(gentle music) (lively classical music) - Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

With a cautious eye on the forecasted low temperatures, we are planting tomatoes.

We learn about the process of designing a new garden, and our warm season lawns are greening up and it will soon be time to fertilize.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.

So if you're looking for an easy low maintenance perineal... (lively classical music) Have two different types of flowers on one plant.

(lively classical music) Capsaicin that gives the pepper its heat.

(lively classical music) It's time to start planting our vegetable garden, especially tomatoes.

And we've got a different kind of a practice that we've been doing over here in one of our gardens.

And it might not look like it is the cleanest, prepped garden, but actually it is.

What we practiced here was a no-till system.

And so we've had cool season cover crops growing all winter long in these two beds here.

About a month ago, we came through and just terminated 'em with a weed-eater, so we kind of just knocked 'em down.

And so it looks a little messy, I admit it.

But then after that, we brought our chickens in.

So you can see there's a little bit of a fence around.

Now, we did all of this for two reasons.

Basically leaving the cover crop in the ground and not tilling it actually improves the beneficial mycorrhizae fungus that is growing in the soil that actually has a a beneficial symbiotic relationship with a lot of plants, helping them to absorb more nutrients.

And so by tilling it, what you're doing is actually disturbing that.

So we did not till this.

Instead we just terminated the cover crops.

Also because we have those cover crop roots still in the ground, that actually improves the porosity.

So we're allowing for better water filtration and also air in the soil profile.

Now you'll notice there is still some residue on top.

Of course, that's gonna add to that organic matter as well as the nutrients that go into that soil as well.

The other thing is it sort of serves as a living mulch really.

So not only does it suppress weed growth but it also reduces the amount of evaporation from our irrigation once we get our tomatoes planted.

Now, the secondary thing is that we brought in our chickens here and they really enjoyed kind of having this new play space.

You could see them scratching around and sort of taking dust baths in here.

But really that was serving a purpose for us.

It not only further kind of impacted and terminated those cover crops, but it also kind of allowed them to be worked into the top of that soil just slightly not nearly as much as a rototiller.

But the other thing too is those chickens were looking for insects.

So we all know that sometimes pests can overwinter in vegetation and so the chickens really were looking for those insects and really did a good job of cleaning this area up for us.

Now again, it's a little bit messier than the traditional vegetable garden prep that you might be used to but we're excited about this method and overall it really improves the soil health for your vegetable garden.

So like I said, we've got our garden prepped and it's after April 15th, so it's time to start planting our tomatoes.

Now we've got several laid out here and we're really just gonna plant one about every two to three feet here.

Now the thing about tomatoes, when you're planting them what I like to do is if you need to fertilize, first of all, you wanna base that fertilizer off of a soil test.

However, tomatoes don't need a lot of nitrogen.

In fact, I've had several people tell me that they have beautiful green, healthy tomato plants but they're not actually getting any tomatoes off of them.

And so one of the reasons may be because you're giving it too much nitrogen.

So you don't wanna fertilize your tomatoes with your turf grass fertilizer that tends to be high in nitrogen.

You're looking for something that is like a 10-20-10, that has maybe a little bit more phosphorous.

But again based that off of your soil test results that you get.

Here in our garden, we don't actually need any additional fertilizer so we're not going to do that.

But if you were to need to apply fertilizer, what I like to do is kind of sprinkle that down before you plant so that when you do go to plant, you're actually working that fertilizer into that hole.

Now let's look at some transplants.

So when you go to buy your transplants, they can often come in a range of sizes.

In fact, we have some that we grew here and they might vary in size from very small to very tall.

The ideal height of a transplant is about three to six inches.

The one thing is if you get smaller ones, you just wanna make sure that they do have at least some true leaves.

So you can tell these are tomato plants based off of their leaves.

The actual cotyledons are these kind of different-shaped leaves down here.

- You never want to buy a plant that just has those cotyledons, because really it makes it very vulnerable, especially to go ahead and plant that out in the garden, before it's well established and has those true leaves.

So this is kind of an ideal transplant height here.

Now here we have some that are much taller and much leggier and you can see they're kind of falling over in their pots.

They're way too big for this container at this point.

So the thing about these is they are good, healthy plants.

You're getting more bang for your buck, but the problem is they're gonna fall over and they might break out in the garden.

So what we're gonna do is I'm gonna show you kind of how to manage these two different types of transplants.

So for something smaller like this, what you wanna do is, put your fingers between the plants and then just slightly squeeze the container and let that plant fall into your hand.

You don't really wanna pull the plant out, because if you pull on the stem, you potentially will break it off and then that will kill your transplant.

So you should see good white roots there.

If they are starting to circle, you just kind of wanna tease those a little bit.

It doesn't hurt to break some of those off and that will encourage those roots to branch and develop further into that hole.

So for these, we're just gonna dig a hole here.

And plant them at about that same height that they were actually planted in the container.

So now for these taller ones, you can see they have much bigger roots on them.

They've got a much bigger stem to them and they just keep falling over in our pots here.

So the thing about this is we have really strong winds here in Oklahoma and once we plant these, the wind's still going to wanna blow these over.

And so it has the potential to then break it at that stem, again, ruining your transplants.

So the first thing that we're gonna do is, actually make sure you definitely, see how dense this is, the root system?

So we wanna, again, pull some of those roots apart to prevent that circling of those roots once it's in the ground.

And now you have two different methods that you can do on this.

Normally when I tell you to plant a plant, I'm telling you to plant it at that same level that it was planted out originally.

But tomatoes are one of the exceptions and that's because they have a adventitious roots.

So you can see here along the stem, it's got sort of some bumps along it.

And what those are, are those are little root buds that are gonna start developing.

And if this stem is actually under the ground, then those will establish even more roots for you.

So tomatoes are the one exception that you can actually plant those deeper than what they were originally planted.

So what we're gonna do, you can see we've kind of knocked some of these lower limbs off here and you can do this in two methods.

So one, we can dig a hole just deeper and plant it straight down vertically, deeper in the hole hole.

Now the other way you can do that, is create a trench in your soil.

So we're just gonna kind of create a little furrow here that's big enough to lay our tomato in.

And we're actually gonna plant this sideways, so seems very unusual, a little bit for your normal garden planting.

Again, we've got some other stems, so we're just gonna go ahead and break those side shoots off a little bit there.

And what you do is sort of just, bend the stem gently upwards.

So we're gonna bury that stem down in the ground and then you can see it still is above ground here.

So we're gonna allow that to continue growing and photosynthesizing above ground.

But all of that stem that's buried is going to continue to grow roots, which is nice for these tomatoes as they go into the heat of the summer, to actually have a larger root system on them.

Now as for which variety to grow, well, the best answer is really the one that you prefer growing and actually eating.

Some prefer the flavor of heirlooms, while others prefer the hardiness of hybrids.

Some prefer having large slicer tomatoes, that they can add to their sandwich, while some people really prefer those cherry tomatoes, that they can snack on while they're out in the garden.

So get what you enjoy.

As for us here, in the spirit of trying new things and growing some different things in our garden, what we are actually establishing here is the not so red tomato garden.

So all of these varieties are going to produce and ripen to be tomatoes that are not actually red, they're yellow and purple and some striped ones and some green ones as well.

So stay tuned as we head into the season and I'll give you an update when they start producing.

Check out this fact sheet for more information.

(upbeat classical music) (upbeat classical music) (upbeat classical music) (upbeat classical music) - Summer is on its way.

And we want to see your water gardens this summer.

When the heat cranks up there's no place I'd rather be than visiting your water garden.

This is a reminder that we are starting a water garden contest for this summer.

We'd like to see your entries.

Now, I know water gardens can still be a little bit dormant this time of year so please email us 5 to 10 photos and also a short description of your water garden by April 30th.

All the entries will then be posted on our Oklahoma Gardening Facebook page for you and your friends to vote on the top water gardens.

We'll then make contact with all the homeowners that are selected in June to go visit them.

And we'll have a special episode of Oklahoma Gardening water garden style.

So get those entries in by April 30th.

(soft music) Today we are in the landscape architecture studio in AG Hall where all the creativity happens.

And joining me is Professor Cheryl Mihalko.

Professor, we've talked about the renovation of the rock garden to a hardy succulent garden but if I looked at that space, I would be lost.

So tell us a little bit about the design process and how you get started.

- Right.

So we did look at the space and we saw that it had been previously used as a rock garden.

So we know it gets a lot of great sunshine.

It's on a slope, it's gets good drainage.

So with climate change, with a lot of new interest in cactus and really cold hearty cactus and succulent we made a decision to go in with a collection.

So we've been working on that.

We've done some site demo and so now it was time to begin to get a plan.

So what I did was go out and try to get something as built just really sketchy, sort of some of the major rocks, some of the existing plant material.

There's some wonderful yellow yucca that we'll keep.

Other than that the only real goal that's important is to kind of screen off what really is this nice little Japanese garden.

So we'll do some planting to kind of screen that off and really, really work with this area.

So in terms of the plant material just beginning to think about overall shape, overall masses, the plant material that we'd be working with.

Here's kind of a general plan.

So the stickiest and prickliest ones, of course these wonderful cholla and opuntia's.

Opuntia's are the big paddle cactus and there's a lot of them that are cold hearty.

So we'll sort of try those in the center here.

- [Casey] So they're away from the pub.

- [Cheryl] Yeah, right, not so much on the edge.

This area that's up towards the top we wanna put a lot of really nice bright color that'll be eye catching as you walk up to it.

So those will be some of the hesperaloe which is the red yucca.

And then there's actually a wonderful little cultivar called stoplight.

- [Casey] Okay.

- [Cheryl] That's also a deeper red hesperaloe.

And then mix that in with some of the kniphofia.

- [Casey] Which is the red hot poker plant?

- [Cheryl] Right.

- [Casey] Okay.

- [Cheryl] Yeah, and we have some beautiful yellow ones as well as red for this area.

- So have you kind of used the color as sort of your... - Yeah, yeah.

This is kind of what.

- Okay.

- There's a lot of beautiful pale greens.

Here's this kind of reddish color, a bit of yellow up here.

And then in this area, we wanna get close enough to really see them because a lot of 'em are quite small.

They're more of the barrel mammillaria or the echinocereus which is very much something like this.

- Okay.

- They have a beautiful bloom.

A bright, bright bloom.

But you know, the rest of the year they're just kind of there, not too really eye grabbing.

- So they're a little closer so you can appreciate the detail of 'em.

- Yeah, and we don't usually mask those.

They're harder to find.

We don't have as many.

We hope that they you know, expand.

But yeah, those will be in there.

And then on the edge, again, little bit of safety but also lower so that it doesn't block the plant material in the center.

Again, this will be really built up because of the importance of drainage.

Quite a bit of the sempervivum which is the hen and chicks.

- [Casey] Okay.

- So just sort of basic, basic thinking.

And then the next stage is beginning to actually think about specific color, specific layout, what those will be.

So this is just an, you know, a quick onetime generation beyond this plant.

- [Casey] Okay.

And here it looks like you maybe incorporated some of the texture of the plants a little bit with the paddles.

- [Cheryl] Right, those are opuntia pads and then the rocks are running through.

These are the mammillaria's and then this beautiful red yucca.

- [Casey] So further help you visualize what it might look like.

Okay.

All right.

- And so in addition to this, we're working on finding plant material, collecting plant material.

We have about half of what we need now.

It's stored away in the greenhouse and... - And how, let me interrupt you, how do you figure out how much you might need?

So you kind of know your space, right?

And then you know the spacing of the plants.

- You do and it's really all over the board.

Sometimes it's because of budget.

You want it to be really full, really quick, and then you edit out.

Of course with the the cactus it's really great to propagate from them, so you can plant full and if it gets a little too crowded you just really go and propagate away from that.

So yeah, it's a combination of allowing it to grow some and really just experience.

- Okay - I've done a lot of this.

- Okay.

(garden designers laugh) You are a professional, yes.

- So in addition to this, put installing the garden over time here, we will have available on the website, individual plants.

They'll be coded so you could look them up.

But we are developing a nice little booklet that tells you the native range.

It gives you a picture of the flower and the fruit.

So hopefully that'll be really useful to Oklahoma gardeners that really wanna try and move in this direction for their garden.

- Well this is gonna be a valuable resource and the fact that we'll have a display garden to kind of accompany that educational material will be fantastic.

Thank you for walking us through this process.

- You're welcome.

(soft music) (soft music continues) - Today we're joined by Dr. Mingying Xiang who is our new extension turf grass specialist.

And Dr. Xiang welcome to your first premier episode of "Oklahoma Gardening."

(host laughs) We're gonna talk about fertilizing the Bermuda grass, 'cause I know everybody's grass is startin' to green up.

So how do we manage fertility?

- So fertilization is one of the very important practice to keep your grass green; like darker green color, uniform, and higher density.

And especially for your grass has been properly fertilized, they can fight against like drought stretch, heat stretch much better than those grass haven't got properly fertilized.

So this time of the year we definitely need to start thinking about fertilize your Bermuda grass.

- Right, a lot of times we think well that just makes it mow and more work for us, but it's important for its health as well.

- Yes.

- [Host] So that's a good point.

So if a person goes to a garden center there's usually a lot of options.

How do they know where to even start?

- The first step we will start with is do a soil test.

If you need more information contact your county extension agent.

A good soil test is going to give you a guideline regarding if you need phosphorous and potassium and how much.

Many homeowner find out from their soil test that they don't even need phosphorous and potassium.

So they can save money.

Just go with something like like this one, 46-0-0, like only has nitrogen.

- [Host] Right, that first number is nitrogen, right?

- Yeah, the first number is nitrogen.

So if you feel like you don't need to waste money on your P and K, just go with pure nitrogen.

- [Host] And that's why it's so important to do that soil test initially- - [Dr. Xiang] Yes, yes.

So our recommendation is to do it every three years.

- [Host] Okay.

- But I do understand many homeowners don't have access to do a soil test.

And then our recommendation is to pick up something has 3-1-2 ratios.

So for example a 15-5-10 fertilizer will be a good choice.

So it's called Complete Fertilizer.

So you don't need to worry about deficient like phosphorous or potassium.

- Okay, excellent information.

And of course, so based off of a soil test then you're gonna figure out which nitrogen or which fertilizer to choose.

How often are we doing this in our yard?

- Yeah that's a very good question.

Even though soil tests will give you information regarding potassium and phosphates, but you really don't know about your nitrogen.

It depends on the species.

And it depends on the soil type and your management practice.

And when we talk about the nitrogen fertilizer there are two different types based on how quick they can release, they can be available.

So we call it fast release nitrogen source and slow release nitrogen source.

If you go with the fast release nitrogen source it's only available for about 30 days.

- [Host] Okay.

- [Dr. Xiang] And our recommendation is if you go with that way, do a like lower rate and more frequent application.

Because 30 days later, the nitrogen is not available, so you want to do a reapplication using quick release.

- So, of course we're talking warm season, which is completely different than cool season.

So we're looking from April through late summer.

Is that the timeline?

- Yeah, we normally do like late April or early May all the way to mid-September or so.

- Okay, okay.

And so that's monthly for quick release.

What about a slow release fertilizer?

- Yeah, slow release fertilizer means it's slower, makes the nitrogen slowly available to the grass.

So you could do a higher rate, maybe a pound and a half of nitrogen every time and do it every six to 10 weeks.

- [Host] Okay.

- [Dr. Xiang] But the drawback for slow release nitrogen is it's more expensive.

But it keeps you on a like less frequent schedule.

So save you some labor.

- Okay, so for slow release.

- Pound and half every six to eight weeks.

And then is it a pound for the monthly quick release of actual nitrogen?

- Yeah.

We don't recommend anything above one pound of nitrogen 'cause quick release fertilizer has very high burning potential.

- Correct.

- So if you apply it in a hot summer, you do want to make sure you water them again immediately.

- Okay.

- To avoid burning of your grass.

- Okay.

And then like even I've even heard, you know, dew in the morning- - Mm-hmm.

- if that urea might get on that dew, it can burn the foliage.

- Yes.

- That's why you really wanna' get it infiltrated into your soil profile.

- Yes, exactly.

- Exactly, okay.

So how do we go about like actually applying it?

You've got a couple of application methods here.

Tell us about this.

- [Woman On Left] So it depends on how big is your yard.

- [Woman On Right] Okay.

- [Woman On Left] If you have a very, very small yard the handhold spreader will be a good choice for a small area of yard.

- [Woman On Right] Okay.

- But the drop spreader could also be a good option.

So it only drop as you go, but you do want to pay a good attention on your previous pass.

So you do want to make sure you have a good coverage pass by pass.

- Okay.

'Cause especially on that quick release, you're gonna see green stripes if you don't- - Exactly.

(woman laughing) Like I see people like do a application like a McDonald's shape.

(woman laughing) So you're going to see it.

- You'll see it.

- Yes.

- Okay.

Excellent.

And then this is a rotary?

- This is a rotary spreader.

So it's very good for a larger area of yard.

- Okay.

- [Woman On Left] So it's spread all around and you can get a very good coverage and overlap.

- [Woman On Right] Mm-hmm.

- But be very careful regarding like what kind of fertilizer do you use.

If you use a fertilizer has various particle size- - Mm-hmm.

- or it's broken particle in the bag, or it has lots of dust, this rotary spreader will give you some poor distribution because those larger, heavier particle will be so farther away compared to those smaller particle.

So you do want to make sure you apply when the wind doesn't catch those smaller particle.

You want to split your application into at least two applications, so they can get a good, better coverage.

But if you have something really have very different particle set, the drop spreader will be a better choice.

- Okay.

And I know one of the concerns about this is it potentially getting on your sidewalks also, right?

- Yes.

- We're not trying to fertilize the concrete.

- Exactly.

It's very common with rotary spreader, it goes to the pavement.

And what we normally do is, you do a very good cleaning up.

Either use your blower, blow your fertilizer back to the soil or grass, or just do a cleanup, use your broom (broom sweeping) and put it back to your lawn.

- Well, thank you so much for all of this information.

I know it'll get us off to a great spring.

- Thank you.

(birds tweeting) - [Woman On Right] Check out this fact sheet for more information.

(exciting classical music) - [Announcer] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(classical music) (classical music continues) (classical music continues) (classical music continues) (classical music continues) - [Announcer 2] Spring is in full swing and we have a lot more to share with you next week on Oklahoma Gardening.

(classical music continues) (wind blowing) (wheels rolling) (microphone puffing) - Water garden style.

(classical music continues) - 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.

Join in on Facebook and Instagram.

You can find this entire show and other recent shows, as well as individual segments on our Oklahoma Gardening YouTube channel.

Tune in to 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 gardens and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful still water gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriter, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry.

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

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