Theoretically a large pumpkin could be trellised. But keep in mind that each pumpkin would have to be tied and cradled in some way. Plus the trellis would have to be REALLY strong. A better route to go would be to plant your large pumpkin on the edge of the garden and let it sprawl out into the lawn.

I don't do raised bed gardening. But someone here probably does, and can comment on it. Even if you don't raise the beds you can still do some form of square foot gardening (making every inch count).

I suspect the berry question might fit black berries. One can often find them growing wild. I simply transplanted some into my yard, along a fence.

Pest resistant herbs: mints of any flavor, lemon balm, marigolds...

If you like beans, then I'd recommend you plant some pole beans. One can harvest A LOT of beans from a small area.

Have fun!

George
Tahlequah, OK

Idagizz,

Hi! Welcome to Oklahoma and also welcome to the Oklahoma Gardening Forum. You will find many gardeners here and between us we grow just about everything so you shouldn't have any problem getting answers to your gardening questions.

I grow both in raised beds and in the ground and both work equally well for most plants provided you have properly prepared your soil to ensure adequate nutrition and adequate drainage. It all starts with the soil.

I grew my first square foot garden in Texas several years before we moved here, and then used square foot gardening here as a starting point. With time, I learned what works well here with square foot spacing and what plants need more space in our climate. Since we have very long, very hot and sometimes very dry summers, some plants need more space than Mel gives them and a lot of that is influenced by which plant varieties you choose. I don't use square foot spacing for broccoli unless I use the variety "Small Miracle" which doesn't mind close spacing. I also don't use square foot spacing with peppers, tomatoes, squash of any kind, pumpkins or melons. I give all of those vegetables (except tomatoes) about twice the spacing Mel recommends and find they perform better with that spacing.

Square Foot Gardening's recommended spacing simply is inadequate for highly productive tomatoes here. We need much wider spacing in order for them to bear heavily and stay disease-free to the extent that any tomato can remain disease-freee in this climate. I space my tomato plants a minimum of 3' apart. You might be able to use closer spacing of tomatoes if you use fairly short determinate plants, but they won't produce as well as plants given wider spacing and they are likely to have a lot of issues with foliar disease.

I grow as many plants as I can vertically, but it is really hard to do this with any of the large pumpkins, so for pumpkins, I'll grow vertically only if planting the smaller ones like Jack-Be-Little, Baby Boo, Small Sugar Pie, New England Super Pie, Amish Pie Pumpkin, or Seminole. For the larger pumpkins, I plant them on the edges of the corn bed (the corn is not in raised beds because even in my clay soil, it doesn't need raised beds) and let the vines roam and ramble throughout the corn and the pathways and even outside the garden fence, where the deer will 'prune' the pumpkin vines once they notice the vines are outside the fence. Every now and then one of the larger pumpkins climbs a trellis, fence or tomato cage and I end up with a fairly large (15-20 lb.) pumpkin growing up in the air with no support. When that happens I try to put a stool, stepladder or something else there in the garden to support the pumpkin. Most of the time that works, whereas a larger pumpkin without support will often fall off the vine, or break the vine itself, especially during severe thunderstorms. For medium-sized pumpkins and for all but the smallest melons, I use cheesecloth, burlap or old pantyhose legs to create a 'sling' to support the pumpkins or melons.

The fastest-growing, best-tasting berries for much of Oklahoma most likely are the blackberries. You might be able to obtain some cuttings from established plants, and sometimes you can find them bundled bare-root in about February or so. In general, though, when I see them in stores, they are sold as container-grown plants. Blackberries planted this year won't really give you a crop until next year, but they are low-maintenance. Provided you prune off the old canes after they're through producing in summer, you'll get a new crop on new canes every year. We have native blackberries in scattered areas around our property and I've just left them there, where I have to fight the wildlife for every berry. They are yummy though. The native berries are wonderful because the price is right, but the named cultivars produce much larger berries. Strawberries can grow well if you have the right kind of soil but they have a lot more pest and disease issues. Scott grows a lot of blueberries and can tell you all about them, but they need a lot of soil prep, particularly with peat moss, in order to grow well because they need very acidic soil.

Chocolate vine should grow just fine here, but I don't grow it.

Most herbs grow just fine here, so plant what you like. I really don't see pest problems on any of the herbs I grow. However, having said that, I garden organically and don't use any chemical pesticides so I have a good population of 'good bugs' to keep the 'bad bugs' in check. I also garden for the butterflies, so I plant parsley, dill and fennel specifically for the butterflies that like them and it doesn't bother me at all when the Black Swallow Tail larvae eat all the parsley, for example, because I plant a couple dozen plants specifically for them. The result is that I have a garden full of butterflies and moths, and I'd rather have them than a garden that is 'perfect' in appearance.

Among the herbs that perform best in my garden are chamomile, basil (all kinds), fennel, dill, parsley, rosemary, Mexican Mint Marigold (aka Texas Tarragon), borage, cilantro (in the cool-season only), sage, pineapple sage, lemon balm, and mint. I plant the mint as an understory plant in a cottage border and NOT in a raised bed with other herbs, veggies and flowers because the mint is invasive, will take over the bed and will crowd out/choke out everything else. I specifically put the mints right beside a hot, dry gravel driveway to help keep their growth in check.

You can grow a lot of your family's own groceries because we have a long growing season here and you can succession plant. However, unless you intend to eat everything fresh and not put up anything for the non-gardening season, you need to have a plan for how you are going to preserve the food. I use a combination of freezing, canning, pickling, jellying, dehydrating and storing certain crops in a root cellar. (Our tornado shelter doubles as a root cellar.) At our house, we still are eating broccoli, green beans, onions, peppers, tomatoes (canned, frozen and dehydrated), okra, potatoes, sweet corn and black-eyed peas from last year's garden.

Here in our climate, we start out planting cool-season crops in February-March, plant most warm-season crops in April and May, and then can succession plant more warm-season crops in early to mid-summer to replace the cool-season crops as they are harvestted. From mid-summer through early fall, we can squeeze in another round of warm season crs and cool-season crops that we harvest in the fall. I don't know your exact first freeze/last freeze dates there in OKC, but here in southern OK, our last spring freeze occurs between late-March and mid-April and our first killing freeze in the fall occurs in November of the average year. Your dates should be about the same as mine, so you have months and months of great gardening weather.

Go back through the older posts on this forum and you'll find a lot of them on the topic of starting a new vegetable garden, including lists of recommended varieties. Just this year, we have had many, many prior threads on this topic.

Good luck and don't be afraid to ask questions.

Dawn

The only thing I would add to what Dawn said concerns fragrant plants since you asked. I have had tuberoses in the ground here in z6b for years and absolutely love them. I mulch them every fall with oak leaves and so far they have come through just fine. I also have perrenial garden phlox which are fragrant, but they do suffer some with mildew in hot humid weather. Annuals that are fragrant include some of the old fashioned petunias, cleome, nicotianas (Dawn will know which one. not all are) and the moonflower vine. Yellow Jessamine vine blooms very early and is fragrant. Sweet Autumn Clematis blooms late summer/early fall. Some people say it is invasive but mine isn't. These are perrenial. Of the bulbs some of the daffs and all the hyacinths are fragrant and all do well here, but the gophers sometimes eat hyacinths. The hardy Amaryllis, Lycoris squamagera blooms in July/Aug and is not only fragrant but also attracts the lovely sphinx moth, but you will have to plant enough tomatoes for the hornworm which produces them.

Welcome to the forum and happy gardening.

Welcome! I was born in Idaho Falls. My Mom gardenered here when I was younger, but it was definitely a learning curve, since the climates are so different. I have been in OK for thirty years (I"m not much older than that- LOL) and this years snow fall is the most I have every seen here. The first year I was sorely disappointed, because I had a pair of hand-me down ice skates I wanted to try out. Then it snowed. The grass was peaking through the snow. I knew ice-over ponds and ice skating weren't going to happen.

I am also in OKC. The advice you're getting here is good. Blackberries are the best bet, but it will take 2-3 years for a good yield. Raspberries will also grow. My next door neighbors have both. I hope to put some in this year also. The best place to get them cheaply is Horn Seed Co at Classen and NW Expressway. Called today and seed potatos & onions sets will be in next week. Blackberry and raspberry starters will be in the second week of Feb. They would have been in this week- but the weather. They only get a limited amount of the fruit starters, so call frequently and get there early to get the best ones. They are only a few dollars ($2-3 last year?) per starter. Basically a stem with roots and maybe a few leaves, but they are varieties that grow well here. You will need to pot them up until warmer weather- just ask at Horn's and they will give you good, specific advice on how to grow them.

If you want to know about company planting with herbs, check out "Carrots Love Tomatoes" by Louise Riotte at the library. She was an Oklahoma Gardener, respected and loved by many on this site. It is really nice to have a book written by an author from Oklahoma. Try pages 186-187 for a good summary.

I use April 15 and Oct 15 as the last and first frost dates for planning. Of course, with weather that could be off by a few weeks. There are lots of things you can do to extend the seasons.

The OSU extension office has good information on when and what varieties to plant most fruit and veggies that do well here. This is a great resource. See the link below.

For veggie seedlings, try the OSU farmer's market (winter market: Saturdays from 10:00- 1:00 PM on Portland between Reno and NW 10th street). There is one couple in green aprons at the front, who sell the cheapest seedlings. The pots smaller than 4", but are usually priced for under a dollar each. The seedlings are always healthy. They have a list available now for preorders, if you are interested.

Again, welcome to Oklahoma!

Andria

Here is a link that might be useful: OSU fact sheets

I'm from Chubbuck :) Thank you all so much for the advice, I'm glad I asked. I've printed everything out so I can actually remember it.

I looked at some of the university resources (I think OK State, maybe...) and was under the impression I should be planting vegetable seeds in mid Feb, but is it wiser to wait until April just to make sure the plant survive, especially considering the odd weather?

Also, "Mel" said to put vermiculite in the soil with the seeds when planted (he assumed I knew what that was), but if I have to buy new soil for the raised beds anyway, do I really need to? And if I do decide to use a trellis, should I dig a trench like he also suggests? I'm probably starting to sound really lazy, but I don't want to spend all my waking hours of spring preparing for a garden that I might ruin.

Dawn--have you ever had success with giant pumpkins here. I'm a little obsessed with ridiculously large pumpkins because my Dad grew squash pumpkins back home and it doesn't feel like Fall without them.

Andria--can you tell me more about this OSU extension office, like hours etc?

Mulberryknob--Can you tell me more about the yellow jasmine, and do you know if honeysuckle does well here?

My plan for the raised bed is to put veggies on each side of an "herb area" that will also be raised. Is this a good idea or a bad one?

The February planting dates are valid for some cool-season crops, but this is a colder-than-average and wetter-than-average winter for us, so I don't think many of us will get seeds in the ground in February.

When you look at the OSU planting dates, the first date given is for southern OK and I don't even direct-seed plants in Feb. most years because the nights and soil are too cold for them, and I am about as far south in Oklahoma as you can go and still be in Oklahoma and not in Texas. (Texas lies to my west, south and east.) If you wait 2-3 weeks later than the first date given in the planting guide, the conditions should be sigificantly better in an average year. The problem this year is that it is so cold that even seeds of cool-season crops stand a good chance of rotting before they germinate.

I start most of my cool season plants indoors and transplant them out in March when the weather is much better. You probably could direct seed beets, parsnips, rutabagas, turnips and similar cool-season root crops now and expect germination within the next month....but you also could wait 2 or 3 more weeks to sow seed and then get germination of seed in half the time, so the end result is about the same. In other words, with the current conditions, you have nothing to gain by planting cool season seeds in the ground now.

It has been a long, long time since I read Mel's book so am unsure of why he's mentioning vermiculite. Vermiculite is great for seed starting because it is lightweight and allows the seedlings to pop up through the surface, whereas some soils crust over and tiny seedlings often can't break through that crust. I assume that's what he means about using it with seeds. When I read his book, I already had been gardening for a long time, so I didn't pay any attention to his info on bed-building or making Mel's mix since I already knew what to do to prepare soil. I mostly read his book just to learn about the plant spacing so I could grow more veggies in less space.

You'll have to tell me what he is saying about digging a trench because I don't remember what he said about that or trellises....it was over a decade ago that I read his book and I have a hard time remembering something I read yesterday, much less over 10 years ago.

Giant pumpkins can be grown here but they aren't of good eating quality, so I don't waste space on them. We certainly have the right weather and a very long growing season, but if you have prolonged dry spells in the summer, you'll have to water them a lot. Giant pumpkins need hundreds of gallons of water weekly (and daily at a certain point) to enable them to achieve a very large size. Also, squash bugs are always an issue and squash vine borers are very destructive here and we have two generations of borers here. I tend to grow only varieties of pumpkins that are very vigorous and tend to resist disease and insects....types like Seminole, Long Island Cheese, etc. some years I grow a lot of cushaws. Most years, if I grow strictly ornamental pumpkins, I'll grow something like Musquee de Provence, Jaune Gros de Paris, Fairy Tale or Rouge vif d'Etampes or very small ornamental ones like Baby Boo or Jack-B-Little that I can plant on the garden fence.

The problem with giant pumpkins is that they are C. maxima and the squash vine borers tend to wipe them out most years. I've had far better success with the pumpkins that are C. moschata because they are more resistant to disease and to squash vine borers.

The largest pumpkins I've grown here have been C. moschatas and one year I had some in the 30 to 40-lb range but I don't even try to grow those any more because they mostly aren't worth eating and I am focused on growing the types we can eat.

Do you mean the herbs would be in their own bed and the veggies in adjacent beds with a pathway between them? Let me know because my comments on that type of situation would differ from my comments on growing them in the same bed.

Dawn

idagrizz - I can only answer a couple of those questions above, but I'm sure others can chip in with some info too!

I've grown the large pumpkins so yes, it can be done. You've got to have a good chunk of space though, because the plants vine out...and I do mean OUT.

Honeysuckle grows wild in some places here. It grows well in neighborhoods along fence lines. If you do decide to plant it, make sure it also has room to spread and also that it's not close to the baby's play area. It attracts our friends, the bees, and I'd hate for the little one to get stung.

I think I read on another thread that you're living south OKC. I'm originally from that area myself! Aside from the "box" stores around there, you might check out the Farmer's Market in downtown OKC. Not only can you buy fresh veggies there (Sterling's is an awesome family-owned business), you can also get a huge variety of plants. They're usually locally grown so they're already adapted for our conditions and reasonably priced. Only one word of warning - watch out for the sow bugs (aka rolly polly's). Just be sure you throw in some kind of "slug bait" when you plant anything from there.

As far as placement in your raised bed, I also recommend the book "Carrots Love Tomatoes"...but if you can't get your hands on a copy (and you can grab the computer when hubby's not needing it) google "companion planting" and you'll come up with several good sites. I've linked the one I used before I got the book.

Paula

Here is a link that might be useful: Wikipedia Companion plant link

Check the library for a copy of carrots love tomatoes--our local one has it and yours might too. I love using the library cause everything's free :-)

Since Paula mentioned 'slug bait' I want to add a couple of words about slug bait.

You can purchase two kinds of slug bait--organic ones using iron phosphate as the active ingredient, and chemical ones using metaldehyde as the active ingredient.

Please, please, please for the sake of your family, your pets and the area's wildlife, choose the organic ones. The active ingredient in the chemical ones is very toxic to pets and if it is that toxic to animals you really don't want to use it around humans.

I use an iron-phosphate type snail and slug bait for sow bugs and pill bugs and it works great. The most well-known organic snail and slug baits are Slug-Go, Slug-Go Plus and Escar-Go but many other manufacturers make them too. Just read the label of any snail and slug bait and check the 'active ingredient'. Remember that the iron phosphate is fine....it breaks down into plain old iron which is good for the soil and the metaldehyde is bad.

I used Slug-Go for control of pill bugs and sow bugs for several years with great success. After they came out with the improved Slug-Go Plus I began using it instead. It contains iron phosphate plus spinosad (an organic biological pesticide) and it works very well. Spinosad is my favorite organic pesticide because it is effective and is non-toxic to humans, pets and wildlife. I also like a particular formulation of spinosad just because of its' name---Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew. Spinosad is also one of the very few organic fire ant remedies that actually works.

Dawn

and thank you, Dawn. I was not exercising "political correctness" when I mentioned the slug bait, but just fyi- I've used Slug-Go Plus and Escar-Go for several years. I kinda like the exotic flavor of the named last one. Gives me a grin!! Just wanted to warn her of the little creatures' destruction. I'd grown up around gardening. When an adult and encountered those cute little bugs...I had NO idea!!! After several failed attempts at growing beloved impatiens...I "got" the clue. They're still cute...but their numbers need to be limited in a "friendly" way....so Idagrizz, take note! Stay safe and be healthy too!

Paula

P.S. I sure hope she gets to check back in here often enuf to get our "advice" and "guidance"! LOL! Right now I'm worried her DH is going to be studying for spring finals... and she won't have frequent access! (but maybe i'm just hopeful for any "spring" anything!)

Yeh, If were going to get them addicted, we need to start when they are young. Someone has to take over when we're too old to do this. LOL

Paula,

I'm glad you use the healthy snail and slug baits. They are just so much safer.

Sow bugs and pill bugs were never much of an issue in Texas but for some reason are much worse here. If I didn't use baits, they'll wipe out bed after bed of young seedlings. Without snail and slug bait to control the sow bugs and pill bugs, I doubt I'd have a garden at all.

When some people on some forums (not here, I don't think) advise newbies that sow bugs and pill bugs do not eat plants and they should just ignore them, I shake my head because I know that they eat plants (and ripening tomatoes) here.

I do think Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew is the best name around for a biological pesticide, especially if you know the background on spinosad....it was discovered in the remains of a old rum distillery.

Dawn

LOL!!! That IS a good one! One could "set sail with Captain Morgan" to spray with Captain Jack's and before long, every living thing would be curled in the fetal position!! HA!

Paula

LOL You are too funny.

Idagrizz, Last year I grew Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin, a c. moschata. The largest fruit weighed in at 30 lb. Now, that was my first year, so I can't swear by it completely. But I do know that I grew it with no irrigation, and that it made it through our 9 week spell of 100 F. plus days with less than an inch of rain... and it never wilted. So, I suspect this is a good one for our climate, and for nice large pumpkins. We harvested about 350 lb of fruit from 8 plants.

George

Here is a link that might be useful: Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin thread

Thanks again--you've all answered questions I'd forgotten to ask. I'm not sure what pumpkin seeds I have, but honestly my family has never grown pumpkins to eat, so maybe I should try that. I do have a homemade pumpkin recipe... Is there anything else you can do with the pulp besides pies?

About the snail and bug stuff... there's a place called pre-cure lawn close to my house, can I buy the "Escar-go" (I like that name the best) there or do they sell it at Wal-Mart? Also, this last summer our tomato plant survived all of the frosts and had lots of little green fruit, but then some sort of pest put a bunch of brownish rivets/holes (not the normal stretch-in-the-tomato kind) in them so we only ended up getting one edible one the whole season--is this a slug or some other creep?

Seems like I read something about corn and raccoons too...we have LOTS of wildlife visiting our house(bunnies, possums, coons, skunks, owls...)--there's a "nature area" behind our division, so is it even worth my time to plant corn? Is there going to be any way to keep the animals out besides building a huge barricade around my plot?

As far as the herb garden goes, I was thinking of separating that part of the garden with boards--not walking boards, dividers. I was also thinking of a raised strawberry patch.

Idagrizz- I have a recipe for crock-pot pumpkin butter. It calls for the pulp, spices and sugar (I use Splenda). It cooks on low overnite and the next morning, I store it in sterile small jars. It keeps up to 6 months in the back of the fridge, although I never have it that long. I give it as Holiday gifts from Turkey Day thru Christmas. I've also made Pumpkin Fudge with the pulp.

And with the limited space you have, you might be setting yourself up for frustrationa & disappointment unless you try a 3 Sisters Garden. Fence UP around the raised bed and you might be able to keep most or some of the critters at bay.

Paula

If you have a lot of wild animals, a fence is essential. If you have raccoons around, you need an electric fence to keep them out because they'll climb any other sort of fence. Sometimes a Three Sisters Garden keeps coons out of the corn and sometimes it doesn't. If you have dogs, be sure they have rabies shots because the skunks like to come dig in the garden for insects and stuff and they generally are not afraid of the dogs.

You can use pumpkins in any recipe for winter squash, and we had a thread on here last fall with oodles of recipes for everything under the sun. You can use pumpkin/winter squash in soup, southwestern chowder, cookies, cake, muffins, pot pies, ravioli, etc. You can use winter squash/pumpkin baked and seasoned and eaten as a side dish. We can find that old thread next fall and add to it or start a new one.

Escar-Go works great and will save your plants from snail, slugs, sow bugs and pill bugs.

It's hard to say what was on your tomatoes without seeing them. If the holes were small, likely it was some sort of small caterpillar. This year, at the first sign of that kind of damage, ask about it and somebody should be able to diagnose what's happening based on the time of the season it is and your description of the damage. Or, we can look at websites like the TAMU Tomato Problem Solver or the Tomato Pest & Disease Forum's Tomato Problem Solver threads and likely find a solution.

When you grow herbs near vegetables, the main thing to do is to be sure the herbs won't get too large and shade or crowd the veggies.

Dawn