George

For me, January is the most boring month and I have to find stuff to do to keep myself busy. So, why not make compost, enrich beds...and bake bread (and other goodies) when we can't be out in the garden?

I have no idea what I'd do with all my time and energy if I wasn't a gardener.

Dawn

Manure and bread..............some call us hicks!!!

When I was a kid, we called the sudden, fast-moving cold fronts 'blue northers' and we saw them every now and then, but I think they are more common here in Oklahoma than in north-central Texas.

I have seen a couple of different types of weather here in OK that I never saw in Texas. One of those is "thundersnow" which is, essentially, a thunderstorm with snow instead of rain, and it does involve thunder and lightning. We see thundersnow here in southern OK about once every 2 or 3 years, but we had it twice one winter.

Another unusual form of weather we've only encountered since moving here is derecho winds. The first time we had one here, it was during the night and hit our house so hard that we thought the house had been hit by a big truck (would have been a neat trick because we're several hundred feet off the roadway). The wind was blowing at about 60 mph that night, and the temp dropped about 30 degrees in just a few minutes. I had many flats of plants hardening off on the screened-in back porch, and DH and I had to carry them inside in the middle of the night so they wouldn't freeze.

The next derecho a few years later was forecast on our noon news and the guy on TV said it would hit by 3 o'clock. He said if we went outside and looked northward, we'd see the front line coming and, because derechos move so fast (at least 58 mph), he said we'd hear it coming....so we went outside shortly before it was due and, sure enough, you could see it/hear it racing towards you.

Another type of weather I never thought we'd see this far north was the remains of either tropical storms or hurricanes moving all the way up here into Oklahoma and Arkansas. It has happened though (and more than once in recent years) and brought massive amounts of rainfall.

Living here in Oklahoma is a great way to learn about all kinds of weather precisely because we have all kinds of weather.

We're lucky our boring winter is relatively shortlived. I couldn't stand living somewhere that gets cold in, say, October, and stays that way until May. I like the occasional warm to hot day we have here in the winter months because it gives us a break from the monotony of cloudy, dreary, cold weather.

Dawn

We lived in northern Indiana for about ten years. I hated it because we got all that lake-effect snow. Snow is pretty at first, but when it snows upon snow upon snow, it gets discolored from pollution and what-all and can be quite an eyesore. Started snowing around Halloween and wouldn't be all melted till around Mother's Day. So depressing.

But I've experienced a wind like that, in Indiana. It was really weird. DH had just gotten home from work, and we were standing outside when the wind came up and the temperature dropped dramatically, within seconds.

One of the things I missed was the Oklahoma sky. Those beautiful clouds, the sunrises and sunsets, the blue, blue sky. We lived not far from Gary Indiana during the 1980's and the sky was always gray from the pollution of the industries there, and in nearby Chicago. We went to Chicago from time to time, and I found it so different from what they advertise. I didn't care for it at all.

We had sandy soil, and it rained a lot. I had a good garden there because we didn't get the oppressive heat that we get here, except for maybe two weeks in the deep summer. But I couldn't plant till late, and then I was done early. So it just didn't take up much of my time. I was young then, and had kids in grade school and a Brownie scout troop, so it's not like I had much time to spare.

I still have a few tomato plants and some bell pepper plants growing in the garden. I imagine it won't be much longer, though. It has been so warm that my Bright Lights chard and my Osaka kale have gone all to green. The peach tree is trying to bud out anew and lots of the zinnia seed that fell to the ground when I pulled the plants have germinated. A lot of the trees have not even gone dormant yet.

I have started collecting leaves again this fall. We've been lucky enough to find several bags of leaves on curbs while we're out going to garage sales on Saturday mornings. Some of them have been quite heavy and I've been concerned that we might be getting something in addition to leaves (eeek!), but when we get it home and open it, we find that the home-owner shredded the leaves and there are just a lot of them in there. That's quite a bonus for us. We try to be really careful that we don't pick up someone's garbage by mistake. I can remember a time when I would be embarrassed to be taking bags of leaves off someone's curb but now I don't give a rip what people think. Sometimes getting older has it's benefits.

Since the apple tree fell over, I have space in which to enlarge the garden, and so I'm needing more leaves than usual. Funny thing, though, the red delicious was wobbly, too, I thought I'd be losing it right away. But it has seemed to become stronger since the yellow delicious went down. I ordered a Two-in-One heirloom red/yellow delicious tree from Stark's and will plant it in the front yard where there are no obstacles underground. Our back yard is kind of a problem because before we moved here, the previous owners filled in an in-ground swimming pool. We don't know exactly where the pool was, so we apparently planted the apple trees over something that wouldn't let the roots expand.

I imagine it will take the rest of this month to get the garden all cleaned up and of course I'll be working on applying those leaves whenever we have a good day. We're in our second day of rain now and it's turned chilly. I might throw on my rain poncho and go out there and dump the bagged leaves that are already shredded so they can get wet and will pack down. But actually before I can do that, I need to pull up the last two tomato plants that are there. They have tomatoes on them, and I hate to do it, but the plants are growing up through a big length of stock panel that I laid on the ground to keep the cat from digging there, and I can't really put the leaves down till I get that out. I will probably bite the bullet and pull those tomato plants, surely it won't be very much longer till we actually do get a killing frost. Of course there have been many years when I wasn't paying attention, but I cannot remember when we ever waited so late for the frost before.

I already have my plant lights on, as I rooted some salvia that I couldn't seem to get any seed from, I brought in my stevia and scented geraniums, and I'm trying to root starts of both of those and some of my rosemary in water. I don't think the stevia is going to root, but all else looks green and healthy in it's water jar and I'm finally beginning to see some little root threads on the rosemary. (The rosemary that I transplanted from it's pot to a spot out in the raised bed in the herb garden is still green and doing well. I hope it makes it through the winter, as it's supposed to be hardy, but I've never had rosemary make it through winter before.)

Oh, and the starts that I dipped in rooting compound and then planted, have mildewed and died. I've tried rooting compound without success before. Does anyone use it and have good luck, or did I just waste my $5 for that little jar of white powder?

I remember when we first moved into this house, there was a lot of brush just outside the fence. We got 3 or 4 beautiful days in January -- shirtsleeve weather, in fact -- and we went out there and cleaned all that up. (we had moved here right around Thanksgiving) Which meant that we were doctoring poison ivy during Feb.

We're going to get those 45-50 lb more of Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkins out of the garden because, after two light frosts, we've had such mild weather. They've been maturing.

Hah! Ilene, Jerreth and I met at Moody Bible Institute, in Chicago. I had never been to Chicago, when my folks drove me out there, at age 18. I grew up in the woods and field. We drove through Gary, IN; just before getting into Chicago. I thought I was going to go to school in hell! By the time we got into Chicago... that city didn't look so bad!

Latter, when we were married, we lived in Winona Lake, IN. We had that sandy soil and IN weather. That was a great garden!

George

I've learned a lot about the weather since moving here and I guess that makes sense because our weather is quite active and diverse. The derechos we've experienced have been shocking in that the wind races through so quickly and you hear it approaching. Some derechos have clouds that spin (or seem to) horizontally and look sort of like sideways tornadoes, although I've only seen those online in photos or videos and not live. The ones we've had here just looked like a tremendously fast-moving blue norther.

Having always lived in Texas (at that time), I didn't understand why all of Tim's family kept saying "the sky is so big here" when they were in town for our wedding. Then, after we visited them in Pennsylvania, I saw what a small piece of the sky they saw on a regular basis and I finally understood it. I do think Oklahoma and Texas both have spectacular skies and cloud formations and some of the mostly lovely sunrises and sunsets.

My zinnias, Laura Bush petunias and Texas hummingbird sage that sprouted this fall from fallen seed are in bloom now although I think frost is about to get them. Today on the local morning news, Tom Miller used the words 'frost' and 'hard freeze' in conjunction with the forecast for tonight and tomorrow night, so that probably will finish off the garden, unless it stays windy all night.

Having always lived in/gardened in a hot zone 7/zone 8 climate, I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to live and garden in an area with a mild summer and rich, sandy soil.

Tim and I drove to Ardmore last week to run some errands, and I was shocked to see all the bare trees. I just didn't realize how many leaves had come down from the trees already. Many of our trees, especially those that sit between our house and the creek, still have a lot of their leaves, and some of those leaves are still green. I suppose it is because we are in a hollow (or, a holler, if you're from here.....and I think it is cute when they call it a holler, but I can't make myself say it that way) and our trees are on significantly lower ground than the neighbors on all sides of us. The wind today, though, may strip our trees because it is just blowing and going outside right now. Your cold weather is just now arriving here this morning....most of yesterday's rain missed us although we had a little misty stuff in the air.

My results with powdered rooting hormones have been highly variable, and I think I have had more consistent results from homemade willow water. Some people swear by rooting hormone, but it never has worked well for me.

Our first five years here, I spent most of every winter in the woods clearing undergrowth and brush. Then, Tim joined our local volunteer fire department that had only recently organized and come into existence, and ever since then the winters have been more about taking care of the firefighters than about clearing brush. I hope that a wetter winter means I can do more clearing of underbrush this year.

We have poison ivy everywhere, and many years it creeps into my garden beds on the northwestern corner of the garden which sits just a few feet from the woods. I keep those Technu Poison Ivy cleaners and lotions on hand at all times and I use them if there is even a chance I might have touched poison ivy. I also wear gloves when working in the woods because I never know what I'll be touching while I'm out there. I've only had poison ivy twice in my life (both times occurred after we moved here) and never want to have it again.

I love shirtsleeve weather in December, January or February and always take advantage of them to spend the day working in the yard, garden or woods.

Dawn