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

Two months of 2014 are already in the history books.  As we start the month of March the number of gardening opportunities expands dramatically.  This is the prime season to plant potatoes, onions, radish, carrots and most all the cool season “root crops.”  It is also the time to plant all the cool season leafy crops like lettuce, cabbage, Swiss chard, broccoli and cauliflower.  Over half of our United States vegetables are usually grown in California.  With their extreme drought well over a half million acres of vegetables are not even being planted this year since there is no water to pump for watering in many production areas.  As this season progresses expect big increases in vegetables prices from lettuce and cool season crops to the later season warm crops like tomatoes and peppers.  If there was ever a year in recent memory to expand your vegetable and fruit gardening or to start a vegetable garden this is the year.  Supply and demand at the grocery store will drive up pricing at the grocery store as this year progresses.  Most of these cool season crops will produce their highest yields if planted by Saint Patrick’s Day or for sure by the end of March.   Please exercise patience to plant the warm season veggies like tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and the annual herbs until after our last average frost in April.

There are many berry crops that can be purchased bare root to save money and planted now will provide harvest for many seasons to come.  This would include strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, blackberries and many others.  This is also the time to plant bare root crowns of asparagus, rhubarb and horseradish.  This is the time to plant bare root fruit trees to start or expand your own orchard and grape vines to start your own vineyard for fresh grapes or wine.  All these berry and fruit crops can be planted later in the year from container grown material but of course these will cost more as the nurseryman will have to invest in containers, soil, labor and production space to grow those crops.  You can buy them bare root and plant them in a well prepared planting hole over the next few weeks and reduce your cost and still enjoy a high success rate.  Bare root planting does not work well as we warm up in April and later. 

Even if you don’t have flower beds or a garden area you can have a lot of fun growing many of these vegetables in container gardens, raised beds or innovative above ground containers like the root control or fabric growing bags made right here in Oklahoma City.  If you grow your vegetables in a raised bed or container garden use a well drained prepared soil or use a good loam mixed with sphagnum peat, composted bark or other organic matter for best yields.

This is the very best time to apply pre-emergent weed killers to your lawn to prevent crabgrass and summer weeds that compete with your lawn for our scarce water resources.   You can apply the weed killer by itself or in combination with a spring fertilizer marketed as weed and feed product.  There are many good products and your nurseryman can help you select the best for your grass.  My favorites use Barricade, Dimension, Balan or Treflen as the active ingredient.

Take advantage of the pretty days to finish your pruning, to dig new flowerbeds and to plant more trees and shrubs as the real spring season grows ever closer. 

We have been enduring a really serious winter this year but we get to come inside were it is warm.  Our trees, shrubs, perennials and other crops have to stay outside and survive the cold weather, blustery winds, snow and ice that Mother Nature sends our way.  Last visit we talked about how dry we are and the need to water our broadleaf shrubs, trees and other plants so they won’t dehydrate.  We did receive a little moisture with these snows, but since these snows came at such low temperatures it was very dry snow and it takes 10 or 12 inches or more of these snows to provide even 1 inch of rain.  Please take advantage of a nice day to get your important plants watered if your ground is still dry.

 It hasn’t felt much like planting season lately but we really are into cool season vegetable and berry planting season as soon as the ground is thawed and you are able to work the soil and plant.  The prime season to plant seed potatoes, onion sets and onion plants is from Valentine’s Day to St. Patrick’s Day.  The weather hasn’t allowed much opportunity to beat that start date this year with our parade of snow fronts.  This is also the time to plant perennial food crops like rhubarb, asparagus, horseradish and the ever popular strawberries.   Strawberries are available in ever bearing varieties that will produce less fruit at any one time but will produce fruit over a longer season or spring bearing varieties that will produce more fruit in one large spring crop.  There are many varieties of each of these crops so visit with your local nurseryman to select the best varieties for your area.  The OSU Extension service does a nice job of evaluating varieties for Oklahoma and recommending the varieties that do best here.  

If you want to raise your own grapes, raspberries or blackberries this is the time to plant bare root berries and start your own berry patch from which you can harvest for years to come.  There are many other berry crops that you can grow and will provide very healthy eating including blueberries, boysenberries, gooseberries and youngberries.  

There are many cool season vegetables seeds you can plant now when the weather allows you to work the soil.  Select good seed and sow carrots, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, leaf or head lettuce, green peas, radishes, spinach and turnips.  This is also the time to select and plant good small starter plants of cabbage, cauliflower, and leaf or head lettuce in order to produce your own fresh vegetables.  These cool season crops can survive cold weather as long as they are watered regularly but they need time to grow and produce their crops before the heat comes as these crops will stress more from heat then cold.  Please wait to plant the warm season crops like tomatoes, eggplant and peppers until we get past our last average freeze date in April.

If you want to cleanup your lawn from crabgrass and other summer weeds apply a pre-emergent weed killer or weed and feed product to your lawn over the next few weeks.  These pre-emergent’s kill those weeds that compete with your lawn as the weeds try to germinate.   Hopefully it will feel more like spring and less like winter by our next visit and you will have been able to start your spring garden. 

As the days get longer the list of Oklahoma gardening activities we can tackle gets longer.  We have experienced some real serious winter temperatures this year and many of our broadleaf shrubs are showing some winter burn especially if they faced these single digit temperatures in very dry soil.  I dug holes last weekend to plant some trees and was shocked at how dry the soil was, not just at the surface but 6, 12 and 18 inches deep.  If you have not watered your trees, shrubs, perennials and pansies lately, please consider hooking up those hoses long enough to give any living plant material a good soaking.  When plants are living in dry soil and we get very frigid temperatures with low humidity, plants can become dehydrated and literally “freeze-dry” or get the winter burn that detracts from their ability to survive or at the very least will limit their energy for spring growth.  After either a good rain or this winter watering, is a good time to feed your ornamental, fruit, and nut trees as well as shrubs. 

This is also the start of the season to apply pre-emergent herbicides which act as birth control for crabgrass and warm season weeds before they germinate or sprout.  Apply as just a weed killer or combined with a fertilizer to act as the popular “weed and feed” treatment for your lawn.  The OSU Extension Service for many years has recommended you apply the pre-emergent weed killer by the time the flowers are done on the yellow forsythia shrubs or our native Redbuds.  These weed killers will control most weeds that try to germinate for the next 8 to 10 weeks after being applied and watered in.

If you plan to plant any bare root ornamental or fruit trees, roses, vines or berries they should be planted in February or March with the best time most years from mid February to mid March.   You can plant container grown trees, berries and roses most anytime of the year the ground is not frozen.  This is a good time to spray dormant oil on deciduous trees and shrubs when the temperature is above 40 degrees to control mites, galls, aphids and many other overwintering insects.  The dormant oil suffocates many of these insects and can dramatically reduce your insect pressure later in the growing season as there will be way less insect parents birthing thousands fewer young insects to feed on your crops.

 We are just beginning the season to plant cool season vegetable crops, especially many of the root crops that grow underground like potatoes, radishes and onions.  In central Oklahoma we often say the prime time to plant seed potatoes, onions sets or onion plants is Valentine’s Day to St. Patrick’s Day. Southern Oklahoma warms a little earlier and can start now as well the early birds in central Oklahoma.  You can also plant asparagus crowns, horseradish, rhubarb, spring bearing or ever bearing strawberries and a wide selection of berries.  Consider adding some grapes, blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, youngberries, boysenberries, and gooseberries to your yard.  It is a lot of fun to pick fresh healthy berries in your own yard to pop in your mouth or to add to your dinner table. 

 February is the best season to prune shade trees, hedges, roses and summer flowering shrubs.  Don’t prune spring flowering shrubs, like quince and forsythia until after they flower later this spring or you will cheat yourself out of much of their beautiful spring show.

The New Year 2014 has arrived and our lives have begun to settle back into some kind of normal pattern after all the holiday excitement.  This is usually the calm season for gardeners between the harvests and clean-up of last fall and the digging and planting of the spring to come.  This is the thinking and planning season for gardeners when all the new garden seed and plant catalogs arrive to tempt us with new varieties and new plant materials that we just can’t live without.  In the garden, as in life, it is always time well spent to reflect back on the successes and failures of the last growing season, to celebrate the new things we have learned and to plan for the next growing season.  Eleanor Roosevelt once said “It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan!”   That is a good reason to spend a little time here in the January & February gardening “off season” to plan what you want to tackle in your yard and garden this year.  Do you want or need to add more trees to your landscape?  Do you want to start a vegetable garden or make it larger or smaller?  Do you want to add a new flowerbed?  Are some of your shrubs overgrown and need to be cleaned out and replaced with young shrubs?  Do you want to start an herb garden, a butterfly garden or kitchen cutting garden?  Do you want to add a pond, fountain, patio or hobby greenhouse to your yard?

This is a great season to think about which of these or other gardening projects you want to tackle and then study and develop a plan in your mind or on paper while hibernating indoors for these winter months.  You can review the seed and plant catalogs that may be in your mailbox or flip through the many great gardening and horticulture magazines.  Look for appropriate gardening books at your local bookstore or library.  Attend gardening classes or lectures at your local garden center, extension office, and garden club or at the Oklahoma Horticulture Society.  These days there is an almost unlimited supply of information on any form of gardening available over the internet.  You can literally “google-it” to learn more.  Remember that gardening is very much a local experience with local conditions so remember you need to be your own editor over all the available gardening sources and data.  I put the highest value on information from your local nurseryman, garden center or your Oklahoma Extension Service.  They will have a better idea of what plants and even which varieties will do best in the local weather conditions, in local soil types and using local water.  Be wary of seed catalog, magazine, internet sources from distant areas especially the Northeast or Northwest United States that have way different conditions, when dealing with outdoor plant material, cultural or garden timing issues.  It is always good to look, dream and plan with all these magazines, catalogs and internet sources and then to visit with your local nurseryman and buy as much as possible locally.  Save the far off catalog and internet sources for real unique items and experiments with plants new to our area.

Take time to enjoy looking at your pictures of last year’s yard and garden, recalling the dreams of crops or trees you want to plant and then spend some time and effort planning your 2014 landscaping and gardening adventures. 

Christmas is only a few days away and we are looking forward to spending some of that special quality time with family and friends.  Some we get to see regularly, others only at these holiday celebrations and gatherings.  The plants in our lives are kind of the same way – Some we get to see regularly or year round and others are seasonal or we only get to enjoy at certain seasons of the year or for special celebrations.  Hopefully your Christmas season has been enriched with the color of poinsettias, the tradition of Christmas Trees and the scent of wreaths or boughs of fresh evergreens.   If you got a living Christmas tree to plant out in the yard after Christmas you want to move it outside within days after Christmas and get it planted before the tree gets too dehydrated and soft  to face the rest of the winter in the yard.  You can enjoy your cut trees, wreaths and boughs as long as you are being watchful for when they start getting brittle or dropping too many needles and might turn from joyful decorations to fire hazard.  The poinsettias will add color to your home for months, up into March and April, if you water them correctly and keep them in indirect natural light near windows or under good artificial light.  Many also celebrate the holidays by blooming amaryllis or paperwhite bulbs.  Depending on when you “force” them, you may have timed these bulbs to flower for Christmas or you may give or receive forcing bulbs for Christmas that you will now water and bring into flower to liven up the rest of winter.  You can enjoy the big red trumpets of amaryllis or the dainty white paperwhite flowers or scented blue, pink or white hyacinth spikes or pots of tulips and daffodils in many colors long before they will flower in the garden late next March into May.

Speaking of gifts, there are still many great gifts to share with your gardening friends or to treat yourself.  Consider a gift certificate from their favorite nursery or garden center, a great gardening book, DVD, garden software or a subscription to a gardening magazine.  Buy them a great pair of garden hand pruners or loppers, other gardening tools or gloves or even a coldframe or hobby greenhouse to get a head start on the Oklahoma weather.  There are thousands of great plants and possible gardening gifts depending on whether your gardener has special interests in veggie gardening, bonsai, fruit trees, orchids, flower gardening , herbs, roses, perennials or another specialty.   Gardeners of all types would enjoy a membership in the Oklahoma Horticulture Society which includes Oklahoma Gardening magazine and access to their newsletter and great programs. Consider a gift to fund horticulture scholarships to help teach and train the gardeners and horticulturists of the future.  Contact the Oklahoma Nurserymen’s Association or myself if you would like to give a scholarship gift to support 4-H, FFA, or OSU Horticulture students as a gift in your special gardeners honor.

 We hope you enjoy the Christmas season with your family and friends and will remember and reflect on many great memories of the Christmas seasons past.  Don’t forget to take time to enjoy and remember the reason for the season and to make new memories to enjoy for years to come.  Merry Christmas to you, your family and friends and may the Christmas trees, evergreen boughs, swags and poinsettias enrich your Christmas celebrations.