WOW! I was complaining about 109 degrees here in the Valley. Never in my life have I seen such temps. in OK., and I was born and raised here! Sure hope this isn't the new weather pattern. Early morning is the only time I can do anything outside. I just can't take this heat, anymore. Stay cool up there in Jenks!

Jeanie

Jo, I have a mountain to the west of me, I went out to water after the shade form the mountain had us shaded, the temp was 110 at that time, soon dropping to 109. I just went by the thermometer and it was 101. I will pick up a coat and go back and finish watering.

Larry

I think Satan has left Hell and relocated. I also think him & La Nina have something goin' on....just sayin'....what other reasonable explanation is there for this HORRIBLE heat we're having?

We have a thermometer on our back deck in view of the kitchen sink window. It's the dial type...Grandson looks and tells us that it's "below 100" so that's his argument that it's okay to go out and swim. He's not here today but DH & I looked out at 11 am and told each other..."it's below 100!" which means it's way too freakin' hot. We're on well water so don't have to worry about water bills but STILL!!! We can't keep up with the heat! Our yard around the house is toast, literally. Beyond that has fried several weeks ago. The leaves on all our RedBuds are limp and hanging. Any of you that came to the Spring Fling know how many beautiful trees we have so you can imagine what it looks like here.

Jo - should we just form a caravan & move to Death Valley? At least we'd all be in our dream neighborhood. As far as leaving the hose running...I think I vote yes. Add a fan behind it please? Thank you.

Paula

Woe, you guys are getting the heatwave we had last week. I'm sorry you're having to deal with this. It was miserable. We had about fourteen days of 115 degrees. The hottest was officially 118 but we're always four to six degrees hotter.

We hit the lake on early Friday morning. Had a very good time and stayed over night with intentions to stay until Sunday morning. Goodness, we had to leave today as our three-year-old was showing signs of heat stress. Yesterday wasn't bad. Today, was horrible. It was only after we got home did we discover how hot it really is.

I think it is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Our fire activity is exploding here, and I need to head off to bed...I've only had 3 hrs. of sleep in the last 48 hours or so because of all the fire activity. If I'm not around much, y'all will know where I am.

It was only 107 here at our house, but out at the fires, it is unbearably hot, especially for firefighters wearing 20-30 lbs. worth of insulated gear. Today, one firefighter's rubber boots melted and she had to have them cut off her feet. I've never seen that happen before!

I've never seen grasshoppes in numbers like I saw them out in western Love County today. Never. They have billions of them out there, and it makes the grasshoppers here in our part of the county---and we have millions---seem like child's play.

I keep thinking about last summer, when Russia had all-time high temps that I think even went into the 120s and 130s and am hoping it doesn't happen here.

Drought and fire conditions are worsening so quickly here that I can't even describe it, but no doubt y'all are seeing a similar deterioration in your parts of the region too.

Stay safe everyone and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Know the symptoms of heat exhaustion and heat stroke, and remember that Heat Stroke IS A Medical Emergency and do not hestitate to call 9-1-1 if you believe someone is exhibiting symptoms of heat stroke. Our medics are having lots of heat stress/heat illness calls.

I'm afraid we'll run out of gardening topics to discuss, because if this heat continues, nothing will be left growing.

How many more days until winter?

Oklahoma is officially hotter than the Sahara Desert. Their summer annual is 90 - 110, which in many areas of OK we've blown that high away.

I am looking at all of my dead and dying plants in absolute disgust. I am at the point where I have to decide what to save, otherwise I'd be watering 24/7 and never see my kids.

I am letting the annual veggies go. I am letting the hostas die (will they come back next year?)

I am still going to try to keep my fruit trees and small evergreen row on the north side of my house alive. Also my blueberry bushes.

If I let the brambles die will they come back? Also, now that my strawberries are done producing, is it safe to let them die? I usually keep them watered until it freezes.

Jo

Jo,
I let my strawberries go to drought last year and they didn't come back.

I just came in from checking a separate section of the produce garden. Both the strawberry bed and the cantaloupe patch are simply lying limp in the heat, and they both got plenty of water yesterday. One of my young maples is having a terrific struggle, although one that's about 50' away seems to be coping.
The crape myrtle that gets afternoon shade is okay, but one that only gets sun is limp and the blossoms are shriveled. The rose of sharon are in the same shape, in spite of soaking them as often as I can.

My neighbor who raises fancy chickens commercially just told me that he lost his big silver lace Wyandotte rooster, and he was only a year old. So far they have kept the rest of the birds alive.

The only things that seem actually happy in my veggie garden are the frogs. They have discovered that it's shady under the big squash leaves and it gets water, so they are in froggy heaven. I have a bumper crop of them, I hope they are catching lots of bugs.

I've been in places where the temp soared to over 120. The salt flats outside of Winnemucca NV come to mind, but I swear, it wasn't a lot hotter than it is here right now.

Pat

113 has given way to 111. It's cooling down.

Here are my final 2011 garden pics. From now on only the fruit trees and bushes, and other perenials will be getting water. Oh, and Gary's trial tomatoes. The other annuals will be left to die. I don't see any hope of more rain or lower temps in the next 1-3 months, otherwise I'd keep plugging away.

I am an eternal optimist, and I have given up.

Here are my final 2011 pics.

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Jo

Joellen, I don't think I even want to talk to you any more. :-)

If you could see my nasty weed patch of vegetables . . . . oh, my. What I wouldn't give to have one that's as neatly groomed as yours is. Maybe someday, after we've done a whole lot of work on it. This was the first year of tilling up that particular patch and planting it. I guess I'll have to take a photo and send it in. At least it would make you feel really good about how bad you think yours looks.

Pat

Pat, It's 109 here now. Is it irrational that I have an urge to go water since we have cooled down so much? ;) My husband says he is going to get a coat before going outside.

There is something to be said for pretty, and there is something to be siad for functional. I have always wanted a good balance between Dawn's huge productive garden, and a lovely look-but-don't touch potager. I wanted it all, and I can't do it. I have the gorgeous garden of my dreams on the brink of death. Raised beds drain great but hold moisture poorly. I no longer think they are a good mid-west stategy without a great watering system in place.

And by watering system, I do not mean Jo holding a hose for 12 hours every day.

I am going to Michigan for a week, ten days from now. Highs in the high 70s to low 80s. I am taking the kids and DH will stay home and water. I need to simplify matters for him. He would have a conniption if I told him he needed to water 10-14 hours every day.

I am haeart-broken. My garden is pretty but extinct.

Jo

Hi Jo,

Just so you can see the ragged mess that I'm calling the veggie garden. And this is in spite of weeding, a heavy layer of mulch, using weed-killer before it was planted, and running the weed-eater around the edges several times.

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You can see the row of bush beans that I need to pull out. This is just an example of what I will not be doing again next year. A veggie garden, yes. One designed like this, no. Major revisions are in order.

Pat

Jo, I am so sorry about your garden, I know how hard you have worked on it.

I made a statement about a week ago that I was pulling the plug. I had planned only keeping part of my garden alive. I have harvested the last of my corn and planted buckwheat. I doubt that it will it will do much but I already had the seed and thought I would try. Two small patches of peas are starting to croak and one flower bed is about dead.

I had planned to get down to 100 Gal. of water per day for outside use and 100 Gal. per day inside use. My wife told me I needed to wash my clothes and bathe in the creek, I could also water my garden with sweat because there was no way she could clean up after me and preserve produce with a 100 Gal. of water a day.

Larry

Pat,

I owe the fact that my garden is low-weed all to cardboard. A trick I learned here. Most of my garden is covered with cardboard boxes, topped with straw. The weeds still pop up in an old section that I covered with weed fabric (worthless stuff). They pop up in the cracks too if you don't overlap the cardboard. I finally have the weed situation under control...I just wish there was some glimmer of hope that there would be some rain or a break in the heat in the next month.

Reading about people losing chickens and melting electrical boxes though has made me realize how lucky we are by comparison. But it still stinks.

Jo

Larry,

I just did some quick rough calculations, and based on my watering (7 hours every 3 days), I think I am using 14-21 THOUSAND gallons per week on the garden alone.

That is 2-3 THOUSAND gallons per day.

I need to look up my water bill pronto. I fear I am in for a huge sticker shock this month.

At best, if I let my annuals die, just keeping my fruit trees/bushes/evergreens alive, I think I can cut that in half. Still 1000-1500 gallons daily.

With your 100 gallon scenario, I'd only be able to water for about 5 minutes per day...enough to keep one or two trees alive. :(

Jo

Based on some very hasty calculations, Creek County Rural Water seems to charge roughly $3.50 per 1000 gallons. I am spending $7-$10 PER DAY on water. That is insane.

My winter water bills are $28-$30. I expect this month's bill will be $200-$300. Ten times as much. I'll have to add that to my spreadsheet. ;)

Jo

Okay, I think badly of myself for having the obsession to sift my yard dirt through a screen, but I really don't want to battle weeds under normal circumstances; much less in a brand new garden. Of course, I've no perspective of how bad weeding really is other than I've heard it's tedious and horrible at times. I still must do light weeding despite my efforts. I think I'll keep sifting. Thanks, Pat! I may have virtually weed-free soil but my plants suck. LOL

Some years I mulch heavily but I think it increases the pest problems in my garden so I didn't mulch much this year except tomatoes. Because I have had to water more, the weeds and grass have been horrible and it is just too hot to keep it weeded. Yesterday I had the soaker hose on and was pulling weeds from the pepper patch. The weeds came out easily from the wet soil, but I was wetter than the soil. At least the cold water from the hose was keeping me cooler.

I have quite a few peppers now but have only picked one bell. I didn't look at the label, but from shape and size I would guess it was a Big Bertha. Most of the other bells are about half normal size, but they seem to be doing OK. I still have lots of blooms.

The tomatoes are still very slow. I pick small tomatoes everyday but have only had three large slicers. Those were two Early Goliaths and a Nebraska Wedding. I pick a cuke or two everyday, but the vines are struggling. It's a rough year.

I haven't tried using cardboard. I've used the heavy paper feed sacks from the livestock feed, and they work for a while. When I use heavy layers of newspaper and wet it all down as I put it in place, it works really well. The problem is that, in every tiny area that is not covered, the weeds are flourishing. Naturally, I can't put anything right up around the stalks of the plants or they can't breathe. And keep in mind that this is the first year we've tilled and used this particular area for gardening, so it's going to take a lot longer to get it under control. It probably needs a tractor to plow and cultivate it in the spring, and we don't have one. A standard tiller only does a very marginal job of breaking it up.

I have such a weed problem here that I ordered professional grade weed fabric from DeWitt and installed it in the big flower bed, topped with gravel. It took about 90 days before the weeds seeded over the top, sprouted and then grew down through it. I called DeWitt about it and they said "What?!" I mailed them some photos and a sample of the cloth with the grass roots growing through it so they could see the problem. They just sent me a roll of heavy-duty industrial grade stuff that is used by engineers, and said if this doesn't work, then they don't know what to tell me. We'll see.

Jo, I know what you mean about a raised bed draining fast. I used one for my strawberries this year. It was in pretty good shape until it turned hot. Now I have to deep soak it every other day to keep the plants alive. It seems to take more water than the cantaloupe that are planted in the ground outside the box. The melons are mulched and the berries are not, which does make a big difference. By next year, the berries should have spread out to cover the whole bed, but in the spots where it's already done that, they still seem to be drying out pretty fast.

Since we're on a well, we don't have a water bill per se. But, what it does to the electric bill is not pretty. The bill jumped up $120 this month compared to what it normally is in the summer. I think the highest summer bill I've ever seen here was $240 and this time it was $360. Sticker shock indeed!

Pat

I really hope we aren't in for another hot summer. 2011 was horrible. Everything I planted died. Last summer was hot, but not as bad. They say we might actually be in cor a cooler summer- two weeks ago it was wonderful, and another cool front may be in the way- which to us okies, means a cool 90 degree high.