March Week 4. Marching right along
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Comments (1)I went to the EarthKind lecture, & lemme tell ya... If you *ever* get the chance to hear Steve George present a lecture, be there first in line! The hand-outs are easy-to-read, the message is clear, he keeps the tone light, & it was just *wonderful*!...See MoreFeb 2018, Week 4, Planting (Maybe) & Welcoming March
Comments (120)Kim, You will be farming and gardening in a very unforgiving climate there, so perhaps their desire to wait for the rain comes from their knowledge of how tough Spring planting can be without the rainfall. I'm just guessing about that. I am sorry that your planting plans are a mess and aren't conforming to what you wanted, hoped for and expected. Please hang in there and don't stop believing.....even with a late start I bet you have a great year. It is unfortunate that your promised helpers are not available. Grrrrr. I hate empty promises. I wish you lived closer to all of us too. If you did, we'd caravan out to the farm and help you plant onions. Don't be too hard on yourself over the onion planting. Just do what you can do every day and be thankful for the progress you're making. I noticed that almost nobody in my area (or nobody who lives on roads we drive along so we're able to see their gardens) has their onions in yet, likely because most everyone here gardens at grade level, so their soil still is too wet. I am grateful for our raised beds because even though their soil also is wet, it was dry enough for me to get the onions planted last week, and today I'll be able to plant a lot of other stuff. So, even though I feel late here (and I am late compared to most years) apparently I'm ahead of everyone else who gardens around me. We all have to work with what we've got and, depending on one's location, it seems like we're either too wet or too dry.......sort of like Goldilocks and the Three Bears......it is hard to find that planting window when things are just right. Bruce, Our cats wipe out the moles and gophers, so they don't bother me either way, but it is stunning how many mounds I see on other people's property, particularly the ones with sandy soil. To some extent, our large amount of clay saves us from the moles and gophers, and the cats do the rest. If only that were so with the voles, but they tunnel completely underground at night, often hiding the entrances to their tunnels in adjacent woodland or areas of the neighbor's pasture with tall grass, so the cats have to hunt really hard to find the vole holes. I cannot let the cats out at night because of the coyotes, but I bet if the cats could be outside safely at night, they'd control the voles too. It would be tempting to use the poison for the gophers if only you didn't have grandchildren (or pets?). I noticed the sudden appearance of gopher traps, and all sorts of poisons and repellants on the store shelves in the last week or two, so clearly rodent season is underway now. For years, back when the garden fence was only 4' tall, we always had bobcats in the garden. I knew they were lurking there hoping to get birds, house cats, squirrels, bunnies or rodents, but I don't think I realized how many voles they probably were controlling until we raised the fence to 8' in height to keep out the deer. Since that effectively kept out the bobcats too, it was about a year after the raising of the fence that I realized we 'suddenly' had a huge vole problem. I wish there were a way to keep out the deer and allow the bobcats back in. It would sort of freak me out to drive up the driveway and see a bobcat just sitting there in the garden right in the middle of all the plants in broad daylight, but now that they are gone, I miss their varmint-controlling efforts. I don't understand everyone's obsession with moles either, but then, that's because our lawn is clay and we don't have moles. Maybe if we had moles tunneling everywhere in the lawn, they'd drive me nuts. I don't know. Also, we're rural and I could care less what our lawn looks like. We're not trying to maintain a pristine green carpet that impresses all the neighbors. I can understand that folks who live in suburban neighborhoods where there is a ton of pressure to have the standard perfect green carpet of grass would feel like the moles are ruining their lawn and, by extension, their lives. That whole obsession with perfect green lawns in housing subdivisions is a real thing, you know, and it amazes me how much time and effort people put into feeding and watering a green lawn and controlling the weeds just so they can mow it once or twice a week. It seems like a lot of work for nothing (by nothing, I mean that the standard green lawn doesn't produce food or flowers and doesn't support much wild life). When we lived in the city, we had the standard beautiful green lawn in the front yard, although I replaced as much of it as I reasonably could with ornamental planting beds. We had St. Augustine ('Raleigh') and it was so pretty, but I'm glad we aren't trying to keep a lawn like that green through all of OK's hot, dry, drought-filled summers. As our shade trees here get larger and larger, more and more of our bermuda grass lawn is being shaded out and replaced by ground covers, and that thrills me. That was my plan for the bermuda grass all along---to shade it out. I don't miss the green carpet of grass at all here. Our city back yard always was more garden than lawn grass and that was good---it gave me places to plant things that weren't green lawn, so I always spent more time in the back yard than the front yard even way back then. Nowadays I spend all my time in the garden that I possibly can, and resent every single hour of mowing that takes me away from my garden. It is funny how kids and grandkids take it so personally when someone else has offended their parent or grandparent, and those kids have long memories too! I guess that makes us stay on our best behavior when the little ones are around. Looking out the window I can see that it is dawn outside (pun intended). I've been waiting forever for the sun to come up, and finally that moment is about to arrive. Planting day at last! After today, the onions will not be alone any more. Dawn...See MoreFebruary 2019, Week 4.....Here Comes March!
Comments (50)Grrr. I am irritated. Have typed a long, rambling answer twice and lost it twice. So here's my final attempt for tonight. Tim is still very sick. I am beginning to understand what a violent stomach virus the norovirus is....it gives new meaning to the word projectile. If the rest of us manage to escape all the germs he is spewing into the universe, it will be an absolute miracle, and not a miracle I'm expecting will occur. The four year old granddaughter was lucky---she left for her dad's house and an out-of-state vacation the same day Tim came home sick, so she might be spared. The rest of us probably won't be. This weather.....this is what Oklahoma does. What is pretty much guaranteed is that the weather each year will find a way to be very different from the previous year's weather....so, after three relatively nice, warm Februaries, we are having a cold one....with March seeming like it will start out the same way. It is what it is and we just have to deal with it. Our erratic late winter and early spring weather is why Oklahoma isn't known for having a huge commercial fruit-growing industry---because such as industry would go broke here. Blueberries are extremely difficult to grow successfully. I grew them in Texas and was smart enough to never attempt them here as I have highly alkaline soil and highly alkaline water, slow-draining clay and frequent summer dry spells with tons of heat and little to no rainfall. What do blueberries need? A very specific acidic soil in a very specific pH range, and if you can create that, you also need to have neutral to acidic water that isn't working against you. If you have alkaline water, then each time you water (blueberries tend to need irrigation daily in our very hot and dry summers in southern OK), the water is making your acidic mix a bit more alkaline and it takes a toll on the plants after a couple of years. They need perfect drainage. Perfect. They are shallow-rooted and will die quickly if allowed to get too dry in the summer. They abhor wet feet and will die quickly if allowed to sit in waterlogged soil. How are you going to help them cope on one of those days when 5 or 8 or 12" of rain falls in one day? Have a plan for that! They are very prone to root rot diseases like phytopthera. People who have success with them tend to have perfect drainage and soil that is in the perfect pH range for them. When I grew them in Texas, I had them in a raised bed completely above grade so their roots never made it down into our slow-draining black gumbo clay. That bed was filled with a 50-50 mix of pine bark fines and peat moss. I watered with a soaker hose so the water went into the soil-less mix and not onto the plants. My plants got direct sun from about 8-10 a.m. and then were in dappled shade to heavy shade the rest of the day. If you grow them in containers, you may need to water with drip irrigation lines more than once a day in the hottest weather. It is hard to create a soil-less mix that drains well but also doesn't drain too well....good luck with that. Here's the OSU Fact Sheet on Growing Blueberries in the home garden. The people I know who have had the most success have lived in the NE quadrant of the state and had naturally well-draining and acidic soil. I don't know if any of them kept the plants alive for longer than maybe 5 years, and lost the plants about the time they really began to produce well. Sometimes they did get a year or two of good production from the plants before they died. Growing Blueberries in the Home Garden Megan, I'm glad your daughter is so much better and continue to pray for your uncle's continued recovery. He's had such a tough time the last few days. Your poor mom! Being sick is not fun and if you feel compelled to go into work anyway, that is just a miserable situation. Of course you are tired and low in energy today---your crazy week drained it all out of you. I hope you were able to rest and yet also to find the energy to cover up and move whatever plants needed it. I am afraid y'all are going to take a pretty hard hit from this weather up there. They have snow and/or sleet back in our forecast for tomorrow---it pops in and out of the forecast every few hours, but tonight our local TV weather guy seemed more convinced than previously that it is going to find us. I'll continue hoping it misses us. We're still going to be pretty cold for this far south. The wind chills for the whole state look horrible over the next couple of days. At least wind chills themselves do not affect plants, though cold temperatures and strong winds can be tough on our plants in these sorts of cold spells. I helped Jana and Lillie paint Lillie's room at the new house today. It looks really nice and two coats of her chosen paint color (one coat yesterday, another one today) covered up the previous paint color very well. There's a ton of prep work involved in painting these rooms because they have so much of the lovely Victoria style trim and woodwork that needs to be covered in blue painter's tape so that we don't get the wall paint on the trim. Really, by the time you can finally start painting, the painting goes much more quickly than all the prep work. After we finished that room, we worked on prepping the living room for painting...it has a total of 8 walls and I think 10 windows, 8 of which are the 84" tall windows....so lots of time was spent up on ladders, and we never even made it high enough today to cover the crown molding to protect it from the wall paint. I guess that's a project for tomorrow if we aren't iced in here at our house. My son works tomorrow, so we may take a day off and stay home unless we have to be up there at the house because an appliance is being delivered. One is scheduled, but the weather could interfere......and we all may be tired enough that we are sort of hoping it does. One thing that struck me about her room is that the only closet is the original one from 1932, and it is sort of wedge shaped in a corner, and very tiny, so it will not hold much....she is sort of in shock at the fact that her lovely room has so little built-in storage. We're looking for furniture that can store a lot of clothing.....maybe an old-fashioned armoire or wardrobe. For lunch we had a picnic sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor since no furniture has been moved into the house yet. We had our favorite Bar-B-Q from Caddo BBQ so it was the yummiest meal and was lots of fun. I spent a lot of time looking out windows at the landscape today. They have a lot of shade so that may present some landscaping challenges. Oh, and we met the lovely older couple next door....almost old enough, perhaps, to be my parents, but not quite. They are so kind and so friendly. We found some old wallpaper previously not seen when removing light switch plates and old cabinets and things. That was pretty fun...but it wasn't drastically old wallpaper....I think I remember very similar patterns from the 1980s. My tomato plants are outgrowing their light shelf and I have no desire to move them to the greenhouse yet, as that would mean setting up heaters in the greenhouse....and I just do not even want to go there.....so I'll bring in a bigger shelf tomorrow that has adjustable shelving which will allow the plants to stay under fluorescent lights for at least a couple more weeks. We still have nice weather out in the forecast around Thursday or so....knock on wood! Dawn...See MoreMarch 2020, Week 4
Comments (112)Larry, I'm glad you weren't getting too much rain this morning, and sorry it found you later in the day. I saw that there was a pretty bad tornado in Jonesboro today, and didn't even realize any part of your state was under a Tornado Watch until I saw a video someone posted of the Jonesboro tornado on the ground. I hope everyone in the Jonesboro area made it through that without death or serious injury. That's a nice plant nursery you have going there. It cannot rain forever, and when the rain finally stops and you are able to plant, you'll have a lot of wonderful plants to transplant into the ground. Nancy, Oh, elms are a thing here too. Honestly, with about 10 acres of wild, left-to-grow-as-it-sees-fit woodland, anything that seeds prolifically is found in abundance here. About the only thing we do is try to remove the cedar trees every few years, as they sprout like weeds too. I spent quite a few years cleaning up the woodland every winter, but it was a never-ending task, and keeping up with it was a full-time winter job, so nowadays, I just try to keep all the tree seeds out of the garden and let them do their thing in the woodland. This means at the very least that I spend a significant portion of each spring pulling out sprouting oaks, pecans, hackberries, redbuds, elms and mulberries from the garden beds and pathways, and fenceline too. If I were to miss doing this for one single spring, my garden would become a woodland in the blink of an eye. The very first year after I removed all the invasive cedar trees, greenbrier and poison ivy from the north banks of our creek, we had a lovely little colony of mayapples spring up. I was excited to see them there. We never would have known they were there if I hadn't taken out all the invasive stuff. By then we had lived here several years and never had seen mayapples, so it was pretty exciting. That has been a general thing that happens here----remove invasive plants (whether native or not) and watch to see what shows up in the newly cleaned-up spaces. You can get some plants you've never seen before. Amy, Chris had that trouble with Jiffy organic seed-starting mix this year. I really didn't. Some white mold tried to spring up on the surface one time this year, and I saw it right away as it was just beginning to develop so I just made sure to run the fan in the room pointed at the light shelf to dry out the Jiffy mix more so the mold wouldn't grow. That was all it took for me. I don't really have a good alternative that is readily available in stores, unless you have someone around you that has a nice selection of Pro-Mix. Amy, We made a quick run to Home Depot to plant shop. It was pretty early in the day and the store was packed! I did notice that folks in the garden center were doing their best to maintain correct social distancing....everyone wanted to buy plants, and they had tons and tons of them, and everyone wanted to buy safely. That was enough of "getting out" for me to stop feeling like I had cabin fever so badly. I don't have to get out ever, but tell me that I can't get out, and I want to leave our place and go somewhere just because I know I can't or shouldn't. The kids have been careful to keep themselves and the grandchildren away from us for the most part, wanting to protect us oldsters, so I am sort of having grandkid withdrawal. They did stop by very briefly last week to pick up hoops, row covers and earth staples because they were expecting a freeze, but even as we walked in the garden, we tried to maintain proper social distancing while at least getting to chat with each other for a few minutes. There are many other people going through the same thing right now so I'm not going to whine about it. I know that none of us want to inadvertently spread this virus to anyone else on the chance that we might have it and be asymptomatic, and none of us want to catch it from anyone else either. I wonder how many months it will be before we can start to return to some sort of normalcy. Jen, I'm glad the seedlings are okay. You must have had a good rain. We had about 5 minutes of light rain in the early morning hours so it wasn't enough to hurt anything. Rebecca, It feels like full-fledged spring here and I have little to no concern about a late freeze. Our weather pattern has done a total turn-around the last couple of weeks. Today is my average last freeze date, so technically I still have a 50% chance of one, but I don't think it will happen. I think that is true for at least 80% of OK. I'd be a little worried next week if I was in northwestern OK....and the panhandle likely has more cold remaining too. I think your area likely will be fine. Obviously anyone from OKC northward probably needs to be watching next weekend's low temps very carefully, but it seems like most people could go ahead and plant now and just cover up on that last cold night or two. It is supposed to be 40 degrees here at our house Friday night/Saturday morning, so I'll keep an eye on that forecast, but what has happened lately is that they will forecast a cold night out 5 to 7 days in advance, and by the time that night actually arrives, the forecast low has risen by several degrees and I don't have to cover up plants. I doubt I'll cover up tomato plants if the forecast is for 40 degrees, but I might cover them up if it is for 38 degrees. So far, our last freezing night here for 2020 was around March 7th, although we have had some nights in the mid-30s since then. Just not lately. Even on the night Chris had a forecast low of 32, they only dropped down to 34. He did have his garden covered up just in case. That was about a week ago. Having said all the above, I never fully relax until after May 3rd because we went through a period more-or-less from about 2007 to 2013 where we had a late freeze or frost on May 3 or 4 every year (which explains why I acquired a ton of frost blanket row cover during that time). Because of that, I never can relax until after we get past May 4th. We haven't had one of those exceptionally late cold nights in quite a few years now, so I don't worry about it as much as I did when it had become a feature of every year. Rebecca, See there, if Dan Threlkeld thinks it is okay to plant tomatoes, it must be okay! Jennifer, This virus may not like heat, but thrives in it, unlike some other types of viruses that die down in the heat. Many countries that are in the midst of their summer and hot weather have had huge outbreaks of it, so the heat is not having much direct effect on it. As for as drinking hot beverages, that is a fake news thing. Once you have the virus in your body, drinking a hot beverage might make your throat feel better, but it will not kill the virus. If we could kill the virus merely by drinking very hot tea, coffee or whatever, then we wouldn't have 600,000+ cases worldwide and we'd all be drinking hot beverages because the CDC was telling us too, which they are not. I wish it were that easy to get rid of it! Keep in mind that if the virus is present in one's throat, it probably also is present in one's nasal passages and sinus cavities so even if hot beverages worked, they might reduce the viral load but wouldn't eliminate all of it from your body. Some people say that taking zinc logenzes at the first sign you have a viral infection, may kill the virus in your throat or reduce its impact but I have not seen any research that validates this either. It is just that with some other viruses, notably rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, zinc works so people probably are assuming it will work with this one. Unfortunately, there are differences between rhinoviruses and coronaviruses, so ultimately we will have to wait for research on zinc's effectiveness with coronavirus. I do think there is research showing that people who are deficient in zinc in their diet/body are more vulnerable to viruses in general, but if you take a multivitamin, you probably already get adequate zinc. I have noticed that you cannot find zinc in any of the stores so people may be buying it to take in the hope it will ward off coronavirus. Our Centrum multivitamins have 100% of the MDR of zinc in them, so I guess we've got that one aspect covered. This COVID-19 just hasn't been around long enough for us to have much research available on what does or doesn't work to prevent it or to lighten the viral load. With a novel coronavirus that has become a pandemic, we all are searching for answers to help us ward it off, but research so far seems to only support avoiding infecting persons, washing your hands thoroughly and keeping your hands away from your face. Perhaps in due time, there will be more research that provides more answers. You have to be careful what you choose to do. With the 1918 pandemic, there was a wonderful miracle drug available---aspirin. The usage of aspirin was fairly new and there was a lack of understanding about how much was too much, so many people took it in huge dosages (often recommended by medical personnel of that era). Nowadays, for various reasons, many researchers have come to believe over the decades that the overuse of aspirin in the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic contributed a great deal to the high death rates. I have read quite a great deal of what has been written about this phenomenon and feel like what they say about it makes sense. It is a terrible shame if, indeed, the over-use of aspirin caused many deaths that otherwise might not have occurred with the Spanish Flu. That's one reason I think we need to approach all possible 'cures' to the coronavirus with a great deal of caution---we don't want to take anything or do anything that would make us worse instead of helping us fight it off. With the internet, there's tons of misinformation out there that likely is not helpful and even could be dangerous. I had fun plant shopping, but only bought a handful of edibles---some peppers and some herbs. I wish I had taken more time to look at flowers and buy some, but the store was very crowded and I was uneasy being around too many people, so I didn't. Our bluebonnets in the front meadow look astonishing. They've never been this early before in such a large quantity. At first, earlier in the week, it was just a handful of early bluebonnet blooms but now there's dozens. I'm so happy to see them. No one else around us who normally has bluebonnets have any of them blooming yet, not even the folks down in Thackerville who usually have bluebonnets in bloom at least a week before we do. I didn't even see any bluebonnets blooming yet alongside the highway in Texas this morning. Another early visitor is a male luna moth hanging out underneath the porch light on the front porch tonight. He apparently hasn't found his female yet, so I think I'll leave the porch light on all night long tonight in the hopes that they will find one another. They are, after all, on limited time. It seems a bit early for the lunas too, but they surely are responding to the early warmup here that has had it feeling more like April or May than March. Dawn...See MoreKim Reiss
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