Welcome back to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today, we're headed down to Oklahoma County to see how they're bringing a community garden back online.

We're also learning about whitetail deer in the garden.

We also have a tip on how to extend your cool season crops.

Plus, we have a few plant highlights.

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Today, I wanted to showcase a plant that we're adding into our sun perennial garden.

You can see that it's quite a large, wide bed.

We're using this Ilex crenata, or Japanese holly.

This cultivar is called Sky Pencil.

We're using this as a divider between both sides of the bed.

This Sky Pencil holly, unlike a lot of hollies, you won't really need to trim this.

It has a very columnar shape.

It will get anywhere from 4 to 10 feet tall and only 2 to 3 feet wide.

You can see these branches are coming up very vertical.

It's going to give you that vertical element and form in your landscape when you're using it for a design feature.

It's nice in urban environments because a lot of times you want that vertical height, but you maybe don't have that bed space to give it the width that you need.

This one works really well in tight spaces.

Sky Pencil holly is pretty adaptable to a lot of different soil conditions, anywhere from sandy to clay.

It does like moist soil conditions.

The other exception that you might be aware of is the fact that it doesn't really do well in alkaline soils, so you might be cautious about planting it in western Oklahoma.

The other thing is, it doesn't do the best in hot, dry conditions.

As we know, in Oklahoma, we can have that temperature and that environment sometimes, so you might give it a little extra water.

But it does need full sun, so you can see we've got it implanted here in our sun perennial garden.

You can push that a little bit into some shade, but it's quite an adaptable plant for those urban environments, and you might even think about using it in containers to give you that columnar vertical feature as well.

So this is Sky Pencil holly, a Japanese holly, and it really doesn't need much maintenance, and especially no trimming once it's planted.

Today we are at the Oklahoma County OSU Extension Office, and joining me is Mason Huddleston, who is the Urban Ag Extension Educator.

Mason, thank you so much for joining me today.

Thanks for having me.

I've been wanting to be on here for so long.

Oh, it is great to have you on here, and unfortunately the weather kind of turned on its orange side.

Oh gosh, it's so windy today.

It is Oklahoma.

But what we came down to talk about is your community garden that you're sort of revitalizing.

Let's talk a little bit about that, because I think sometimes we get this grandiose idea about community gardens and the pretty of it and the benefits and this altruistic idea of it, but they're a lot of work.

They are.

Community gardens are surprisingly a lot of work.

I didn't realize it getting into it, but it's also really rewarding work, right?

Here in Oklahoma County, and I think across the state, we're in just such a huge food desert, and in an urban setting, people are living in vertical space rather than owning homes and being able to garden on their own.

So we wanted to provide a space where community members across Oklahoma County can come, have a space to grow their own food.

Food is medicine.

That's something we really want to push, and just provide a nice, safe, clean space for people to garden in a city.

And your office here is located just in kind of the northeast corner of Oklahoma City, which really is truly a food desert area.

Absolutely.

You have a farmer's market that you do on occasion weekly, but let's talk this community garden.

It was established a few years ago, but you're sort of bringing it back online, right?

Yes.

Yeah, it was established, I think, during COVID times, which, as we all know, was rough.

And so it eventually got transitioned from the health department over to OSU Extension.

They donated it to us, which was just phenomenal.

And so we split it up actually about 50-50 with a community garden, where members can come in and garden, as well as a giving garden where our master gardeners that Julia, our horticulturalist, trains will go out and actually grow a lot of food to donate to the food pantries.

Okay.

And so, you know, I like any garden needs maintenance, and sometimes those original beds have deteriorated.

So let's talk a little bit about what you're trying to do to bring it back online.

The partners that you have in the community do that also.

So we are so lucky to have some amazing partners.

Like you said, we have some beds that are a little run down.

They were made of wood.

And so we actually have reached out to Lowe's, and they've donated a lot of cinder blocks to build some new beds that will last the test of time, as well as Minix Materials.

They've donated all of the compost to fill those beds, so that we have some really good, rich nutrient soil for our gardeners.

And I know you've got a lot of big volunteer groups that are coming in.

Yeah.

Both building those beds, billing those beds.

Yeah.

Not only did Lowe's donate the materials, but they donated their time and their employees' time as well to build those beds.

And then we're also having students from OU come out, help fill the beds, help pull weeds, just make it really nice and pretty before our gardeners get in there and start doing their work.

Right.

And I love that.

A community garden has brought OSU, OU together, commercial.

It's a big community.

Right.

It really is a community effort.

And so I think a lot of times you have to have somebody driving that effort, right?

And that's where it can kind of- There's a lot of communication coordination that has to happen.

Yes.

There has to be very good communication with community gardens.

And more than anything, expectations.

The thing that we see around the city with other community gardens is that the expectations haven't been laid out or they weren't followed very strictly.

And so with good communication and expectations, that's how you maintain a community garden and make sure everyone is keeping it up.

Because it is a representation of our organization and the other partners that have come in to help us.

We want to make sure that it looks good for us.

It looks good for Lowe's and Minick's and just our gardeners in general.

Right.

And that's the thing.

If you look at the garden, it's not pretty just yet.

It's an early spring.

It's a work in progress.

It's a work in progress.

And I think that is an important aspect to recognize, is that effort and that initial work that takes to make it that pretty garden later on.

And it takes a lot of volunteers that we're just so thankful to have.

And a great benefit for the master gardeners to learn as well as the community.

Yes.

And it's something that community members can also come and check out as well.

Tell us a little bit about your open house that you have coming up.

So our open house is going to be May 5th from 4 to 6.

We're going to have people come in.

They can view the community garden.

They can walk around our building, view the ornamental gardens that we have, all of the nice pretty flowers.

As well as I think we're going to have some demonstrations in here for preserving food, some tabling booths with some of our other educators here in the county to provide information.

I know the master gardeners are going to be there answering gardening questions.

So our open house is really just a way to show the community that we are here to serve and to help and that we really want to.

We really want to help people in whatever way we can.

And a great opportunity to bring your water samples, your soil samples.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, if you have a garden at home, whether it's an ornamental flower garden, vegetable garden, maybe you're wanting to spiff up your Bermuda grass lawn, we really recommend bringing in a soil test.

Get it tested and we'll tell you exactly what nutrients to put on.

And if you're not in Oklahoma County, a lot of other counties have all these same resources.

Every county.

That you can stop in, right, and visit and check out those resources or fact sheets.

So Mason, tell us again the date of your open house if you don't mind.

May 5th from 4 to 6 p.m.

All right.

And open to the public.

Open to the public.

It's free.

And we love to have people out.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Today I want to introduce you to a cultivar of Bosnian pine.

This is Emerald Arrow.

You can see it has a beautiful upright form, which is most known for.

It's got these very dense, deeply colored green needles.

And also it's got this columnar shape, arrow shape, that doesn't require any pruning.

So that's one of the benefits of this particular cultivar.

Now it is hardy from zones 5 to 8, which covers most of Oklahoma.

You might be a little bit cautious as you go into southern Oklahoma.

Because while it needs full sun, that heat can sort of affect it.

So that's where site selection might be a little bit important.

Now it handles most soil conditions rather well, including alkaline soil.

Making it a good candidate for western Oklahoma.

It can handle clay soils.

But what it can't handle is soggy soils.

So if you have clay soils, you want to make sure to maybe plant it a little bit high.

Or specifically in an area that doesn't drain towards that site where you're going to plant it.

So you don't want to have soggy conditions for this plant to grow in.

But like I said, it's a low-maintenance plant.

It's a nice evergreen.

It's going to top out about 12 to 15 feet in height.

And get about 7 to 8 feet wide.

So it's going to give you a nice kind of compact shape.

Again, without the pruning.

So this particular cultivar, again, is Emerald Arrow Bosnian Pine.

It might be one that you want to try in your landscape.

Today we're talking about those deer that might be visiting your garden this summer.

And joining me is Mark Turner, our wildlife biologist.

And Mark, thank you for joining us.

So a lot of times we think about deer late in the fall, going into winter during rut.

And some of that damage they can cause, right?

But let's talk a little bit about what we're going to be seeing this spring.

Absolutely.

So deer cause several issues in gardens.

One of which is obviously during the fall, whenever bucks are in hard antler.

You're going to see rubbing on trees.

Which certainly can be undesirable.

Because that can harm or even kill the tree in some cases if it's intense enough.

But throughout the year, and really especially during the summertime, we can see issues with deer eating the growth of plants that we might have in our gardens.

Both gardens that are producing food for us.

As well as gardens where we have flowers we want to see.

And so certainly that can be an issue.

Folks like seeing deer around their homes.

But not whenever they're eating the plants that they have.

We don't like the damage of it, right?

So let's talk a little bit about just their natural habitat.

I know we have deer that maybe kind of follow the creek line here behind us.

And then we'll sneak up into the garden a little bit.

Is that where we always find them is in those transition zones a little bit?

Yeah, so deer are very common across most of Oklahoma.

And you'll see them in different places depending on the part of the state you're in.

But generally you are going to find them associated with some sort of woody cover a lot of the time.

You know, you will see them in grassland systems with taller vegetation as well.

But generally, yeah, they're going to be in some cover during the day.

And then in the evenings you're going to see them come out.

And unfortunately if it's in your garden you're going to see them come out in the evenings.

They may spend the night foraging and then around daylight go back to cover to ruminate during the day.

Okay, so they are nocturnal.

So they kind of come out in the dawn to dusk.

They're crepuscular.

So we see most activity in the morning and in the evening.

But anytime during the night you might see them because that's when we're not out in the garden working for the most part.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Okay.

So, but you mentioned they might be around grasslands, but they're not necessarily grass feeders, right?

That's correct.

Yep.

So deer are known as concentrate selectors.

So basically they pick a lot of different plants that they like to eat, but it's not all plants.

And they generally focus on that young growth from those species.

Most commonly we see deer eat woody plants, which could include trees or shrubs, as well as forbs, which a lot of flowers are in that forb category.

So generally we don't see an issue with deer eating grasses that we might have planted or just have in our yard.

But we do see issues with several of those other species, including both vegetables and fruits, as well as shrubs and trees and flowers.

Okay.

And of course we've got a deer fence behind us protecting our vegetables, but our blueberry and blackberry bushes are outside that fence.

So they're going to go after some of that new growth potentially?

Absolutely.

So deer pretty commonly would eat the leaves as well as the buds off of things like blackberry or blueberry.

So in those cases, we generally do recommend in places with a moderate to high deer density where you'd expect to see some damage, just putting fencing around those.

Again, it kind of comes down to how much willingness you have to go the extra effort.

Certainly around a vegetable garden, in most places, if you have many deer, I'd recommend doing that.

With shrubs, you can get away with some level of deer foraging.

But again, if it gets to be too much, generally a fence is the way that we're going to recommend dealing with that.

Okay.

What about any of those other deterrents of smells and sprays and water squirting and things like that we have out there?

Yeah.

So there's lots of different things that have been developed both for homeowners as well as even agricultural producers to try to deter deer from eating those crops as well as flowers in the garden.

Unfortunately, most of them are just a temporary fix.

You're really not going to see that great of a reduction in deer use over a long period of time.

So you're going to have to continue putting that repellent out.

And sometimes deer can even become accustomed to it.

So generally, we recommend fencing, also planting species that deer don't necessarily like to eat.

And then also, if you're on a bigger property or maybe you have some neighbors that you could work with, potentially trying to reduce deer density.

That can be pretty effective.

Obviously, depending on where you are in terms of urban to rural gradient, that can be more difficult.

But certainly, even in places around homes, you can certainly have some bowhunting opportunity that can help reduce deer density because that's really going to get to the root of the problem as opposed to just being a temporary fix.

Okay.

And along the lines of a fence, if we can go back to that real quick.

Yeah.

Height of that fence.

And then I've also heard about doing maybe a double fence that's a little bit shorter.

Does that work as well?

Yeah.

So generally for height, if it's a very small area, you can get away with like a four foot fence because deer are not going to want to jump into that.

However, as you get to a larger area, such as this area behind us, an eight foot fence is better.

And in some places, if you had a really big area, even a 10 foot fence is going to be necessary to actually keep deer out of it.

But usually an eight foot fence is sufficient to keep them from wanting to be in that area.

They can jump higher than that, but they're not going to want to.

The double fencing can work.

Usually with double fencing, we're oftentimes thinking about doing that with electric fencing.

So if you have a staggered fence system, the way that deer perceive things visually, they can't really judge distance that well.

So they don't necessarily want to jump over that double fence.

But again, usually that's with electric fencing.

If we're just going to do a standard conventional deer fence, usually I'm just going to recommend just go ahead and get an eight foot fence.

It's a one time investment, but you're going to have less problems over time.

Okay.

And then, of course, as we go into the season, I mean, do they prefer gardens over their natural vegetation?

It might feel like that sometimes.

It certainly can.

There's a lot of plants in gardens that they like to eat.

I mean, again, a lot of the species that we're planting, especially flower species, are really high in nutrients that deer are seeking during this time of year.

So certainly there are times when it can feel like they're just getting after what we've planted.

But, you know, they like having natural vegetation as well, and they certainly rely on that for much of their food.

You know, it's just that if you throw 10 deer in a pretty small area, they're going to wreak havoc on a garden pretty quickly.

Okay.

Well, thank you for sharing this with us, Mark.

Absolutely.

Today we're back out here at the OSU student farm and joining me is Parker Lasavica, who is the assistant manager here.

And it looks like we've got some cool season crops.

And I got to say, anybody that's grown cool season crops in this last couple of months with the fluctuating temperatures, it's kind of been tricky, hasn't it?

It's been very tricky.

We've had some crazy extremes this spring.

And cool season crops like that, you know, average temperature like we all like, right?

That's right.

Yep.

You know, 70s, highs, lows in the 40s.

That's what they prefer.

And so what has been the problem out here with these fluctuating temperatures?

Well, the highs have been, you know, low 90s some days, and I think we got almost to 100 there about a month ago.

And that's what they want, because that sends them into flower.

But we don't want them to go into flower.

It makes them turn bitter, not really edible anymore.

Okay.

And when they start initiating that flowering, they start bolting, essentially elongating that growth.

When we're after the leaves and the vegetation, so we want to keep them in that vegetative state as long as possible, right?

That's right.

Yep.

So tell me a little bit about what you're doing here to mitigate that heat and protect them and keep them from bolting.

Sure.

Yeah.

So you can see we've got a shade cloth.

It's kind of like sunblock for plants.

But what it is, is this woven fabric, kind of a plasticky material.

And it just reduces the amount of sunlight and thus heat that can get to the plants.

Okay.

So like any of us in the hot, we want a little bit of shade on us, right?

And so what are you finding?

So tell me how, I mean, this is not research or anything that you're doing.

It's just been more kind of accidental, anecdotal that you've experienced out here.

Talk about what you've harvested and what you kind of had under shade and the variability there.

Originally, this was all lettuce and it was all covered.

And we harvested a little bit of it a couple of weeks ago.

We harvested a section and a few extra plants got uncovered and were left without shade for four days.

And all it took was four days of highs in the 80s and they started going bitter.

Really?

Okay.

Yeah.

So you kind of were just thinking you would try this.

So what percentage of shade did you get to do this with?

So for the lettuces, we picked a 50% shade.

They come in all ranges, 20, 35, 50, even up to 75.

And you get into 90, that's basically patio shade at that point.

Right.

So that might be a little too much.

A little too much.

Especially for your more heat sensitive crops like lettuce and maybe some herbs, 50% is a good one to go for.

Okay.

And then you can kind of adjust as you see how things work from there.

Right.

It looks like it just was kind of buried as if you were using freeze cloth or plastic.

Has that made harvesting a little tricky or how do you recommend that?

A little bit.

So we were trying to beat the highs in the forecast and we were moving fast.

And all we had at the time was just burying.

We just put the wire hoops in, covered it, buried it on either side.

What I would recommend is maybe burying one side and then using something like rocks or whatever you've got, something to weigh down the other side because it has been difficult to harvest.

We've had to kind of pull up, unbury it, and then it throws some dirt on the plants.

If you could just move the rocks, lift up a side, get in, harvest, put it back down, that would be much easier.

Okay.

Well, of course you're doing this for the shade, but have you found any other benefits to having it covered?

There actually have been a few other benefits.

So since we have the row entirely covered, it works as wind protection for one thing.

The plants are much more tender under the shade, but also bugs can't see it as well.

So we've had reduced insect pressure and then even rain splatter.

So especially lettuce is notoriously bad for getting rain splatter on the leaves.

Which kind of will get some dirt on it too sometimes with that.

And so this greatly reduces that dirt that gets on the leaves.

So it sounds like an overall much cleaner product that you're harvesting here as well.

That's right.

That's amazing.

And I know we're talking about this as a practice with the cool season crops, but tomatoes are kind of in that certain range too.

And I think a lot of times people don't realize that even though they're a full sun plant, that in our extreme sun, sometimes they need a little bit of shade as well.

They do.

We don't really have a way to cover those out here, but if you do have a way to cover, again with maybe a 35 or 50% shade, that'll help with sun scald, tomatoes and peppers, and probably even eggplant as far as that goes.

Okay.

Yeah, that's a good point.

So later on when the temperatures start warming up for them for sure, and kind of giving them a little break later on in the season as well.

Sure.

Thanks for this idea, Parker.

You bet.

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And 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.

Next week on Oklahoma Gardening, we're headed to Tulsa for a sneak peek of the Tulsa Garden Club's annual garden tour.

It's one of the most popular shows and you won't want to miss it.

I think you should be like, we're inside.

We're inside because it's crazy Oklahoma weather.

Today we're back here at the OSU Student Farm and joining me is Parster.

Parster.

That's okay.

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