Rodd's Seeds of Wisdom Horticultural tips and tricks from Rodd Moesel

Spring slowly inches closer with longer days, brighter sun and more warm days and our gardening opportunities expand every week.  Our lawns are ready for pre-emergent weed killers to prevent crabgrass, sandburs and other summer weeds from germinating and competing with our turf grass in the warm season months.  Apply the herbicides alone or with your first round of seasonal fertilizer as a weed and feed combination.  Timing is critical on this effort and should be done right now or before the redbuds come into full bloom for best results.

This is a great time to prepare your vegetable gardens and flowerbed for later plantings.  Till or work the soil, removing any intruding grass roots, adding organic matter like sphagnum peat moss, aged compost or fine bark to add humus to your soil.  This will acidify your soils, improve aeration and greatly increase water holding capacity.

This is the best time to prune roses and summer flowering shrubs and most of your other trees and shrubs before they produce their spring burst of new growth.  If you prune now that burst of spring growth will come from the buds just below where you prune.  Some plants like roses respond well to their canes being cut back hard to 8” to 14” tall while others like crape myrtle are often cut back hard but should be trimmed more lightly to shape them instead of harsh cut backs which will dramatically reduce your summer flower spectacular.

Do not prune spring flowering shrubs or trees like forsythia, quince, spirea, red buds, dogwood and azaleas until after they bloom as you will sacrifice all the flowers that are ready to pop on the old wood from prior growing seasons.  This is a great time to feed your trees and shrubs to fortify the roots and strengthen the plants before they burst into growth for the new season.  You can greatly reduce many pest problems on trees and shrubs later in the season by spraying dormant oil now to control galls, mites, overwintering aphids and other pests.  If you have had or want to prevent peach leaf curl on your peach trees spray them with a fungicide before the buds swell.

Food gardening is in full swing for all the cool season crops.  It is time to plant bareroot or container grown strawberries, grapes, blackberry, raspberry and blueberries to enjoy for years to come.  Plant seed potatoes, onion plants or onion sets, asparagus, rhubarb, or horseradish from now until St. Patrick’s Day or mid March.  Plant seeds of cool season leafy crops like leaf or head lettuce, cabbage, spinach, cauliflower, kohlrabi and Swiss chard.  It is time to plant seeds of root crops like radish, carrots and turnips to harvest fresh produce from your yard for your dinner table.  Most of these seed crops can be grown in ground beds, decorative containers, fabric grow bags or even hay bales.  You can start seed of warm season vegetables like tomatoes or peppers inside now but don’t take them outside until mid April or after our last chance of freezing.

There are many things we can now do in the yard so pick a few to tackle and enjoy your times outside when we are blessed with pretty days.

We have had some beautiful winter weather days recently with just a couple of hard cold fronts interrupting the fun.  Working in the yard last weekend I saw my first dandelions in bloom and noticed the daffodils and hyacinths had already popped from the ground.  I could even see the future flower buds tightly wrapped in that first thrust of leaves.  Spring flowers are not far away.  As the days get longer and the Oklahoma earth starts to green up with our cool season crops there are many more things we can do in the yard and garden.

This is the best season of the year to control summer weeds in your lawn by applying pre-emergent herbicides or weed killers from now until the redbud trees bloom later this spring.  Most pre-emergents will work like birth control for weeds for six to twelve weeks after they are applied and watered in.  They work by killing the crabgrass, sandburs or other weeds as they start to emerge or sprout from their seeds over the next six to twelve weeks depending on the herbicide selected.  Visit with your local nursery or garden center to select the right herbicide to use with your turf type and yard conditions.  You can apply herbicides as a granular to spread or as a liquid to spray.  You can apply as a pre-emergent weed killer only or in combination with a fertilizer often referred to as “weed & feed” products.

Vegetable or food gardening is kicking into high gear for many of the cool season crops that can tolerate the freezing we are likely to get for another two months or so.  You can start warm season vegetables or ornamental flowers indoors under lights or in good window light but they should not be planted outdoors until mid April or later.   This is the time to plant onion plants and onion sets, seed potatoes and seeds of cabbage, cauliflower, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, head lettuce, leaf lettuce, green peas or spinach.   You can also plant seeds of root crops like carrots, radish or turnips now.  This is the season to plant perennial food crops like strawberries, rhubarb, asparagus and horseradish as bareroot crowns or plants.   Plant bareroot grapes, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries or boysenberries to start your own berry patch to harvest for years to come.  Bareroot fruit trees can be planted over the next few weeks to start your own orchard.  Many of these crops will be available container grown that you can plant later in the season but you have a brief window over the next few weeks to plant thembareroot. Make sure to water all new plantings thoroughly.

You can prune most trees, shrubs and vines at any time of year but a good time on most crops is right now before the new growth sprouts out.  There are important exceptions.  Do not prune early spring flowering shrubs like forsythia, quince, wisteria or spring flowering trees like crabapple, redbuds and ornamental peaches and pears as this will cut off the flowering wood and cheat you out of their spring flower show.  Wait to prune these early spring flowering trees and shrubs until after they bloom.  This is the time to prune your rose bushes and may of your other summer flowering shrubs or evergreens before the growing season kicks into full gear.

Get your flowerbeds ready, start planting cool season crops, apply your first rounds of fertilizer and weed control

The days are getting longer and spring is inching ever closer.  We are at that season where we can do lots of planning, thinking or ordering but it is still too early to do most things in the garden.

Veggie growers can start planting seed potatoes, onion plants and onion sets from early February to mid March.  These root crops are really easy to grow in well drained soil or above ground in decorative containers or the innovative smart fabric pots.  You can start onions from onion sets which are like a bulb or onion plants which have been grown from seed, and then the sprouted onions are pulled bare root from the ground and are available in red, white and yellow varieties for you to grow your own fresh onions.  The early planted onions will grow bigger hamburger style onions than the later planted onions because they are sensitive to day length and later plantings won’t make as large as an onion.  Start potatoes by buying seed potatoes in white, gold, red or blue/purple then cut the potatoes in pieces making sure to have one or more “eyes” on each chunk that can then sprout and grow a new plant to produce a fresh crop of potatoes. The potatoes at the grocery store have generally been treated to prevent sprouting and do not make good seed potatoes.  You can buy untreated seed potatoes at your local garden center.

February is also the season you can start planting bareroot perennial food crops like strawberries, rhubarb, horseradish, grapes, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, boysenberries, gooseberries and youngberries.  Berries have become very popular as people have realized their high levels of antioxidants and great nutritional value.  You can buy the strawberries as bareroot transplants in spring bearing or everbearing varieties.  The spring bearing plants produce one major crop each spring while the everbearing have fewer fruit at once but produce over an extended season.  Rhubarb, asparagus and horseradish are available as bareroot crowns that were dug from their growing fields, bare-rooted and available at garden centers for you to buy and transplant into your home garden.

February to mid March is the best time to take action to control crabgrass, goatheads, sand burrs and other summer weeds in your lawn.  Pre-emergent herbicides are the easiest way to control these problems but they must be applied before the weed seeds ever germinate.  Most of these pre-emergents work for six to twelve weeks after application as a prophylactic to prevent the weeds from sprouting.  There are a number of different products available as either an herbicide (weed killer) only or combined with fertilizer to be a weed and feed type product.  Your local nurseryman can help you pick the best product based on your chosen lawn grass and the weeds you are battling.  Most of the best products contain one or more of the following pre-emergent herbicides; Balan, Treflan, Dimension, Gallery, Barricade (Prodiamine), TEAM or Sulfentrazone.

Over the next week or two we can begin planting the cool season vegetables and berries and applying pre-emergent weed killers to our lawns.  The list of things we can do outside will start growing rapidly as we warm up.  .

Rodd Moesel serves as President of Oklahoma Farm Bureau and was inducted into the Oklahoma Agriculture Hall of Fame.  Email garden and landscape questions to rmoesel@americanplant.com.