(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Oklahoma Gardening is a production of the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service, as part of the land-grant mission of the Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University dedicated to improving the quality of life of the citizens of Oklahoma through research-based information.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.

- [Casey] Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today, I'll share with you the winter damage that we're seeing on our box woods.

I then join up with Erin Esry to learn how to prune grape vines.

Laura Payne shows us how to make soil blocks.

And finally, we get an update on what's been happening at the new OSU Student Farm.

(upbeat music) - That's look like an umbrella of sunset flowers.

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

(upbeat music) (Casey chuckles) (upbeat music) It's winter in the garden.

And today I wanted to talk to you about something that you might see in your garden that's happening this time of year and that is some damage on our box woods.

So today I wanted to look at our box woods.

As you can tell, it doesn't take a trained eye to see that something is going wrong with them.

Now what this is, is winter damage.

Obviously here in Oklahoma we can get extreme temperatures.

Today it's actually not so bad but we know tomorrow the temperature can drop dramatically as we go into those winter months and continue through the winter season.

It can really vary and that can be problematic especially on our broadleaf evergreens.

And so box woods, one of the things that makes them more susceptible to winter damage is the fact that those leaves are a little bit wider creating more surface area and more exposure to those drying winds.

We all know here in Oklahoma we get really strong winds and also the humidity can get low especially during those winter months.

And so what happens is it really kind of draws the water out of those plants.

Now we've ensured that we have moisture in our soil and you wanna periodically do that.

If we haven't received an inch of rainfall through those winter months you wanna make sure you're at least applying a little bit of moisture about one inch per month.

So the thing is, is we just had some really cold temperatures that our plants weren't acclimated to just quite yet.

So what's happened is you can see some of this foliage has actually died where it's got this yellowing and some of it's just kind of been reacting to those color temperatures.

So we've got some kind of this orange or bronzing that's affecting our vegetation here.

Now this orange is still alive.

It's fine.

And if you look down into the heart of the plant you'll notice that it is green.

So that's the good sign there is.

We have not lost our plant, it's just this kind of exterior that has really been affected by those cooler temperatures.

So we know our plant is going to be okay.

Now, this is really the reason why you don't want to plant broadly evergreens in fall because they are more susceptible to winter damage than say some of your narrow leafed evergreens like your pines or your junipers.

So the best time to plant broad leaf evergreens is in spring.

These have been here for about a year so you know they are still fairly new and getting acclimated and getting rooted in.

The other thing is, is ours is slightly elevated so they're a little bit more exposed to some of those cool temperatures around their roots as well which probably doesn't help the situation.

But we know our plants are gonna be okay.

So what do we need to do going forward?

If you are seeing winter damage on your plants don't do anything to the plant just yet.

We will talk about pruning them and how to manage this foliage.

As we go into spring, around March when we start to see some new growth coming out the one thing you wanna do is protect it from any further damage as we know that we can still suffer some colder temperatures in February.

So looking at some of your options, one of the things you might wanna do is consider adding more mulch around the root base to protect them.

The other thing is if you know, like I said, today it's a nice day, but in a couple of days we know we're gonna get some chillier temperatures so you might wanna protect that foliage and that vegetation.

And a couple ways of doing that is one, just a a freeze cloth, which is kind of a sponge material and just cover that vegetation.

Now you don't wanna put this on in winter and then leave it for several months because obviously that's not healthy.

The plant needs to photosynthesize.

So just put it on as we experience those really cool temperatures.

If you don't have freeze cloth, you can also use a cotton sheet or even burlap that will help.

Now, a lot of times people talk about using plastic.

If you just have say, one box boxwood, go ahead put a plastic bucket on it.

However, if you have several like what we have you might be thinking about using plastic sheeting.

If you're using plastic, just be aware.

Try to keep the plastic actually off of the foliage because if you've ever touched plastic in the wintertime it can get really cold.

And so that can actually do more damage.

- To the foliage, if that plastic is touching the vegetation and the foliage.

So it's preferable not to use plastic, and to use something like this frost blanket or burlap.

And then, also, mulch heavily around the base of those plants.

So we will check back in March on our boxwoods, and continue on talking about what to do about freeze damage on our boxwoods.

(country swing music) In February, we start to think about those plants that are gonna be coming out of dormancy, and which ones to prune.

Today we are here in the vineyard at Perkins Cimarron Research Station, and joining me is Aaron Essary, who is our new estate extension specialist in viticulture, and also enology, which is the study of both wines and growing grapes.

So Aaron, (laughing) thank you for having us out here.

- Of course.

Thank you Casey.

- Yeah.

So it's time to start looking at our grape vines.

And now's the time to prune before they break bud?

- That's correct.

You want to prune as late as you can in the winter before bud break, before the spring gets here.

So late February, March, is the time.

- Okay.

- So.

- So what are we looking at here?

I know it kind of depends on your style of grapes.

- Yes.

- Vineyards and trellising.

- Correct.

Correct.

Just that.

This, today we're working on a Chambourcin grapevine, which is pretty prevalent here in Oklahoma.

This is a high cordon trellis, which means that the vine grows tall, and then the canes and shoots grow downward.

That's one way to do it.

Another way, is a vertical shoot position, which is, you know, about hip high, and they grow upward, but this is a high cordon, and it grows downward.

- So it kind of creates this curtain effect vine.

- Yes it does.

Yes it does.

Yes it does.

But as you can see, the vine is fully dormant, and these are all one year growth.

This was this season's growth.

The bigger stuff is previous season's growth.

And you just have to go through, and you have to prune it, especially for production.

If you're doing this to really grow grapes for wine, you give it a pretty good hard pruning, and then that just stimulates really good growth for the upcoming growing season.

- So do they produce on the new growth, or the old growth, or does it depend on- - No, no, no.

New growth.

Grapes, the grape berry itself, is on one year current growing season shoots.

- Okay.

Alright.

- But now, to train a vine, that takes multiple years.

- Okay.

- And I'll just kind of explain it.

So this is your trunk, you plant in the ground, it's a little sapling, and then it just grows.

Okay.

And then once it reaches this top wire, 'cause we're on a high cordon system, you snip it, and you get lateral growth.

- You get that branching.

Okay.

- That's right.

Which becomes your cordons.

So these are many, many, many years old.

They're just big and girthy.

And there's your cordons.

From your cordons, you get spurs.

And spurs are kind of semi-permanent, but from your spurs, you get canes, which is the shoots which are current.

So from cordons, to spurs, to canes, that's kind of how it goes.

- So it's a multiplication effect.

Right?

You got two cordons, and then you've got so many spurs, and from each of those, you get even more vines.

- Yep.

And that's why I say it's kind of semi-permanent.

Once they're established, they can be there for as long time, but if you cut wrong, or cut inappropriate, or if you're doing it intentionally, you can space 'em and move them.

But it takes a year or two to do that.

- Okay.

Okay.

So what do we do with all of this old stuff here?

- So we're gonna cut all of this off.

I'm just gonna rough prune it.

Give it a good trim.

- Okay.

- To do that, we need a good pair of pruners.

- Okay.

- And before you start pruning, you actually want to Lysol your pruners.

Disinfect 'em rather, but regular Lysol works just fine.

Maybe if they have any debris, just, you know, rub any, you don't wanna spread diseases is what I'm saying.

- Right.

Okay.

So the sanitation there.

- Correct.

So, now we're ready to go.

- Just start cutting.

- Just start cutting.

So this is rough prune.

You're gonna find, I mean, you just dive in.

I'm not counting buds right now.

I'm not thinking too hard.

I'm just trying to knock off all of this growth, so that way, I can better work with, you know, just once it's outta the way you can really do better.

- Yeah.

So you're leaving a good foot, 12 to 18 inches.

- Six buds is a good aiming point for rough pruning.

But again, we're gonna cut it down to, and these are suckers.

- Yeah, I was gonna ask, what about these lower ones?

Did you not try to- - No, no.

Cut all these off.

These are suckers.

These will only take away from your, you know, growing shoots at the top.

- Yeah.

Get all your suckers off.

So it's desuckered.

Vines are pretty hardy.

And you just kinda go to where the other one, to where the cordon ends, you know, I mean, two cordons will come together, and you just find the breaking point.

Yeah.

And so that's a rough prune.

And so you see, it's sort of taking shape, but we still got a lot to do.

So now this is much more manageable.

You see this is, we can actually go on and count.

So now, we have our trunk, cordon, cordon.

We want five or six spurs per cordon.

And then we want to count up two or three buds per spur.

Does that make sense?

- So again, your spurs are kind of these shorter, thicker, older stems, and then you're gonna be looking at buds.

- Correct.

So now we're gonna fine prune this.

Let's start on this right cordon, so we'll go here.

We have some spurs you can see.

Let's cut this out, and then make, so.

- So that is a spur we cut off, right?

- Yes, I cut that off because we have one right here.

You don't want two right beside each other.

You went about four to six inches apart between spurs.

So this is gonna become a spur now.

I'm gonna count buds and buds are these white, those are your, this year's growing, - Right.

- Shoot.

So just count 'em one, two, and then cut right there.

- Okay.

- And then that's it.

So that's a spur, pruned for this year's growth.

- So, when spring breaks and these buds actually begin to break, 'cause right now they're still dormant.

- Correct.

- So you're gonna have multiple shoots come out of there and drape over, and then that's what will provide us with all of our berries.

- That's it, that's it.

- Okay.

- You usually get about three clusters per shoot.

- Oh, okay, okay.

- Two to three.

- So how many spurs do you typically look for to leave on there?

- Five or six per cordon.

- Okay.

- And you want 'em again, a fist length apart.

Four to six inches.

But yeah, five to six spurs per cordon, two to three buds per spur.

- Okay, so it's pretty straightforward.

It's just quite a labor intensive project when you have a lot of it.

- Yeah, I mean, as you can see we've got the whole row to go through, yeah.

- So, if we continue on, what would would we keep this one or, I mean, that seems fairly small.

- It does.

Maybe not, I might just cut this out, so cut that, but I have one here on the back, and then I have one right here, and I might just trim this up.

Okay, so now it's looking right.

One, two, cut right there, brand new spur.

- And do you ever have to replace spurs?

So, you might allow a smaller one to come in and.

- You do, you do, yes, and that depends on too, you're pruning practices.

As you get better at pruning, you know where to cut and how to cut as it grows, too.

So we're gonna have a shoot and this is gonna grow.

Well, next year we're gonna have brand new cane, we have to prune that back now, so we'll prune it to here.

Well as you can see, it's after years, it'll.

- So your spurs get longer?

- They do.

- Okay.

- And that's, then you can just go back and cut it out and you start a brand new one.

You see, so there's semi-permanent.

- Do you ever start back with a new cordon?

- Yes, yes you do.

Cordons, especially for production, it's good to replace cordons every 10 years.

- Oh, okay.

- Roughly.

You know, it depends on fruitfulness.

But yeah, if you were to, so all the suckers we cut off earlier, if you were to have one, you could actually cut this whole cordon off, lay a brand new sucker, not a, don't lay a sucker, but a one-year growing cane.

- Right, right.

- And that would be your new cordon - Right, right.

What would otherwise seem kind of like a sucker or a water sprout, it actually will replace if you needed to.

- Yes, if you needed to.

That's right, that's right.

- Okay.

- And you can do that.

- All right, well, Aaron, thank you so much for allowing us to see this process, and I think we're gonna join you as we continue through the season with grapes.

- Absolutely, would love to, would love to.

Thanks for having me, Casey.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hey everybody, Today I wanna talk to you about soil blocking.

So, soil blocking is the process of mixing certain ingredients together, and then pressing them into a mold, and creating a space for you to start your seeds.

So, with soil blocking, some of the benefits are the fact that when these roots start growing through this soil, they're gonna reach the edge of this, and they're going to air prune themselves.

Now, when you start seeds in a plastic container, those roots hit the side of that container and they have nowhere to go, so they end up circling.

So with soil blocking, you're going to get that air root pruning that is very healthy for the plant.

Also, you're going to minimize the transplant shock when you use a soil block.

You will have minimal disturbance to the roots by using this instead of pulling a plant out of a plastic container and then having to disturb those roots when you plant it.

Okay, so now we're gonna talk about how you make the mix for your soil block.

So first, you'll need some type of a filler.

Now, you can use peat moss or you can use coconut coir.

Then you're gonna need something for drainage.

You can use perlite, or you can use vermiculite, and then you're gonna need something for some kind of nutrients.

So you can use compost, but in this case, I have used worm castings.

So you're gonna use one part of your filler, one part of your drainage, and one part of your nutrient ingredient.

So, that's what I have done here in this tub, and when I say one part, one part could be this size container, or it could be a gallon size container, or whatever you have, but soil blocking mix is kind of like making a cake or cookies.

You find all these recipes on the internet, and then you mix it all together, and you find something's just not quite working right for you, so you tweak it.

So, definitely make this your own.

If you Google soil block recipes, you will find hundreds of them on the internet.

(upbeat country music) Okay, so now I have this mix to the consistency that when I just squeeze it, you can see water just starting to come out of it.

- So this is the consistency that you really want.

Now, when using perlite, we recommend that you either wear a dust mask because of those very fine particles, or as in my case, I wet it down just a little bit to minimize that dust before I put it in here.

Also, when using earthworm castings, you want to use a little less of those than you would using compost because these really hold the moisture.

So now that we've got this all mixed up, we're going to start packing these into our soil blocks.

So here I have your traditional square style of soil block.

And so with this one, you would just pack these very tight in here, and then you'll push this plunger down, and you would make your little square blocks.

This one also has a divot in the middle of it, or a dibble, to leave that little space for your seeds.

So that one is available.

This is a new one that I found on the market, and if you know me or know me at all, you know that I love tools.

So I had to purchase this one.

So this one makes four little soil blocks, or you can take this off and make one big soil block.

This one just has a plunger on the end so you just squeeze out that soil mix.

The third one that I have is something that I made myself.

Kind of got creative one day, and just got a piece of PVC pipe, another piece of PVC pipe, and a T to go on the end of it.

So what I do is I pack this little tube here, and then I push it out with this.

Now we're gonna demonstrate how to make a seed block.

Move my stuff outta the way here.

So I'm gonna go ahead and use this one.

I found this one to be very easy to use.

So what I'm gonna do is take the seed block.

I'm gonna pack it as tight as I can with this mixture.

You can use your hand, a packet, you can use, you know, just the base of your container here.

Then kind of smooth out the bottom.

Now I'm using a tray here that has a lip on it, which is recommended, because you're going to water these seed blocks from putting water into your tray.

If you water them from overhead, then you risk breaking up your soil block.

So you see here I have my four little soil blocks with divots in them, and we recommend that you go ahead and seed these as soon as possible so that that peat's not drying out on you.

Now I'm gonna show you what to do with the one that I made, which will not have a divot.

So once again, I'm just gonna pack this little cylinder really tight and smooth it out, and then just put that in there and push that out onto the tray.

This little guy here does not have a divot in it, but I can remedy that situation by just taking a chopstick or a pencil and just putting a little divot there in the middle.

Now, be very careful with these because they are fragile.

You don't wanna water these like overhead with the water can.

You're going to water these from the bottom, so you wanna put them in a tray that has a lip on the side of it.

You also wanna put this tray on a heat mat because most seeds need heat to germinate.

And so this heat mat, I just slide this over onto the heat mat.

I put my seeds in here, and if you have light, if the seeds require light, then you would use a light.

So I hope you give soil blocking a try, and happy gardening.

(upbeat music) - You might remember at the end of last season, we were here at the student farm, and we are back, joined again by Lynda Carrier, who is the manager of the new OSU Student Farm to get an update.

Lynda, so it's been hot and cold, back and forth today.

We've got a beautiful winter day, but you guys have been doing a lot behind the scenes.

Tell us a little bit of what you've been doing.

- Okay, well, we had to get a lot of infrastructure underway.

Being that there's no utilities currently on here, we had to kind of start at square one, and also put in a lot of irrigation.

So the irrigation's been installed so we're ready to take off with that.

We're also working on building a fence, an eight foot tall deer fence.

It's gonna take some time to get that going but we've started on it.

We're building, some students are building H braces and fence gates and so forth.

- What kind of thought process went into, you just had raw land out here, right?

- Yes.

- And so there's a lot that has to go into the planning of where to even put that infrastructure.

Tell us a little bit about that process.

- Well, that took quite a bit of planning because we had to kind of lay out several ideas of what we thought would work, just even from the basics of where the irrigation should go.

So we're sitting up on top of the hill here, and it slopes down pretty gradual.

So we've got our irrigation all up on the high ground.

- [Host] So gravity will help it.

- [Lynda] Yes, exactly.

And so that way you don't have anything back-flowing or you know, any issues with that.

We're originally starting out with tilling, strip tilling down each about 10 foot centers between our spacing.

So we'll, our tiller will be six foot wide, and we'll till strips down through there, and then center it and do another one.

So they'll be 10 foot apart between centers.

- Okay.

- And then from there, we'll make our raised beds.

And that's a freestanding raised bed.

- Yeah, so when we talk about raised beds, a lotta times people think of like a building a box, but we're just talking about mounding the soil out there so it's- - Right, yes.

- No infrastructure to the actual raised bed necessarily.

- Right, yes.

It's a piece of equipment that's, it's called a mulch layer bed shaper.

And we actually just purchased a new one to use here, and it will actually, it kinda drags the soil into it and then makes a nice shape going all the way down.

So it oughta do a real nice job.

- Okay, so tilling it prior to that loosens that soil, allows it to that.

- Right.

- But then you're gonna leave, when you said strip tilling, you actually will leave this cover in the alleyways between those rows then?

- Yes, yeah.

'Cause that'll help as far as erosion.

You know, when you just got bare ground everywhere, you're gonna have a lot of erosion, a lot of, you know, foot traffic as far as when we get into harvesting and weeding and things like that.

You don't wanna have a muddy mess under you.

- Right.

- So yeah, we'll leave the cover crop.

We'll probably maintain it by mowing it and keeping it somewhat contained.

- Okay.

- Yeah.

- And I think, one thing probably you probably had to consider was your equipment, the size of your equipment.

- Right.

- Like you know, when you build that fence, when are you gonna turn around your tractor when you get to the end of the row - Right.

- And that sorta stuff as well.

- Yeah.

So we're gonna put our fence, our north fence is gonna be right up against the white fence down there, and mainly we decided to do that because there's some trees on the south side of that fence.

And if we put the fence south of them, then that gives us not enough buffer room to turn around.

So we're gonna leave us a little room down there.

It'll be kind of a grassy area.

We'll just maintain it by mowing it and give us some extra room down there.

- So it looks like you're really developing the west side before you go to the east side.

Is that correct?

But you do have - Yeah.

- Some irrigation over there.

- Yeah, we're got irrigation over there as well.

But we decided to develop this side first because we've got the irrigation over here.

We've got access to another source as well.

And you know, this being our first year, we're doing a lotta experimental stuff, but or not experimental, but just, it's trial and error.

- Right, right, right.

And it's a new garden right?

- Yeah, it is.

- And so, even though - Yeah.

- [Casey] You can come with all your experience, everything is always sometimes a new situation.

- Right, yeah.

- So you're starting here.

Tell me what you're planting.

Gonna be planting - Okay.

- Cool season crops in here soon?

- Yes, yeah.

We've already started, I think about mid January we started a whole bunch of cool season crops in the greenhouse.

They're coming up really good now.

About 3,600 plants, actually.

- All right.

- So we'll do a lotta cool season through this area.

As we shift down, we'll get into our warm season crops.

And then, if we need extra space, we can move over to the east side, but we'll probably only plant stuff over there that we know the deer won't mess with.

- [Casey] Okay, 'cause you won't have a deer fence down there, okay.

- Yeah, so, we hope to get this one done before we start planting, which we need to.

- Right.

(laughing) - But hopefully the weather'll, you know, help us out a little bit.

- [Casey] And I think that's an important factor.

Just 'cause you have the space, doesn't mean you have to plant it all.

- Exactly.

- Because that means more materials, more labor, - More labor.

- [Casey] More harvesting and all of that stuff.

- Yeah.

- And so, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Start small right?

- Yep, that's right.

- [Casey] Even if that's a few acres.

(laughing) - [Linda] Yes, yeah, yeah.

(laughing) - Well, Linda, thank you for giving us this update and we'll be back in a few weeks to see those transplants going into the ground.

- Sounds great.

- Thanks.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - There are a lotta great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(upbeat music continues) For the next few weeks, OETA will be conducting their annual spring fundraiser, but we'll be back with another great "Oklahoma Gardening" on March 18th.

(upbeat music continues) (light music) Today we're out here in the grapevines or the vineyard at the villa, vineyard.

(laughing) It's winter in the garden and today, I wanted to talk to you about something that you might... (light music continues) 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.

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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.

(light music continues)