OSU Vegetable Fact Sheets

Find guides on caring for vegetable gardens

Brian Jervis: Ask a Master Gardener

Saturday, February 6, 2016

Q: Do you have information about when to plant different vegetables? R.M., Sand Springs

A: OSU has some excellent guides about how to grow and care for your vegetable garden. The Master Gardener office, located in the OSU Cooperative Extension Service building at 4116 E. 15th St., is a busy place in the spring and a lot of the activity is vegetable-related.

There are several useful vegetable fact sheets, which are frequently requested and are available as a free service in our office and online. Master Gardeners are available by phone or by visit in this office from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday to answer any questions that you may have about vegetables or gardening in general.

Fact sheets may be obtained one of several ways. First is directly from the office, as described above. Another way is to go to the Master Gardener’s website at tulsamastergardeners.org and look for vegetables, found in the drop-down menu of the Lawn and Garden section. These may then be printed for your convenience. By no means are all of OSU’s useful gardening fact sheets listed there, but it includes the key ones.

Yet another route to the fact sheets is to access the “print on demand” (PODS) area on the OSU Extension website. This site gives one access to all of the thousands of OSU fact sheets. Many are related to commercial agriculture.

The quickest and easiest way to search for a fact sheet if you know the name, number or have a general idea of what you want is to go to a search site such as Google, and type in Oklahoma State and the name, number or topic of the sheet you need. This bypasses several steps for the search.

The fact sheets that are in greatest demand by vegetable gardeners in the spring are listed below with a brief description about content:

·        F-6004 Oklahoma Garden Planning Guide: This lists most all of the vegetables grown in Oklahoma and describes how and when to plant, along with days to maturity. This is the No. 1 sought after fact sheet.

·        HLA-6032 Vegetable Varieties for the Home Garden In Oklahoma: Individual varieties of a vegetable that do well in our area are listed.

·        F-6436: Healthy Garden Soils: This is an approach to preparing soils using Organic Gardening techniques.

·        F-6007: Improving Garden Soil Fertility: General information about planning a garden and correcting for any deficiencies

·        F-6033: Raised Bed Gardening: The best approach for gardening if you have unfavorable soils.

·        F-6020: Growing Vegetable Transplants: How and when to start, care for and transplant sprouts.

·        K-State: Top or Side Dressing Nitrogen Fertilizer for Vegetables and Ornamentals: While not an OSU document, this is a useful list on how, when and how much fertilizer to use on different vegetables.

Garden tips

Early February through March is the recommended time to plant strawberries. It is important to plant them in full sun and in well-drained soil. There are several types to choose from. June-bearing varieties do best in our area. They have a single crop usually early May to mid-June. Ever-bearing strawberry is another variety, which fruits May to June, a few during summer and again in the fall. The quality and size of this type of strawberry plant may not be as good as June-bearing varieties.

For full information about plant selection, planting and care of strawberries in your garden, obtain OSU fact sheet "Growing Strawberries in the Home Garden" online or in the Master Gardener office.