- Welcome back to Oklahoma Gardening.

We've got a full show today as I feature a couple of new plants for you.

We also look at a few pests that you might be finding in your landscape and what to do about them.

We're also visiting Robinson Ranch over in Bixby, Oklahoma.

And then finally, Christie's back with a tasty berry salsa.

I'll listen more right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

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If you're looking to add a little tropical color to your backyard or maybe around your pool, I must recommend this Mexican petunia.

So it is hardy from zones eight to 10, and it is semi-hardy here in zone seven, so you might consider it as an annual.

What's really nice about this plant is it's going to get about two feet wide and three feet tall, as you can see here, and it will continue to flower all summer long for you.

And in fact, if you do see a decline a little bit in the flowering, what you might want to do is go ahead and cut it back and it'll put on new flowers for you.

So now what you'll find typically is this purple flower.

It's nice tubular flower that a lot of pollinators will come to.

So you can see it's got plenty of flowers on here and it's got a lot of buds that are still yet to come and continue blooming this season.

But you can also find it in white and even a light pink.

But I also, even when it's not blooming, what I really love about it is this dark kind of burgundy stems and this dark green foliage on it as well.

So it adds a nice color all around into your landscape.

Now, if you've heard that it can be a little aggressive, it can be.

It can recede and it also spreads by rhizomes, especially in hardy zones from eight to 10.

So you want to be cautious of that.

In fact, down in Texas, Florida, they can have problems with this because it is native to Central America.

But up here in Oklahoma, we have less of an issue with that.

But if you are concerned about that, what you might be aware of is that you can always put it in a pot.

So one of the ways I like to actually have it is not necessarily plant it in the landscape, but I have a container here that doesn't have holes in it.

So I know if you're like me, this time of year, you're running around trying to water the garden.

Well, this is one of those plants that you can just fill up the container with water and forget it for a little while.

So we simply have it in its nursery pot still and then we fill this up with water.

And so we'll be able to leave this.

Now this is somewhere you'd probably want to put a mosquito dunk in or something so that you don't get mosquito larvae in here.

But what's nice about this is it's going to be able to thrive in that water and you're not going to see it wilting down throughout the day or anything like that.

So this is great for pool side or bench side or someplace like that.

And again, we've had this for a while out here in the extreme heat and it's just continuing to thrive and put on a show.

While I have it in a container here, if you were to plant it in the landscape, a lot of times people put it in kind of a lower area where it's going to get plenty of rainfall, maybe even a rain garden or something like that.

But again, it makes a great addition just to put it in a container without holes and a perfect next to a pool in your backyard.

Today we're back out at the garden with Mark Turner, our wildlife specialist.

And today we're talking about possums, skunks and raccoons.

Oh my.

- That's right.

That's right.

- So anytime we have a garden, a lot of times nature tends to come into our garden.

Absolutely.

Which of - Those three - Are sort of the problem children, I guess?

- Yeah.

So they're all native wildlife.

Obviously they have their place, but certainly if they start getting into things that we don't want them in, there are some things we can do to exclude them.

Usually raccoons and skunks are actually going to be the bigger problems.

Certainly you could see any of those three animals in and around your garden.

And most of the time they're really probably not causing that many problems.

Yo might see one or two passing through.

If that's the case, just leaving them alone is the best thing to do.

But if you do start to see some damage, especially associated with vegetable gardens or potentially if you have say a compost bin or maybe you have some pet food that's out in and around your garden and you start to see that disturbed, it's probably going to be related to either skunks or raccoons.

Now possums occcasionally, but usually skunks and raccoons.

- Now raccoons like produce, right?

Our vegetable - Garden.

They will go after - Watermelons and all of that.

- Yeah.

Watermelons, corn.

It's really, really common to go out to your garden and see corn that's been snapped over.

That's probably raccoon damage because again, they'll climb up partially on that stalk, try to get the corn and then it'll snap over.

So that's probably associated with raccoons.

Again, skunks will do some damage to things like sweet corn, but usually raccoons with regards to having a vegetable garden, they're probably going to be your biggest problem in terms of having issues with wildlife.

- What is their primary diet?

Is it - - They're omnivorous.

So they'll eat both vegetables and animal matter.

They're certainly not going to go out and hunt larger animals, but they'll eat eggs, they'll eat fish, they'll eat crawfish.

I mean, they'll eat all sorts of things in addition to plant material.

And that's - Raccoons and skunks will eat that.

Possums, are they a tick - Eater?

Yes.

So there's a lot of information that goes about, and you'll see all the time on the internet that leave the possums alone because they're eating the ticks.

Certainly most of the time I would leave them alone because they're probably not doing anything in and around the garden.

They're actually not a primary vector of rabies, whereas skunks and raccoons can carry rabies.

So if you see a possum, most of the time I'm just going to leave it alone.

And it could be getting into compost or something like that.

But no, they're not going to be controlling ticks.

So that's not a good reason to leave them.

They might eat a tick occasionally, but the claims of they'll eat thousands and thousands of ticks and control tick populations.

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

I wish it was, but certainly we have lots of possums and we still have lots of ticks.

Okay.

Okay.

So yeah, that's unfortunately not true.

- And going back to raccoons, kind of the tricky thing about them is they have hands, right?

Yeah.

So they're - Very - Clever about - Getting into stuff.

Absolutely.

And so that's where the number one thing I can recommend for all three of those species is going to be exclusion.

So whether that's fencing around your vegetable garden or fencing around a compost bin, making sure that if you have some trash bins associated with your garden, you secure those.

And also, I recommend not feeding pets outside.

A lot of people might not be feeding their pets around their garden, but if they do have a garden near their home and they have pet food out, that's going to be a very, very easy way to reduce the likelihood that you have, especially skunks and raccoons coming into your garden, is just by simply removing that food source.

So most of the time, if we just remove the food source and then secure trash and then fence around the garden well, that's going to eliminate most of the problems associated with those animals.

- Okay.

And what time of day are we seeing these animals?

- Usually they're going to be primarily nocturnal.

So if you see one during the daytime, that's not an automatic, oh my gosh, it has rabies.

They do move around during the daytime, just the same as we move around at the nighttime sometimes.

But usually they're going to be most active at night and so you're going to see that damage when you wake up in the morning.

So unless you're seeing an animal there every single day during daylight hours, that's not necessarily cause for concern.

- Okay.

So exclusion first and then trapping if necessary.

- Yep.

Yep.

- Is - That - Fair game throughout the year or?

- Yep.

So that's usually what I recommend.

So trapping with just a simple live trap or cage trap, that's going to be the most effective way.

You can use either fruits or some scrap vegetables out of your garden as a lure within the trap.

I don't recommend, and a lot of the time it's not legal to actually move that animal alive.

So it is going to have to be a lethal trapping, trapping effort.

So dispatching that animal usually with a rifle and then removing it from that point.

So if you are going to trap those animals, make sure that you have a plan for that.

But yeah, really most of the time, if we can just simply exclude those animals, that's going to be the thing that's going to get us most of the way towards reducing their negative impacts.

All - Right.

And that's part of gardening too, is we garden so that we can have wildlife, but we can't be always - Selective about - What's - Coming in.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

If you have a vegetable garden and you're having problems, then certainly I would look into it.

The other thing that I will mention is skunks occasionally will damage turf grass.

So if you have some turf areas around your garden or in your garden where you're seeing some damage that could be related to skunks, most of the time it's going to be related to armadillos, which we've talked about before.

Are they digging - With their nose or their - Paws?

Yep.

So they're digging just a forage, similar to the way armadillos would.

For insects?

Yep.

For insects, grubs, earthworms, things like that.

Most of the time that's going to be armadillos, but if you see skunk tracks or you see a skunk or you smell a skunk and you have damage in your yard, that might also be related to skunks.

So that's the other thing I will mention.

They can also occasionally damage turf grass, but again, that's usually relegated to just skunks.

- Okay.

And last question, are they out year round or do they hibernate?

Where do they go?

- Yeah.

So certainly they have periods where they're more active and less active, but it's not uncommon to see activity all throughout the year.

Usually when you get a really cold snap, you might not see them quite as active in the wintertime, but they're not ones that I would expect to be never active during the wintertime or only active in the summer or something like that.

You could see them year round, but obviously, especially with a vegetable garden, most of your problems are going to be during the spring and summer and fall.

- And throughout the state as well?

- Yep.

Yep, pretty much.

I mean, there's pockets that don't have each of the species, but you could find any of them throughout the state.

- Well, thank you so much, Mark, for this information and it'll help us going forward.

- Absolutely.

- It is still summer, and I just want to remind you guys to be vigilant about mosquito larvae.

Even though we had some frequent rains earlier in the season and it's kind of stopped raining now, you probably still can find water pooling around in different areas and containers in your landscape.

So think about those areas.

Make sure that you're checking them, emptying those out because something as small as a bottle cap or a teaspoon can actually cause mosquito larvae to turn into mosquitoes.

And so we want to make sure that we're being vigilant about any standing water that's out there.

Think about your rain barrels.

Think about kids' toys, dog bowls, water, bird baths, things like that.

Make sure that you're flushing them out frequently or emptying those.

If you have areas that are pretty consistent about holding water and you need them to hold water for one reason or another, and it's not like a water garden where you can have fish in there that'll eat that larvae, I would suggest maybe investing in some mosquito dunks.

Now, this is not a product endorsement or anything like that, but these are some dunks that will float in those water areas and it's based off of a rate.

So about a quarter of one of these dunks.

So they'll last you quite a while.

And these are all natural.

So this is a baxillus theryngensis subspecies, Israel insis, and it is only geared towards fly aquatic larvae.

So that includes mosquitoes and fungus nats and things like that.

So what happens is those larvae, when they're in the wet areas, will feed on this and they'll ingest that natural bacteria.

It's a natural soil bacteria.

This does not have any effect on children or pets if they come and drink out of your water garden or anything like that or any wildlife.

So be aware of that, but these are great options to put into those areas that are holding water and prevent those mosquitoes as we continue through the summer.

Today we're at Robinson Ranch, just south of Bixby, and joining me is Kat Robinson.

Kat, thank you for welcoming us to your farm here.

It's beautiful.

- Thank you.

- So tell us, you've got a U pick, you've got a lot of things going on here.

Me too.

Can you tell me a little bit about your background and how you got started with this farm?

- Well, the short version is that my family went through a season of being sick all the time and we slowly kind of started discovering how to heal our body with real food.

And that naturally led to gardening and then the garden got out of control.

And then I met a bunch of other moms who cared about the same thing.

And so fast forward nine years and we do a little bit of everything Oklahoma lets you do.

- Okay.

So tell us what Robinson Ranch offers.

- So we do all kinds of seasonal vegetables.

We have a couple hundred chickens.

We just added pigs, couple cows, microgreens, kombucha, elderberry.

We have a farm store, which is awesome, open five days a week that has 50 other local vendors.

So everybody from the local Tulsa farmer's market, we pretty much have a lot of the same local food.

So our deal was that I don't want to just eat vegetables all the time.

I want to eat the whole gamut of things that I don't have to read the label.

I want to know where it came from and it's other families who are giving up other careers to make and grow real food.

And so that's who I want to buy from.

So that's what we have in the farm store.

- And it's a beautiful farm store that you have here.

And the way we kind of came in, it's sort of rural out here.

Yeah.

And so there's not a lot of grocery stores right in the immediate area, but a great way to get local food.

- Absolutely.

- So tell us a little bit about who all is helping you with this, because I know as much as you probably are out here working, it's a lot to keep up - With.

It takes an army, right?

Like anything, it takes a village.

I mean, we were supported from the very beginning by moms who care about food this way, but it's also been a lot of who has worked here is a lot of moms working while our kids are in school because that's who's passionate about this.

But it probably takes somewhere near seven or eight part-time staff for the farm.

And then we also have a nonprofit that does all the teaching stuff and that has four more.

- And let's talk about that nonprofit.

You're very involved in helping kids learn about nature and plants and where their food comes from.

- Yes.

Well, I mean, we kind of just stumbled upon realizing how little this generation of kids understands about food and the connection of where it's grown.

And so starting to do field trips because my own kids were in school and I went into classrooms and we kind of realized that nobody's really touching that, right?

Public education does a lot of things well, but learning about really good food is not something that we're crushing it at.

So we're trying to get more kids to the farm and we come into classrooms and do a full plant class and they start a plant and it goes home with them.

We also do a bunch of adult classes in the spring so you can learn to can or learn to grow stuff or learn to do yoga or fascial maneuvers, all kinds of things we do on the farm.

So just the more chances to get kids and adults to touch dirt, the better.

- Right.

And part of that is how you kind of got involved with this beginner farmer rancher - Very much.

Apprenticeship program.

So you are a farmer that has an apprentice working for you.

Yes.

Tell me a little bit about that program and what it's meant for you.

- I mean, probably anybody who's farmed very long would say that so many of these lessons are hard learned, that it feels good to be able to pass that on to somebody without them having to learn it the hard way, right?

You can't be good at keeping chickens without accidentally killing some.

You have to kill a lot of plants to be good at growing plants.

So skipping ahead and helping somebody go, "Hey, this is always a money maker.

Hey, this one is really expensive."

This kind of thing is something I'm passionate about for sure.

Yeah.

- So let's talk about your apprentice in particular.

- Yeah.

- Can you tell a little bit about her and what she's meant to you this season?

- Anique was a doll.

She has come in hot and came in with a lot of herbal information, stuff along those lines that we did not have, which I think is really fun to have interns especially that can teach me something.

I don't have a degree at all in this area.

This is just something that was put on my heart and we just went for it.

So the actual technical knowledge is really great to learn from somebody else.

And obviously she's got to get her hands dirty in everything we've done all summer.

She'd probably tell you what her least favorite things about farm life are, but we all have - Them.

I've wanted to start my own farm, so I figured why not get into something like this where I can touch a little bit of everything.

I've learned a lot.

I've learned from the different plants that help with the insects, even from the different seasons, where things should be or what flowers or anything that could help.

Her farm is not only amazing on how she maps it out, but she's family.

From the first day that I stepped in here, she made me feel like family and everyone else here.

So I really appreciate that, as well as the knowledge she's passed along to me.

- It's not always beautiful for us to be out here in this heat, but the plants love it.

Yes.

So it looks like your okra is thriving and your peppers are thriving.

- Yes.

Well, you know, in so many plants like heat, it's just the humans that have trouble with it.

But no, we grow everything that you can in each season.

We kind of skip fall a little bit.

I think fall is kind of fictional in Oklahoma and there might be some gardeners that challenge me on that, but on paper you should be able to grow lettuce right now.

And if you can feel what we're feeling right now, you know you can't.

So I think we kind of just ride all of the summer veggies right to the very end of the line and then either cover crop or tarp them for the winter and then go again for really heavy in winter, spring and summer.

- Okay.

So in the winter, you're in the hoop houses?

- All the greenhouses are full of all kinds of greens and root veggies.

Yeah.

- Okay.

And then you start back with green.

- Then we start again.

- And you also have microgreens.

We do.

Tell me a little bit about that.

- So microgreens are amazing because chefs obviously love them because they're beautiful.

You see them at fancy restaurants, but nutritionally they're a powerhouse.

They have between four and 10 times as many nutrients as their grown vegetables.

So making a little salad kit out of that is the same as eating four to 10 salads.

So we teach people to just sneak it into your food, put it on your burger, put it on your top bar.

So you micro greens.

Yes.

Right.

Sneak them in.

- And is that something you add to your delivery service as well - As in the - Farm store here?

- Yes.

Everything we grow and raise, plus all the 50 other vendors can all be delivered so people can get online and order their groceries delivered to their porch once a week, or they can come into the farm store and just pick it up.

Okay.

- And so they can find more information on where to do that on your website?

- Robinsonranchveggies, all one word.com.

- Okay.

- All right.

- And regenerative, right?

- Absolutely.

Yes.

- We forgot to mention that word.

Above, - Above.

Yes.

Yes.

We were certified organic for a little while and I deemed it a really expensive piece of paper.

So we are above that, which basically no chemicals, you rotate animals, you low or no till, only natural amendments.

Basically what we're wanting out of organic anyway when we go to store.

So that is all - We're doing.

We'll check out your website.

Thank you so much.

Thanks - For coming.

- Summertime is a great time for salsa, and today we're making a summertime fresh berry salsa.

We'll start with two cups of fresh blueberries.

And now these blueberries have already been washed under cool running water.

And then to the blueberries, we will add about one pound of freshly chopped strawberries.

Now, if you had other berries, like maybe raspberries or blackberries, you could also add those to this mixture as well.

Okay.

And then we're going to add one green apple.

And now I'm using a Granny Smith apple, but you could use whatever apple that you have available.

Okay.

And then we'll add one finely diced jalapeno pepper.

And now I'm not adding the seeds and this won't be really enough of a jalapeno to make the salad spicy, but if you did want it to have more spicy flavor, you could always add another pepper, another jalapeno to the mix as well.

Okay.

And then we will add about two tablespoons of finely minced red onion.

And by adding the onion and the jalapeno to this mixture, it's going to add a little bit of contrast and flavor, but then also give the salad a little bit more crunch.

Then we'll add one quarter of a cup of fresh cilantro.

Now, if you don't like cilantro, you could also use fresh mint.

Mint would work really well for this recipe.

Okay.

And we'll give it a good stir to mix all of the ingredients together.

And then the last thing we'll add is about two tablespoons of lime juice, which is about the equivalent of one fresh lime.

And by adding the lime juice to the salad, it's going to bring out the different flavors of all of the fruit and vegetable mixture, but then also that lime juice will help keep our apple from browning.

So once we get all that in there, we want to make sure that the lime juice is coated over all of the fruits.

And this salad will be best if you can prep it about 30 minutes to an hour ahead of time, because that way the flavors will kind of develop a little bit before you serve it.

And then you can keep this in your refrigerator for about three days.

But I hope you give this salad a try.

This is our summertime fresh berry salsa.

- And as always, if you have a question about today's show or any of the other shows, feel free to reach out to your local county OSU extension office or leave us a comment on social media.

There are many great horticulture activities this time of year.

Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.

Summer is still sizzling, so stay inside and join us next week right here on Oklahoma Gardening as I share some plants that will add tropical flare to your landscape.

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