I don't do well with veggies, but I know a can't fail squash :) it grew so well for me I was walking them over to sharon's house in one million degree heat :)

I don't do well with veggies, but I know a can't fail squash :) it grew so well for me I was walking them over to sharon's house in one million degree heat :)

Good morning; I feel your pain. Four years ago, I moved to this "oven" AKA Oklahoma after 30 years in SE Montana, and have been wondering why since the first day. After three years of spectacular failures, it's getting better, but gardening here is a whole different ballgame from anything I'd known in Montana, North Dakota or Minnesota over my lifetime.

I've finally gotten rid of the goofy idea we have a really long gardening season. WRONG. We have two seasons, each about the length of what MT's one season was. Had my own water well up there, so even with only 12 inches of moisture in a whole year, could water as I wished. Here, on a public water line, it's like using liquid gold. Those two things ...long, hot summers and expensive water....have forced me to change, and things are looking better. Finally.

First, do a search for "desert gardening", " conserving water in the garden", etc. Google will take you all the way back to the Anasazi Indians and how they did it, plus many, many things the white man has found to work more recently. Mulching the heck of of everything is your main priority to keep stuff alive and producing.

Second, search the garden catalogs for "short season garden vegetables". Many of the tomatoes I'm using now are the same ones I used in Montana where they could not be put in the ground until after June 1, and could be frosted in August.....early September for sure. Tomatoes developed for use in northern North America....Montana, Canada, Alaska are what I'm using now. Most kinds of veggies have varieties intended for short growing seasons, and they are doing well here.

Container gardening in my area with rocks half the size of a bushel basket and red clay soil like cement has saved what little sanity I had left.

A couple of years ago, I slapped together a cattle panel hoop house for a dozen turkey poults that couldn't go out with the big birds. This fall, with no more turkeys, it got changed into a "kinda" greenhouse. It's in the back yard, on a cement pad that butts up against the east wall and south wall....an "L" made by the house that offers wind protection from the north and west and has an electrical plug in on the house wall. It's only four feet by eight feet in size, and not quite six feet tall, but I can reach everything from outside. It's covered on the east and south with some plastic I had stashed in the shop, and on the north and west (no sun access) with some of this foam bubble wrap insulation that comes in a big role.

Up until last night when the Alaska weather rolled in, there was no other heat, but looking at the forecast for the next 3 days made it seemed prudent to stick a small space heater in there, and make an "overcoat" of more insulation to cover the plastic. Just checked, and the temp inside is 54 degrees. 24 outside. It would have frozen without the help given by the heater and the insulation. Some light will also need to be added for a couple of days.

In it are peppers, tomatoes, thyme, sage, and artichokes. The Oregon Spring and First Pick tomatoes have 15 and 18 tomatoes on them with some starting to ripen (I did not get them seeded into containers until August 15.), and the Sweetie cherry tomato has several colored up. Fooled You peppers are continuing on from where they were....several ripe, many green, and some flowers still setting fruit. The sweet peppers are not as happy, but are hanging in there and should make it until spring when they can stay outside again and be happy in the heat....they've loved the past two summers in the garden.

I'm still experimenting, and will probably have to continue for as long as I'm living here, but with diligence and not a little work, it is possible to garden in OK.

If Google doesn't come up with a solution for you, try "Bing", "Yahoo" or some other search engine.

This site has several people who are experts on gardening here, and they're really generous with their time and answers, so just keep asking. You'll get there.

My next project is controlling squash bugs and slugs....never saw either up north, but they are alive and well in Okie land.

Good luck. et

Leava, I understand that you feel like you are leading the little lambs to slaughter, but on the other hand, if they are taught in the class just exactly how difficult the weather here can be (and will be), then they are going into gardening with their eyes wide open. I think that's a good thing because they'll have a better understanding of the challenges that lie ahead. Often, new gardeners think they'll rototill the soil, sow seeds and....then come back in a few months and harvest. Many of them underestimate the importance of proper soil preparation/soil amendment, irrigation, mulching and weeding. So, if they learn those things in the class, they'll start out their new gardening venture with a much better idea of what gardening actually involves and that ought to improve their chance of success.

It is important that all newbie gardeners learn that the idea we have a "long growing season" here does not mean that they can grow everything they want any time between February and November. They need to learn that the long growing season has multiple smaller growing seasons contained within it. I find that newbies in their first year or two do not really grasp that most cool-season crops go into the ground only between mid-Feb and mid-March because later plantings will not mature before the heat gets bad. They also generally have no idea that they can grow another round of fall cool-season crops by planting them from July through September. I mean, really, who wants to plant anything in July through September in our heat? No one does. But if you do it, and you keep them irrigated, mulched and weeded, you'll get great harvests most years. Around here, I see a lot of new gardeners give up in July when it gets hot. To me, that heat is just the signal that it is time to start the fall garden.

Proper variety selection is something they need to learn too, and they need to understand that tomato varieties that produce smaller fruit (anything from bite-sized tomatoes to 12-16 oz. tomatoes) will do better here than the varieties that produce 1 to 3-lb. tomatoes. The tomatoes that do best here are those with DTMs of 75 days or less. Those with DTMs of 80-90-100 days often do not set many fruit before the heat shuts them down.

Someone needs to teach the newbies that bush beans give a heavy yield earlier than pole beans, and pole beans need to be planted as early as possible so they can produce before (a) the heat shuts them down, (b) the grasshoppers and blister beetles eat all their leaves, and (c) the spider mites attack any leaf left behind by the hoppers and blister beetles. Once again, though, fall beans can be planted in July or August and will produce great through October, into November, and sometimes even in December if covered up with row cover on freezing nights. They also need to understand that if they can keep their pole beans alive through the July and August heat and onslaught of pests, they'll get great fall production but, if they can't keep them alive, it is okay to sow new seeds for a fresh bunch of pole bean plants.

If a hot summer threatens, the newbies need to understand they'll get much better production in June-August from okra, southern peas (purplehull pinkeyes, blackeyes, zipper, cream and lady peas, hot peppers and melons of all kinds, than from other veggies that don't tolerate the heat as well.

Someone needs to teach the newbies how to deal with pests naturally and organically to the extent it is possible to do so, and they need to understand that sometimes the pests will win no matter what you do.

More than anything else, they need to learn it all starts with the soil and that poorly prepared soil will not give them huge yields like they may get with well-amended, improved soil.

They also should be taught how to use row covers, low tunnels, cold frames, etc. to extend the season both early and late. That can make a big difference in how well their gardens produce.

Gardening is a wonderful "hobby" or "lifestyle" but the newbies need to be taught that, while they might not have great success in their very first year, they can expect that their harvests will get better year after year as they learn all the different ways to cope with the annual onslaught of weather disasters and pests and diseases. It is so easy for newbies to get discouraged and to give up. I feel like some of them give up too easily instead of using a tough year as a learning experience and moving forward to the next year with a lot of good experience under their belt and ideas about how the next year will be better.

That's why we all keep gardening right? Because of the idea that things will be better next year. : )

If I had friends on food stamps who were counting on the garden to supplement their meals, I'd have them focus on foods that produce a lot of food for the space involved....potatoes, onions and corn do that, and so do bush beans, cabbage (it is hard to fail with cabbage), sweet potatoes and (most years) tomatoes. Sometimes squash produces a lot, but the newbies need to understand exactly how big of a threat squash bugs and squash vine borers can be. If they are not able to successfully battle the squash bugs and SVBs, they could get nothing from their squash plants. Cucumbers can be a great producer, but only if you successfully prevent diseases from getting them. I always plant County Fair because it is the only variety that doesn't get bacterial wilt at some point every year. Those are the kinds of tips that help newbies achieve success even in a hard year. Lettuce can produce very well, but must be planted extra early because it is going to bolt once the temperatures are in the 90s. Most newbies plant lettuce too late. Often, new gardeners are in love with the idea of growing their own pumpkins and they want to plant round orange ones that make great jack-o-lanterns (if the squash bugs and SVBs don't get them) but aren't so great for eating. Well, pumpkins take up a whole lot of ground for months before they produce a single edible squash. I'd encourage them to plant bush-type winter squash from the C. moschata family because squash vine borers rarely get them and those varieties can be highly productive. Will they be as cute as orange jack-o-lantern pumpkins? No, but they will be food that can be eaten. It is the same way with watermelons. Often newbies will choose the varieties that produce 20-30 lb. melons, but those varieties take up a whole lot of space, need lots and lots of water to produce big melons, and don't produce a lot of melons compared to the space used. It is smarter in our climate to plant the mini watermelons that only get between 6 and 10 lbs. or so, as they take up a lot less space and need less water and produce quite a few small melons per vine (although a good muskmelon (cantaloupe) will produce more melons per square foot than refrigerator-sized melons will.

I think a gardening class is a great way for a newbie to get started, but they need to be taught in that class that gardening is a journey, and not a destination. They need to understand there will be lots of frustration, pain and misery along the way, but that they, as gardeners, will learn as they go and they'll get better at it the longer they do it. So often, nowadays, I feel like we live in a society where people expect almost instant gratification from the things they do, and gardening definitely is not an instant gratification process. It is long and involved (well, you could get almost instant gratification from growing radishes....but how many radishes will any one person eat??) and the successes are spread out along the whole timeline of the garden, as are the failures.

Finally, new gardeners need to know how much to plant. A friend of ours once invited me over to see his brand new garden. He proudly showed us his one row of tomato plants and three rows of squash plants (among other things). If he had asked me before he planted, I wouldn't have suggested three rows of squash plants for exactly two people.

Dawn

Radishes and leaf lettuce are fast and it doesn't take a large space to have enough for salads early before it is hot. A few potatoes for new potatoes early are easy to grow. I grew turnips and I hate turnips. Anyone can grow turnips. A small start with success is better than a huge effort that fails. People who are gardners have more experience than they think. My parents had a garden; I was growing things (flowers) when I was in second grade. A real newbe should start small and have fun.

Lisa, I agree on the squash, I like to plant 2 or 3 plants in case i lose one but this year i had so many it was ridiculous!

Elaine, I am hoping to do that kind of research this winter....

Dawn, thank you for your thorough post which made me wonder once again why gardeners garden....lol.....you are right though i can steer them around some of the obstacles.

Helen thank you for the input :)

as I read everyone's responses I am grateful, thank you :)

another obstacle I have to overcome is that I have found many people do not know how to cook from scratch and are addicted to convenience foods.......also it is really hard to coach those trained to a dependent mind set to take initiative and follow through.

we shall research and we shall muddle through.......

thanx again
Leava

Chard, collards and kale are no-fail for me, along with winter leaf lettuce , radishes and mustard. Armenian cucumbers, yardlong beans and cowpeas in the summer, plus okra. Corn can do well, planted at the right time, as can melons, but they need irrigation and fertilizer and are space/water hogs.

This reminds me of stories I heard on Thanksgiving. My senior friend's mother had a job demonstrating cooking with commodities years ago. People would get the government food and waste it because they didn't know how to cook with the food supplied. There was a story about rice; someone couldn't learn to like it because it was so gritty. They had no idea how to cook it properly.

I agree with y'all about many people not knowing how to prepare food from scratch. I'll have someone tell me they baked a loaf of bread, and then when I ask about what recipe they used, they'll say they bought a bread mix and put it in the bread machine....or thawed a frozen loaf and cooked it. To me that is not really making bread....it might be baking bread, or semi-making bread, but it isn't the same as making a loaf from scratch.

People who love to garden owe it to themselves and their garden to learn many different ways to prepare the food they raise. I've noticed a lot of folks start gardening first, and then develop into better cooks as they learn various ways to prepare their produce and turn it into meals.

If you are not a gardener and did not grow up around a gardener who raised edible crops, it is easy to lose touch with where food actually comes from. I'll never forget the time a friend of mine saw the little green potato fruit/seed balls that developed after a potato plant flowered....and said "look, there's a potato right there" (at least they didn't say it was a tomato!). I had to explain that the part of the potato plant we eat is the tuber part that grows underground, not the green seedball/fruit thing. Really, though, it is easy to see why a person who's never been around food being grown might not know which part of the potato plant you eat. Those are things I never think about because I grew up around all sorts of gardeners, and I am grateful for that. In fact, until I was a teenager, I assumed every family in the world had a veggie garden and fruit trees like our family and all our neighbors. When I found out some of my friends' families didn't have gardens, I felt like they were "deprived".

Well, a cooking demonstration could be the next step! Or have people share recipes.

Even for people who know how to cook, it is good to have new ideas.

Lisa