the ground as soon as after next week ,, I hope.

Rick

Thanks, Robert, I will just set these back a while then, they are pretty fresh, so should hold a while. We did not have a good onion supply last year, and may not have a good supply this year either. I have better luck finding onions in Ft. Smith or Poreau, than I do at Greenwood. The past few years I have not had a lot of faith in the supply chain.

Well, I got a new car and all gardening things are put on hold while I clean and shine my vehicle. I was able to get a 2013 for a really good price. But that also means I won’t be able to haul a large quantities of gardening stuff anymore. Compromise we are not supposed to get down below freezing in the next few weeks forecast so I’m going to put my onions in.

This is the 3 bundles of onions I bought at the Co-op. These are the best I found, but I am not happy with these, I had rather have smaller onions. I expect that the red onions will be more apt to bolt, but one reason I bought them anyway, is that the kids like the red onions better, and will eat them about as fast as I can grow them.

I will keep an eye out for better onions, and I expect to find them some time this month.

These cost $5.98 per bundle+tax. Some times I can buy Dixondale onions at Atwoods in Ft. Smith, it seems to me that I have a better harvest with the Dixondale.

I guess I could say that this is also one reason I like the Egyptian walking onions. I can go out and dig a few walking onions, clean, and dice them and put in a freezer bag, then just pull the bag out of the freezer, and toss in a hand full of chopped onions into what ever we are cooking.

This is some Egyptian walking onions I planted in the pasture over a year and half ago, they have received no care at all, and I could go dig some onions that would do for cooking. I am sure some parts would be too tough to use on a sandwich, or salad.

If it were not so muddy I would try to dig a few of these onions just to check their condition.

Kim, you have a nice car, we don't have anything out side that is that new.

Larry, my last two car were 2001s. My minivan that just died I had for three years I put over 100,000 miles on it and I did have quite a bit of trouble with it this last year that was costing me every time I turned around. My other car a Ford Explorer was a 2002 and it had 308,000 miles on it and it still looked pretty on the outside but it had a lot of trouble inside. The car before that was a 90s model minivan and I only ran it about six months and it died. I believe this car will be good gas mileage. Which will be fine with me because that leaves more money for gardening.

Shoot my newest vehicle is a 99 Ford ranger after that is a 97 Chevy Astro van and a 88 Chevy pickup. And a 91 Nissan pickup that needs a fuel pump.

Looks like a couple nights of below freezing to me.

As long as they run decent that’s all I care about. I will say I am going to enjoy being able to lock it when I need to and roll the windows down. Two things I couldn’t do in my van.

Y’all’s weather is much colder than mine but I am in Texas.

Robert, your weather forecast looks a lot like mine, when do you plan on planting your onions?