It's mid-April, and looking at the 10-day forecast, it looks like we're in the clear to go ahead and start planting our tomatoes for most of Oklahoma.

Now, remember, we do live in Oklahoma, so keep an eye on that forecast, as you never know when the weather can change.

But today, we're planting a tomato that's a new All -America Selection cherry tomato called bada bing, and it's going to only get to be about 40 inches, so it's fairly manageable, and we're going to put that here in our new-raised bed, so I think it'll work well as a determinate tomato for us.

On today's show, we're starting off by replanting our herb spiral garden.

Then, after three years of waiting, it's time to harvest our asparagus at the OSU Student Farm.

We have some tips about those pesky armadillos, and finally, Christy offers a new take on an old classic.

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I'm back in the garden with Dylan Jasna from Shape Your Future, and Dylan, you've done a lot in our garden this spring, and it's time to tackle our spiral herb gardener.

You ready for this?

Let's do it.

So, are you familiar with spiral herb gardens?

This is the first I've seen.

Okay, all right.

Well, so kind of the concept, and we built this about six years ago, and the concept is that you sort of mound the soil to the center, put a little more aggregate in there, and that creates a microclimate, better drainage for those Mediterranean herbs.

And then as we go down, it gets heavier soil, and so you can put a diverse amount of herbs in here, and it's a lot of herbs that you can put in a relatively small space.

I love that.

So, I mean, do you cook with herbs?

All the time.

Okay, so herbs are great, and also, this is one of the things I always like to promote is you're great for Oklahoma climate, too, so we kind of have a mess, though, a little bit.

We can tackle it.

In spring, we got this, so the first thing we're going to do is want to cut back, so we have some perennial herbs, and we're going to add some annual herbs also, but these are older herbs that we're going to tackle.

Half of our rosemary died.

This is a variety called Arp, which is really cold hardy, but half of it did kind of give up the fight here, so if you could take those loppers and just cut that whole thing out first, and then I'm going to tackle some of this here next to us.

The thing about pruning rosemary is that if you cut it back all the way to any of the just tissue, yeah, you really got to use some, that's why I gave you that job.

If you cut it back to just this kind of stem where there's no green, you're not going to get any regrowth, but if we cut back to some of the stems that have some vegetation, like down here, then that will force that vegetation to grow, but we're removing a lot of the bulk off of this.

And now, do you want to use the stuff we're cutting today for cooking or no?

That's a good question, so I would recommend it.

This is older.

Rosemary can be somewhat semi-evergreen, so this has probably been on there since last year, so it's kind of older, doesn't have the fresh oils in it that you're looking for.

You can just kind of clip some of this, put a ribbon on it, and put it on a present, or dry it and hang it in your car, that sort of stuff that you can still use.

So I'm going to trim some of this back, because we just got a lot of growth here, and there's a lavender under here somewhere.

All right, I think we got a good going here, looking good.

So we've got to trim back, and really trimming, you don't want to trim into the unvegetated area of rosemary.

I think we can get another year out of this.

The thing is, if you don't keep trimming rosemary, it will get too woody, and at that point, you might as well just pull it and start new.

We're going to go for another one.

We found our lavender in here also, and our curry is regrowing.

You are working on the oregano here, which is, next year we're probably going to need to divide that.

It's a little aggressive.

So the idea here is we need to fill, like all garden beds, the soil sort of washes a little bit out, and so we need to put some more soil and aggregate there in our center so that we have better drainage.

So really for aggregate, you can use anything.

A little trick I use that's easy and convenient is to get chicken grit.

Chicken grit.

Yes.

It comes in an easy bag to kind of carry.

Mix it in with some soil, and we're going to fill that, so we might need a couple of buckets of that.

So you want to help me with that?

Definitely.

All right, let's do that.

So Dylan, we've got a lot of plants here to get into our herb spiral garden.

I kind of have them laid out for more drought tolerant that's going to go in that top upper center where we've got that aggregate in there for better drainage, to what will be more your traditional or maybe a little bit moist conditions.

So any particular, I mean, I got them all here, I think.

You know, I love thyme.

Okay, yeah.

And I really love sage.

I love sage.

And you've got a bunch of different varieties here.

You know, and that's one of the things why I have so many is because whether you're picking sage or thyme, there's a lot of different types of those, right?

So for example, with sage, which is great for Italian cooking and all of those savory dishes, there's a purple sage that we have.

There's also golden sage and variegated sage.

We have the variegated thyme here.

This is high host silver, and it's got a little bit of a silver edge to it.

We also have a creeping thyme here that's going to get smaller.

So these are really great to put along the edges to kind of cover over those rocks also.

So it kind of has a good function in the garden as well.

Okay.

And I see you have a ton of lavender over here.

Yes.

So we do have one lavender already in the garden, but I went ahead and got some additional if we want to choose to put those in.

So we have all the different countries.

We have Spanish, we have English, and then we have French lavender down there in front.

And I also took a little bit of liberties with what I call an herb garden because to me, it's somewhat just of a fragrant garden also.

So of course you want to be careful when you're picking for your kitchen, but we have some cinna geraniums here also.

So we've got lemon and this is a nutmeg cinna geranium.

A lemon plectranthus, this big fuzzy leaves.

And this might look similar, but this is actually a Cuban oregano, which you can cook with, but it's a texture thing.

A little fuzzy.

Yeah.

It's a little fuzzy.

So lemongrass, parsley, dill, cilantro, all of those are also great for pollinators.

So those are the caterpillars.

If you see caterpillars, if there's anything eating your herbs, it's likely going to turn into your butterflies.

Okay.

So yeah.

So plant extra is what I always say.

And it smells amazing.

It does.

Doesn't it?

Are you ready to cook?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So one of the things I want to mention is because we pruned all of those.

So we have some, I want to pull up this, what do we have here?

Some basil.

This is a spicy globe basil and you can see it starting to bloom.

So pruning these when they're starting to grow, it doesn't hurt them at all.

In fact, you really want to prevent them from blooming because that fresh new growth that's coming out, that's the stuff you're wanting to cook with.

That's where those good oils are.

So by giving it a bit of a haircut, it is not going to cause any problems or anything like that.

All of this, you could harvest this and take it into the kitchen.

And this was going to flush back out with new growth.

And Casey, I love this because this is what we're all about at shapeyourfutureok.com.

It's about fresh ingredients that you can add to your dishes without adding fat or oil or salt to your dish.

It gives your food a lot more flavoring than just salt and pepper.

It really does.

And plus you get to enjoy a hobby with it.

You do.

And it smells so good.

Yeah.

It's those little changes.

Easy.

And it's much cheaper.

It is.

Like, right?

Have you bought herbs?

I have.

I have.

So enjoy the plants out in your garden and then you can harvest the rewards later.

Yeah.

So let's get planting.

Casey, this looks fantastic.

Isn't it amazing what you can do in just a couple of hours?

It really is.

So I can't stress enough for anybody that's beginning and starting in the gardening, herbs are the way to go.

They don't have a lot of pest problems.

You can utilize them so many different ways and they love our climate.

And they smell good and you can cook with them and it's cheaper.

It is much cheaper than buying herbs, right?

And I think this is what other things Shape Your Future is all about, right?

Small changes.

Small changes.

You can go to shapeyourfutureok.com and find everything, how to use sage all the way to rosemary and thyme.

Yes.

And maybe a little lavender to spice up your water or not spice it up and flavor your water.

Exactly.

So thank you so much for joining us in the garden today.

This has been fabulous.

Thanks for having me.

We just need to water it and clean it up a little bit.

Let's do it.

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Well, it's an exciting time at the student farm as it's time to get some return on investment with our asparagus.

So Linda, when did you plant this asparagus?

Okay, we planted this, actually we started it from seed.

And we started it from seed in 2023, three years ago.

And we did the seeds up at the Greenhouse Learning Center and got them to where we could transplant them.

But there is another method you could do as well, which is crowns.

Crowns you can start them by putting the roots down in the ground and building up the soil.

And the differences between seeds and crowns is seeds takes three years before you can actually harvest your asparagus, where the crowns only takes two years.

So what variety did you plant?

We planted Walker Deluxe F1.

It's a hybrid variety.

It has a lot of disease resistance built in it.

And back three years ago, it's also very adaptable to our climates or, you know, different climates and our climate has a lot of variability right now.

Three years ago, it wasn't available with crowns and it was only available by seed.

So that's one of the reasons we started it from the seeds.

That makes sense.

That's all you can get at the time.

So walk me through a little bit this past three years and then let's go to today where we get the harvest.

Okay.

Asparagus is a perennial crop, meaning it'll come back year after year.

So the first year, we just let these fern out and let them develop and let those roots develop.

Based on our soil sampling, we put down 100 pounds per acre of nitrogen per year on the asparagus.

And then the following year in 2024, we came out and we cut the ferns down in March and did the same thing.

Let them fern out, let them build up the root development.

And then now this year, we also did the same.

We cut them down in March.

We fertilized them.

And we also did a heavy layer of mulch on them.

This will help keep the weed pressure down a little bit too.

You could actually do some herbicide as well.

It just depends on what you want to do.

So then after we cut everything down, then we started harvesting our spears.

And whatever wasn't harvestable, we just leave the ferns alone because that continues to help the roots develop.

So Linda, what are you going to do after harvest?

Are you just going to let these grow?

Are you going to irrigate?

Do anything else?

We'll continue to irrigate them and we'll just let everything fern out.

Same like we did last year, we'll leave them all winter long.

And then we'll come back next spring and mow them down again in March and start over.

So since these are perennial and they need some time to mature, how would you treat harvest, say in year three, year four, year five and so on?

That's a very good point.

Because the first year you harvest, you don't want to harvest for the full eight weeks.

You only want to harvest for two weeks and let all these fern out and build up those roots.

And then the second year you harvest, you can extend that to four weeks.

The third year, six weeks, and then by the fourth year, you can do the full eight weeks of harvest.

And then you're good for a few years.

Yes, exactly.

And these are good recommendations by Dr.

Niels Mannes.

He's recommended that as far as harvesting, just to continue to build up the roots and the asparagus.

Lots of great researchers at OSU, horticulture and landscape architecture.

Yes.

Go OSU Hort.

All right.

Well, thank you, Linda.

Thanks.

Well, we love the wildlife that comes into our garden.

Sometimes we get some that maybe cause a little problems.

Joining us today is Mark Turner, the wildlife biologist for OSU.

And Mark, today we're talking armadillos, right?

Let's talk a little bit about, obviously they can tear up new garden beds that we might be planting this time of year.

What are they after?

Absolutely.

So armadillos are native to Oklahoma and actually a pretty cool species just in terms of the armor that they have.

But certainly they can cause problems both in a lawn as well as in a garden.

So one common misconception is that armadillos are feeding on the plants or the roots.

They eat a little bit of plant matter, but most of what they're doing is actually foraging.

So is it the fact that it's maybe a looser soil that they like in our garden beds or versus turf?

Or what is it that they're after?

Yeah.

So typically we're going to see more foraging in places where it's easier for them to feed.

So whether that's a place with loose soil where you've just planted some things or it could be in your yard where you've irrigated, that's actually one of the most common things that we recommend.

I mean, it's tough because people like to have a nice lush lawns during the summertime, but we do tend to see more armadillo damage in places with irrigation because foraging is easier.

There could be more food there as well.

And so just reducing the amount that you're irrigating can generally help mitigate some of that damage.

And what are they doing?

Like they're just going around with their nose like little piggies, right?

That's right.

So they don't have very good eyesight, but they have an excellent sense of smell.

So they're just rooting up the soil, trying to find food.

And again, unfortunately that can cause some damage in your both lawn and garden.

Okay.

So what can we do about it?

Yeah.

So in small beds, especially planters and things like that, vegetable gardens or even smaller planters where it might not be so unsightly, you can certainly use fencing.

If you just slightly bury fencing, it does not have to be very tall.

Armadillos are not very good climbers.

They do dig a little bit, but they're probably not going to burrow under a fence that's buried, say six inches or so.

Just doing that can be very helpful and reduce the likelihood that they're going to get into those either planters or beds that you might have.

Obviously that's not very practical on a larger scale.

And so then we're probably going to turn towards trapping.

Repellents are not very effective.

There's a lot that are commercially available, but really they're not very effective.

So we're going to recommend lethal removal if we do need to take that next step and fencing is not an option.

Okay.

So, and when we go to trapping, I've heard a little bit about creating a funnel effect to get it into the trap.

Can we talk a little bit about laying that out?

Yep.

So typically we're just going to use a standard cage trap that you could get at any farm supply store.

We're not going to actually need to bait the trap because the armadillos are not really attracted to the bait itself.

They're just going to walk into the trap because they're funneled into it.

And so we're going to either A, use existing structures such as fences or the edge of your house, maybe an outbuilding.

You can use any of those as one side of a funnel and then just add some fencing on the other side that extends out, say a couple of feet.

And that's going to help funnel that armadillo into the trap.

You could also just use two sections of fencing and that's also going to be effective.

So, so that way, you know, you're basically just trying to funnel that animal into the trap and we recommend placing them close to where you're seeing the damage.

It doesn't necessarily have to be right on top of it, but somewhere near there and then use that funneling to draw them into the trap.

And can it be as simple as a couple of boards to create that funnel?

Yep.

It doesn't have to be anything overly complex.

You could use a couple of boards stacked up, just something just to funnel that animal in.

Okay.

And another thing, tell me whether it's a myth or not, but I've heard maybe you shouldn't touch armadillos because of leprosy.

That's correct.

So armadillos do carry leprosy.

It's not something that you should worry about, you know, out in the environment or anything like that or seeing them around your house is not a danger to you or your family.

But if you are removing them and are going to be touching the animal itself, we do recommend wearing gloves.

Be sure to wash your hands afterwards.

Again, not something to worry about being around your house, but if you're going to be handling that animal because you've decided to opt for lethal removal, we definitely recommend wearing gloves.

Like any wildlife, you should wash your hands.

Exactly.

Just good practices in general.

All right.

Thank you so much, Mark.

Absolutely.

We're making Burger Night healthier.

And joining me again in the kitchen today is Julie Bisbee, executive director of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, to talk about Shape Your Future.

Yeah.

So Shape Your Future is a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust dedicated to helping Oklahomans eat healthier, be healthier.

And we have a lot of resources and tips.

And so I'm excited about what we're going to do here today.

Yeah.

So this recipe that we're preparing today is from the Shape Your Future website.

It's the Healthy Burger Bowls.

And what I really love about this is that we're taking the traditional burger and french fries meal with the bun and the french fries and making it healthier by focusing on the lean ground beef and fresh vegetables.

Excellent.

Yeah.

So to start this, we've already prepared our lean ground beef and we already made our sweet potatoes by roasting them in the oven.

Okay.

Very good.

Yeah.

But then we need to make our burger sauce.

Okay.

And so if you want to, all handy the ingredients, if you want to mix these, we've got a half of a cup of low fat mayonnaise.

No burger is complete without the mayonnaise.

Right.

Yeah.

We've got to have our sauce.

And then to reduce sugar, we've got no added sugar ketchup.

That's two tablespoons.

Okay.

It smells really good too.

Smells like a burger.

All of it smells really good.

And then two tablespoons of mustard.

And then for our pickles, we've got three tablespoons of just dill pickles, but we've chopped them into small pieces.

So that's going to be, you know, make it a little bit better to mix in with the sauce.

Pickles are such a nice way, like low calorie, low fat way to add such a pop of flavor.

Yeah.

And no burger is complete without the pickles.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

If you want to stir that together for us.

Okay.

Looking good.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then we each have our bowl and then we can just build our burger.

So we've got our mix of our fresh vegetables and we just pile those on there, which would be great if you have, you know, family with kids and everybody gets to make their own.

Oh, right.

I like to start this with a little lettuce base.

I think always, yeah.

Lettuce add your fiber, get it kind of mix it with everything else.

Yeah.

Um, so while we make our bowls and can you tell us a little bit more about the shape your future website?

Yeah.

So on the shape, your future website, you can find tips and tricks.

This recipe of course, will be there.

All of it really geared towards making it easier for Oklahomans to eat better, move more healthy ways to incorporate vegetables.

We just want to make it easy because we know families are busy.

There's a lot going on and sometimes we eat the most convenient thing, but this is super easy and kids love to assemble.

So this is the healthy burger bowls.

It's on shapeyourfutureok.com.

And you can find this and many more healthy, easy recipes that you can do on a weeknight or with your family.

Okay.

Yeah.

And I'm so excited about trying this burger bowl.

Thank you again for joining me in the kitchen today, Julie.

Thank you.

Let's dig in.

As always, if you have any questions about today's show, please reach out to your local County OSU extension office, or feel free to leave us a comment on our social media.

There are many great horticulture activities this time of year.

Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.

Join us next week as we're talking about shrubs, trees, and micro greens right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

I can't stress enough that herbs are a great way for anybody that's beginning and getting into gardening.

Um, you know, a beginner gardener starting out, like how many ways can I say that?

Can I say that any more ways?

To find out more information about show topics, as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources, including a directory of local extension offices.

Be sure to visit our website at oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

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Tune into our OK Gardening Classics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts.

Oklahoma Gardening is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our studio garden, and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful Stillwater gym.

We would like to thank our generous underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry, and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Additional support is also provided by the Tulsa Garden Club, Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Tulsa Garden Center, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, and the Tulsa Herb Society.

For more information, visit www.okgarden.edu.