I don’t know why I didn’t think of that Larry. I will do that next time I buy bulk seed.

I had to make a run to Greenwood, so I stopped at Ace Hardware and bought 4 more bundles of onions, that should give all the onions I can deal with. I still have too many sets to plant. I have got to figure a balance of onions I that I need though the year.

It’s hard to figure. I grew 250 really nice big onions and I don’t think it was enough. If I have onions I use them. I was going to buy another bundle but I need to get all my pots ready.

My daughter-in-law sent me a video about a thistle that is edible. So I went down this rabbit trail looking it up and sure enough it is a very edible and quite delicious. It’s called horrid little thistle. Who knew?

Thought this might be useful , Dawn used to post the OSU planting dates:

https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/oklahoma-garden-planning-guide.html

I've always tried to refer to this guide.. Like Dawn would always say , the earlier dates applied to the southern parts of ok. .

The later dates applies to the northern parts of ok.

Mid Feb to mid Mar is the general range of planting for cool season things.

Well tomorrow is mid Feb.

I wonder if climate change may affect this.

I'm gearing up for planting onions and potatoes in the next week or so.

Weather boy here says no arctic air here at least for the rest of Feb.

What about March....? Roll the dice , I guess it's time.

Rick

I keep looking at guides for my area but with a low of 29 Sunday and high of 79 Wednesday I really don’t know what to do. I am going to winter sow the rest of what I have on Friday. We’ll see.

Kim , Down south where you're at , you probably don't have as much of a gamble as I do.

Rick

These charts are great, but the biggest thing I have to keep in mind is my microclimate, I often have a freeze of frost sneak in on me. My friend use to live less than a mile from me and had at least a month longer growing season than I did. If you are going to push the limits, be sure to keep frost protection handy.

I agree. I’ve never really pushed except when we planted tomatoes 2 months ahead of schedule. That was a whole new concept that worked exceptionally well. This year with lots of row cover I am pushing.

For planting potatoes and onions some frost/freeze is tolerable.

Onions can take it down to 20 degrees for a little while.

And potatoes are still under ground.

I'm just concerned about some late arctic plunge in early March.

I recall one time when I just put my onions out in the ground and then some late arctic front came down in early March and it got down to around 4 degrees.

Then I had to cover with everything including the kitchen sink.

Talk about a redneck garden but it made it.

Rick

I get that. My garden has nevermade the pages of better homes and garden. lol. I am going to sew some of my row cover in tubes so I can slip right over my tubs.

Last year I lost most of my tomato seedlngs, still in their jugs, to an early April deep freeze, even though I covered everything really well.

I was going to put onions in this weekend and potatoes next, but I may reverse that. Maybe spinach this weekend and peas next. i have some beets ready to transplant too.

Some online nurseries have started referring to seedlings as plantlings. Not sure why that bothers me so much.

I need to get busy with dirt.

Right now , I'm only concerned with cool season , starting with onions and potatoes. A little later it'll be the cool season spring greens, spinach , lettuce.., mustard,. green peas...brassicas , brocolli ,cauliflower , cabbage...

I don't push with tomatoes till early April.

And then with peppers

Followed by beans , corn, summer squash, ..okra.

and that's my life (till fall gardening).

Rick

Kim, how do you use the 250 + onions before they get soft and go bad? That is my issue. I hate using so much time to cure and store for them to go bad. We use two or three onions per/week in cooking. And I'll use a couple in making fire cider once or twice a year. Half of the ones I cure and store, end up in the compost. I'm going to grow fewer this year because it seems like by this time of year, I'm having to buy onions at the store regardless of how many I grew. I probably need to try freezing them in large batches again, although it's not the same as fresh onions.

As far as planting tomatoes early, I just don't anymore. Even when I cover them, they don't always make it ....and the time it takes to cover (and then uncover because it inevitably will get warm the next day and they'll fry under the plastic) isn't always available. It does take time to cover and uncover. And if it's still frosty when you leave for work, you can't uncover them....but by 10 am it's sunny and warm and they all fry.

Anyway....it's just not worth it to me. I'll wait until mid-April. There's probably wonderful ways to plant early, but I don't have those systems set up.

I carmelize and freeze large quantities. Like 40 plus pounds. I keep the medium to small for fresh. They last nearly till Christmas.

Ron went ahead and drained the yogurt for a few hours this morning. I had some tonight and the texture was wonderful. Put strawberries and honey on it and it was absolutely decadent. I'm very pleased. The recipe below. I used Siggi yogurt as a starter.

https://www.pressurecookrecipes.com/instant-pot-ultrafiltered-yogurt/?fbclid=IwAR0-l7SGTQV39R-mHKGhL14JFUxssUuE3Xnk03e_kAvkQilLu_SNcoX7ZRA#recipe

It's the early spring KABOOM!

Wish every lots of luck with your endeavors .

And remember in spite of any failures , there is no reason to be ashamed.

Rick

Well, I got the rest of my bulbing onions planted. I planted a total of 5 bundles. The first bundle had 74 red onions in it, the last 2 bundles were 1015Y, the 2 1015Y had a total of 63 plants, which most were too large and I expect will bolt. I will go back to my previous mind set, which is, if you want good onions, try to find Dixondale, which is very hard to find in my neck of the woods.

I still have a bunch of sets I need to plant, I expect that there is a good 200+ of them. I am at a loss as to how many onions I need to plant. I would like to plant all bulbing onions, but until I learn how to cure well enough to make onions last all year I am going to have to rely on some type of onion to fill in the gap. I am also trying to adjust to growing for 3 families

Have any of you ha any dealings with Rupp seed company? I had never heard of Rupp till I ran across there site yesterday. I was impressed, and opened an account with them. I have too much inventory now, but I would gladly pay their $15.00 shipping cost on a large order. One of the problems I run into is that I can find everything I want in one spot, and if I order from every Tom, Dick, and Harry, the shipping cost is too high anyway, that Is one of the reasons that I just try to get buy on Farmers Co-op supplies.

Well I have sit and rested long enough, I need to head back out to the garden. I really run low on steam by the time afternoon rolls around.

Dixondale has free shipping.

$16 a bundle and less , the more bundles you get.

https://dixondalefarms.com/

Rick

I got 5 bundles for a little under $24.00+ about 10% tax, and I am going to guess that I will have 200 to 250 good onions. I do expect to eat a lot of the 1015Y fresh, because I expect the larger dia. will bolt. I am still kicking around the idea of starting my own onions from seed, I did it one year but there is a steep learning curve, and a lot of work.

I put another 254 onion sets in the ground, but many of them were low quality because i have had then stored too long. I have about another 150 bunching onion sets to go in the ground, they look to be in better shape. Then I hope to have enough energy left to remove a brush hog and install a disc. I like the disc, I can tear up the ground a lot faster with it rather than using the tiller. I can call my neighbor for help, but I sure hate to ask for help. I know I should not feel that way, but I do, it is sort of like I am admitting that I have given up.

I ordered my onions finally. They'll be shipped between February 26 and March 3, which is what is "recommended" for my zip code.

I ordered 3 bundles: Red Creole, Texas Legend, and Highlander (instead of Patterson).

Larry, the cost of those 3 bundles was $30. Free shipping. The more you order, the less you pay for each bundle.

Kim, mine also last to around Christmas. Sometimes they last until spring. Don't we all wish we had proper roots cellars?

This year, if we have rain during curing time (which I sure hope we do have rain), I need to figure out a way to move them into the shop before the rain. Just in case it comes in sideways again.

Honestly, one of the best storage years I've ever had, the onions cured in the shop despite how hot it gets in there. They were then moved to the house's 3rd bedroom. That was several years back.

I had some tiller fun last time out. Started another row and pulled the lever for forward drive and felt no resistance. Was looking all over the previous row for hardware, but nada.

I looked at the crank closer and figured the roll pin had sheared off. Yep. Came out in 3 pieces with a punch. So now I have a small solid aircraft bolt and self locking nut connecting the shaft with the lever. Could only get a couple of threads engaged, but I want to see how long this will go before vibrating off.

One thing about tillers...you start with x number of parts, but end up with a number less than x per year. Stuff just vibrates off constantly. Have to loctite everything together, I guess.

Yep , I had a bolt come loose that the idler belt pully. swivels on.

and I've wallowed out the rear wheels on mine.

Rick

If a roll pin is all you need, Ace Hardware or the auto parts store can fix you up. You will need part of the old one so you get the proper size, I have often used a nail, and just bend the end to keep it from falling our. I am lucky enough to have a TSC store about 7 miles away, some times they are a good place to pick up parts.

I agree about equipment falling apart, I have a pasture full of junk, none of it is like it was when new, its all been patch, welded of tied together with wire. My neighbor once told me, "no one could steal any of your stuff, they could never figure out how to get started", and sometimes I cant either.

Hahaha...yep. I almost stopped the show to go to Ace, but i've got hardware all over and told the tiller I wasn't going to let a spring pin stop me from twisting soil.

I shoved in an old screwdriver in place of my lost bolt and got by for the day.

Rick

I finally got the seedlings out for some outdoor time this afternoon. They only got about a half hour because it took forever to get home today.

Apparently, my drive home was during a very important funeral procession. Any guesses on who that was?

I came east on Indian Hills and was shut off by police/sheriff vehicles at Sunnylane/Porter, so went north to the next main road and turned and drove east to Sooner Rd. Then headed south to Indian Hills. Was cut off again and had to do U turn on Sooner (like all the other cars) and went back to the same road and headed east again to Air Depot. Turned south again and tried to turn on Indian Hills....but nope. Cleveland County Sheriff vehicles all blocking Indian Hills. I pulled next to one of them and asked, "may I please drive to my house. I live just right over there." Nope. So, I finally just parked at the corner of Indian Hills and Air Depot....next to the cemetery and watched the longest, fanciest funeral procession I've ever seen. Lots of limos and those black limo van things. FInally, finally got home 30 minutes before dark.

Again, any guesses on whose funeral?

Considering who I think it was....he did only live about 5 minutes from me. I'm sure those black limo vans were full of famous people. As I was feeding my chickens, it was crazy to think that just a couple acres over were famous people at the cemetery.

Anyway, I got home about 30 minutes before dark and got everyone fed. The seedlings got some outdoor time.

And I just finished clearing out the third bedroom. It just has two heavy pieces of furniture left that we'll move tomorrow.

I'm feeling very cranky and am ready for this project to be over.

I don't know anything about tillers, so I can't offer anything other than my sympathies.

Jennifer my guess Toby Keith. Rick that tiller gave you a fit but you got it figured out. I’m not good with machines. My mower wouldn’t start last year so this year I have to figure it out. Especially since I burned up my weedeater. I don’t have anybody to help me so I’ll have to watch YouTube. I will start with fresh gas and new air filter.

Kim, fresh gas can solve a lot of problems, matter of fact having fresh clean fuel is a very large problem for me. I have so many engines to keep going, and I am concerned of what the supply chain might look life if we have a major world event, I try to keep extra fuel. I think that keeping a fuel treatment in gasoline is important, as well as having a fuel filter on the engine.

For too many years, I have had a walking problem, and Madge likes to help with the yard work when she can, all tough I dont like her having to do that, I know that it will do no good to tell her not to. Several years ago I bought a small Honda self propelled mower. The Honda is smaller than a lot of the small gas engines, plus it has two blades, which, in my opinion gives it a little more inertia, which makes if a little easier to crank. If you have to buy a new mower, you may want to look at a Honda. Madge will be 85 in March, and if we can get this foot problem healed up I expect that she will be chasing her Honda around again this summer. I feel the Honda was a good investment, I no longer hear " will you come out and start this mower for me".

I forgot to add that a lot of small engines have automatic compression releases on them, which means that valve adjust is very important. I don't know if the Honda has a compression release on it or not, but if it does,it has not given any problem, and never had a tune up.

I guess this has not been a gardening post, to cure that, I will have to say that the Honda is pretty good at cleaning the garden, the twin blades do an excellent job chopping up pea vines and leaves.

Kim, I think so too. I can't imagine who else would shut down traffic that way. At least not around here at that little cemetery.

Rick is good at figuring stuff out for sure.

Kim, I admire you for taking on that project of figuring out your mower. I have a hard time with stuff like that. Even weedeating is hard for me. I did buy a little battery one that I can lift pretty well. But, if I had to fix it anything like a mower, I would be lost. Probably because it was never interesting to me and my Dad didn't teach me that sorta stuff. I'm no princess, tho, I'm not afraid to get dirty and try to help.

In good news, I got the light shelf moved to another room and it's good to go. It wasn't as big of a pain as I thought it would be.

Here we go onto the last bedroom! Which is GREAT because that brings me closer to focusing on the garden. I sure hope spring break has nice weather. I have a lot of garden clean up. A LOT.

I sure hope you got those seedlings back inside. This wind is whippin!

I dont know about the wind but the temp is dropping, I came into the house when it was 60 degrees and picked up my laptop to look up the phone number of TSC. Now I am waking up and its 47 degrees. I have my zero turn lifted up with the tractor to change the blades, the bucket cylinders bleed and I need to go out and make sure the bucket has not crushed my lawn mower, what a time to doze.

Well, my bucket had bled down and bent a hand rail I have on the front of the mower to aid in me getting on and off, I had left the switch on on the tractor, so the battery was dead. I then go get the RTV and drag the zero turn away from the bucket on the tractor. I will wait till the weather is warmer, and I feel better to repair my junk. I think everything I have leaks. Every thing I have needs some sort of repair. but it is too cold for me to enjoy being outside, so I will rest a while and start a few seeds, I can do that in a warm bedroom.

Larry you sound like me dozing off. It was so windy here and only 50 degrees. All week they said 68. I was prepared to work in the garden all day

Kim, it looks like the next 3 nights will be the coldest nights through the rest of Feb.. It looks like 2 of those night will be below freezing, and the 3 rd night may be below freezing also.

Kim, I have been bad about dozing off all of my life.

Our temps too. 27 tomorrow night

I'm still on the fence, why plant anything if we're moving? But why not start some sell them, make a few bucks? Or go ahead and plant for the next owner, and possibly enjoy some of it before we sell. So I may do a round of peppers and micro tomatoes, at least I can take them with when we move, and I should be able to find a spot for small containers in a rental.

We got a battery operated push mower for Black Friday, I tried it on the leaves and it works great. Self propelled so all I have to do is steer. We also have a battery weed eater. I like that it's so light, the gas ones get to hard to carry after a while. The big drawback is the battery life. The mower gets about 30 minutes per battery, & the weedeater about 45.

Jen it’s so hard being on the fence. My son had a traveling pot of marigolds one year. We were staying in camper moving around alot. They grew beautiful and huge. Well last night it got pretty cool. It was 55 in my house since I forgot to turn heater on. It’s going now to warm it up in here.

Jen, my daughter has reached the battery power stage, she never did like the electric of gas weed eater, so it was not hard for her to give them up. She now has a battery weed whacker and a battery chain saw, and likes them very much. Daughter has a zero turn mower but most of the time she tries to hire her lawn mowed, she is single, past 60 and a little heavy, and after working in an air conditioned office all day getting on a mower does not appeal to her.

I understand about being on the fence, I have been bouncing back and forth on buying a battery powered impact wrench. It grips me that I have gotten so weak that I cant tighten and loosen the bolts on this junk I have to try to keep going. I want the Craftsman brand because that is the brand I bought into several years ago, which mean that I have plenty of batteries that will interchange, but I don't like spending $200.00 bucks on something I don't use that often.

Jen, I get the idea that you really don't want to move? I feel that a move may be closer in out future than I would like, we are becoming more dependent on our kids, and I hate that, but it happens to a lot of people.

Jen, did you and hubby buy a tractor a year or so ago? having to leave my tractors will be the hardest thing about me having to move, but I know it is coming because it is getting harder every day for me to climb up on a tractor, and the repairs are getting much harder for me to do.

I need to get out and water my bulbing onions, I planted 200+ and planed on it raining, but that has not happened, so I need to toss out a little nitrogen and water it in, I also need to make a spot to plant 161 onions sets that I have. I don't really need the onions, but the sets will go bad if I don't get them in the ground.

It is 38 degrees, I am not really in the mood to go outside and work in the garden, but I am so slow, and can only work for short periods of time, it just takes forever for me to get anything done.

Me too Larry. I plan my day and Father Time laughs ha Ha ha. That project that should have taken 30 minutes took 2 hours. I ask myself am I really moving that slow?

The weedeater I burned up was electric. I had a 100’ cord. I really want to get a battery operated one.

It is harder to carry the amperage on a longer cord. I like to use a 12 gauge 100 foot cord, but a 50 foot will carry more amperage. It is easy to overload a weed whacker. I have been guilty of taking the guard off to get rid of the line trimmer and increase the width of the cutting path, which can also overload the electric motor.

Where is everyone

I am here in the same spot, only been outside one time today.

Me too. I went to church and fed the dog. Came home toa nap. Friday they had forecasted a beautiful day to work out in. It was 50 with high winds. I worked for about an hour. I couldn’t take it. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice and then 70 every day after. For a week. I hope so. I have so much to do

I'm gearing up to plant out onions and potatoes.

Last night it was cold as in 16 degrees over east. Glad I didn't put out onions yet.

Hope that's the last hooray for the winter but my past experience tells me not just yet.

Got seed potatoes cut up and sprouting already and on the ready.

Got onion bundles and sets also on the ready.

Just need to finish amending and working up the ground.

It's getting about time to roll the dice and go ahead.

Not too good about going to church.

Got told about hell too much when I was a boy.

Rick

I'm around, Kim. Just busy and tired.

Also, not much to talk about that is garden related right now. Nothing new anyways.

The neighbors' rooster that I was going to take to my friends tomorrow, died. I'll talk about it later. What a waste of life.

Moving along on the bedroom remodeling. For the record, I will never texture a ceiling again. So glad the last bedroom ceiling is done. Just need to paint it now.

Rick came out and cut potatoes, but I was texturing the ceiling so didn't spend any time outdoors other than feeding animals.

The little tray of seedlings continues to look great.

Rick, there are many churches that focus on grace....you just have to find one. Has anyone watched The Chosen. It's really good. Normally I dislike "bible" movies or series, but this one is good. I would think even nonchristians would enjoy watching it.

I'll make a new thread.

Went out for onion sets today but struck out. Everything BUT the 1015Y was on the shelf. Was looking for a couple bunches of 1015Y to go with the tx super sweet. Lady said they are waiting on the truck.

Red Norland taters were sacked up at Stillwater Milling. Not long at all and we'll be kicking off.

I hope you have access to Dixondale there, I can only get Bonnie in Greenwood, and the 2 bundles of 1015Y I bought were very low quality, and one bundle had 26 onions in it, and the other had 37 plants in it. Bonnie has everything sewed up here, and the quality varies a lot. The onion ( sets ) I saw at the Co-op looked pretty good, but I already had all the sets I wanted.