Oh, and by the way, I forgot to introduce myself. How rude.

My name is Jeff, I'm 24 and I live with my wife, dog and cat in Broken Arrow. I work as a reporter in Tulsa.

My other major project is getting my yard relatively free of weeds. I just want to fill in the bare spots and have more grass than weeds. If I can do that in the front, then I'll be happy.

1. How tall were the tomato, pepper and basil plants? Six Inches? Twelve inches? Eighteen inches?

2. How long had the plants been in the ground?

3. What size containers were the plants in prior to being placed in the ground?

4. Finally, are all the leaves damaged or only some?

Also, do you know what your low temperature was and do you know how long your area stayed below 32 degrees? Hours? Days? Did you have any ice, sleet, freezing rain or snow? If so, did it accumulate on the ground? Was your soil extremely dry before the cold spell hit?

If you'll answer the above questions for me, I'll do my best to help you determine the odds of survival and recovery for the affected plants.

Dawn

Temperatures have returned to normal although we're still not seeing much sun in NE Oklahoma. A survey of the garden yesterday and this morning revealed no new damage. I removed damaged leaves yesterday. Here's the info you asked for:

OK, the tomato plants were about 6-8 inches tall with some nice leaves. I buried them deep (like the instructions said) two weekends before the cold snap hit. They were sold in small containers maybe 3 inches square. Only some of the leaves of the tomato plants were damaged. One was hit worse than the other, and I pinched off maybe 4-5 badly damaged leaves.

The lone pepper plant (a cayenne plant, to be exact) was tall and spindly when I planted it at the same time as the tomatoes. The container was the same. The leaves at the top of the plant seemed to be damaged the worst, so I pinched off about half of them near the top. Some of the others are a little bit damaged, but it doesn't look too serious.

As for the (sweet) basil, they were about 4-6 inches tall and had done quite well since I planted them along with the others from containers about the same size. They were very green and spreading in the sun. One plant lost about 75 percent of its leaves and the other only lost 4-5 of them.

As far as the extent of the cold, I didn't take exact measurements. It only dropped below freezing one night last weekend and didn't stay there for too long. There was no visible frost on the ground the next morning. The next day there were a few snowflakes in the air that I saw while at work, but no accumulation at all. No other precipitation happened.

When the cold hit, my soil was moist from watering, but not soggy or waterlogged. I had been watering about every other day with a bucket, and was trying to encourage the roots to spread by pinching off any blossoms on the herbs and strawberry plants (which were largely unaffected by the cold).

I put bowls and buckets over the tomatoes, pepper and basil plants every night and sometimes during the day when it remained cold. I removed them a few days when it was still a little chilly, but not cold because I felt the plants could use the sun for strength.

I'm feeling a lot better about the garden, but I had a bit of a panic yesterday when I saw so many dead leaves.

I want to thank you for your help. I'm new at this, and a lot of gardeners I've talked to haven't been that encouraging! They seem to think that, as a beginner, I don't have much of a chance at growing vegetables. My only prior experience was growing kitchen herbs in a few pots.

Hi Jeff,

Since the tomato plants were planted deeply, they should survive and they should bounce back just fine. Be careful not to overwater them as they recover. With less leaf area currently available for photosynthesis, too much water will harm them rather than helping them.

I am concerned about the pepper plant. Peppers that are exposed to cold soil and cold air early in the growing season tend to sulk. Most gardeners set out their pepper plants at the same time they set out their tomato plants. I did it that way myself for at least 10 years before I wised up. lol

Research shows that peppers exposed to temperatures in the 40s for only a short time will often remain small and nonproductive for a long time, if not for the remainder of the growing season. So, I never set out my peppers until both the soil temperatures and the air temperatures are very, very warm. I think the lowest soil temps at which peppers will grow well is 55 degrees (temp is taken 2" below the soil surface).

I don't set out peppers until my soil is consistently in the uppers 60s to lower 70s.

If your cayenne pepper just sits there for a couple of weeks and doesn't seem to regain vigorous growth, you might want to consider re-planting it.

Jeff, (and I am wearing my "mom" hat now as I have a son only a couple of years younger than you) you just have to ignore those experienced gardeners who think that a beginning gardener isn't likely to have much success! That is just silly. I can tell from your comments that you are intelligent and have done your research and are trying to do things the right way. So, just keep it up. EVERY single one of us was a beginner at one point or another.

And, to tell you the truth, I think growing things in containers, whether it is herbs, flowers, veggies, houseplants, dwarf trees or whatever is often HARDER than growing plants in the ground in our climate.

Think about it. In a container, all the moisture and nutrition that the plant is going to have is whatever the gardener gives it. Forget to water the container and the plant can dry out and die. Forget to fertilize it and the plant won't grow well.

On the other hand, if you neglect plants in the ground, they can send out their roots both deeper and wider in the search for more moisture or more nutrients. So, if you can grow in containers, you can grow stuff in the ground!

I have been gardening for decades and I still learn something new every day that makes me a better gardener, and I hope that never changes.

For what it is worth, the mistake most new gardeners make is that they both overfertilize and overwater their plants. In the garden world this is often referred to as "loving their plants to death". Remember that plants kept SLIGHTLY on the dry side will generally do better than those kept on the wet side.

I hope you will come back to the Oklahoma gardening forum often with your questions, comments and ideas. This is a simply wonderful on-line community.

Dawm

Hey, thanks "mom"! Heh. That reminds me, my real mom has a spearmint plant she wants to split with me. I'll plant that as soon as I can get some more ground ready. I love mint.

Thanks for the advice. I really think things will be OK. The pepper plant I could take or leave. I wasn't really all that sure what I was going to do with the peppers anyhow. I'm not a huge fan of spicy foods. I'll chalk it up to experience if it doesn't wind up doing well.

I'm glad to hear the tomatoes will be more forgiving. You are correct to say that I do a lot of research, and the sheer volume of tips and tricks concerning tomatoes had me thinking they were finicky plants. So it's good to hear they aren't.

I've loved plants to death, starting with a potted hyacinth. My wife said I was over-watering and she was right. I'm being careful to let the ground dry out a little now and then, just as it would naturally in the absence of rain. And I never soak the plants, I just give them a drink.

The next thing I have planned is to work some compost into the soil around and in between the plants I've transplanted. The compost bin I started last fall has some of the black stuff in the bottom, but some of it isn't decayed yet. I'm reading that it's OK to bury some half-rotted stuff. Is that correct?

I also plan to top-dress (or mulch, I'm not sure what the right term is) the bed with some more compost, so I'm introducing more organic material in two different ways. Is this something that is helpful?

There's a big herb and plant festival in the area this weekend. I'll probably plant some of the stuff I get there (more herbs and maybe a roma tomato plant or sweet pepper plant) in pots while I get some more of the yard ready to plant.

I'm only concerned about the fertility of the soil I'm using. The only remediation the bed I have got was a little cow manure on the day of planting. I know that stuff takes a while to kick in and enrich the soil, so I'm probably not seeing any results yet. I'll wait longer next time.

As you can probably tell by now, I'm not used to gardening and I'm trying to be patient, but I'm not a patient guy by nature! Also, I'm driving my friends and family absolutely crazy talking about the garden day in and day out. It's good to have a place where I can talk about this stuff.

Thanks again!

Hi Jeff:

Listen to Dawn. She is excellent with the veggie stuff. I do more ornamental things, I get fresh produce from the Farmers Market in my area. I know all the vendors and enjoy spending Saturdays with them visiting. Dont worry about experience gardeners, they make mistakes and have bad results lots of times and besides after one season just count yourself as an experienced gardener. You made it through a season with all limbs no major stitches in hands, feet and the world did not stop turning cause one pepper plant got too cold one night.

You will really like this forum, Dawn is right very good friends and good advice and ranting is permitted. Dawn maybe your MOM but she is MY HERO!

Have a great gardening experience this season and keep us posted on how things are going. Besides all this advice is free!

Happy Gardening! Steffie

Hi Jeff!

The half-broken-down compost should be fine as long as it doesn't contain a lot of animal manure. If it has a lot of animal manure, I wouldn't use it until that stuff breaks down.

You can top dress with more compost, grass clippings, etc.
To keep weeds from sprouting, lay down wet newspaper about 8 to 12 pages thick. Pile your compost and clippings on top of that. It will keep the weeds from sprouting in the soil and growing up through the mulch/compost. As a bonus, the newspaper will attract earthworms who will digest organic material in the soil and leave behind earthworm castings which are a GREAT fertilizer.

A tomato and herb festival. Well, right this minute google Darrell Merrell, the tomato man from the Tulsa area, and see if he is going to be there. He is a legend in the world of tomato afficianados. I hope you have a great time at the festival!!!

And the best thing for your tomatoes (and peppers too) is an organic fertilizer made by Espoma called Tomato-Tone. If you run across any, buy it!!!!! A four-pound bag will last a long time. You can work it into the soil when you plant, scratch it into the surface of the soil after you plant, and top dress with it every couple of weeks. You'll love the results.

Hi Steffie! I should hire you as my PR agent. lol

Got to go. Time to watch American Idol.

TTYL,

Dawn

Hey Jeff!
Arent you glad that you found this forum! Dawn has been sharing alot of her knowledge with me this year too!
Goodluck with the plants!
Carla R

Hi Jeff,

My son will be 24 next week and I'm always giving him advice about planting things. I hope you don't mind if I give you some advice too. When you plant the spearmint, put it in a pot and not in the ground. Mint will take over. It really spreads. And once it does, it is hard to control. I learned this from experience.

Another thing I learned from experience is that when I used manure in my flowerbeds, I got more weeds than ever. I think the weed seeds were in the manure that I got from Wal-Mart. So it made more work for me pulling the weeds. I wish I had known about that wet newspaper method of preventing weeds!

Happy gardening!

Susie

Hey, thanks everyone for the welcomes! I've got to drive to work in a bit, so I'll have to keep it brief.

I'll do the newspaper trick because I have some lawn grass and shepard's purse weeds poking up in my bed already.

I plan to have a small row of potted plants along an area next to my garden, so I'll plant my mom's spearmint there. I also plan on getting some peppermint, so that'd be a good place.

I don't know about seeds in the manure. The bag said Green Country Manure, I think. It was mostly cow manure with some spent mushroom compost mixed in for filler. Thanks for the advice on manure buying.

In my heap, I have no manure at all. I wanted to get some from a horse farm or cow pasture in the area, but my wife didn't want me carting manure and a shovel around in my Volkswagen Jetta. ;-)

Although it will break my heart to use newspapers in such an undignified way (I'm a reporter), I've been looking for a way to attract more worms into my garden. There were about 2-3 per shovelful when I dug it, and I've read it should be at least 5-10.

We've done stories about the Tomato Man. Unfortunately, it sounds like he has gotten very sick and may have to hand his business over to his daughters. The festival is in Sand Springs, and I picked that one because sources in the past say it's the "Big Kahuna" of festivals in the area. I hope the really serious people don't elbow me out of the way!

I will look everywhere for the Espoma. Didn't I read that you bought it from a nursery in northern Texas? Sorry, but I don't have time to check. Gonna be late for work!

Thanks again, everyone!

Hi Jeff,

Oh, you poor thing, now that we know you are so young compared to so many of us, you are going to have a whole bunch of on-line "moms" telling you what to do and how to do it. You'll just have to tolerate us, because most gardeners are nurturers at heart, whether they are nurturing plants, animals, or people.

I was thinking about you being a reporter when I suggested the newspaper, and was wondering if you were a print reporter and hoping that, if so, you would forgive my suggestion for reusing newspaper in such a way. Of course, a person should never use a newspaper for mulch until that newspaper has been read, re-read, greatly enjoyed, and had favorite articles cut from it to be saved. :) Think about the positives, though, that the newspaper is being used in a positive way, to eventually enrich the soil as it breaks down and to improve your garden. Better than having it end up in a landfill somewhere.

I'm sorry to hear the Tomato Man is ill and I hope it is not a terminal illness. He has done so much to spread the word about heirloom tomatoes and he is much admired by tomato-growing afficianados all over the country.

Just remember that serious gardeners at a Tomato and Herb Festival are like women at a big clearance sale. (Sorry ladies!) Go early, go prepared for war and remember that only the fittest survive and bring home the best plants.

I posted a link for Espoma below. You can enter your zip code and they will tell you if there is a retailer anywhere near you. That's how I found the retailer in Southlake, which is a mere 68 miles from my house. If I had to, I would have found some at an on-line retailer and would have paid to have it shipped. It is that good.

Hve a great day, Jeff.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Espoma organic plant fertilizers

Dang. No dealers in NE OK. The closest is in OKC. Oh well. I'll use the manure brand you suggested and maybe a bale of sphagnum moss. I used that on my beds out front and it made the soil a lot easier to work with.

I was joking about the newspaper. I'm not that sensitive about it. However, our "competitor" in Broken Arrow started giving their papers away at stands and to homes so they can claim to have higher circulation figures, so I figure I'll use their rag. I used it for kindling when it was colder.

I don't mind being the young'un around here. I'm the youngest guy almost everywhere I go because I don't have a lot in common with most people my age. I'm the youngest guy at my office and my friends are all older than me. Don't know why, but it doesn't bother me.

Well, I'll probably be sorting through my compost bin later today, so I'll be thinking of all you "moms"! Thanks for your help. You have a great community here, and you are all very welcoming.

Hey Jeff. Nice to meet you.

I'm not that much older. I'm just 28. I'm a single guy who lives down in McAlester.

I don't have too many posts on this board yet, but I do enjoy reading what everyone else has to say.

I just started getting into gardening last year after I bought my home. I started a couple small perennial beds. This year, I've added a few vegetables to the mix.

Last year was a horrible year for beginning gardeners because of the drought. I'm hoping to have more success this season!

Ozlifter,

If it is any consolation, last year was also a horrible year for well-seasoned and experienced gardeners.

This year we seem to have some improving moisture patterns, as compared to last year, although the warm temps in March were a concern as none of us could be sure if they indicated just a short blip on the radar or perhaps a long, hotter-than-average, drier-than-average year to come.

And, it may help to think of the gardening year in Oklahoma having seasons. Instead of us having one very long growing season during the warm weather, we really have two. The first runs approx. from March through mid-July. Then the heat just ruins everything for a few weeks. The second season for warm season crops runs from August through the first freeze.

Some people don't try to grow anything after the July heat wipes out the spring garden, and that is unfotunate because a fall garden can be quite productive.

Some years I will try to baby my plants through the non-productive hot spell in the hope they will produce well after it cools off. Other years, I rip everything out in July and pretty much start over, and some years it is a combination of the two.

One thing about gardening in Oklahoma....thanks to our climate and wild weather, it is never dull.

Dawn

Hmm. Sounds good. Two seasons, huh?

Well, we bought this house last summer and as soon as we were done painting the entire interior (in 8 days, thankyaverymuch), I wanted to start planting things. But when I went to a garden center, it was totally empty. No plants at all.

I was told it was too late to plant anything, so I just started a compost bin in anticipation of finally being able to plant. I guess that's probably why I jumped the gun on planting and now have some cold-abused plants!

Oh well, right?

Anyhow, the thing I like most about it is it's so relaxing. I'm a stressful, anxious person and gardening just calms me so much. There's something about the plants and how they're content to just sit in the sun all day and grow... it's so great that I find myself thinking about it at work.

So I'm guessing I'll probably be doing this for the rest of my life.

Jeff,

If you want to have plants to set out in the mid to late summer for fall, you may have to raise them from seed yourself.

Since most of the country isn't able to grow fall gardens, the retail establishment pretty much ignores those of us who do have fall gardens.

Have you looked at the OSU fact sheet on Fall Vegetable Gardens? I've linked it below to give you ideas on what you can plant and when to plant it.

I agree with you that gardening is a great stress reliever.
I don't just garden because I want to....I garden because I have to! Gardening feeds my soul.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU Fall Gardening Guide

Been out of pocket. Updates on computer, ugh, both home and at work so putering is not my thing the last couple of days.

Anyway, the newspaper thing--------I have done that, and it really improved my soil but if you have bermuda grass it will not halt the growth. I pulled some up to put some new plants in after I had it down several months and the bermuda was growing in the newpapers. It was not just spindly runners, they were literally sprigs from the devil himself. I had never seen bermuda runners that big and that healthy.

The DH wants a beautiful bermuda lawn, I want flower beds. Sometimes he wins, sometimes I win.

Fall gardening! I found that if you take the suckers off the tomato plants during the beginning of the season and root those they make great fall tomato plants. The only thing I noticed when I did it, I had more tomatoes than I could possibly eat so it was kind of a mute point. However, I do remember in ancient times, I was a kid, my grandmother actually would plant in stages. So many seeds during each planting and she adjusted the amount of sun and water each little seedling recieved to have crops until the final freeze. She lived down in Dawn's neck of the woods so the freezes were usually way later than those you recieve in the Tulsa area.

Anyway, just wanted you to know about the newspapers. I just used shredded ones now, soak them overnight in my buckets and spread them out in the beds, of course, under my mulch. I spend more time moving mulch than actually planting.

Sorry about the tomato man as well. I saw him on Gardening by the Yard and was impressed. Paul James is a fan and really enjoys discussing him. He is evidently quite a character.

Happy Gardening! Steffie

Hi Steffie!

Your experience with bermuda grass reminds me why I HATE bermuda grass. :)

My brother put down black plastic (plain old black plastic like trash bags are made of, not the fabric mulch type) on a newly tilled flower bed and planted perennials right through it. When he removed that plastic FIVE YEARS LATER, there were still those long bermuda runners everywhere.

I never try to make a new lasagna bed without removing the sod first, having learned the hard way.

I found it interesting that your grandmother raised her crops in stages. I do the same thing, and have never met anyone here who does it in the precise, regimented way that I do.

I'll use tomatoes as an example since they are the crop I grow the most of. I start my earliest seedlings, about 70% of my main season tomato crop, on Super Bowl weekend. Then, six weeks later I start the other 30%. I plant out in cycles, beginning in mid to late March most years, and get the late ones from the second planting into the ground by late April. Then, in mid to late-May I start seeds for fall tomatoes, or take and root cuttings in mid-June. I get the fall tomatoes in the ground in late June to early July.

In late August I start seeds for a few winter tomatoes in containers, generally small-sized ones like Window Box Roma, Red Robin, Yellow Canary, etc. These tomatoes in pots can go into the garage or house during cold spells and extend the fresh tomato season quite a bit.

I do similar succession plantings of most veggies, including beans (every three weeks), corn (every 5 weeks), melons (generally an early planting in mid-April and a late planting in late May), summer and winter squash, peppers, okra and black-eyed peas.

I do the same thing with flowers. Take sunflowers. I plant different ones for each season. So, my spring sunflowers which will begin blooming in May most years, are some of the ones lightest in color like Italian White and Moonshadow and any of the ones with the lemon-yellow petals. The summer-blooming ones, which usually begin blooming in July, are the really golden-colored ones, of which there are many varieties. The late-summer to fall blooming ones are those in tawny fall-type colors like Autumn Beauty, Earthwalker, and any of the red-flowered ones like Chianti or Prado Red.

So, I always have flats of replacement plants started and it is easy to put them in the ground and plug them into holes in my garden at any time. It can get rather complicated to keep track of what needs to go where and at what time, but by staggering plantings, I have found I can have a wonderful garden each and every week of the summer.

Right now, I am starting flower seeds in small paper cups. These plants will go into the ground in mid-May. The first week in May, I start flower seeds that will go into the ground in June for blooms beginning in July. And so it goes, on and on and on.

With all the stages of planting, I always have something new coming along and that pleases me.

Dawn

Interesting thread about gardening in Oklahoma and what fun we have doing it! LOL!

Dawn, I've never considered bermuda grass "sod". I think it is a pernicious, ugly carnivorous plant right out of the Little Shop of Horrors because it eats everything in its path. It's right up there as the Kudzu of lawns. And the fact that it is associated with a lovely island off the East coast is such an oxymoron. It should be renamed Kudzu turf.

That said, I think the only way to get rid of it is systemically with Roundup and that doesn't imply one application. I foresee years of investing stock in Roundup in the future. I absolutely abhor the use of chemicals so this is quite an admission on my part.

Droogie, I don't know where you are located in Northern Oklahoma, but if you have a Wal-mart super store with garden center somewhere in the area, try looking for Espoma there. Last year they carried the 8 lb bags of it. I should have bought mine there because it was a lot cheaper than Horn's. But, que sera, sera.

Dawn, my red and yellow flowering sunflowers reseeded so I am going to have a nice patch of them for the silvery checkerspots.

I have so many new plants and am so excited to see what they do - probably not much the 1st year in the ground. But, my new lantana 'Miss Huff' came thru the frost with flying colors. She had already sported new green foliage that I was sure was going to be bitten back, but no. Now, we have to weather another frost Saturday night. Cross your fingers. You veggie folks will probably be more affected by it than me.

I was glad last year when I grew my tomatoes in soda bottles for a long time. I sowed the seeds in early, early March, and the soil was about 6-7" deep in each one, so they were fine when we have lot of cold nights - tucked in their little mini-greenhouses. If any of you drink soda and purchase the 2-ltr bottles, just cut out the bottom of them and pop them over your plants. Don't need to leave the cap on the top. But, they will protect your plants, and even if the leaves are a bit scrunched up, they'll still be okay, if they are just left on for a night or two. Milk jugs, bit water bottles (like the gallon or larger size) work great as well.

The only thing that the frost affected was my 4 o'clocks. I think they may still come back, though.

Susan

Hi Susan!

I absolutely agree with you on Round-up. It has been the hardest thing for me to buy it and use it when I try so hard to garden organically in every other way. With bermuda grass, though, there is simply no other option. And, believe me, I have tried all the organic methods of killing bermuda, and they don't work.

Susan, I am glad to hear that Wal-Mart is carrying Espoma in at least parts of Oklahoma. It is just the best stuff!

I am glad your sunflowers reseeded. Let me know if they come back identical to what you had or if they are a throwback to one of the red and yellos sunflower's parents. I have had many come back with the F2 generation appearing virtually identical to the F1, but every now and then some of them don't.

It is so hot that I had to go ahead and uncover my tomato plants. Because they have been under a plastic tunnel type cover with jugs of water to maintain warmth, they've grown at least six to eight inches since I covered them up last week.

Since nothing was damaged last week, I think I won't cover up anything this week. Well, unless the forecast changes to indicate worse weather than what we are currently expecting.

Susan, I bet your 4 o'clocks will come back. They are incredibly tough. I have had even tiny seedlings freeze back to the ground and still recover.

Dawn

Well, the cold and wet has about done in my lilies this year. The tops are turning black and are limp. I'm wondering if I should just cut off the top part now and leave the rest of the stem to die back. What do you think, Dawn?

I was afraid they had come up too soon, but what's a lady to do?

Susan

Oh, Susan, unless they are daylilies, I think they may be done. If their growing tip froze out, I don't think you will get flowers this year. I just hate that. And there is nothing you could have done to prevent it. The warm weather we had in March made them break dormancy, and once that train is rolling down the track, what can you do???

Sorry about your lilies. :(

Dawn

Susan, a little late but, dont trim your lillies. Sometimes depending on the lilly they will recover but you wont know for several weeks. My daylillies did just great during all the cold weather and my oriental and asian are on the south side of the house and they are doing just fine.

It is recommended that after weather systems like we had eveything needs to be watched. Hostas will revive but will probably not flower and will be less dense than usual. Lillies should be watched and let nature take over. Shrubs, trees, bushes just leave them alone and even though they may look bad now will recover.

By the way, prior to the weather system and the pesticides next door, I had black swallowtails, monarchs and the little yellow flutters. Now nothing.

I have my fingers crossed. Steffie

I want to remind all of you that live near a starbucks, and compost... that you can get used coffee grounds there for FREE. It's a great addition to compost piles, even as a soil addition, as long as it is used sparingly.

Moni