2012 will most likely be a challenging year for gardening in OK.

In this thread I plan to visit from time-to-time to post about gardening this year and related issues.

This week I'm starting preparations for my Spring garden, and will began searching local nurseries to see who carries or can obtain heirloom fruit trees to plant in a few months.

as we no longer own our property, there won't be much gardening this year. Hubz will still do some maters n peppers in containers, but that's probably it. :/

We've seen some long range forcasts and it looks like it won't be as hot but it will be just as dry. We're gonna do more container plants this year so we can move them around if the conditions warrant. As far as ground planting go, we're gonna plant drought hardy varieties that are suited for Oklahoma's climate.

At this time, I'm experimenting with cold frame gardening. We have four straw bales with a window on top and a raided bed inside. I've planted buttercrunch lettuces. A lot of them have come up. We'll see how it goes....

In February, I'm gonna plant taters in a new type of framed bed. We learned something about taters planted in straw. If you're wanting to grow a lot of them in a bed where you add more medium as the plants get taller, you must choose a late season variety. Most of the seed potatoes that we see here are early season that only grow in the first six inches of ground. Yukon Gold is an early season that would do well in the usual row type garden but Kennebecs are late season and will grow well in the more vertical type that we're doing. Again...I'm glad there's grocery stores while I learn...

Here's a link to the build-as-you-grow potato garden. I've built one already. Cheap and easy.
http://sinfonians-garden.blogs...row-potato-bins.html

I've seen some youtube videos on container gardening, where they bury a smaller container, like a pop bottle into the bigger one, that I guess has small holes that can slowly let water into the container...the lid is near the surface and you can refill it when needed. It makes a 'self-watering' container garden. You might run a search on youtube and see what you find on it.

I'm going to try to create a framework, I'm thinking of using t-posts, that I can stretch some sort of netting across the garden during the hottest part of the day, Summer, to provide a little shade, and see how that does. The holes in the net would allow sunlight through, but perhaps give a little relief from the direct sun. If it doesn't blow away and stays tied to the t-posts, it just may work lol.

I hope this Summer is not as bad as last year.

I saw a video from a guy down south(looks like Georgia because of the red dirt) that uses 1 1/2" pvc to slowly water his garden. He buries about three quarters of the pipe in the ground where the water will come out by the roots. On the end that's in the ground, he drills about 4 small holes around the end and plugs it. He can go along and fill the pipes with water and they will slowly drip irrigate whatever he's growing.

It's looks like he has been amending his garden long enough that he doesn't really have a clay problem. I can see that being a problem for the little holes. Of course, heavy clay would be an all around problem anyway.

T read that container gardens do best if you use something light and water retentive like potting soil with vermiculite. Last year, I ran into problems with drainage because I was using soil and compost and the little drainage holes weren't enough. A couple of my plants just drowned. I'm gonna cut a larger hole in the middle of each of them and put landscape cloth in the bottom. We'll see...

I'd read years ago that a layer of gravel on the bottom helps promote drainage and keeps the drain holes open in containers. I haven't done much container gardening, but I do keep some flower pots every year. So far so good.

I need to find a Farmer's Almanac and try to time the plantings around that. I've never done it before, but I hear it does help.

I have some seedling containers and lots of seeds ready. I think when I do plant, I'm going to make a mixture of peat and some soil from the garden spot...so that the seedlings can be adapted to the same dirt they'll be going into.

The gravel sure wouldn't hurt AND it adds some weight to the base of the container. Thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by Celtic Warrior:
I'd read years ago that a layer of gravel on the bottom helps promote drainage and keeps the drain holes open in containers. I haven't done much container gardening, but I do keep some flower pots every year. So far so good.

I need to find a Farmer's Almanac and try to time the plantings around that. I've never done it before, but I hear it does help.

I have some seedling containers and lots of seeds ready. I think when I do plant, I'm going to make a mixture of peat and some soil from the garden spot...so that the seedlings can be adapted to the same dirt they'll be going into.

I'm trying some gypsum for the clay spots this year and dolomitic lime (because it has calcuiu and magnesium) in places where I'll plant tomatoes.

While we are in a waning La Nina pattern almost like last year, the winter has been warmer and resulted in more precipitation which makes the entire area E. of the rockies look a little better. While many of the drought impacts are still present the rainfall totals since last October are right at normal while the previous year the same areas were at less than 20% of normal. Most of my ponds almost got full this last rain and a few overflowed. I have pumps and use the ponds for water for the garden. but last year the ponds were mostly dry. The temperature ruined all tomato crops last year and most other crops because tomatoes and most others do not set fruit above 95 F.

I'm trying to start some tomato plants indoors right now but not very well set up for that.

the image below is "rainfall departure from normal" since October 2011" and looks much better than we did this time last year. I still don't expect any fruit crops due to the warm winter and the arctic air that will pass through between now and April. I don't know when (sooner is better) but it will and if it hits after mid march, peaches plums and maybe apples will be bloomed which will be frozen. Some fruit buds are begiinning to swell right now which isn't too out of the ordinary but the next week isn't going to slow them down much.

sorry the map didn't download, you can go to

http://water.weather.gov/precip/
and choose "water year" "departure from normal" and see a comparison of the entire united states since october 2011. Last year the drought had the map mostly red East of the rockies and W of the mississippi.

hubbysez has a good size hole in the bottoms of our 5 gallon buckets. he also puts gravel in the bottom. no drowned plants as of yet.

we finally did get a decent pepper harvest late last year. i still have a LOT of frozen peppers. C:

I've known people that have started their plants from seed in a basement or backroom without all the fancy gadgetry available nowdays. As long as there's no major temp changes and as long as you give them cycles of light, they'll supposedly do just fine. A ten dollar shoplight provides a pretty good light spectrum and if you install a timer, there you go.

We're gonna be trying to harvest the rainwater coming off our roof this year. I was amazed at how fast a 32 gallon trashcan fills up when I put it under one of the places where the water drains off. I've got an idea for making a screen with some hardware cloth, a frame and some weed barrier cloth.

The buckets that didn't kill our experimental plants, last year, had a 1 1/2" hole in the bottom. The ones that didn't do so good had a bunch of 1/4" holes. Gonna cut the big holes in the rest of them and use the gravel. Nanners and Hubbysez seem to have that science down to an art.

The lettuces in our cold frame are getting to the thinning size. The frame is small but it looks like I could get around 8 heads if everything goes OK. If this works well, I'll be expanding the frame next year. Fingers crossed.

In about a week and a half, we'll be planting our new potato bin. We're waiting on some late season seed taters to come in at the local nursery. They should be here anytime. With the bin idea, you just add medium as he plants grow. We've learned something about taters since we started trying to grow them in barrels, baskets and tires...The ones we were using were all early season varieties and only grow in the first 6" of soil. Lot's of foliage but just a few spuds. I'm setting a goal of around 50 spuds. The guy that I got the idea from regularly gets around a hundred. Gonna go out and turn over the ground underneath where the bin is going and we'll put a couple layers of weed barrier on the frame so we don't get an invasion of grubs. This stuff is fun even if I can't count myself as a successful farmer just yet.

quote:

Originally posted by RainbowHed:
I've known people that have started their plants from seed in a basement or backroom without all the fancy gadgetry available nowdays. As long as there's no major temp changes and as long as you give them cycles of light, they'll supposedly do just fine. A ten dollar shoplight provides a pretty good light spectrum and if you install a timer, there you go.

We're gonna be trying to harvest the rainwater coming off our roof this year. I was amazed at how fast a 32 gallon trashcan fills up when I put it under one of the places where the water drains off. I've got an idea for making a screen with some hardware cloth, a frame and some weed barrier cloth.

The buckets that didn't kill our experimental plants, last year, had a 1 1/2" hole in the bottom. The ones that didn't do so good had a bunch of 1/4" holes. Gonna cut the big holes in the rest of them and use the gravel. Nanners and Hubbysez seem to have that science down to an art.

The lettuces in our cold frame are getting to the thinning size. The frame is small but it looks like I could get around 8 heads if everything goes OK. If this works well, I'll be expanding the frame next year. Fingers crossed.

In about a week and a half, we'll be planting our new potato bin. We're waiting on some late season seed taters to come in at the local nursery. They should be here anytime. With the bin idea, you just add medium as he plants grow. We've learned something about taters since we started trying to grow them in barrels, baskets and tires...The ones we were using were all early season varieties and only grow in the first 6" of soil. Gonna go out and turn over the ground underneath where the bin is going so we don't get an invasion of grubs. This stuff is fun even if I can't count myself as a successful farmer just yet.

I'm trying an old "chick brooder" that I installed a thermostat on and heat with light bulbs and placed in the unheated garage. So far the temp has been stable at 70 F but the light bulbs don't give enough heat to allow the thermostat to kick out where I'd like around 75.

One of the bulbs is a 60 watt grow light and the other is a regular incandescent (for the heat). Hopefully this week end, I'll have a chance to look at it and check for air leaks and see what I need to make it more efficient. I'm starting to think that the aluminum reflectors that were on the lights when it was a brooder should have been left in place to reflect the heat downward and radiate the infrared heat from the heated aluminum.
I used to raise pheasants and quail and the brooder set up worked fine for them but I had the reflectors on the bulbs then.
Some of the stuff has been stored and tossed around in the barn and gotten broken but I'd like to get one working first where it cycles with the thermostat and then maybe set up another for some later stuff.
Right now I only have peppers and tomatoes in the heat and I'd like to get a flat of artichokes (which take less heat) started but the single brooder doesn't have room.
I'm watching one of the 10 day models that show fairly strong arctic air possible around the weekend of feb. 10-12 with an upper level storm to the south in texas and a big chunk of the arctic air moving S from Canada. Unisys fine tunes the far end of the model as time passes so it could go either way. It would be helpful to fruit growers if the arctic vortex would start to break up soon instead of waiting until march or april when everything is bloomed out.
The surface vectors on the map indicated fairly strong N wind as it approaches, It would pay to keep an eye on this one because there is the possibility for some of the coldest air this season for the entire E 2/3 of the country. The 10 day models are still fairly unreliable but still better than no information at all.

Here is the link to Unisys 10 day, the 1000 millibar is for wind and temps at the surface, the 850 millibar is at the cumulus cloud level and the 300 millibar is at the upper jet stream level. The SL pres/Prec shows predicted precipitation areas and all can be animated by clicking "loop". The 10 day outlook will change for better or worse, the 5th day is fairly credible. This is the first forecast this winter that has shown the arctic air moving this far south but the arctic air will move sooner or later and later is when we get late freezes that do a lot of damage to everything.

http://weather.unisys.com/gfsx...p/gfsx_1000_loop.gif

We do have another nice chance of rain here this Friday but the model is unclear about precip areas around the arctic air for the next weekend..

May get out and cut a little wood this weekend so I'll have some green hackberry logs just in case the Unisys model is on track for the following weekend. May have to put a "blanket" over the brooder to hold the heat.

I bought some of the little seed starter kits that have a clear plastic cover to trap heat. They are designed to sit on the window sill and use sunlight. At night I can move them down to sit on the heating vents and keep them warm that way.

I may try some containers this year, just to play around with them and see what I learn from it. I think anyone who plans to garden in the time ahead needs to learn the best ways to adapt to whatever extremes we might be facing, and find what will work best in the situations we'll be in.

Keeping rain water is a good idea too, for as long as we're allowed to collect it. I recall a bill in the works, or talk of one anyway, where the Feds are planning to, or have, laid claim to all water, and that includes precipitation. I'll have to research on that when I have time to see if anything really came of that, yet, or not.

I guess the portable containers would be the best to use for collection, in any case.

quote:

Originally posted by Celtic Warrior:
I bought some of the little seed starter kits that have a clear plastic cover to trap heat. They are designed to sit on the window sill and use sunlight. At night I can move them down to sit on the heating vents and keep them warm that way.

I may try some containers this year, just to play around with them and see what I learn from it. I think anyone who plans to garden in the time ahead needs to learn the best ways to adapt to whatever extremes we might be facing, and find what will work best in the situations we'll be in.

Keeping rain water is a good idea too, for as long as we're allowed to collect it. I recall a bill in the works, or talk of one anyway, where the Feds are planning to, or have, laid claim to all water, and that includes precipitation. I'll have to research on that when I have time to see if anything really came of that, yet, or not.

I guess the portable containers would be the best to use for collection, in any case.

I don't have squatter's rights to the window sills in my home so I have to try other methods that so far haven't been so successful. (Lol for lack of other appropriate response)

quote:

Originally posted by Truth Lives:

quote:

Originally posted by Celtic Warrior:
I bought some of the little seed starter kits that have a clear plastic cover to trap heat. They are designed to sit on the window sill and use sunlight. At night I can move them down to sit on the heating vents and keep them warm that way.

I may try some containers this year, just to play around with them and see what I learn from it. I think anyone who plans to garden in the time ahead needs to learn the best ways to adapt to whatever extremes we might be facing, and find what will work best in the situations we'll be in.

Keeping rain water is a good idea too, for as long as we're allowed to collect it. I recall a bill in the works, or talk of one anyway, where the Feds are planning to, or have, laid claim to all water, and that includes precipitation. I'll have to research on that when I have time to see if anything really came of that, yet, or not.

I guess the portable containers would be the best to use for collection, in any case.

I don't have squatter's rights to the window sills in my home so I have to try other methods that so far haven't been so successful. (Lol for lack of other appropriate response)

I have two sills that I can use fulltime, and one that I can use parttime, and also 1/2 of a patio door that I can use.

As for the Feds and water, I think what I was thinking of was S.787 the Clean Water Restoration Act of 2009/10. Not sure if it passed, or if the wording in it was/is vague enough to extend to precipitation or not. I know in many western states rainfall is not allowed to be collected. Colorado is one that has that on the books, I believe. Anyway..lots of things going onto the table, some are shelved for later, some are pushed through. Until such time as BB decides to enforce to the full extent, just carry on as we always have!

And hope for the best.

One site I'm subscribed to, recommended using egg shells to start seeds in. You can just crack the bottom and plant the seedling in the shell, into the ground.