- [Casey] Oklahoma Gardening is a production of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the land grant mission of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University, dedicated to improving the quality of life of the citizens of Oklahoma through research-based information.

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

On today's "Best of Oklahoma Gardening", we are planting some cool season crops and thinning carrots.

Then we will visit Stillwell take a closer look at strawberry production.

I'll show you how your investment in asparagus will soon pay off.

And finally, I'll show you some gorge you might wanna consider adding to your garden this coming year.

(soft music) (soft music continues) This is the time of year that as a gardener we all get a little antsy to get outside.

And while the garden hasn't completely woken up yet there are a few things that we can start to do, including planting some cool season crops.

Now, cool season crops are different than warm season crops because they prefer growing at a temperature below 70 degrees.

So they actually can really take advantage of some of these really warm winter days that we have as we head into spring.

Now, if you're wondering what the difference is between a cool season crop and a warm season crop, well, a good rule of thumb to think about is what part of the plant are you trying to harvest?

If it's the root, the stem, or the leaves it's likely a cool season crop.

Think about carrots, lettuce, celery, broccoli.

Those sort of plants, we're after the plant tissue whereas if you're after the fruit of a plant that comes from the actual flour such as peppers, tomatoes, watermelon then those are your warm season crops.

And it actually kind of makes sense because when you start a plant, what's the first thing that grows on that plant?

It's usually the roots and the stems and the leaves, and so therefore your harvest is a lot sooner on those plants.

Now again, this is just a very general rule.

It doesn't apply to all vegetables.

It's not a hard and fast rule.

One example that breaks this rule of sweet potatoes.

So sweet potatoes is a root, but it is a warm season crop that we harvest later on in fall.

So, let's get to planting our cool season crops.

We've got some lettuce here, some radishes, and some different greens like spinach and things like that.

So we are gonna do something called succession planting.

Now, when you get your seed packet a lot of times it's tempting to go ahead and plant all of those seeds at one time.

But with cool season crops, you don't necessarily have to do that because it might be that if you plant at all of this lettuce then that means harvest is gonna come all at the same time and you probably don't wanna be eating that much lettuce at one time before it goes bad.

So succession planting allows you to plant just a little bit and then plant a little bit more the next couple of weeks and so on and so forth.

So you've kind of intervaled your harvest time as well.

Now we are planting today in a trough here, so I'm just gonna plant about a foot and a half of lettuce seeds.

If you are starting from a previously planted container, you wanna make sure that you've freshened up that soil or added new soil.

Sometimes the soil level can shrink down a little bit.

So we're gonna go ahead and add some more potting soil to our bed here just to raise up that level a little bit.

Now, of course, a lot of times when it comes out fresh you're gonna get clots like this so you wanna make sure you break that up and then smooth out your planting area.

You don't wanna completely feel a container over the edge because if you do that and when you water, then a lot of times that water will take your seeds away and wash them away.

So make sure that you leave a little bit of a lip on your container.

Now the beauty of planting cool season crops is just having a nice fluffy surface area is really all you need.

A lot of times the seeds are very small so we don't really have to worry about planting space too much.

You can see here with some lettuce seeds.

What we're gonna do, see how tiny they are?

We're just gonna kind of sprinkle those across our surface here.

And you would do the same again with radishes and carrots and stuff.

We will probably come back and sort of thin those out just a little bit as they continue to grow so that they don't compete for space.

But we're going to just sprinkle these on here.

And I'm gonna do, like I said, about a foot and a half.

And that's about it.

So we're gonna kind of mark this area here and I'm using my hand just to kind of cover this up a little bit.

And then of course, we'll need to water those in to really settle.

- Potting soil around those seeds.

So in a couple of weeks, I'll come back and do another couple of feet.

And so we'll have a later harvest.

And we can continue to do this for awhile as we go through our spring.

And depending on when those warm summer temperatures finally arrive, then that's gonna make our lettuce a little bitter.

Now, if you're new to gardening, this is one of the easiest ways to get involved in gardening is with cool season crops.

Also, if you have any young kids, this is a really great way.

Now, with carrots, you wanna be mindful, though, that you're after the root.

And so, if you have any like heavy, rocky clay soils, that oftentimes will cause those carrots to split and kinda give you some funny looking carrots.

Now, in this particular thing, you can see that this is more of a trug style planter.

And so, it slopes inward.

So if we were to put carrots on the edge, then they're gonna kinda hit that and then kinda divert and maybe not be the straightest of carrots.

Another option to do, if you're just getting into gardening, is just simply get a clay pot or some sort of pot like this and fill it with some potting soil.

So it can be that simple.

But this is a great way to grow cool season crops.

If you haven't invested in really a garden bed or anything like that or you don't wanna invest in a large container, something as simple as this is a great way to get started into gardening, especially for young kids as well.

Some of these cool season crops, when you plant them, they will be ready to harvest in as little as 30 days, providing you with some really instant gratification.

So here we have some carrot seeds.

Again, they're very tiny, so you can see how little those are.

And we're just gonna sprinkle those along the top here and then kinda tamp them into that soil profile to make sure there's good contact.

And of course, we'll water those in.

Remember to keep that lip there so that they don't wash away when you are watering them.

Again, cool season crops is a great way to get introduced into gardening, whether you're young or finding it later on in life.

(upbeat jazz music) You might remember a couple of weeks ago, I was planting some cool season crops by seeding them directly out into the garden.

And one of the samples that we did was some carrot seeds into a container.

This is one of the easiest ways to get started into gardening if you're new or especially you've got some kids that are showing some interest.

This is a really great way to do that.

So, at this point, you can see our carrot seeds have taken off.

They are germinating and they've grown quite well.

So they're about three or four inches tall.

And we need to go ahead and begin to thin them out.

Now, thinning out is a process where you kind of open 'em up a little bit and allow for less competition so that the carrots that you do have remaining have plenty of room to grow and aren't fighting for water and nutrients.

Right now, they're too densely seeded and that's because the seeds were rather small, so we couldn't exactly know where we were planting them.

And you know, you get plenty of carrot seeds, so it's not a big deal to lose a few of 'em.

So we're gonna go in here and just with your fingers, simply pull out some of those carrots that have germinated.

You can see they're rather small right now, so we haven't lost too much of an investment in them.

But we're gonna allow for a couple of inches in between each seedling to provide them with plenty of room to develop that carrot.

Now, you wanna do this on some of your other cool season root crops that you might've planted, regardless of whether they're in a container or out in the garden.

You wanna go ahead and thin them.

So radishes, turnips, beets.

Think about thinning those as well.

Also, look at some of your leafy greens.

Thinning your lettuce and some of your romaine, you wanna go ahead and thin those out so that they have plenty of space and air flow to continue to develop above ground as well.

Doing this will ensure that you have a great crop going into the spring season.

(upbeat music) We are south of Stilwell here at Miller Farms, and joining me is Bryce Miller.

Bryce, thank you so much for having us here.

- You're very welcome.

- You've got a few strawberries.

Tell us.

- We've got a few.

- Tell us how many acres of strawberries you have here.

- Currently, we've got 7 1/2 acres.

- Okay, so, are you growing one type, ever-bearing, June-bearing?

Tell me a little bit about that.

- Well, we currently grow four different types.

- Okay.

- One is an ever-bearing.

The rest are June-bearings.

- Okay.

- [Bryce] So we grow our June-bearings, our Ruby Junes, Fontares, and a new one out called Sensation.

Our ever-bearings is a Albion.

- [Host] Okay, and I noticed you're growing in plasticulture.

Have you been doing that for the length of this farm, or is this- - [Reporter] Newer thing?

- [Bryce] No, it's, we've been doing it for the majority of it.

- [Reporter] Okay.

- [Bryce] The first year that we grew was in just traditional matted rows.

After that we went to plastic because we get more plants.

It's cleaner.

It's still labor intensive, but it's not as labor intensive.

- And I know you've got rolling hills over here.

- Yes.

- It's just beautiful over on this side of Oklahoma and plenty of water more so than the rest of this state.

- Plenty of water.

Yeah.

- So that helps with drainage as well, right?

- It.

It does.

And the plastic keeps the water from really getting too much in there.

So we have drip line that runs underneath the plastic and that's how we irrigate, fertilize and all that.

So we control how much water we get.

And that's another reason why we went to plastic is 'cause we don't always get rain.

- [Reporter] Uh huh.

- [Bryce] And so, and it also keeps the weed control down quite a bit more than, you know, matted rows.

- So you just had the strawberry festival so I know you're in prime picking season.

How long will you be picking?

- Normally we pick somewhere between six to eight weeks.

The traditional style is a lot sooner than that.

Usually three to four weeks, sometimes five is the max.

Currently we are three weeks behind.

- [Reporter] Uh huh.

- [Bryce] But as you can see, there's still a lot of blooms on the plants.

So we're looking to be picking for, you know, second to third week of June.

- Okay.

And then what happens after that?

I know a lot of times strawberries put on their runners.

- Well, yeah.

- Do you save those?

- We don't save the runners.

- [Reporter] Okay.

- You know, we, what we will do is we will, this year we're gonna try something new.

We're gonna turn the cows in on the patch and let 'em graze it down so we don't have a big foliage mat on top to pull the plastic up.

- Oh, okay.

- Because we pull the plastic up every year.

We replant every year.

And so, we're still trying to figure this, you know, part out on how to get the plastic up the easiest.

- Right.

Which is a common problem of the process alter.

- No, it is, it is.

'Cause it's because it's new to everybody.

- Right.

- Mainly new to everybody, you know, especially me, you know, being five or six years in.

- Uh huh.

- You know, we're still learning.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I think it's interesting how you're looking at even grazing your cattle on it.

- Yes.

- That's a kind of innovative way of, - Yep.

- Maybe solving some of that problem.

- Some of it.

Yes and, you know, trying to keep as much chemical out of the ground as we can.

- Yeah.

So, using new runners every year, do you find that that's more beneficial for your production versus trying to use some of the other runners, or.

- No.

It's because, so once we get these plants they are three or four, third or fourth year generation.

- Mhm.

- [Bryce] And the further you get, you go down the line, the more susceptible to disease that they are, the tolerance is not there the further they get away from the mother plant.

- [Reporter] Right.

- [Bryce] And so that is one reason why we do not take our own runners, which you can, but we don't.

- Okay.

Well, I know you've been growing strawberries for a few years, but you've gotten all in with the association and the festival.

Tell me a little bit about that aspect of it.

- Well, I'm currently the Strawberry Grocer Association President.

Have been for the past three years.

It's the group of, it's the group of farmers that we have here in Mater County.

We all get together and we try to help one another out and discuss on, you know, how to be successful as a farmer and we're trying to keep this tradition alive.

There's not very many of us that's growing strawberries anymore.

1950, something.

There was 126 entries over 600 acres growing in Stilwell.

Well, now there's 20.

- [Reporter] Okay.

- With, seven growers.

- Okay.

Well it, and I hear you did well at the festival.

You won first place, - Yes.

- With the strawberries.

- Yes.

We got lucky and got first, - [Reporter] Okay.

- [Bryce] You know, we'll take it how we can get it.

- [Reporter] Yeah.

Well, congratulations.

- [Bryce] Thank you.

- [Reporter] And I know that's a big event for the state.

Everybody knows Stilwell - [Bryce] Big.

- For the strawberries and so this is where they come from.

- Yes, ma'am.

- And it's exciting to see this.

Do you mind if I help you pick a little bit, as we move through here?

- No.

Sure, we can.

If you, - There's several reds ones.

(reporter laughing) - There's several.

Several.

And so, normally, this is not the ideal shape.

- Uh huh.

- But this is the ideal color.

- Okay.

- And so, that one, that one is ready.

And you can see how the firmness, that one's ready.

- Okay.

- Obviously the green ones are not ready.

- And all of this is handpicked.

- Handpicked.

Handpicked.

Every one of 'em.

- So very labor involved.

- Very labor intensive.

I've got a crew that comes in and picks for me, every, right now would be every other day until heats up.

Then it'll be every day.

- [Reporter] Okay.

- [Bryce] My boys, they help pick, this is a family run farm and it takes all five of us to keep it running.

- Well, Bryce, it's clearly a labor of love and thank you for sharing your farm with us today.

- You're very welcome.

We're glad to have you out here.

- Thanks.

(upbeat music) Got a lot of green shoots that are starting to emerge in the garden.

Now, if you're in the vegetable garden, we've all been anticipating those first shoots of asparagus that are coming up.

And as you can see, we've got ours starting to come up.

This particular asparagus we planted last spring, so a year ago, it's had one growing season on it already.

Typically, you plant a crown of asparagus and that first season after you've got it planted, it will start to emerge with these different sprouts and you don't wanna harvest any of those sprouts.

Now, after one season, you can see we've got a few more spears that are coming up on them.

We wanna be very judicious about how many we're gonna harvest.

So you can harvest maybe a couple, maybe for about a week, but then after that, you really don't wanna harvest too much more because you're basically robbing it of its ability to photosynthesize.

So you can see we've got one that's already kind of expanded that's gonna start making that fern foliage and this would be too far past harvesting.

Typically, when you have spears that are emerging, you wanna look for one that's about six to 10 inches in height, and that's about the ideal time to harvest them.

You also wanna make sure that the top is still really tight.

You can see how these are tighter than these, of course.

So these are kind of the ideal time to harvest.

So once you begin to see your asparagus spears emerge out of the soil, you'll notice that earlier in the season with the cooler temperatures, they might get a little taller sooner, and that's okay.

Usually, they're still tender and very much edible to eat, even if they get a little beyond the 10 inches.

However, later in the weeks of harvest, you'll notice that they might stay shorter, but they're gonna get more fibrous sooner.

So, you wanna be checking your harvest about every other day because they will start growing pretty rapidly once the soil temperatures start warming up.

Now, there's two different ways to harvest.

You can just snap them off with your fingers.

Or with a knife, you can go and slice down below the spear, actually down into the soil a little bit more.

Now, there's pros and cons to both methods here.

So, using your fingers, obviously, it's easy, you can just go through the garden and snap those off and you're not interfering with any of the others around there.

If you're using a knife, the good thing about it is you can actually get down further into the woody tissue where it's not gonna lose as much moisture when you harvest it.

So again, pinching up here, you're gonna get some more succulent tissue, and so it might lose a little more moisture.

Problem with the knife, though, is you're down further where you might accidentally cut some of those other emerging spears, even some that might be below the soil surface that you don't actually see.

So those are kind of the pros and cons depending on how many you're harvesting, you might choose your method.

Now again, we're gonna be kind of cautious about how many we harvest because this has just been one year of growing.

So probably, just for a week.

Your second year of growing, you can harvest for a few more weeks.

And then finally, your third year, third full year of growing, you can go ahead and harvest for about six to eight weeks into the season.

And each year, you're gonna start to notice that more spears, bigger spears, are coming up because what's happening is that root system has gotten larger, it's got more energy to then produce more stems.

And so that's really what we wanna do is allow it to be able to grow a bigger root system in order to produce more spears for us going into the future.

Again, if we were to take all of these off constantly, it's going to drain it from its ability to photosynthesize later in the season.

Now, of course, even on a mature plant, there is a point where you wanna quit harvesting.

And so, typically, when your spears, they'll start to decrease in diameter.

So, when they're about three eighths of an inch in diameter, that's about the time that we wanna start reducing our harvest.

And just go ahead and let those spears come out.

You'll see that they'll start to open up a little bit more and you're gonna get that lovely fern foliage.

So that's a really nice, attractive quality of this perennial.

If you haven't tried fresh asparagus out of the garden, it is delicious.

So when you're harvesting, the best time to harvest is early in the morning to keep that moisture level up and, of course, refrigerate them as soon as possible.

(upbeat music) So today, I have two different gourds that I wanna show you that we've got growing here at the gardens.

And this first one is called.

- The Birdhouse gourds.

Now, both of these gourds are great especially if you have kids or you're crafters because you can utilize them for fun activities.

So this Birdhouse gourd, as the name may imply is often used to create birdhouses.

You can see it's quite expansive so you wanna make sure to plant it and give it plenty of room.

And we've actually had to kind of keep pulling it off of our deer fins here because it's just not strong enough to support the vine especially once it starts producing fruit.

It is preferable to try to trellis these, so that your fruit is hanging versus sitting on the ground because you can get some rotting spots on your fruit if you do leave them laying on the ground too long.

So that can be a concern.

Although we're not really worried about eating these we're just using them for decorative purposes.

Now, the Birdhouse gourd, it's a hard shelled gourd and so we're actually gonna leave these on until after the first frost that's gonna kill the vine.

And then we'll be able to come through and collect all of our gourds and then put those away to dry them in order to make different craft projects.

Now this Birdhouse gourd is native to Africa.

However, the seeds have been distributed all across the world, because of the fruit being so utilitarian and used for water and food containers as well as musical instruments or even garments.

They've used this.

Now, you'll probably notice not too many flowers on the Birdhouse gourd, and that's because it makes a smaller white flower that tends to bloom later in the evening.

So you won't necessarily see those flowers very predominantly, but you will definitely start seeing these fruit as they develop under these leaves.

And especially the more you dig and after the vines die back you'll probably be surprised with how much fruit you get.

Now we'll go take a look at another gourd.

So here's the second gourd that I want to show you.

And this is a Luffa gourd.

Now you can grow this both for the fruit but I think it's quite ornamental to add to your garden.

You can see it's got a beautiful kind of palmate leaf to it which I think sort of looks like a Boston Ivy but it also has these bright sunshine-y yellow flowers that are big attractors of bees and other pollinators.

So a great addition to any garden just as a vine if you're wanting to cover something.

However, the fruit, you can see we've got this trellis and we've got some giant fruits that are growing here.

There's several of them growing back here.

And so this is the fruit that we're after.

So unlike the Birdhouse gourd that we're growing for the shell, this one we're actually growing for the interior.

It's got this kind of fibrous matrix interior.

And once these derive we're gonna peel off that shell to reveal this.

And this is what you can use in the bath or for your dishes to kind of scrub on.

And so while we often get sponges from like, the sea, this is called your Luffa sponge, that a lot of people use for kind of cleaning things, and so you can eat it earlier, when it's picked certain Luffas.

But this one really is primarily grown for a sponge once it's dry.

Now, just like the Birdhouse gourd, the Luffa gourd, they both like kind of rich, moist, yet well-drained soil, plenty of sunshine.

And then just step back because they're going to take off growing for you in your garden.

(whimsical guitar music) (whimsical guitar music continues) (whimsical guitar music continues) (whimsical guitar music continues) Spring will be here before we know it.

So make sure to join us right back here to learn more about Oklahoma gardening.

(whimsical guitar music concludes) (gentle music) (gentle 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.

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

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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 Stillwater gem.

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

Additional support is also provided by Pond Pro Shop, Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, The Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, Smart Pot and the Tulsa Garden Club.

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