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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 20, 2024 11:53:10 GMT -6
After yesterday's low of 23° and today's high of 76° Hank and I have been conversing back and forth by email about recent gardening hardships. I thought I'd post a few of those thoughts below.
I know what you mean Hank. Last year was terrible. I'm surprised anything made it. I'll attach a photo taken June 4th, 2023. Nothing was growing here, my garden was in limbo because of hot, dry weather, with crows that kept pulling my seedlings up by the roots, and wave after wave of grasshoppers. I came close to calling it quits more than once last year.
It seems like we've had more bad years than good ones over the past two decades. I don't remember things being so bad, so consistently when I was growing up.
Before 2006, I had never seen a Japanese beetle invasion, a fig beetle invasion, millions upon millions of army bugs so thick that they stripped every leaf off of every potato plant across 6 of the 10 rows of the 100 pounds of potatoes I planted, or millions of armyworms that ate every leaf of lettuce, whisp of corn, or hint of turnip for a swath 30 feet wide and the entire length of my garden. Neither had I ever seen a herd of deer in my garden, nor crows that pulled my seedlings up faster than I could plant them back, or even a single grasshopper plague. Not to mention the fact that it has become an impossibility since that time to grow any kind of squash here because of wave upon wave of gray squash bugs.
Since 2006 I've had multiple instances of each. Not to mention the hottest summers on record, the hardest rains on record, (82.5" inches of rain in 2015) the longest drought on record, (the deepest snow on record (20 " inches in 2011), or the longest string of days over 100° (65 consecutive days in 2011).
Personally, I think these pest problems are caused by climate change, by extreme weather driving insects and wildlife to murder my garden because things in nature have become so difficult.
I'll sure be happy if we ever return to anything that resembles normal.A photo of my garden on June 2nd, 2023. Baked dry as a bone during a time when it ought to be green, lush, and flush with vegetation.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Mar 20, 2024 14:40:35 GMT -6
Normal isn’t coming back, but Yeshua is.
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Post by macmex on Mar 21, 2024 4:44:13 GMT -6
Amen to that!
Romans 8:19-23 "8:19 For the creation eagerly waits for the revelation of the sons of God. 8:20 For the creation was subjected to futility – not willingly but because of God 24 who subjected it – in hope 8:21 that the creation itself will also be set free from the bondage of decay into the glorious freedom of God’s children. 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers together until now. 8:23 Not only this, but we ourselves also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, 25 groan inwardly as we eagerly await our adoption,26 the redemption of our bodies."
Mankind, on a whole, wants to address bits and pieces of the problem while ignoring the really big issue, sin, rebellion and the Fall. Neither our own persons nor any of the rest of Creation are doing very well. Everything is breaking down and will continue to do so, until the redeemed and creation are made new. The problems of climate, earthquakes, storms, wars, etc. will continue o worsen until the redemption of our bodies and creation. Any "solution" apart from the Messiah will at best slow the decay. Our world's current state of rebellion makes matters worse.
Years ago I did my Master's thesis on this.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 22, 2024 6:32:16 GMT -6
Well said, George. Our most recent earthquakes were probably caused by our forefathers rolling over in their graves.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 22, 2024 6:48:27 GMT -6
In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours. -Mark Twain.
Today was no different.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 24, 2024 8:03:45 GMT -6
Happy Palm Sunday everyone!
It's currently 46° here with gusty Southeasterly winds of 25 to 30 mph, and a really good chance of thunderstorms before evening.
If you were a guy like Benjamin Franklin, today might seem like excellent kite flying weather, but if I were you, I'd play it safe and go to Church instead, as flying kites in this kind of weather could make a feller wish he'd stayed in bed.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 26, 2024 18:00:47 GMT -6
Freeze Warning tonight!
Our forecast is calling for a freeze warning tonight. I've been busily tarping our blueberries and placing a space heater under the tarp.
After that, I spread frost clothes over the strawberry plants and weighted the edges with rocks. Hopefully, that will be enough. Hopefully I'll be glad I did that when summer finally rolls around and we have fruit.
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Post by macmex on Apr 3, 2024 11:03:24 GMT -6
I believe it got down to 39 last night. Tonight they're predicting down to 35. That's cutting it pretty close!
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Apr 4, 2024 10:23:05 GMT -6
Careful driving out there, everyone. The deer are on the move and catching cars in the meanwhile.
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Post by macmex on Apr 22, 2024 6:42:40 GMT -6
Yesterday the weatherman said it would get down to 37 f. by this morning. I thought, "I better take precautions." As I was driving, I saw lots of blackberries in full bloom and again, I thought... "Ron always talks about 'blackberry winter.'" This morning, I woke up around 4:30 and... it was 32 f!!!! I'm glad I put a heater in the greenhouse and moved all my unplanted seedlings in there! Stuck my head in there at 5 am and was pleased to feel warm air coming out, when I opened the door. We'll see what happened to the tomatoes and peppers which were already set out. I covered them but the frost was pretty heavy when I looked.
EVERY YEAR, for at least ten years now, I've made a note to myself not to start sweet potato slips so early. This is the first year I have obeyed my own instruction. It's been difficult to start so late especially when I saw a friend bringing home large sweet potato plants, from a box store, a week ago. But now I'm glad. My "sweets" are on track and doing well. I may have fewer customers but my slips will be first class.
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Post by woodeye on Apr 22, 2024 8:16:01 GMT -6
Boy I know, I thought about you folks in Tahlequah this morning when I saw your low temperatures. I looked at the history and it was 32° or lower for 6 straight hours this morning in Tahlequah. Not good!
It was considerably warmer here, 37°, but still plenty chilly.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 22, 2024 11:29:13 GMT -6
I think the storm that just passed through Northeastern Oklahoma was definitely what I'd call, "Blackberry Winter".
As a rule, there are at least two major setbacks on tap come Spring, one being Easter Storm, the other being "Blackberry Winter". Easter Storm usually only lasts for a day or so, that's why it's referred to as a "storm", but Blackberry Winter tends to drag on for about a week. That's why the old-timers called it "Blackberry Winter" because it tended to last long enough to become its own mini-season.
Last year, Blackberry Winter hit on April 15th. I remember the date well, because my poor daughter, AshLee and my wife Margaret had planned for months for a beautiful outdoor wedding at the botanical gardens in Fayetteville on April 15th. It did everything but snow that day! High winds, pellet size hail, rain, What miserable weather that was.
This year, around that same date we had unseasonably cool weather that began last Thursday, April 18th, the day that Teddy wrote me saying, "I just woke up freezing because the cool front hit while I was taking a nap."
It was 81° here at the time, so it was hard to imagine being uncomfortably cool that day, but it didn't take long for Teddy's cold front to reach us. It was 54° here by dusk.
Our thermometer this morning showed 30°. We had a frost on the tin roof of the unheated summer kitchen at 7:00 a.m., but not much all the way down on the ground. I think the ambient soil temperatures here were high enough to protect things right at ground level, but not too much higher.
I suppose we'll have to wait a few weeks to see how the fruit trees faired. My later blooming pawpaws were in full bloom this morning, but the earlier ones had already set fruit. I hope the freeze spared them.
My blueberries set fruit a week or so back. I hope they survived last night too, but only time will tell.
Speaking of "time" I just looked ahead to next weekend. I sure do feel sorry for the folks who have been working so hard getting ready for the Red Fern Festival in Tahlequah, and the Renaissance Fair in Muskogee. The forecast in our location for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday is calling for heavy rain and 30-35 mph winds.
Nothing puts the damper on a festival faster than heavy rain and high winds. I sure do hate that for those people. We do need some significant rainfall though. My garden is getting pretty dusty dry after so many windy days.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 22, 2024 18:23:05 GMT -6
We weren’t quite so cold here at thirty-four degrees, but that was about ten degrees lower than had been predicted. It was a bit of a shock to wake up to see frost on top of our grill outside. I think it did stay off the ground.
I had planted out eggplants and peppers about two weeks ago, mostly because the transplants had grown so well that they were needing to get in the ground. Because of the space limitations in my mom’s house with seven of us living here right now, we didn’t really have room to pot them up into even bigger containers, so we put them in the ground but installed wire hoops so that we could use frost cloth when necessary. I call it the “spa treatment” when I cover them all up to keep them warm. They had one night of the spa treatment when they first went in, then about a week of being uncovered, but then we covered them Saturday ahead of this cooler week. They surely got chilled under the cloth, but it’s my understanding that raising the temperature the next day can help mitigate any chill damage, so I’m just leaving the frost cloth on to make a mini greenhouse this week. It’s not all our pepper starts that are out, but it is all the eggplant, so I sure hope this method is effective even with more cold than was forecast.
@rdback , how cold did you get down in your flood-plain garden?
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Post by rdback on Apr 23, 2024 6:51:00 GMT -6
...@rdback , how cold did you get down in your flood-plain garden? Yesterday morning (4/22) was 28F, and this morning was 33F. Still a tad chilly in these here parts.
I'm still thinking mid-May for plant-out, just to be safe, but we'll see. I'd love to move that up to May 1st.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Apr 27, 2024 9:53:32 GMT -6
The fresh air following the rains, bright sun and high winds were a favor for line drying the clothes yesterday. Boy, I was lingering at the line, too. So beautiful. So enjoyable I decided to was EVERYTHING I could stuff in the washing machine as the line was drying quick. It was fantastic until my washing machine quit. Doh!
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