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Tomato is king of the garden.

And today on the Best of Oklahoma Gardening, we look at how to avoid six common issues you might encounter growing tomatoes.

Then we warm up the winter as we focus our attention on peppers and show you the range that they have to offer.

And if you dare to grow the hottest pepper in the world, the Carolina Reaper, be prepared, as you might react, like our taste testers.

(gentle music) - Almost like an ombre of sunset colors.

(gentle music) It's not the flowers, right?

(gentle music) Hopefully you're starting to reap some of those rewards from your early season laboring in the vegetable garden.

Of all of our vegetable garden plants, tomato is the king and has always been.

However, the tomato can be somewhat tricky to grow, especially in our Oklahoma crazy environment.

Today, we've got six common reasons why your tomato might look a little less than ideal.

(upbeat music) There's nothing worse than when you go to pick some of that ripening fruit and find that you've got some rot down on the bottom of it.

This is known as blossom end rot.

And like its name implies, it is a rot that starts down at the blossom end.

So here it was attached to the stem, and this is where the flower originally was.

Now we know that this is caused by a calcium deficiency.

However, that doesn't mean that you should just go apply calcium, because it can be a result of many different factors, including the fact that if you planted your tomatoes early in the season before the soil temperatures reach 65, then those roots might not have actually been able to take up the calcium that may be existing in your soil.

Another thing, I always talk about doing soil testing early in the season, and the reason why it's important to do that is to check your pH and also your nitrogen levels.

If your pH is too high or you have too much nitrogen, then again, those will prevent the plant from being able to take up a lot of that calcium.

Now, probably the biggest culprit for blossom end rot is inconsistent watering.

You never wanna let your plants get so dry that they're actually wilting.

Calcium is water soluble, and if you don't water your plants, it can't take up any of that calcium.

The other thing, as we get into those hot, dry, windy days, which we're known to have a few here in Oklahoma, your leaves will actually transpire more moisture than your fruit, which creates that deficit of calcium at the blossom end of your fruit.

The other thing is if you water too heavily, then that tends to cause some of those roots to die back, again preventing those roots from taking up additional calcium.

So just because blossom end rot is caused by calcium deficiency, doesn't necessarily mean that you have a deficiency in your soil.

(upbeat music) There's only one cat face that we wanna see in our garden and that's Cowboy Kitty.

However, all too often, you might start seeing what's called catface on your tomatoes, and this is when your tomatoes look somewhat distorted.

They obviously have kind of this irregular shape and usually you'll see a dark scarring and where it's kind of indented right there between healthy tissue.

So it can take on a lot of different shapes but you'll see where it's just overall distorted.

Now this doesn't actually necessarily affect the fruit.

You can cut that out.

It just overall makes it less marketable and the aesthetics are less desirable.

Now, what causes catface on tomatoes is typically it is caused because of irregular blooming.

So the blossoms are irregularly developed, which then makes the fruit irregularly developed.

Another cause is oftentimes when you have phenoxy herbicides such as 2-4-D that have been sprayed in the area, that can cause catfacing as well.

Often you'll see catface more on your larger beef steak heirloom varieties more so than some of the others.

But this here is called catface.

(upbeat music) Did you know that tomatoes actually need sun protection?

No, not this sort of sun protection.

I'm talking about the vegetation and the foliage that helps cover and protect our developing fruit from the sun exposure.

Now, often tomatoes can actually get sunburned.

Now this is called sunscald when you start to see it appear on the tomatoes, and usually it starts to appear.

- Up around the shoulders of the fruit or on the exposed side.

Usually, again, often it develops on the mature fruit as far as the size, but it still might be green or slightly pink.

And as it starts to develop, you'll see kind of this whitish, kind of blemish on that shoulder, and it'll continue to develop and worsen as the fruit develops.

Now, one thing that you can do to protect your plant is obviously let some of that vegetation and foliage kind of cover your plants.

However, this does tend to be more of a problem on steak tomatoes, versus cage tomatoes because staking you often have more exposed fruit.

The other thing is, if you are going to prune any of your tomatoes, make sure if you are having that exposed fruit that you do, put up some sort of protection, maybe some burlap or some sort of shade cloth, especially on the west side just to prevent sun scold on your tomatoes.

(gentle music) Now the next thing that you might see that's affecting your plant, is actually affecting the overall plant not the fruit, and this is called physiological leaf roll.

And as you can see the name implies the leaves are actually rolling up.

This tends to start on the lower part of the plant on the older leaves and work its way up.

Now, you won't see any yellowing with this, the plant should not have any yellowing it should still continue to grow and have new growth and also be producing still.

So otherwise, the plant is relatively healthy other than just the aesthetics of what might look like, it's wilting which might cause you to water more than is needed.

So this is just a phenomenon that happens and there's not a lot that we can do about it.

We tend to find that some varieties are more susceptible to it than others.

And also tomatoes that tend to be staked and prudent, tend to be a little more susceptible to it than some that are kind of sprawling about.

Now, another factor that can often cause this in tomatoes is extreme heat, prolonged periods of heat and combination of wet periods can cause this as well.

Other than that you should still be getting a good fruit off of it, just know that this is not a pathogen or a disease.

(gentle music) Now another problem we often see on our tomatoes is cracking, and this is pretty common and you can see it usually takes on two forms.

A lot of times you'll see a vertical split that's happening from the stem down the shoulder of the fruit or oftentimes it creates this concentric circle where it's kind of this radial cracking that happens.

And it happens both on large and small fruit, it doesn't really matter which hybrids you have or which type of tomatoes you have.

Usually it is caused by excessive amounts of moisture whether that's irrigation or rainfall that proceed after an excessive dry period.

And a lot of times, even if your plant is on irrigation, if you have more, more ideal growing conditions, then that can cause it as well.

So even though it's hot and dry right now, we've got these plants on irrigation.

If we cool off then that's gonna allow this plant to wanna grow more.

And what's literally happening is that inside of that tomato is growing faster than the outside skin causing that cracking to happen.

Now really the only thing that you can do to prevent this is as soon as you start to see tomatoes that are starting to turn pink, go ahead and harvest them and allow them to ripen indoors.

(gentle music) Another problem that you might see on your tomatoes is well the fact that you might not be getting any tomatoes, and this is known as blossom drop.

While tomatoes are warm season crops, we know that our summer temperatures can be beyond warm and in fact, downright sweltering.

If our summer temperatures are daytime temperatures get above 90 degrees, this can cause your flower buds to drop and excessive winds can also cause further problems with that.

I mean, what days do we not have high temperatures and excessive winds?

That's known as July and August around here in Oklahoma, but more than the daytime temperatures, looking at the nighttime temperatures if they are anywhere outside of their range of a 55 to 70 degrees, then this can also cause the pollen in these flowers to become non-viable.

So if these flowers are there but they actually aren't getting pollinated, then they're just gonna abort and drop off therefore not producing any fruit for you.

While there are a few more heat tolerant varieties on the market, other than that, there's very little that we can actually do to prevent blossom drop.

Although one of the things you do wanna be cautious of is not to put down excessive amount of nitrogen as that only encourages more vegetation, and also prevents flowering and pollination.

Now the good news to all of this is, if you are able to maintain a healthy plant, as soon as our summer temperatures start to decline a little bit and we get back in that viable pollen range, you'll soon see your tomatoes start to produce fruit once again.

(gentle music) So as you can see it can be somewhat tricky growing that perfect red tomato.

That's why it's so important to have done a soil test, know the problems that you might encounter going through the season and also continue watering appropriate.

(upbeat guitar music) - Today we are planting peppers in our garden but it's not just any particular one type of pepper that we're planting, we're actually planting several peppers because we are making a Scoville scale pepper garden.

If you're not familiar with the Scoville scale, that is the measurement to know how spicy a pepper might be.

That's the ranking system, our Scoville units.

And so we've got peppers laid out here to kind of highlight that Scoville scale.

Now, the Scoville scale was actually developed by a pharmacist named Wilbur Scoville in 1912.

And the way they identify how many Scoville units each pepper has is by extracting the capsaicinoids out of the pepper.

And they do that by taking a dried weight amount of the pepper, a specific amount of weight, and then putting that in alcohol, and then they're able to extract those capsaicinoids.

Now, the primary component of those capsaicinoids that gives the pepper its heat is capsaicin.

You might have heard of that word before.

So a lot of capsaicin is taken out of that and eventually, through that extraction process, they then have that heat which is then dissolved into sugar water.

So you have a taste test panel.

And this taste test panel is then given a diluted solution of that extracted heat components.

And so as they taste test, basically, the concentration of those capsaicinoids gets lower and lower until they can't identify any heat in that solution anymore by simply tasting it.

Now, the heat of a pepper is not only determined by the genetics, obviously, we know a jalapeno is more hot than a bell pepper, but it's also determined by the environment in which it's been grown.

So for example, a lot of times, we see ranges of Scoville units on our peppers and that's not only because it's a subjective test, right?

Something that might taste hot to you might taste less hot to me because we have different sensory organs.

However, a pepper, a jalapeno pepper that's grown under stressed environments with reduced water, reduced fertility, it actually will be hotter than a jalapeno that's grown under optimal environmental conditions.

So for a jalapeno, typically that ranges 2,500 Scoville units anywhere up to 8,000 Scoville units.

So that's why you see a range of heat a lot of times on different peppers.

Now, genetics can also play into that.

Like I said, a jalapeno's always gonna be hotter than a bell.

However, there are some jalapenos that are no-heat jalapenos.

So this particular one I have next to me is called "fooled you" and it is a cultivar of a jalapeno.

So if it is a true jalapeno, however, through traditional breeding practices, that capsaicinoids have actually been bred out of the pepper.

So it has a Scoville ranking of zero.

So while it genetically is a jalapeno, it has been bred out of it.

So that allows you to still enjoy your jalapeno poppers without concern of really truly how hot that jalapeno might be.

There also are no-heat habaneros as well that you might want to try.

So getting back to our garden here, we've got several peppers laid out as you can see.

Again, so we've got one bed, that's gonna be more sweet to mild, and then we've got a bed that's gonna be a little hotter and go from mild to hot.

So the first three we've got here actually have zero Scoville units on them.

Meaning that they have no heat at all.

Of course, we've got our fooled you jalapeno followed by our sweet banana pepper that a lot of times comes with salads.

And then finally, our bell pepper.

And we've got a big Bertha bell that we're planting here in our garden.

So these first three have zero Scoville units and they're not gonna pack any heat to them when you bite into them.

Following that up, we've got our pimento sweet pepper and our pepperoncini.

Both of these have a rating of a hundred to 500 Scoville units.

Then next, we've got a Anaheim, that's gonna be 500 to a thousand units, followed by our poblano, which is a thousand to 2,000 Scoville units.

And then finishing off our bed here, we've got a traditional jalapeno that again comes in around 2,500 to 8,000 Scoville units.

Now, as we skip over to our hot pepper bed over here, we're gonna start with a serrano pepper.

And our particular cultivar that we have is called flaming jade, and it's around 3,000 Scoville units.

So again, keep in mind what I said about environment.

Sometimes, if you notice that 3,000 level is in that same range as a traditional jalapeno.

So it might be at times you've had a jalapeno that's tasted hotter than a serrano, and sometimes a serrano might have tasted hotter than a jalapeno.

And that's a lot of times because of that environmental factor.

Following our serrano pepper, we've got a Hungarian yellow pepper.

And we're gonna bump up the heat on this one to 5,000 to 10,000 Scoville units.

After that, we've got a tabasco pepper, and that's often used in hot sauces because it's got a rating of 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units.

50,000 is also typically where we rate the cayenne pepper.

So a lot of times we hear those in hot sauces as well.

- Followed by a traditional habanero pepper, and that's definitely going to be on the hotter side.

However, it has a much larger range from 100,000 to 350,000 Scoville units, so we're getting much hotter compared to zero units at all.

Now, before we get to our three hottest peppers that we have here on our Scoville pepper garden, I want to take a look at the genus species of all of the peppers that we've discussed so far, going back to that genetics aspect of it.

So all peppers are in the genus capsicum.

And so actually capsicum, it's come from the Greek word "kapto", which means to capture or to bite.

So you truly can say as a pepper has more capsaicin in it, it's definitely gonna have more bite that it offers to your tongue as you try it.

Now, most of the ones that we've talked about at this point are capsicum annuum, with the exception of the Tabasco pepper, which is actually capsicum frutescens.

And then, as we just mentioned, the habanero is a different one called capsicum chinense.

Now, you'll notice in our top three, they are also all capsicum chinense.

This particular species has resulted in a lot of breeding trying to get even hotter peppers, so that's the one that really is getting a lot of attention right now.

Now, the name might make you think that it is from China, but actually all peppers are native to the New World.

so you'll find them in Central and South America.

So our top three spiciest peppers are all of that species chinense, and we start that off with the Ghost Pepper.

In 2007, it was recognized by the Guinness World Record holders as being the hottest pepper with around 1 million Scoville units.

Quickly, it was surpassed in 2011 by the Trinidad Scorpion, which comes in around 1.2 to 2 million Scoville units.

Currently, that has even been surpassed and our hottest pepper that we now have is called the Carolina Reaper.

That tops the scale around 2.2 million Scoville units.

Now, the Carolina Reaper is said to actually have a little bit of a fruity sweet flavor initially when you bite into it and that's probably prior to it melting your face off.

So I think I'm just gonna take their word for it on that.

As you can see, however, there is a wide range of peppers to try.

In fact, all of these peppers, we just got at a local garden center, so they're not anything that you have to special order if you're curious about trying your own Scoville units or taste testing and seeing how hot you can handle those.

However, I think for my particular pallet, somewhere in this bed about midway, it went from edible to ornamental.

(bluesy acoustic music) You might remember earlier this summer, we planted a Scoville Pepper Garden.

Now, a Scoville is the unit of measure to determine how hot or spicy a pepper actually is.

So we've got a mild bed and we've got a hot bed, and it goes all the way from a no-heat jalapeno, which looks very similar to a regular jalapeno.

In fact, I'll show you here what it looks like.

Looks very similar to a regular jalapeno.

We go all the way up through bell peppers to our traditional jalapeno.

Then we also on our hot bed over here, it starts around a 3,000 Scoville unit with a Serrano pepper and quickly goes all the way up to Ghost Pepper, Trinidad Scorpion, and then finally topping off at one of our hottest peppers that is known, and that's the Carolina Reaper, topping out around 2 million Scoville units.

So you can see our 4" pots have really taken off and they've enjoyed this heat this summer.

Now, what's the point of growing all these peppers if we're not going to try them?

And in fact, I have a few willing participants to even try the Carolina Reaper.

So let me introduce you to our willing participants.

We're all willing, right?

(laughs) Okay, so we've got Jay Pirtle, who is one of our student gardeners who helped actually grow these peppers, Daniel Farris, who is our videographer and editor, which he took this opportunity to join us on this side of the camera, and finally, Dr. Shelley Mitchell, who, let's face it, just has a spicy personality.

So thank you all for trying this.

Are you ready to do it?

We've provided you all with a complimentary glass of cool, refreshing milk to enjoy throughout the process.

And then we're also going from the no-heat jalapeno, all the way up to this bad boy, the Carolina Reaper, that comes in at 2 million Scoville units.

Okay, so here we go.

I'm gonna go ahead and put that in there.

All right, we're gonna start off going with mild first and we're not doing all 18 or 16.

We're just skipping around here a little bit.

So I've got a no-heat jalapeno, that is 0 Scoville unit.

So this shouldn't taste like anything other than the flavor of a jalapeno.

Ready to try it?

- Ready.

- We now have the Poblano Pepper that is at the hotter end of the mild and this is around a 1000 to 2000 scoville units.

(Spanish music playing) - I haven't tasted it yet.

- It's very good.

(taste testers laughing) - Yeah.

Small but mighty.

(Spanish music playing) - They say you go into a Zen-like state.

We'll see if I experience that.

(Spanish music playing) - That one has a lot more like flavor than spice.

That one's really good.

- It was good.

(taste testers laughing) (Spanish music playing) - Must be in a Zen state.

(taste testers laughing) - [Filmmaker] She's just overreacting.

(Spanish music playing) - This one, the hottest Pepper, the Carolina Reaper comes in anywhere from 1.4 million to 2 million scoville units.

It is said to have a sweetness of fruit sweetness about it before it melts your face off.

So bon appetit.

(everyone laughing) (Spanish music playing) - The weather can be unpredictable this time of year, but don't worry, we will be right here to help you navigate another growing season.

Join us next Saturday, February 11th, as we bring to you a brand new episode of Oklahoma Gardening.

There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(fast pace music playing) It's been a long winter but we've been doing a lot of planning behind the scenes.

Join us right here next week as we are excited to be back with a brand new season of Oklahoma gardening.

(outro music playing) To find out more information about show topics as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources.

Including a directory of local extension offices.

Be sure to visit our website at Oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

Join in on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

You can find this entire show and other recent shows as well as individual segments on our Oklahoma Gardening YouTube channel.

Tune in to our OK Gardening Classics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts.

Oklahoma Gardening is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our Studio Gardens, and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful Stillwater gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriter, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

Additional support is also provided by Pond Pro Shop, Greenleaf Nursery, and the Garden Debut Plants, The Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, Smart Pot, and the Tulsa Garden Club.