We got a good rain last night and some more today. I am transitioning greens pots too summer crops. One pot I planted full of Black Eyed Peas. In trying to figure out what I actually eat. Black Eyed Peas seemed the most likely to plant. My sweet potato bed looks great. The plants are so happy and growing leaps and bounds. They must’ve reached the fertilizer. I have a few more ready to go in and then I may plant some slips in pots as well since they are a crop that stores well. Black Eyed Peas, pink eye, purple hole, peas, okra, and green beans all have sprouted. Many of them I double and triple planted so now I have lots of thinning to do. I might go out later and work a little in the garden. But today really is my day off

Thanks for starting the thread, Amy. The last one was getting really long.

After work, I took an hour long nap and it was so nice. Honestly I could have continued with the nap but needed to water everything in the garden. Things are drying out.

First, tho, I decided to plant 12 more tomatoes in the SG. I had a couple of mishaps. In part, because a young neighbor who is 25 but maybe 6 or 7 mentally came to see me. I was in a zone, but needed to talk to her (And I have to lead the conversation) and accidentally snapped a tomato but might have repaired it. We'll see. They were watered in well, but weren't mulched yet.

That garden is a real mess for sure.

I was able to off-load most of the tomatoes at church. And a few extra basil plants. There are a 20 or so Super Fantastics left, but they are so very deficient. If I had a place, I would plant them all because I like a good challenge.

Kim, the other day you asked about the Sungold. I think it's going to be okay. Most everything is looking okay now. I lost a few herbs in the flooding rains 2 weeks ago. (and now we're so dry).

Very few cucumbers are popping up. And I've seen nothing from the okra or bush beans. That soil we purchased was really dry and chunky. I'm trying really hard to keep it moist. It will be a strange gardening year without both of those veggies.

I'm not sure what this week will bring, but I'm hoping it brings a little rain. But, I'm also hoping to get out to the gardens and begin weeding, mulching and caging/trellising.

We had the kids over today, and they ask about how the garden did in the storm, Madge and I looked at each other, and said what storm. Later we went to the garden to check on the plants, I had a lot of broken plants, so we spent a lot of time pruning, and tying up plants. I also have a lot more disease than I expect also. I have spent so much time digging holes and amending soil, I have a lot of things go that I should have been looking after, but have ignored.

We are expecting more bad weather off and on this week, so I have no idea what I will be doing, but I have a long list of things that I need to get done, weeding, mulching, and planting are all on the list. I will have to replant my okra. We had a very hard rain the night I planted, and it looks like the ground was packed, at this point I have 4 seeds that germinated.

I started digging garlic. The garlic looks terrible, but I am getting some keepers. I did not mulch, or weed, and it sure shows it. The garlic is small, but so far, I think all is usable, but may bot store well.

I just have to rack the weeds back and dig where I find a stem.

My list just keeps getting longer and longer, Larry! I might throw away that darned list. Weather here today is touch and go, I'm afraid to look beyond, but guess I will at some point. And I barely have any vegetables. Just a few tomatoes and pepers, and cucumbers and summer squash started. That's it. . . and lots of basil (haha, Jennifer); and many plants and wildflowers, I have a few mildewed things; have decided trying to grow phlox here is dumb. So pulled them all. Oh--and Jerusalem artichokes--do they count? Have any of you actually tasted them?

Nancy, I think that I will throw away my list also. I just keep getting farther behind. Madge and I both are so slow and weak, it seem useless for us to try to do anything. We hate to ask for help with anything, but it is a challenge to keep the chores done around the house, let alone trying to make a garden.

We are under a tornado watch, and it is raining. Madge's grand daughter was scared, and called to tell us to go to a shelter. I told Madge that the tornado would be over before we could get to a shelter. It looks like the worst of the weather is going to the north of us

The bad weather (and rain) missed us. I'm so glad I watered yesterday and didn't chance it that the rain would come today.

After work, I weeded the onion bed. I'm over halfway done with it. The bermuda has snuck into that area of the garden, so it took a little time to dig it all out.

I also planted the native honeysuckle and the lisianthus.

Good news. The green beans and okra are beginning to pop up. And a few more cucumbers.

Likewise, Larry--GDW and I aren't moving much. And I spend a lot of time painting, and THAT sure doesn't exercise much of my body! But I'm moving a bit more now that it's gardening season, and that is a very good thing indeed! We've not had the boat out in 2 years. This year Garry decided maybe we can try it and got the boat cleaned up and ready to go. It may be more than we can do, but we'll try.

Jennifer, Bermuda is one of the most horrible things ever--maybe THE most horrible. Another horrible one is 4 o'clocks. HATE them. My new strategy is to plant lots of plants where I'd previously taken the Bermuda out (and that it's now growing back in) to hopefully shade it out. The 4 o'clocks--I'm going to have to sacrifice some of the other stuff in that bed to dig up those nasty tubers. Our neighbors have the most beautiful cabbages--I'm very jealous. . . they have them in an area where the cabbage whites apparently haven't discovered--plus they have a mesh cage over them. The funny thing is, she hates cabbage and doesn't know why she grew them--so I may have cabbage after all.

We had tornado watches today, also, but the warnings stayed to the south and north of us, so we escaped this time. Lots of rain and lightning. Lightning strike started a fire 2 lanes down from us but fire dept got there immediately and got it out.

Blister beetles have shown up the past two years. Luckily, they've concentrated on a large clematis vine I have, It's enormous this year, and I'm trying to figure out what to do about them if/when they show up. Any ideas?

Well, the rain has quit for today. . . 1.5" and I'll call it a night.

I had no internet all weekend. Was intermittant Friday, then very early Saturday it went down. Cox did not get it back till late Sunday evening. They say it was " unplanned ". I'm suspicious.

But I found out how dependent I am on the internet. No TV other than local stations on antenna. My weather station was down and now I can't get it reconnected. Frustrating, cause I grew to love that thing. My remote temp gauges on the smoker use Wifi. Took my security cams down to, so I could not watch the cats parade through my garden all night .... hahaha .

And I was forced to learn to internet on my phone. No way I could do that full time. And this forum did not even work . I tried a couple times to peck out a message .......... and it half of a sentence would disappear. IDK, that was crazy.

I got to find a new ISP. I'm paying almost twice what TMobile 5G would cost. And Cox has too many outages, and be down almost 3 whole days is unacceptable.

We had a brief TStorm yesterday late afternoon. A few small hail stones and some gusty winds but the tomatos came through fine. And they're loaded with tomatoes. If I get through next 2 or 3 weeks with no cutworms, it could be a good year.

10 Day Forecast

That takes us through the rest of May and shows possible storms next Sunday. Knocking on wood, it looks like a mild severe storm May.

Just gotta hope the heat in June acts like June and not July.

And oh yeah, Nancy , my boat has not been in the water in 3 years. I fish alone and its getting harder to go without some help. I don't trust my balance in the front of the boat. I'm not near as spry as I was even 10 years ago, to crawl in and out of the boat. The fishing I do is far more physical that one would think.

Gonna have to sell it. But I know that my fishin days are done when I do that and I just can't admit that.

I have never owned a good boat. I have had 2 flat bottoms, 12' and a 14' with 5 and 6 hp motors. I have never had a trailer for my boats, I would haul them in the back of my pickup, or on top of a car.

I have most of my garlic harvested. it was really a muddy mess, but a lot of it had already been in the ground too long, and it is too long, and if things dry out a little, I have other things to do.

I got my garlic in braided and hanging. It’s not much. I will use it up very quickly because they did not make clothes and those giant bulbs do not save well. The tiny bulbs I will plant in one of the beds as soon as I figure out which one. I harvested about 20 onions that were squish neck and have them hanging outside to dry in the sun. It’s very windy here today. Last night acted like it was really gonna do something and I barely got a quarter inch of rain. I have a Market tonight from 3 to 7 or 4 to 7. Not sure I better look. Tomorrow I am going to weed eat all day or until I run out of string.

Kim, some of my cloves have already split and sprouted, some with shoots about 3 or 4 inches tall. I found one like that about a week ago, and went ahead and divided it, and planted it into a pot, I think it is too late for the replanted garlic to do anything, but I needed to do something with that head.

I planted 5 more Baker Family tomatoes, and 6 more Red pimentos today, what a mess, mud everywhere.

I enjoyed reading your posts, Lynn, Kim, Larry, and Nancy!

Lynn, posting at Houzz with a phone is horrible.

I didn't get much gardening done today other than watering. We're quickly getting too dry Or the plants in the garden are.

I know a lot of you have had nice rains in the past few days. Maybe even too much.

I'm really happy to see more green beans and okra popping up.

We had a fairly bad storm here yesterday. At work and at my mom’s, we just had pea sized hail, but my neighborhood got a burst of wind driven quarter to golfball sized hail. Lots of neighbors with broken windows, holes in their siding, shredded screens, and roof damage. I just had a freaked out cat and a beaten up garden. I had stuff fairly well supported, so i only lost one pepper plant and a handful of flowers. But, I had a couple tomato plants topped and a bunch more lost branches, some of the onions and leeks have shredded greens, and the bed with the yukon gold potatoes got annihilated. Also have to stand a trellis back up. The potatoes and onions I think are close enough to harvest that it won’t matter, and the tomatoes are young enough that they’ll bounce back. It could have been so much worse.

Apparently I’m going to be harvesting potatoes this weekend, and planting sweet potatoes and melons.

Rebecca, I thought for sure the storm that came through south OKC would have that kind of hail, but we got very lucky and it weakened a little before it got here. Its difficult to see our work get beaten down. If its not one thing, its another.

I did get my weather station reconnected again. Finally pushed the right buttons in the right order. This $80 station, is still operating. That's really cheap for these things.

I am glad you folks did not get any worse damage. I got some wind damage a few days ago, but it was my fault, I did not have the plants supported properly.

I am taking some of my gardening tooling tools to Boardcamp Arkansas to clean around the Inlaws graves, its about 70 miles away, that will just about kill the day for both of us, we both are just one notch above useless. We just are not able to do the things we use to do. and it seems that the young folks just cant find the time. About the only thing I could be doing here is digging garlic, or working on equipment, maybe I need a break anyway.

Rebecca, so sorry about your garden.

I had a potato question a few days ago. Maybe you can answer it. Have you ever left potatoes in the ground for a few weeks after the foliage died back? If so, were they okay?

From what I understand, it's ideal to leave them in the ground for awhile for the skins to thicken up.

Lynn, glad you got your weather station figured out. Sometimes that's all it takes--pushing buttons in the right order.

Makes me think of Rick's flip phone. He never got a smart phone. I brought it to the house the other day and surprisingly had a call. But, the phone lost battery half-way through the conversation. (It was the guy Rick had just hired to mow his lawn). Getting that phone functioning after being charged was insane. It's been way too long since I've had a flip phone. It was basically just pushing buttons until it was functioning again.

Tom and I (and Ethan to some extent) have a list of "Rick Quotes". And there's one related to technology--QR codes specifically--that makes me laugh every time I think about it. And he wasn't being funny when he said it. He was very frustrated. It has a bad word in in, so I won't say it here.

Larry, I probably need to go to the cemetery, take some clippers and something to polish our people's markers this weekend.

Tom may mow tonight. I'm going to try to keep him from mowing down the wildflowers in the northeast corner of the property. The Indian blankets are blooming now, along with those yellow flowers (can't remember their names) and yarrow and Indian Paintbrush. And some purples ones. I haven't seen the poppy mallow on our property yet. Maybe Tom will give me a couple more weeks with it.

I'm getting SO close to having everything planted. All that is remaining: the bay laurel, giant white zinnias, a mint, 4 basil plants, and 2 ornamental sweet potato vines. Oh, and one of Dawn's peppers that was so tiny that I didn't take it to SF. But, it's not tiny now.

And I do want to tuck in some cantaloupe seed, I'm just not sure where.

I've had some neighbors offer to till Rick's Survivalist Garden for me. Maybe later. The potatoes are there and the 25 tomato plants and corn. Also, his overwintered greens/brassicas. Most of those are done....but there's a couple of cabbages that look good. I haven't had it in me to clear those things out. Nor the time really. It's a weedy mess.

You know, I've never grieved the loss of a good friend. I've been fortunate. I have grieved a child, parents, grandparents, aunt/uncles. I don't know what to expect with it. I suppose Dawn was similar, but not exactly. Rick, Tom and I spent many, many hours together. I just wonder how long I'll feel out of sorts.

Anyway...yep. Need to find a place for the cantaloupe and some winter squash too.

Hi all. Jennifer, I expect you'll miss Rick for a very long time. . . and some day perhaps you'll just smile or laugh whenever you think of him. He was surely a good friend to you and yours. Even I feel his absence keenly, and of course I didn't even know him, And yeah, I know most of us think of Dawn. . . I'll be out in the garden and find myself wondering what she'd have to say about this or that, and will be sorry she's not here to let us know.

I will probably always think about you now when I'm growing basil. I threw a bunch of seeds out a couple weeks ago and have basil coming up like crazy where I tossed them. And I'm happy about that.

My fenced-in beds. . . . had been cavalierly leaving the gate open this year. Went out this morning and 3 pepper plants right inside the entrance were stripped, and one of the nearest tomatoes was "sampled." Gotta be deer, I'm thinking. Dumb me. Never thought they'd be that bold. Won't be leaving the gate open now.

Rebecca--I'm sorry for the damage you had. It was a very hit and miss somewhat scary 24 hours. We were spared completely this time, save for the 1.5" of rain.

And Lynn, I had to read to Garry what you said about the boat and not fishing. . . . yep, that's it exactly. We can't admit our fishing days are over. Our biggest immediate concern is getting the boat out of the water and into the trailer securely, although hearing you talk about getting in and out--ouch, that will be an issue for Garry, too, but I'm not going to say a word--will just say a little prayer and cross my fingers for him. We decided if I can give it a good burst of gas while guiding the boat into the trailer, I can get it up far enough that he won't have to reel it in further. Wish us luck.

I had been regretting not having garlic or onions planted this year. BUT. We do have the ever present Egyptian walking onions from Amy and two clump of elephant garlic that I thought were some of those same onions and only discovered it was garlic when I pulled one out. So I am pleased as punch I at least have those plants!

In terms of leaving potatoes, I'm fairly certain leaving them for an extra 2 weeks won't hurt, unless the ground is extra wet. We missed a couple last time we grew them and found potatoes some time later that were fine. But I'm hardly the go-to person on potato advice.

And Larry. . . . hearing you loud and clear about not having enough energy. Comes and goes with me. But too often goes.

Seems like everything is running so fast I can’t keep up. I’m doing an event with A Farmer and trying to make event cards and order supplies and all the things seems overwhelming. I’m also trying to harvest the garden and videotape myself harvesting the garden so that is extra fun. And getting everything clean and tidy and weed whacked for my granddaughters to come over on Sunday. Jennifer, I don’t think leaving the potatoes in the ground. Will hurt unless we get an enormous amount of rain. They should be just fine. I’m still trying to figure out where to squeeze in some melons and about 20 tomato plants. I do not throw away vibrant tomato plants, even though they probably won’t produce until after the heat is over. If I can keep them alive that long. We’ll see.

I have more tomatoes, and peppers to plant, but I am thinking that rather than tying up that space with un-needed plants, I should use up some of my cow pea seed. Even if I don't pick the peas, they will be good ground cover, then I can mow, and till them into the soil.

I would like to plant some watermelons, I have never planted them this late, but maybe I could find some plants in town.

Jennifer, you will miss Rick for a long time, and you will have a lot of long-lasting memories. I lost a fish/hunting buddy about 50 years ago, and still have pleasant memories of the times we had together.

Nancy, I doubt that you will have any trouble loading your boat, most of the people that I have met around boat ramps are a pretty good bunch of people, and I am sure that you will get any needed help.

I had to water everything today. I found one more pot of rainwater actually an old canner. And then we’ll have to start over fresh with rainwater. I moved my rain barrel to the side of the house that actually has a lot of runoff and I’ve got some mosquito netting. I’m gonna put on there with a bungee cord and hope for the best. Period I’m trying to avoid breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

This is about 3/4 of my garlic harvest. I am not happy with it, but considering it almost grew wild I cant complain. If you note, on the lower left there is a bundle that have already started to divide and regrow, I will use those first.

HJ, i think Rick woukd tell you to harvest what he started and enjoy it, or donate it to someone who needs the food.

I think so too, Rebecca. If we get what we normally get in potatoes, I will be giving a large portion away. We canned the Yukon Golds last year and kept the others for storage. They do pretty well for a few months before going bad. We won't be able to keep all of them. We eat a lot of potatoes, but won't be able to eat this many.

We'll see how the corn does. There are what Rick called "skips", that I didn't replant. I do believe he put in 4 rows. We'll probably give a lot of that away too. I don't feel like canning it or potatoes this year.

The tomatoes are easy to give away, although we are a little behind this year. Hopefully they'll produce well enough to share.

The problem is the weeds/grass coming up in that garden and my lack of time to deal with it.

I'm hoping next week I can get in and pull out all the greens and brassicas that overwintered.

I'm also considering looking in the shell of his truck when I pick up his mail today. See if that Mantis is there. It might be at his Morris house. Dawn, Larry, and others have said that I should be able to handle a Mantis. I'll ask his nephew if it's okay, of course.

In the past, I've considered putting in 4 long raised beds back there. Taller ones (Have I already said this?) and put different crops in them each year depending on what the pantry needs. Probably always a few potatoes. They would be good for onions too. And things like melon. Even production tomatoes for years I want to can tomatoes to replenish the pantry. And shelling beans occasionally as well as cowpeas. A half bed of okra too, would be nice. Just switch it up each year.

He purchased 2 soaker hoses maybe 6 weeks ago. They're somewhere at his house and I might go in and grab those too if I can easily see them. He wanted them for the 2 rows of tomatoes. Tom saw a big box of seeds in his living room that hadn't been opened yet.

I'll talk to the nephew before taking anything.

We'll see if I actually do that. I suspect building and filling that type of raised bed wouldn't be cheap. Maybe I could do one a year while keeping the rest of the garden tarped. By only doing 4 beds, we could get our riding lawnmower in between rows. I'm okay with narrowing the entire garden.

Then, there's the thought that fruit trees/bushes could go into that area.

Anyway...need to deal with what is out there NOW first.

In good news, the green beans and okra are popping up quite nicely now in the rebuilt back garden raised beds. And I did something dumb and put cantaloupe seed in between those two beds. But...I want cantaloupe and don't know where else to put it.

Tom helped me get the tomatoes in the kitchen garden trellised. Once trellises and cages are up, it starts to look "real".

Whispering Willows has always (until this year) started their winter squash later in the summer. I'm considering doing that. Maybe put them where the onions are.

Larry, I think your garlic looks nice. I haven't pulled mine yet, but it looks funky.

I'm simply not going to stress over success and production this year. If things don't grow well, I'll head to farmer's markets and Sprouts. I've been a farmer's market girl before.

Kim, the mosquito netting sounds like a good idea. It should work well.

Nancy, have you made basil teas?

Butterflies remind me of Dawn after that giant one sat on the grass and flitted around a bit during her memorial service. That was odd behavior for a butterfly and she always said that's how she would "come and visit" instead of a bird.

Work is a little slower than normal today and I would like to go home, but I'm at the front desk and answering phones so can't leave.

I forgot this....Rick's graveside service is at the Morris cemetery tomorrow at 2.

I bought 2 watermelons and 2 cantaloupe plants yesterday to plant. I have seeds, but the soil it too wet to work, and it is raining again. I think that I will just mix up some potting soil and pile it on the bed to plant in so the plants can be growing while the rest of the garden is drying, that should extend my harvest if I can get everything to produce.

Jennifer, I don't care for the Mantis tiller. Rick and Dawn both liked them, but I really don't care for 2 cycle engines. But, the Mantis does a great job at what it was designed to do.

My bulbing onions and garlic were a flop, but my bunching onions and walking onions grow like crazy. I have given away bunches of both of these kinds of onions, and still have more than I can use. Here is a picture of what I harvested this morning. I started off with 49 sets that were 20 to 30 % the size of these. There are 130 + bulbs here, and this is a small percentage of what they have produced. I could leave these in the ground, but the clusters get so large that they are hard to harvest. I may cut way back on the bulbing onions, at least I don't have to buy these, they seem to just always be there. I don't know what they are, and the lady I bought them from did not know what they are, but boy, do they produce. Now all I have to do is to get Madge to like using them.

About 30 or 40 years ago I grew a lily some what like the ones I have here. At the time I think that I bough the lily bulbs as "Lithium Lilies", but I am not finding much info on this type of flower. Could some of you flower growers point me in the right direction? I would like to grow more of these types of flowers.

The flash on the camera did not do justice to the picture. The light spots are not really there.

Larry, Rick has a larger tiller that he mostly uses, but has a Mantis to keep weeds down in between the rows.

I watered everything tonight after picking up the mail from Rick's house. I couldn't find the soaker hoses.

I went into the house this time...and without talking about his personal life, which he was really private about...there's just so many reasons I feel so deeply about all of this. It's all incredibly sad. And every time I go to his house, I feel it more. And regret too.

His choices of Pink Floyd The Final Cut and Your Possible Pasts are so....him and his life experience.

But, there's over 40 green beans popped up and 14 okra. I'm really happy about this.

Apparently, Morris cemetery is flooded so the memorial service has been postponed to next week.

I've still got tomato plants that need something done with them. And a few more peppers. The peppers I'll plant Sun or Mon, the tomatoes I'll likely toss in the compost. I'm tired of dealing with them at this point, and they don't look good enough to try and sell or give away.

My cucumbers are a bust. I'll have to try again. Maybe some of those west indian gherkins I got from you, HJ. They made delicious pickles. First time I've made pickles that actually stayed crispy.

Lynn, I have the same issue when trying to type on here on my phone. I type a word, hit space and the word disappears. My only workaround is to tap the auto-correct words as they appear, at least then they stay on screen but it takes too long. I usually get fed up and just shut the phone off, which is why I don't post very often.

HJ, I understand your feelings. Losing family is different. You and Rick spent so much time, it's natural that you'd feel his loss differently. Especially now, when your friendship was formed around gardening. Feel what you need to feel, for as long as you need to. Grief doesn't follow a pattern, it just exists.

Heading up to dad's for the weekend to go visit the cemeteries. I grew up with a mother who insisted on decorating all the graves for the holiday. Then she got into genealogy and we had to do everyone's grave that was nearby. Funny thing too, it was all dad's side of the family; her kin are all back in West Virginia/North Carolina. Now she's gone, dad only does the ones he actually remembers, which makes for a much shorter trip. Only 2 cemeteries instead of 6.

My brother and I usually decorate our families graves in the Little Cemetery and Seminole Maple Grove. Both sides of the family moved there around 100 years ago. We passed on it this year because it will probably be too wet around the graves and there's a chance of storms every day.

When I was growing up, Memorial Day was a much larger event in our family. In the 1960's, WW II was still fresh on people's minds. All of my Dad's brothers and sisters would visit and everyone would go to the cemetery. My grandad's family farm was near Little, Ok, which if you've ever seen the Catfish Round Up restaurant at Hwy 99 and I-40, it was just a couple miles south of there, about 9 miles north of Seminole.

The Little Cemetery would have a 21 gun salute to the fallen soldiers. IDK if anyone still does that today. My cousins and I would run to pick up the empty shell casings. They were big prizes.

Well shoot. I got some weed eating done, but in the process, I took out a Merrigold and a eggplant I think. I saw the eggplant this morning and then when I went back, it wasn’t there. Who knows I only had one. I don’t eat it. I wanted to put it in a container to sell it Market with some okra, tomatoes, squash, and call it the grilling basket. That used to be a really good seller at Lubbock. But I don’t think that’s going to happen now that I whacked off my eggplant. The grand girls are coming Sunday, so I’m trying to clean up and find a few little projects that they can do to help granny in the garden. They all love playing in the dirt and none of them are squeamish so it should be a lot of fun. I have quite a few things to plant out yet, but I need to get my mulch pile leveled and that has not been in the cards for a few days so maybe this evening when the mulch pile is in the shade I can get it done. I am trying to shift gears to work indoors. It’s only 85 here so not too hot.

Jen, I'm going to need to compost the remaining Super Fantastic tomatoes. I keep thinking that I'm going to wake up and magically have a prepared place to plant them. lol

My cucumbers are slow this year too, Jen. The Persian ones are no shows. I have a few popping up called Hey Day that a friend gave to me. Well, she gave me the seed. And have exactly 1 Katrina and 1 called Party Time. Maybe I'll try for some fall cukes.

Kim, sorry about your eggplant and have so much fun with your grand girls!

Gray's BD is tomorrow. How is he already 1!!!?. Tom and I were on a little trip to Arkansas to see his sister, her husband, his nephew and family. Daughter delivered 3 weeks early. In less than an hour. Obviously we cut our trip short and went right home. Hard to believe that has been a year ago.

BUT, I will say, that was the start of a very odd time. In so many ways. Stella broke up with E shortly after. And my heart is still broken. I really thought we would planning a wedding right now. She loves him. But doesn't want to marry. And he does. And I love her.

And why is he still in Oregon? So far away from me.

Then I think about what if he's lonely and sad when he's old, and I'm dead and he has no one. LOL

And my daughter said the same thing when I told her about Rick....what if Gray is a sad and lonely old man and she's not there for him. My mom said she never thought about that with us. It's because she only had girls. Those boys are different. We worry about them in a certain way. Obviously, we have ways we worry about our girls too....but it's different. Those baby boys are another thing.

And so many other things.

Maybe we're wrapping up (I hope) the oddness with Rick's death. No more, please. I have rashes all over and I know they are from stress.

I do think I have a plan for Rick's garden, tho. After spending an hour or so cleaning out some of his over-wintered brassicas, I got the measuring tape out.

IF I do four 32 ft long raised bed that are 3 ft wide and leave 4.5 feet in between beds (for the mower)....would that work? That would narrow the garden to about 26 feet. So, it would become a 32' x 26' garden. Now, it's about 50'x40'.

Is it weird to leave such a large space in between the beds? It would make it easy to care for the space in between the beds IF we could run the riding mower in between. These beds would be taller too.

I just need to do something that is easy to maintain.

What do y'all think?

Jennifer, If I had room, I might want to leave more room between beds. You may want a larger mower some day, and I expect that you will make 2 passes between beds anyway. I have a side discharge mower and I don't like it blowing the clippings back on me when I mow close to some thing. I have a lot of allergies and don't do well with clippings and dust.

I picked my first peppers today. they were really too small but I thought that the plants did not need to be producing peppers, I had rather they be growing larger plants. I put one of the jalapeno, one small garlic, and one small onion in a pot of peas that Madge was cooking, they smelled so good, that I had to have 2 bowls of them a while ago.

Jennifer, I doubt that it does much good worrying about your kids, or anyone else for that matter, it seems to be a full time job just loving them, and being there for them.

I still don't have my melons and cantaloupe planted. I tool Madge out to eat and shopping today. We seem to want to spend more time together now, I enjoy it more, and I think that she does also.

Wow, don't know if I would still want to be growing tomatoes 20 years from now.

VIDEO: 94-year-old Air Force veteran grows tomatoes for residents of his retirement community

Larry, I doubt that we'll get a larger mower. Our property isn't very big.

There's a saying, "A mother is only as happy as her saddest child".

I'm so glad you're getting to enjoy time with Madge.

I just planted cantaloupe seed a couple of days ago.

Lynn, I hope to be planting tomatoes when I'm 94! lol

Its amazing that the couple are together in the retirement home and they appear to be very healthy. Not many couples make it that long.

I suspect that I will be planted 6 feet deep before Im 94 yo. Or my ashes spread over the garden, or somewhere.

Very few people are able to garden at 94 yo. The way I feel now, I dont think that I want to live that long. A neighbor and classmate use to garden together ( father & son ), when the dad hit 94 ask his son if he would till his garden for him, because he did not feel that he was strong enough to till. The son tilled for his day, but the next year his dad died. The son is dead now, he would have been my age if he had lived. We all quit gardening sooner or later. I was over to visit my uncle a few days ago. He has been able to plant a few flowers, but my cousins have been taking care of his place, his wife is in a nursing home.

We had planned to go put flowers on mom and dad's grave, but it has rained most of the night, and still raining, and we may not get out in the weather.

I think that I will just toss the rest of the plants I have, except tje cantaloupe and melons, those I will just plant on a mound of potting soil in the row I have planted the fruit trees. I wont live long enough to see the fruit trees produce, so it is a waste of time because I dont thing think that any of my family will want to fool with them, even if they do live.

I checked my bulbing onions yesterday, many of them have already rotted. If the garden dries enough I may try to save a few if I can find and good ones, and freeze them. The walking and bunching onion are looking more appealing every day, they seem to be here for ever.

I lost a post.

Jennifer 32 foot long beds means if you need to go to the other side from the middle of the bed, is a 32 foot walk. I'm of an age where I forget where I'm going and why at that distance. Seriously, I have 4 16 foot beds and that is too long. I would use 8 or 10 foot beds with mowing spaces between them. 8x4 minimizes cutting on 8 foot boards, but you really can't reach to the other side.

As for filling them, use the lasagna method. It's cheaper and my lasagna bed is the best one I've got!

We still have to weed eat around the beds and I hate when he mows and it blows grass seeds into the beds. If Ron would allow it I would mulch around them. He would never let me do that, I'm not sure why.

We had some storms this morning lots of trees and limbs down plus power lines. Awakened by a crack of thunder at 5:45. I didn't here the wind, though. Brief hail, didn't sound big.

Amy, that blowing grass is one reason I try to keep Madge off of the mower. I have told her time and again to make two rounds around the gardens and flower beds, blowing grass out into the lawn, so the seeds are not blown into the beds and gardens, that must be really hard to remember. There are a few things that we do better by not helping one another. When I am helping cook, Madge is always asking me "is that clean".I will tell her that it does not matter, that I will cook it long enough to kill the germs, and if she gets something that is too hard to chew, just spit it out. Some things we just don't see eye to eye on.

Another storm this morning. No hail this time, but wind around 60mph. More damage too. I had fixed the trellis that had been blown over last time, but this time the wind tore most of the snap peas off it. They don’t look bad so I may try to tie them back up. The leeks were all leaning in one direction too.

I have onion problems though. My white granex are bulbing up fine, but my yellow Candy are just…not. At all. They may be a little deep. Should I dig them out some? I need them to get a move on because the sweet potatoes need to go there. And the hail damage to both, do I need to harvest everything with a broken neck? What about the ones with just foliage damage? Leeks have foliage damage too.

The hail busted up the potato foliage too. They could use a couple more weeks, but the one Yukon Gold bed was pretty much decimated. I guess I’ll go ahead and dig that one out. I can leave half the other bed a bit longer. I can get the melons started in there.

Rebecca, I go through and loosen the soil all the way down to the base of the onion. Basically, the only part of the onion that is underground is the roots. They will not bulb up if they have too much resistance. I learned a lot about onions the year I planted thousands in Lubbock. Most of mine in my pots are doing great. The ones in ground look terrible. They’re starting to bulb up and they have barely any tops on them. I fertilize everything equally I think but there’s a huge difference. Some of the ones in ground have even rotted because of all the rain we had a few weeks ago.

We did get some rain last night. I had a hard time sleeping....I was itchy all over. (I'm sure it has something to do with stress) and around 2ish, the phone weather alerts went off. Then, sirens went off (Probably Moore's, but maybe OKC....not Norman's). Turned on the TV but by the time I got the TV on, it (what they thought was a tornado but I haven't had a chance to watch the news today to see if they confirmed that) had moved to the east.

I am happy for the rain tho.

After the BD party, I cleared out the overwintered root/greens row in the SG. Dug the fall onions. They don't have large bulbs, but I can chop a few for recipes over the next few weeks before they go bad. Then, had Tom mow that row. It will go back to being part of the meadow. It's a little sad considering that that area has been amended for the past 6 years.

But, there's simply no way I can handle that large of a garden, and keep up with the kitchen garden, Charlotte's garden, flowerbeds, Vego beds, Greenstalk, native garden and so on. If I was able to be home full time, yes. But, I still work 40+hours a week.

Amy, sorry about losing your post. That is so annoying.

IF we keep up with the SG, it will have long, raised beds. This garden will only be for production type of crops: potatoes, canning tomatoes, onions. Things that I'll mostly harvest all at once...and don't need daily tending. It will have soaker hoses.

Also, I want those beds to be at least 2 feet tall.

The kitchen garden is where I like to hang out...spend time. Do a little here and there. It has veg, fruit, herbs and flowers.

Rebecca, what type of melons are you growing?

I’m really enjoying my garden. It’s very chaos style here there everywhere. I also would love a 100x100 for big production. It is a lot of work

The Governor's onions are looking great.

Gov Stitt's garden on X

This is an " On This Day " pic from last year. I lost this plant to cutworms. Can see how the stalk at ground level has been eaten away. This made me sick to lose all those tomatoes. And it wasn't the only plant that was loaded down like that.