Today is Thursday, the weather is cloudy but calm and the temperature is in the 70s, great gardening weather. I expect many of you are putting your sub-tropical tomatoes, peppers and eggplant out in the garden as I am. In fact, there are only four big healthy transplants of tomatoes and two eggplants set out as of today. Two are my favorite Cherokee Purple, a wonderful heirloom; another is Sun Gold, a favorite small yellow cherry type, and another large that lost its label: only 12 more tomato vines, two more eggplants and four sweet peppers to find room for.

Oh, but days like this make a gardener feel so alive. After each paragraph or two I'll run out and do one of the dozens of chores still to be accomplished. Winds have not been able to permanently ruffle the lovely delicate-looking bearded iris that grow here and there along the paths; they're blooming in clumps like waving flags of ethereal orchids, pale-blue, glowing whites, plumb-purple, burnt-umber with just a flicker of orange.

By now you should be harvesting onions and perhaps stealing a few baby leaves from the greens garden. If not, there is still time to set out kale, plant lettuce and mustard, radish and other cole crops, green beans, limas, black-eyed peas, cucumber, squash, okra, gourds, etc.

This year, I bought plants from local greenhouses and the Farm Market instead of growing them from seed. Since they were small plants they were purchased in mid-March and early April. By the time they were potted and repotted several times, they were a quarter-grown by the time they went into the garden.

The mixture I concocted to put in the pots: one-fourth commercial mix, one-half mature compost that composted through the winter and one-fourth worm castings. This is the first time worm castings have been added but it won't be the last. The vegetables thrived as never before. Even the four okra plants are fat and healthy, already adjusted to the outside.

From now on I'm mixing several cups of worm castings with each tomato vine, pepper plant and eggplant as they find their place in the garden among the flowers. Also the castings will go into the upper two inches of the rows of other vegetables, the kale, Swiss chard, etc.

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The photo that accompanies this article I took in one corner of the garden in mid-May of last year: pink yarrow, pink hollyhocks, dark pink Salvia gregii with blue and white larkspur in the background. Behind the flowers, reaching for the sky is Maiden Grass. I like the contrast of flower forms and the various textures of the grasses -- the Maiden's sharp thin blades at the back and the seeded fescue in front -- framing the small pink, white blue and flowers contrasted with the lacy yellow yarrow's flowers and its strange palmate leaves. (Guys, I didn't plan this pleasant grouping, it just happened.)

Before we get any further into the garden season, I want to tell you about a dandy map, the Oklahoma Agritourism Map: Oklahoma's Growing Adventure. Did you even know there was agritoursim in our state?

There are 500-plus farm and ranch attractions, vacations and events listed and located by symbol on the map. The map is divided into 6 state regions: N.W., Central, N.E., S.E., South-Central and S.W.

Each section of the map is a different color with the cities and symbols for the attractions in their counties. You will be able to find birding tours, country stays, guest ranches, exotic breeds of animals such as alpacas, emus and buffalo, farm and ranch attractions, farmers markets (Norman's farm market is there), horseback riding, hunting, mazes through corn and wheat fields and special crops and products. That's just the beginning.

To learn more about this exciting development go to the Web at www.Oklahomaagritourism.com.

Hoorah! John Argo and I with the help of Evan, who did the hard work of digging the post-holes, spacing each post exactly 96 inches apart then pouring quick-crete around the posts, we have a new stockade fence between our yards.

There's a storm brewing outside, the lightning and thunder is getting fierce. I must end this column and send it to The Transcript so that the computer can be unplugged. Let's hope there is no hail in all that sound and fury.

Betty Culpepper may be reached at bculpepper3@cox.net for comments, questions or ideas for future columns.