Gene, I hope your finger just missed the 'O' on the keyboard and you're not fed up with us so soon. LOL

Do you know about the Fall Gardening Guide from OSU? Many of us use it to help us remember what to plant and when. I'll link it below in case you don't know about it.

On the Spring Planting Guide, the earliest date is for SE Oklahoma and the last date for the NW corner. In Fall that is reversed. In OKC you would be in the middle so about Aug 15 for green beans, etc.

We were still 104 today so I have planted nothing, but still have a few things going from the summer garden, eggplant, peppers, black eyed peas, Zuchetta squash and some melons and winter squash that were planted late and stll haven't produced.

We did recently harvest a possum and planted him elsewhere, then I almost ran over an armadillo yesterday.

I'm sure it is going to take us all week to recover from our storm and get all the wood stacked, the limbs either removed or shredded then decide how I will plant in the future. I know I will have to build some raised beds to utilize the space that was once under the tree, but first we have to remove the rest of the tree trunk chunks and create some terracing to correct the elevation change. I rolled one log out today because they are too heavy to lift. I don't know if any of the shade lovers that were under that tree have survived or not, since they have had a hard week with wood and people all over them. Anyway, by making raised beds, I can use the space, but without them there would be too many roots. One thing is for sure, they will get plenty of sun now that the tree is gone, but I miss my tree.

I always plan to have a fall garden, but I don't seem to follow through with that plan very well.

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Guide for Fall

Gene, Unless it starts raining some, I won't plant much for fall.

So far, I have some tomato plants and pepper plants left over from summer. I cut back the tomato plants by about 80% and they now are leafing out and making new growth, so those will be my fall tomatoes. Usually I plant new ones, but with no rain fall and high temps around 108-111 for 2 or 3 weeks now, I didn't see any point in putting anything in the ground.

I have bush beans and southern peas with pretty short DTMs planted for fall.

Other than that, I'll probably plant carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, spinach, lettuce, purslane, a mescluln mix, Swiss chard and collards, though I may not get any of them in the ground at the recommended time. I can plant later and get away with it because I use floating row covers to protect them on cold autumn nights, and I am pretty far south and we often stay pretty warm down here forever and ever. I might or might not plant broccoli, caulifower and brussels sprouts. How much I do in any autumn depends on what the summer and fall wildfire season is like. If we are having lots of wildfires, which so far in our county we are not, then I am not around enough to have a fall garden.

This will be my first fall and first full winter with the greenhouse, so I will experiment with seeing what I can grow in it.

I still have winter squash, Armenian cukes, cantaloupes, okra, southern peas, Fowler bush beans, lima beans and watermelons clinging to life in the veggie garden which I am no longer watering, so they may continue to produce into fall if we get lucky and get rain once or twice in what is left of this month.

I neve completely replace my spring plantings with fall plantings. I just put in whatever fall plantings will fit into the places where I've ripped out previous plantings that are finished. This year it has been too hot to rip out much. I cleaned out two rows of large beefsteak and slicer type tomato plants in July and can put a lot of fall crops in those areas, but have plenty of paste tomato plants I can rip out now that I've canned all I want to can. It just is too hot to spend much time out there right now. If the cooler temperatures they're forecasting for later in the week actually do materialize, I'll be out there in the garden ripping out all those paste tomatoes so I can grow winter greens in their area.

Dawn

I planted melons 6-1 cantaloupe just before 7-1, green beans, purple hulls and early sunglow corn on 8-1, and plan on planting a few cole crops a little later. The green beans and corn are not happy with the weather. As of now the melons, cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, cucumbers and peppers are still doing good for the conditions. A few of my tomatoes are still alive and blooming, but the blooms are dropping.

The grasshoppers are doing very well. I tell myself every day that I am going to have to spray them, but I have not. I have not had the electric fence on in about a month and it looks like the deer sneak in for a snack every now and then. As it gets dryer I will have to turn the fence on or just give them the garden.

Larry

This is also my first year doing a fall garden, after several years of intending to but not getting around to it in time.

So far I have winter squash (3 varieties) and carrots already in the ground, and after dinner tonight I'll be seeding lettuce and transplanting some broccoli and brussels sprouts that I started indoors under the grow light.

During the next couple months, I'll follow the OSU fall gardening guidelines and putting in collards, kale, mustard, and swiss chard (no such thing as too many greens in this house), plus cucumbers and maybe radishes. Then I'll be trying garlic for the first time in October - I'm actually expecting my delivery from We Grow Garlic today!

"Hell to all." Lol

In this heat it sure feels that way.

Mike

Unless we get more rain, I won't plant anything in the open. If I get rain, will plant turnips, mustard, kale, radishes and mixed oriental greens in the open. I will plant both cold frames, each 4x4ft with lettuce, spinach, baby bok choy and fall radishes about the first of Sept. even if it doesn't rain. Then the first of Oct will plant the greenhouse with Swiss Chard, more radishes, carrots, beets, some of the onion topsets from the Egyption Onions, leeks, lettuce, spinach and maybe some chinese cabbage.

I have tomatoes started on the front porch to move to the greenhouse later. Also plan to start some cucumbers in pots to move into the greenhouse.

Whoops. How embarassing. I guess I fat-fingered the keyboard. If Teach Deaver were still alive she'd smack me silly for typing mistakes. If any of you know who Teach Deaver was, well, then it'd be a small world.

HELLO TO ALL, hope everyone is doing well. I really do appreciate all of you, it is a pleasure.

Maybe I should change my name to Gene The Bad Typist. lol

I got some peppers and tomatoes going right now, but beyond that it will be stuff I can direct sow after the heat in september. I am thinkings some bush beans, spinach, lettuce and the like. Not much I am in the process of "remodeling" the backyard so I am reduced to 4 4x4 raised beds. I am thinking of going hydroponic this winter.

Hi all. I have had some tomatos in the ground for a couple of weeks. I am trying the florida weave staking system, which seems to be working out well so far. I also have some purple hull blackeyed peas, DH loved the spring crop, and they are easy.

This week I am off work and plan to get some carrots, garlic and onions in the ground. Maybe start some fall flowers. Thankfully it looks like the temps are coming down some.

I did cut back some tomatos and pulled some that didnt survive the trimming. There are still some more to do.

My cucumbers are finally dying back. They are on the Northside of a stockade fence and were late getting going. I will be trellising them next year for sure! Ive done it both ways now, last year I trellised, the SB got them and I never harvested even one cuc. But they are just too spreading!

I have a hill of watermelons that went in after the onions came out. They are doing very well.

Lettuce will fit in somewhere too.

I finally have pole beans coming up. Had to replant after the first batch did nothing. Don't know why???

I'm thinking peas, maybe Brussels sprouts, carrots, lettuce, and that's about it. That is if I am feeling industrious after this ridiculous summer only.

Has anyone ever grown Gypsy broccoli?

Susan

I must first harvest my huge crop of Bermuda grass... grr. This is because I didn't mulch because I put my tomatoes and peppers in so early (March) that they got big fast and they shaded the soil pretty well... and then it got hot, and I got less motivated... etc. Excuses, excuses! Basically, no mulch = tons of Bermuda.

So I have to pull a crap-ton of Bermuda, then I will seed whatever seeds I have laying around. I've never done a real fall garden before but I want to try. I have radishes and lettuces for sure. I cut my tomatoes back 50-70% last weekend so they will now be fall tomatoes. Some of the garlic I harvested mid-summer as bulbs and stored in the garage are now looking like seeds? Like the garlic bulb just dried up? Very confusing. I'm sure I can plop them in the ground and see what happens.

Mia, your garlic will keep better in the house in air conditioning--unless your garage is also cooled. It's too late for this year's crop, but in the future I would be sure to store them out of the heat. They may go ahead and grow though, so if it were me I would try. I have often thrown dried up garlic bulbs out into the woods and had them grow.

Dawn-

I'd be interested to know how you cut back those tomato plants. Just lop them off at the stem? I know it's a little early, yet, but I'm planning for a big fall garden since the spring weather waffled so badly.

Yep, just lop them off. The key is that they need to be fairly healthy in order to regrow well, but they generally are. The timing can be tricky. You don't want to do it too early while they still are ripening a lot of fruit that already has set. You don't want to do it too late because if you do, they don't have time to regrow enough for set fruit and ripen it by fall. I cannot give you a date that I generally do it because I don't do it by the date. I just do it when it feels right and that can vary greatly depending on a lot of factors, but mainly depending on the weather.

Remind me later this summer and I'll tell you when I'm cutting them back, or if I'm replacing them instead of cutting them back.

I am going to have to decide by the end of May whether to start some seeds for fall tomato transplants for new plants, or whether to stick with what I have and just cut them back in mid-summer. Remember, too, that there is a third option---you can root cuttings from the summer plants as long as there's really healthy branches from which to take cuttings. Sometimes I do a combination of all three methods.

It is a hard decision to make in late May or early June because the tomato plants all look gorgeous at that point. You have to peer into the future and ask yourself what they'll look like in mid to late-July after battling heat, drought, and/or pests and diseases. There's been a couple of times I started seeds and ending up tossing the new plants on the compost pile instead of planting them because drought deepened so much that I didn't even want to put new plants in the ground.

Oh mah gollies. Ty ty ty I forgot about root cuttings! I only have 2 that made it and they're stunted. Otherwise, they're healthy with cute little black maur stunted tomatoes growing.

I hear ya. I dug at the lower end of the ploughed area and just decided it wasn't worth trying to irrigate. and it's sad because it holds moisture really well - but at the 5" level! And most of it is not amended or ready to plant. If we ever get any rain I'll cover it with mulch and let it sit until the end of summer.