Seed Starting and Interplanting

As we head into seed starting season, allow me to give you some more things to think about when starting those seeds: planning the plant partners. Known as interplanting, intercropping or companion planting, plant partners are plants that historically and scientifically have been proven to work together to grow better crops, keep pests at bay or compliment each other in some fashion. When seed starting, keep some of these combinations in mind.

Garlic, Basil and Tomatoes

If you planted garlic in the fall, wander out to that plot and see how much space you have.

Starting tomatoes and basil seeds now inside will give you sturdy plants to put out in the garlic patch in late April. If you don’t have garlic in the ground, consider interplanting some carrots after you get the basil and tomatoes in the ground. Just as garlic needs more space underground, carrots serve the same purpose. Basil masks the smell of those wonderful tomato plants and keeps the tomato hornworms away. Carrot tops and garlic tops do the same with their strong aromas. Interplanting basil, marigolds and borage can benefit gardeners by repelling flies and mosquitoes while also attracting pollinators and beneficial insects such as the parasitic braconid wasp, a natural predator of tomato hornworms. Another note on borage and marigolds. Borage grows about two feet tall, has edible blue, starlike flowers, can be used as mulch when the flowers die off and reseeds itself. And well, marigolds are great border flowers and their strong smell repels insects. If you are dealing with deer snacking on your produce, marigolds assist with masking all those yummy garden smells.

Radishes

Radishes are a love them or leave them crop. I love them and enjoy planting them in late March and April because they can stand a short cold spurt and mature quickly. Great pickled if you cannot handle their peppery flavor raw, radishes are a great companion plant for lettuces, tomatoes and peppers and do well in the herb garden alongside dill, mint and oregano. Radish plants can handle pests like flea beetles and aphids much better than immature tomato and pepper plants. And if you don’t want to spray your garden and harm beneficial insects, your ladybug babies will find those aphids and make short work of them. Gotta keep those beneficial bugs happy so they stick around.

Seed Starting vs. Straight Sowing

Please don’t beat yourself up if you haven’t started seeds yet when you are reading this. No worries. You can buy a couple of tomato and pepper plants to put in the yard after the first freeze. No, you won’t know what kind of seeds they were or what soil they were grown in. But hey, they will be yours to manage and grow until those tomatoes/ peppers start putting on. If you have started your seeds or are still wanting to get a jumpstart on growing season, the best seeds to start inside are your tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and watermelons. All these need a longer time to mature and will be ready for standing up to hardening off in late April and getting into the ground in May.

Straight sowing is putting your seeds in the ground or germinating them for a couple of days and then putting them into the ground. Your lettuces, greens, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, carrots and herbs can be put into the ground in late March to late April. They will need extra care and coverage if we get a hard late frost, but the nice thing about these varieties is they like the cold. Not ice so much, but cold is OK. Think about DIY groundcovers with buckets, sheets, shade cloth or investing in a little greenhouse pup tent to protect your early sow crops.

Planting New Stuff

This is your permission slip to plant something new: something exotic or different that you are not sure about. This is also a warning: do not beat yourself up if the planting is a failure. That is OK. Failure is not the bad thing; not trying something is the bad thing. Take the risk; plant the seed; grow the plant. Learn something. It will expand your horizons and make you a better person. One year I planted Asian noodle beans on a whim. They grew all summer long and were so yummy in stir fry. Haven’t been able to grow them since, but it was a good year that year.

Flowers

Plant the flowers. Perennials, annuals, shade or sun, interplanting flowers to draw in those pollinators will give you amazing eye-candy in your yard. I love my sunflowers, but due to how my house sits, I will not be able to have the really tall sunnies this year by the road. Going to try some mammoth seeds on the south side of the house and see what happens. I’ll report back. Great flowers for shade are pansies, milkweed, columbine, primroses and lamium (groundcover). For the sunny spots, Mexican sunflowers, bachelor buttons, bee balm, lemon balm and, of course, sunflowers.

Seed Swap

Yes, we are planning a seed swap this year. And much earlier than usual on Sat., March 18. Bring your seeds to swap, your lists to find or just come and chat with us hanging out at City Central, 400 E. Central Avenue, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. We will be sorting seeds, starting seeds and just basically geeking out over gardening stuff. Would love to have you stop in.

Story by Everett Brazil, III / Staff Writer

Ponca City Main Street’s “5 Under 40 Awards”

recognizes young leaders from the Ponca City area who demonstrate significant contributions to this community through their role in their business, community involvement, volunteer work, leadership ability, advocacy, and influence. PCMS board member Rhonda Skrapke suggested the award idea and the board agreed the young people deserve the ovation.

Nominations were promoted through the PCMS social media platforms with applications accepted through the organization’s website. Nominees were required to fill out the applications to be considered.

The applications were sent to judges from outside of Ponca City “so they would be scored without bias,” Maci Graves, Executive Director of Ponca City Main Street adds.

The five winners will receive a trophy and bottle of champagne from PCMS as well as being featured as the cover story for the March issue of Ponca City Monthly.

It takes a special person to be able to teach our youngest generations in the classroom, someone who has the unique ability to reach out and connect with kids on their level to help them learn and grow into members of society. For Ponca City teacher and administrator Brandie Choate, the superintendent and principal of McCord School, she is not only seeing her kids grow, but she is also bringing the parents in and promoting the school any way she can.

Choate previously served as a teacher at McCord School and Union Elementary School (UES) in Ponca City. She was assistant principal at Newkirk Elementary School under Pam Hunter from 2019-21, and when Hunter retired, she led the school as principal for the 2021-22 school year. She returned home to McCord as principal and superintendent for the current school year.

“My job as the superintendent at McCord School is to ensure all students have the opportunity to learn and grow in a safe environment,” she said. “Our school strives to have high academic and behavioral expectations for all students, and we pride ourselves on our ability to meet the needs of our kids.”

She does that by watching and listening to the students, finding ways to make connections to not only improve the school for the students while providing a safe environment, but also reaching out to the community.

“One area I have already begun to make improvements on is our parental involvement.

Research shows that parental involvement has a positive impact on student learning,” she said.

The past fall semester, they held a movie night, with many families taking part in the showing. She also started a program to foster kindness and love in the students by not only recognizing them for those efforts, but calling their parents to let them know their actions.

She also seeks to reach out to the parents themselves, as she believes school also takes place at home.

“I am also active with our parent teacher organization. I am always looking for opportunities to make connections between home and school to strengthen student achievement,” she said.

Her efforts haven’t gone unnoticed, either. Ponca City Public Schools named her the “Teacher of the Year” while she was at UES, and she was named the Masonic Fraternity of Oklahoma “Teacher of Today,” both in 2016.

She is also active with many other organizations that promote McCord including as a board member of the Osage County Interlocal Cooperative and a committee member for the McCord Basketball Program, a member of the Oklahoma Association of School Administrators and Oklahoma Association of Elementary School Principals, and as a past participant in the Principal

Induction Academy.

Her efforts pour out of the front doors of McCord School and into the larger community, educating many more students outside the school walls. She coached soccer teams of all ages from 2014-21 and served on the Soccer Board of Directors from 2018-21, including as vice president her final year.

“As a member of the board of directors during the COVID-19 years, I helped create protocols and procedures to keep coaches and athletes safe,” she said.

She assisted the Ponca City High School band in 2016-19, and during that same time, helped with Ponca City Development Authority’s “Girl Power” summer camp, helping in the education of young women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) concepts and further developing the program.

She also helped with student exchange education, bringing German, Italian and Norwegian cultures to Kay County. She even hosted a German foreign exchange student at Newkirk High School for the 2021-22 school year.

As for Choate, it’s all part of her job as an educator, and she is simply happy to be back at a school that taught her so much in her youth.

“I was a student at McCord from third-sixth grade, so becoming the superintendent is a very fullcircle moment for me,” she said. “I love the family atmosphere at McCord, and the pride everyone takes in our small country school!”

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