When to start planting a garden in oklahoma
When is it Safe to Plant a Garden in Oklahoma?
about this time of year we as gardeners
start trying to outguess mother nature
trying to figure out just when that last
freeze is gonna come along so we can
kind of guide when we're going to be
planning our end of our cool season
crops and the first of our warm season
crops now many of you in Oklahoma if I
ask you when your last freeze date is
you could probably give us a pretty good
idea but I want to put a couple of maps
up to kind of really some of you who are
new to the state would like to find out
when the freeze date is in your area
now the first map is courtesy of the
Oklahoma climatological survey and if
you look at the map starting in the
southern part of the state you'll see
that around Ardmore in that area the
last freeze date is March 26 and then
you move right on up through the
northern part of the state out into the
Panhandle and their last freeze date is
April 25th so you can see there's almost
a month difference throughout the state
of Oklahoma and that's something that's
real key and knowing when you're
planting dates are gonna be now if
you'll just study the map and spot your
area you'll see how the lines go across
some map in between those areas kind of
gives you a range of approximately five
days to 10 days between one line and the
other to kind of pinpoint when that last
freeze date is going to be now a map in
comparison to that is through the OSU
research stations and it also shows the
last date of killing frost in the spring
but in the southern part
it starts with March 30th and as you
move on up through the state to the
panhandle their last freeze date on this
map is April 24th so we'll see that
there's about a days difference in the
Panhandle and approximately four days
difference in the southern part of the
state so what is that telling you well
you need to know that these maps are
really freeze probabilities that means
that there's still a 50% chance that you
can get a freeze after that date so
really it's just a tool or a guideline
to kind of go by and the most important
thing for you to do
during that time is make sure you watch
the weather to see if there's any
potential of future Co spells that might
affect what you're planning one of the
earliest crops and the favorite crops of
the spring garden is lettuce and of
course there's many different choices
anymore from the catalogs a lot of them
that are very cold tolerant that can be
planted earlier and then a lot of new
varieties that are coming out that are
more heat resistant too in case you
missed the earlier planting dates and
you've still got a few weeks that you
can be planting these too
now if you've been reading through your
garden catalogues you're probably
noticing like I am a lot of references
to lettuce or salad mixes or in some
cases you notice it called mescaline
mixes and mescaline is just a French
word for a mix of greens or lettuces
it's very simple and what they're doing
is they're selling you a blend of
different varieties now I've noticed
that there some of the companies that
are adapting them to specialties in
cooking some are adapting them to
regional planning dates others are even
finding mixes that are coming from other
countries so the sky's the limit and of
course you know there's a lot of
catalogs that are very specialty
oriented for cooking and heirloom type
varieties and sometimes you'll even find
these in your garden sooner so again the
sky's the limit in trying to find a mix
like this now again just read between
the lines make sure you know what you're
getting to find out if it will grow in
your area and as a general rule the
lettuces are going to germinate and be
ready to harvest anywhere from 35 to 45
days now what we're going to do is we're
going to make our own masculine mix and
what we've done is we've selected three
varieties black Simpson or Simpson curl
that's just a cultivar of the black
Simpson we've also got one that's called
Centennial and this is a new one this
year that actually starts out as a leaf
type lettuce that you can harvest that
way but then if you allow it to grow it
will form a bib type or something
similar to that not quite a head lettuce
but in between and then another one that
we liked last year is royal oak leaf now
you'll notice that there's a lot of
different characteristics as far as
tape and some variations of color but I
would encourage you to maybe throw in
some greens like mustard greens or
possibly some of the varieties that have
red color to it to give you even more of
an eye appeal and what we're going to do
is just take the jar here and we're
going to just blend our seeds together
and we're just going to sprinkle a few
seeds of each one of these in the jar
and again we've got three different
varieties I've seen some of the catalogs
put in as many as five varieties and a
mix you're gonna now if you're wanting
to keep track of which ones which you
need to keep your tags with you or make
sure you label it well because when you
mix them up like this it's hard to tell
and then we're gonna add our third
variety and then what we're gonna do is
just mix us up real good in our jar and
we're gonna plant under our greenhouse
umbrella now this has been in the ground
for several days to kind of help warm
the temperature up a little bit and the
first thing we want to do is the soil
has crusted so we're gonna loosen it up
a little bit and you can see it's nice
and dry from the dust blowing level it
out and we are not putting any
fertilizer in ahead of time and planting
because our soil test tells us that our
P and K phosphorus um tascam levels are
adequate so we're not putting any
fertilizer in and we're just going to
sprinkle the seed in the planting area
now again we're not doing it in a row
it's just a nice mix and obviously our
spacing is going to be pretty close but
once they start to germinate we'll come
in and we can let them get pretty tall
cut them out and harvest those and then
get our spacing down to about four to
six inches so after you've got some
sprinkled in what we're going to do
instead of raking it in to cover it up
we're just going to put some of our good
compost over the top from last year that
we've gotten out of the compost pile
you're gonna sprinkle it about a quarter
of an inch real shallow and this is also
going to give us a slow release nitrogen
and that will help in an organic form
to help get these plants going and then
of course will water them in with our
water can one thing that I want to
mention to you too is once they get
going and you make your first harvest
you will need to come back and side
dress them with nitrogen now you can use
a synthetic preferably a slow release
nitrogen but will probably use something
like blood meal or something high like
alfalfa meal something high of nitrogen
to get some support there so after we
water them in since there's still a
little risk we're gonna cover them back
up and that will also help them
germinate quicker now we're kind of on
the tail end of planting some of the
cool season things let me take you over
here and show you some warm season crops
we're gonna put in early over the past
couple of weeks we've shown you some
very unique examples of coal frames to
either overwinter those cool season
vegetables or start your warm season
transplants a little bit earlier
now you're probably used to the term hot
caps and many of you use like gallon
milk jugs to cover up your transplants
earlier but one example of a plant
protector hot cap that we've used at
Oklahoma gardening is a wall of water
and again it's been used here with great
success for several years and you can
actually start the plants even six to
eight weeks early using this wall of
water and the concept is little
individual tubes of plastic that are
filled with water and the sunlight will
penetrate through the water and actually
warm it out and help insulate the inside
of this and as it goes together it
releases a little bit of heat but it
also keeps it very insulated during
those cold temperatures and some people
have had success with using these and
transplants even down into the 20s and
the teens on some of these particular
vegetables now the way this works is you
usually get a package of three and they
come again anywhere from probably eight
to ten dollars for a package of three
but you place a container about a
five-gallon bucket upside down if you're
gonna put your transplants in ahead of
time later on in the season but we're
starting
it's quite early so we're going to just
put the plastic covering on first to
warm up the soil a little bit before we
plant and then you just turn on the
water and you fill up individual cells a
little bit at a time and we've got a
little tool here to help us and you
really want to fill them up about
two-thirds of the way and you'd go
around each one of those to fill them up
then you would remove your bucket and
that's when they come together now you
can get some algae growth if you have a
lot of sunlight and that's a good reason
to put in just a little drop or two of
the bleach to help keep that problem
down but after you remove the plant when
it warms up in the summer you've got to
be careful or you'll get the bleach on
the plant you can burn the plant so
you've got to be real careful but again
this is just a neat example of some of
the things you can do to plant tomatoes
peppers etc several weeks early and get
an early production before we leave you
today I want to remind you once again
that if you didn't get your cool season
lawn planted like fescue last fall now
as a second best time to do that over
the next few weeks again there's many
choices out there so be sure and do your
homework to find the one best suited for
your location well that's all the time
we've got today we hope you'll come back
and join us next week on Oklahoma garden
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