Planning a New Vegetable Garden

Planning a New Vegetable Garden

Brian Jervis: Ask a Master Gardener

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Q: This year, I am going to plant my first vegetable garden. Any suggestions? EC

A: Congratulations for deciding to take the plunge into growing your own delicious veggies. Your question is more than we can cover in this article, but here are some tips to get you started.

First, you will need to decide what kind of garden you are going to plant, as there are a lot of options.

If you are planning on doing what we call an in-ground garden, your first job will be to clear an area. This typically involves getting a soil tiller to loosen up the soil and get you started on removing the existing grass (no small task). The next step would be to get a soil test (we have instructions on our website at tulsamastergardeners.org).

Without a soil test, you are really flying blind in knowing how to amend your soil. A soil test will tell you the levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, as well as your soil pH. These are all important and will make a difference in how successful you are with your garden.

If you are not going to do an in-ground garden, you have a variety of options, the most popular being a raised bed or container garden. Because you are a beginner, we might suggest starting with a container garden. Almost any container can be used for this purpose. Just be sure there are holes in the bottom of your container to let the water drain or your plants will be sunk before you start.

Speaking of water, be sure to consider the proximity of a water source — the closer the better — because you are going to be spending a fair amount of time watering your plants to help them through our Oklahoma summers.

And, of course, you will have to decide what you are going to grow. We suggest growing what you are going to eat. If you only kind of like tomatoes, don’t plant a lot of tomatoes. This seems pretty obvious, but each year, some gardeners seem to be begging people to take some of their abundant tomato crop off their hands. Another vigorous producer is okra. It’s pretty easy to grow, and each plant produces an abundance of okra, so a couple of plants might be all you need for your home garden. You can find information on when to start your plants and which veggies do well in Oklahoma on our website.

Feeling overwhelmed yet? Well don’t be. Our Urban Gardener series of classes will be starting in a few weeks, and these classes can help you become a more successful gardener. The classes are from 6-8 p.m. Thursdays for six weeks starting March 5. Each evening, we will cover different topics, which include how plants grow, soil management, vegetable gardens, pollinator gardens, trees and shrubs.

You can sign up for these classes on our website. If you are interested, don’t delay because these classes typically sell out.

Good luck and happy gardening!

Garden tips

• Even though there may be adequate moisture in the ground, it is normal for evergreen broad-leaved shrubs to appear “wilted” during extreme cold. This is rapidly reversible after the temperatures warm. This is a way some plants have in dealing with the cold.
• Try to keep fallen leaves off newly seeded fescue. Fescue is capable of growing roots in winter unless the ground gets extremely cold. A good root system will help fescue to better tolerate the heat next summer. To grow roots, the grass needs sunlight.

Resolve to Grow A Better Garden This Year

Resolve to Grow A Better Garden This Year

Tom Ingram: Ask A Master Gardener

Sunday, January 5, 2020

First of all, Happy New Year. It’s a time of new beginnings, a chance to reflect upon the previous year and determine how we can do better this year.

It’s no different for gardeners. Last year, some of what we did worked, and some of what we did didn’t work. Our gardening successes were great fun, whether that was tending beautiful flowers or being the caretaker of delicious fruits and vegetables.

But gardening can be tough. Many things conspire against us, such as the heat, the cold, the rain, the lack of rain and the invasion of insects who think our garden was just for their nutritional enjoyment, etc.

But what about this year? What are we going to do differently? What are our gardening resolutions?

To find out the answer to that question, I polled the Tulsa Master Gardeners to see what their gardening resolutions were for 2020. Here is what they said (in no particular order):

• Do something in the garden every day so that the work doesn’t pile up.

• Don’t buy more plants until the last ones I bought are planted.

• Finally purchase the tools I have been needing.

• Clean and maintain my garden tools better.

• Keep a garden journal from year to year so that I can remember what worked and what didn’t.

• Do some stretches after being down on my knees for an extended time in the garden.

• Actually, have a plan for my garden rather than just buying all the pretty things.

• Try to stay ahead of the weeds.

• Actually, build in “garden time” into my day rather than just squeeze it in.

• Try some new plants rather than just do what I did last year.

• Divide some of my plants and share with friends so they, too, can have a jungle in their yard.

• Get a plan and stick with it.

• Lean more toward organic solutions.

So there you have it. You’re not alone. Surely, there is something, or maybe many things, on this list that resonate with your garden experience.

The Tulsa Master Gardeners not only feel your pain but also want to help you become a better gardener. Here’s some of the ways we can help:

• First of all, you’re reading one of those resources right now: the Ask a Master Gardener article in the Tulsa World. Stay tuned.

• You can also call our Diagnostic Center, drop by or email Master Gardeners from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday-Friday at the OSU Extension.

• Visit our website at tulsamastergardeners.org. We have an extensive website with an abundance of resources in our Lawn and Garden Help section.

• Attend classes. We teach classes throughout the year, such as our Urban Gardener series, our Lunch & Learn classes at the Tulsa Central Library and our classes at the Mother Road Market.

• Watch the videos. We have a new Garden Talk video podcast with lots of current and timely garden information for you. You can find it on YouTube, Facebook and on our website.

So, here’s to 2020. The year we keep our garden resolutions!

 .Garden tips

• Ornamental perennial grasses, such as pampas grass, may be cut back to 4-6 inches anytime in winter. However, because of winter attractiveness, most gardeners choose to wait until early spring to cut them back. All of the dead tops of these grasses should be removed by early spring, allowing sun to get to new growth.
• Liriope or "monkey grass" — which is not a grass but in the lily family — stays green year-round; it also benefits from trimming to 2-3 inches before new growth begins in spring. Liriope and all ornamental grasses will benefit from nitrogen fertilizer in spring when pruned.
• Prune fruit trees in January, February and March. OSU has a good fact sheet on pruning fruit trees, "Annual Pruning of Fruit Trees."

Pruning Trees and Shrubs

Pruning Trees and Shrubs

Brian Jervis: Ask A Master Gardener

Sunday, December 22, 2019

Q: I need to do some trimming and pruning on our trees and shrubs. Is now a good time to do that? MA

A: Pruning and trimming is an important part of keeping our trees and shrubs healthy as long as you know when to prune and how. It can also be a little tricky because now is the perfect time for some plants and not so great for others. Here are some general tips to help.

We prune for a variety of reasons: training and shaping the plant, thinning for better air circulation and health, removal of dead branches, stimulating new growth or flowers, or to keep plants away from our homes or other structures.

One thing to remember is to never remove more than about a third of the branches. If you do a good job pruning, your work will not be noticeable. It will look natural and not like you were trimming with a vengeance. This un-natural manner of trimming can be seen all over town in what we gardeners call “crape murder” (the over-aggressive trimming of crape myrtles you see in the photo and all over town).

Here are some general rules on when to prune.

Flowering trees, shrubs and vines typically should not be pruned in the winter as many of these set the flower buds for the next year in the summer. Most hydrangeas fall into this category (except the Oak Leaf variety). If you have not been getting flowers on your hydrangeas, have you been cutting back those dead-looking stems in the fall or winter? They can be a little unsightly, but the best time to prune these is after their blooming burst in the spring so they will have time to set buds for the following year. Other shrubs that fall into this category are flowering quince, forsythia, viburnum and wisteria.

Another group is the summer-flowering varieties, such as abelia, butterfly bush or Rose of Sharon. These should be pruned in the fall or early spring.

There is also a category of broadleaf evergreen plants like acuba, camellia, boxwood, cherry laurel, holly, mahonia, nandina and photinia. These are best pruned in the spring before new growth begins.

Tree trimming and pruning is typically best left to trained professionals. I know, a lot of us consider ourselves chain-saw warriors, but there is a difference between cutting up a branch that fell to the ground and successfully cutting that several hundred-pound branch off a tree. Typically, this type of work is better left in the hands of a trained arborist. Tulsa is fortunate to have several arborists to from which to choose. To find a good arborist, we suggest you visit treesaregood.org. This is the national database of arborists. Their website will help you find a local licensed arborist who will meet your needs.

We have an extensive list of different varieties of how to trim on our website. We also have a video on how to plants that include recommendations on when and properly trim crape myrtles. You can find this and more information on our website, tulsamastergardeners.org, by clicking the “Hot Topics” button on the home page. Good luck and stay safe.

Garden tips

·        All birds need and appreciate clean feeders and unfrozen water on cold days. Place feeders close to protective shelter, if possible.

·        Be sure to keep your Christmas tree watered to keep if from drying out.

·        Light prunings of evergreens can be used for holiday decorations. Be careful with sap that can mar surfaces.

·        Newly seeded fescue will continue to grow roots and make energy if you keep them free of leaves.

Poinsettia Care

Poinsettias: How to Achieve Re-Flowering Next Season

Tom Ingram: Ask A Master Gardener

Sunday, December 8, 2019

Q: Each year I purchase a new poinsettia and each year I end up throwing it away. Is there a way to keep it until next year? CH

A: Poinsettias are our favorite Christmas plant with sales of over $250 million dollars each year. That’s a lot of poinsettias!

Poinsettias are the namesake of Joel Poinsett, the first U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, who first brought these plants north to the United States. In their native Mexico, they are a perennial and can grow 10 to 15 feet tall making a beautiful shrub. In honor of Poinsett, Dec. 15 is National Poinsettia Day which coincides with the death of Poinsett in 1851.

Believe it or not, the poinsettia has also been known by several names; such as the Lobster Flower or the Flame-Leaf Flower due to the red color of its bracts (that is what those red leaves are called). But good luck walking into your local nursery and asking where the Lobster Flowers are. OK, so enough with the history lesson, let’s get back to the question.

As gardeners we hate to just throw away a potential new member of our garden tribe, but some plants kind of nudge us to move in that direction. If you want to try and keep your poinsettia alive while encouraging it to develop those beautiful red bracts next year, here is what you are going to need to do.

1) At the first of the year you should fertilize your poinsettia with a good all-purpose fertilizer and provide it with adequate sun and water indoors.

2) Sometimes the plants can become leggy, so around mid-February, trim it back to around 5” in total height.

3) Mid-March remove the dried and faded parts of the plant.

4) Mid-May (after the danger of a freeze is over), you can move the plant outside to a place that gets indirect sunlight. Keep them away from locations that get hot-drying winds. Trim the longer branches back about 2 or 3 inches to shape the plant into a rounded bushy plant. Be prepared to replant if it outgrows its container. Continue to water and apply a house plant fertilizer at the recommended rate.

5) In late September, bring the plant indoors and place it in a sunny location. At this point the plant needs to rotate between absolute darkness and sunlight to begin developing that bright red color. To accomplish this, leave them in the sunny location each day, but place them in absolute darkness from 5 p.m. each evening and leave them there till about 8 a.m. Follow this daily procedure daily for about two months and you should you get good red bract color, typically by Thanksgiving.

Or, you could do what most of us do; enjoy them while we have them and purchase a new one each year.

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th St., or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org.

Garden tips

• Apply dormant oil for scale infested trees (crape myrtle bark scale) and shrubs when temperatures are above 40 degrees.

• If your roses have not been mulched, do so now. This is a good place to use those fall leaves which have been shredded with a mulching mower. Mulch not only will prevent cold damage to those plants which are susceptible but will prevent warming of soil on warm winter days which may promote premature cold sensitive new growth

Proper Mulching Around Trees

Avoid “Volcano” Mulch Around Trees

Brian Jervis: Ask A Master Gardener

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Q: As I drive around town, I see small trees and crape myrtles with very large mounds of mulch, kind of like a pyramid. Is that the right way to do it? VM

A: Master Gardeners call that a “volcano” of mulch and the No. 1 rule in the mulching handbook says, “just say no to the volcano.” More on the volcano later.

In reality, mulching your plants, trees, and shrubs (properly), is one of the best things you can do to contribute to their long-term success. Here’s why:

Mulch greatly diminishes the quantity of weeds. The protective barrier that mulch provides not only stops migrating weed seeds from making contact with the soil to take root, but also provides a barrier that diminishes the ability of emerging weeds to grow. Fewer weeds means more nutrients and water available for your plants. A good layer of mulch also reduces the time you need to spend on your knees pulling weeds.

Mulch helps regulate soil temperature. During the height of summer, exposed soil here in Oklahoma can vary by up to 40 degrees in a single day, with soil temperatures reaching almost 120 degrees at a 1” depth. When you use mulch, that daily temperature variant is reduced to only about 10 degrees. This provides a much healthier growing environment for your plants.

Mulch helps with water management. As you might imagine with the extreme soil temperatures of un-mulched soil, water management easily becomes a challenge. High soil temps cause the water to evaporate quickly. This increases the need for water, which directly corresponds to the amount of time you need to spend watering. In addition, more time watering typically equates to an increase in your monthly water bill.

Even in the winter, mulch can help retain moisture and protect your plants from cold winter extremes, decreasing the chances of those tender perennials freezing out.

There are a variety of mulch types you can use in your garden: wood chips, sawdust, straw, and even mulched leaves. As we are in the season where the leaves are falling or have already fallen, mulched leaves make a great garden mulch. You can run your leaves through a relatively inexpensive leaf mulcher or pile them in the driveway and let your lawn mower do the work.

After mulching, just bag them up, store them in an out-of-the-way place and next spring you will have your garden mulch ready to go. This also helps add organic matter back into the soil; something most every garden in NE Oklahoma will appreciate.

Now, back to the volcano. The main problem with mulch volcanos is that they are piled up around the trunk of the shrub or tree. As we have mentioned, mulch helps retain moisture and piling mulch against the trunks helps keep them moist, which contributes to disease and bark degradation … ultimately shortening the life of these plants. Mulching around trees and shrubs is great, just keep the mulch a few inches away from their trunks.

Remember, just say no to the mulch volcano!

Garden tips

·        Apply dormant oil for scale infested trees and shrubs before temperatures fall below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. This would include crape myrtles infected with crape myrtle bark scale. Follow label directions.

·        Continue to plant balled and burlapped trees.

·        Wrap young, thin-barked trees with a commercial protective material to prevent southwest tree injury.

Southwest Injury to Tree Bark

Southwest Injury to Tree Bark

Tom Ingram: Ask a Master Gardener

Sunday, November 10, 2019

Q: I planted a maple tree a few years ago and now the bark is split. What should I do? EH

A: The damage you are describing is likely what we call Southwest Tree Injury. It’s not called that because the ailment only affects trees in the southwest part of the country, but because it is damage that appears on the southwest side of the tree.

Southwest tree injury occurs during the overwintering of thin barked, oftentimes, freshly planted young trees.

During daylight hours, the winter sun warms the bark which causes it to expand. At night, the cold chills the bark causing it to contract. As this process repeats each day, the bark can be damaged, resulting in a split in the bark. Most trees do not recover from this damage.

You can see trees with this problem all around town, especially in new construction or in parking lots. New young trees are planted in small areas of the parking lot. The heating and cooling of the bark in winter is exaggerated because the tree is typically surrounded by asphalt causing more heat to be generated and reflected onto the bark of the young tree. Southwest tree injury is very common in these situations. The next time you are driving through one of these lots, look at the trees. If they are thin barked trees, they likely will have southwest tree injury.

Certain trees are more susceptible such as cherry, maple, weeping willow, and various fruit trees. However, this problem can be mitigated with a simple strategy.

As we enter the winter season, wrap the trunks of any newly planted thin-barked trees with paper tree wrap. This wrap should not be tight as you want circulation, but you also want it snug enough to remain in place. In the spring, as it begins to warm up, remove the tape. This process should be repeated for at least the first two or three years. After that, the bark should be strong enough to remain unaffected by the changing temperature. Most garden centers should carry this tree wrap.

Once the damage has occurred, there is not much you can do. The tree will try to heal the gap but is rarely successful due to the size of the damage. These gaps will make the tree more vulnerable to disease as the inner layers of the tree are exposed. But the good news is that you can avoid southwest tree injury with a little effort and a roll of inexpensive paper tree wrap.

Garden tips

-         Remove all debris from the vegetable and flower garden to prevent overwintering of various garden pests.

-         Cover water gardens with bird netting to catch dropping leaves. Take tropical water garden plants indoors and stop feeding fish when water temperatures near 50 degrees.

-         Start new garden bed preparations now. Till plenty of organic material into the soil in preparation for spring planting

Fall Planting of Bulbs and Pansies

Fall Planting

Brian Jervis: Ask A Master Gardener

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Q: Winter is so dreary for us gardeners. Any suggestions for something to lift my spirits? CH

A: You are right to some degree. After all the anticipation of spring: the planning, the planting, the waiting, and the fighting off the predators who seem determined to destroy our beauties, many gardeners find themselves with nothing left but memories this time of year. But here are a couple of things you can do to keep your gardener blood pumping through the coming winter.

Pansies

If you have never planted pansies you are missing out on a true winter beauty. We are fortunate in Tulsa since we have a variety of local growers who produce pansies for our local market. If you are a fan of “local,” pansies can’t be beat. They are also available in a large variety of colors: even an orange and black if you are so inclined (Go Pokes!).

Pansies require no special planting instructions, just loosen the soil, sprinkle in some garden fertilizer and plant: usually about 4-6 inches. It won’t be long before they will start to fill in with beautiful flowers.

Watering is something that can be overlooked during the winter, but your pansies, will still need to be watered from time to time depending on the conditions. With proper care, your pansies should be beautiful throughout the winter and early spring.

One of the main challenges we can experience with pansies is that they tend to really come on strong about the time we need to begin pulling them out to prep our spring garden beds. But if you don’t, you will likely miss some opportunities in the spring when the new shipments of flowers start arriving in the nurseries.

Bulbs

Planting bulbs is something else you can do now, but you’ll have to wait till spring to see the results of your efforts. We plant bulbs in the fall because they need the winter “chill” period to prepare them for spring blooming.

Tulips, gladiolas, and daffodils are great choices and come in a variety of colors. Planting bulbs is pretty simple with the depth of the planting hole depending on the height of the bulb.

First, loosen the soil, then dig a hole about 3 times the height of the bulb. Place the large end of the bulb down in the hole; sprinkle with a little fertilizer, cover, and water in. After that you can pretty much forget about them. Just remember where you planted them so when you start planting your spring flowers, they won’t get disturbed.

Then, sometime in the spring (depending on what you planted) these green shoots will start coming out of the ground alerting you to what is coming.

After they have bloomed and the flowers have disappeared, leave the leaves alone until they turn brown since they will still be helping to store nutrients for the next season.

Nothing like a little winter color and the anticipation of spring flowers to help gardeners get through the winter.

Garden Tips

- Remove green fruit from tomato plants when frost threatens. If they are green but full sized, they will ripen indoors. They do not need to be in sunshine to ripen indoors.

- Use a cold frame device to plant spinach, lettuce and various other cool-season crops for production most of the winter.

- Take tropical water garden plants indoors when the water temperature reaches 50 degrees. Also, stop feeding fish in the pond at this water temperature.