- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today we start in Tulsa at a garden that's making a big impact on the youth.

We then travel west to the Fort Reno Blue Stem Garden, where we learn about how they are attracting pollinators.

And finally, I'll share a plant with you that you'll want to add to your garden.

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

Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust Shape your future provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

I love sharing with you guys the cool things that plants can do.

We're back here at the Student Farm.

I wanna share with you a tropical plant that you might find in some Oklahoma landscapes.

It's important to know which plants we are dealing with so that we can continue to maintain them successfully for years to come.

Today we're here in Tulsa to learn more about Global Gardens and what they're doing here at Eugene Field Elementary and other schools around Tulsa.

Let's go inside and check it out.

Hey Kaylee, thanks so much for having us here at the Gardens.

I, we've been here a few years ago, but so much has changed since we've been here.

Can you tell us a little bit about Global Gardens and what y'all are doing here?

Of - Course.

I'm glad you guys are here.

So yeah.

This is one of 10 global garden sites.

We're at 10 different elementary schools, both TPS and Union.

Okay.

And we serve schools in different capacities at this school.

We serve every student at the school, pre-K through fifth grade, with both during school and after school programming.

Some schools we offer only during school, some are only after school.

It's a mix depending on what the school and funding can allow.

- Right.

So you really cater to the schools that you partner with.

That's We do.

Awesome.

This - Is your home - Site, right?

- Yes.

Your original, this is our original site.

It started about 17 years ago.

Okay.

Here at Eugene Field.

It started much smaller and then has grown since then.

- Literally the garden has growing.

It really has.

So I don't think this space was quite organized like this when I was here.

Last.

Tell us a little bit about what you're doing up here in this front area.

- Yeah.

So what you see here is our drawing school section.

So each of these gardens corresponds to one classroom at the Eugene Field.

So each classroom of students has their own garden bed out here.

And they come with their global gardens educator.

We meet out here for one time each week for about 45 minutes.

- Wow.

- With students, they're gardening.

They're getting to do a seed to play experience at least twice a year.

So that's planting and then caring for the plants and then harvesting.

- Okay.

So you're doing fall and spring - Gardening?

Fall and spring.

Even in winter, we can get out here in winter, we're taking care of the compost, we're taking care of the worms, we're covering the soil to keep it nice and warm.

And then we're also doing garden related science experiments inside as well.

- Okay.

So tell us, this is always at elementary schools.

Are you working with a certain age range with the, - Yeah.

What grades are we talking for?

Right now it's just pre-K through fifth.

Okay.

For our, during school, our after school is third through fifth - Graders.

Okay.

- We've served some middle school as well, and currently we're widening an alumni program to serve some of those older kids.

- Alright.

Well, tell us a little bit about how you work with the teachers.

'cause I know it's adding even more onto their plate sometimes.

So that's where your garden educators come in hand, - Right?

Right.

Yes.

So each one of our Global Gardens classes is led by our garden educators who come in and they are really the ones who teach the lesson.

They're the ones facilitating their planning.

They're the ones caring for the garden.

So they're, the classroom teachers do get to come with their classes out to the garden, and it's kind of a partnership.

We ask the teachers, what are you teaching right now with your students?

What science standards can we help you with?

And we create curriculum to kind of work with those teachers and supplement their lessons.

- Okay.

- So if in on the inside third grade is learning about life cycles, we're gonna learn about life cycles.

Here in the garden, we're gonna learn about lady bugs, about earthworms.

Right now we're learning about praying mantis, and then with the Global Gardens classroom, we're raising praying Mantis and releasing them into the garden.

- Okay.

I know it's so much more about the more than just the plants.

It's about the water cycle and the, and the wildlife that might come into the garden.

Fact, I saw Bunny, I think everywhere out here.

Yes.

We have a possum out here too.

Oh, do you?

So do you work with other STEM related organizations?

Where do you come up with your curriculum and stuff?

- Yeah, our educators.

Okay.

They are the main ones who come up with the curriculum.

We use those Oklahoma science standards to kind of give us a framework with what we should gear towards.

And then really our educators, we do partner with TRSA, Tulsa Regional STEM Alliance.

- Okay.

- And the Opportunity Project.

But for curriculum creation, a lot of that's our internal staff and getting ideas from what are the students interested in learning about.

That's really where it comes from.

If our kids are interested in ladybugs, we're gonna focus more on ladybugs.

We can do math out here in the garden.

There can be literacy done in the garden.

Really, the garden is a great vehicle to learn whatever avenue of thing.

- Very cool.

Well, it looks like you got even more back there.

Can we go take a look at that back there?

We do, yes, of course.

Okay, let's go.

- Well, welcome to the afterschool side of our garden.

You just visited the during school where we serve every student in this school.

This is our afterschool area where we serve about 30 kids two days a week.

Okay.

Here at our afterschool program.

So you're gonna see a lot of different gardens here, and each of these gardens are split up so that every kid here at our afterschool program has a plot of land that they're taking care of.

Oh, nice.

We're also going to see students' art on these different signs.

They've themed each of their gardens based on what they wanna grow or what they wanna do with what they grow.

So we have our soup garden, and that is all ingredients that Alex wants to put in a soup once they're ready.

Over here we have plants for insects garden.

Those are all plants that help our insects out.

We have a rainbow garden, we have a family garden.

So every student has kind of decided what would represent myself or what would represent who I am, what I wanna do with these plants.

Okay.

And they theme their whole garden based on that.

- So is this a little more self-directed with y'all's guidance that they can do what they want - With it?

That's well said.

It definitely is.

Okay.

So our during school program is really STEM focused.

Okay.

And has student voice.

- But - Our after school program is a lot more student voice and choice focused.

Okay.

So we definitely lead a framework of what we wanna do with our afterschool students.

We have gardens, so we're gonna be doing gardening.

- Right.

- But we kinda leave it up to students.

What are you interested in in the garden?

What do you wanna do with what you grow?

- Right.

- So we have some students and groups who are really interested in bugs.

So we do a lot of bug collection, bug hunting.

We have some students who are really interested in cooking.

So we do a lot of cooking.

We have some kids who are really interested in art.

And you'll see our student art all over the, there's - Art everywhere.

Yeah.

Yes.

I mean, I love the colorful flags that you have behind you here - Too.

Yeah.

On the backside of each flag, you're going to see that students drew things that they're hopeful for.

Okay.

Are things that represent them.

So every student in this school has a voice in this garden and ownership.

- Okay.

So clearly these kids are not all gonna grow up to be gardeners or horticulturists, maybe in science, hopefully.

But let's talk about some of the skills that they're gaining through this process.

- Definitely.

So Global Gardens we're super excited because kids are learning so many skills.

Yes.

They're learning gardening skills, but they're also taking home STEM identities with them.

They're learning that you can be a scientist.

Scientists can look like many different things.

We teach them that cooking is a science.

Yeah.

That chefs are just hungry scientists.

We are doing engineering.

We build pea trellis.

We're doing art.

We're doing the critical skills it takes to be peaceful with one another.

How can we problem solve?

Anytime you have any amount people in a space, there is going to be a problem eventually.

And so sometimes our kids get in arguments or they're upset, or they bring a lot of heavy stuff with them Right.

From just their day, from their lives, from school.

And so we give them a space where they can process - That.

Okay.

- Each of our programs start with community circle, where kids can share, they can breathe in the good things and breathe out the bad and kinda let each other know, this is where I'm coming from today.

- Yeah.

- And then we also teach the peace table, which is our conflict resolution model.

So it's where students are sharing how they're feeling and they hear what other students are saying and they're able to come up with a solution together.

They don't necessarily have to say sorry, but they do have to figure out how are we going to coexist in this space?

Do we need to take a break?

Do we apologize?

Can we work together on something else?

- Right.

- So we're definitely teaching that critical skill of relationship building, problem solving.

We do a lot of goal setting here in the garden.

What do I want to plant eventually?

Yeah.

How am I going to take care of the things I plant?

Patience with those going goodness coming to fruition.

Right.

Patience.

What happens if the things I plant didn't work out?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What do I do with that?

Yeah.

What happens if the food I make wasn't my favorite?

How can I do it differently next time?

We teach a lot - Of, so failure is not a failure.

Failure not, it's just another try of doing it a different way.

Exactly.

- Yeah.

The main thing we wanna teach is that attitude of trying new things.

Can we try touching a new bug for the first time?

Can we try this STEM activity?

Oh, some kids say that science is scary, but - Yeah.

- What if we tried a new way?

What if learning could be fun?

- I love that curiosity and discovery and what you can do with that both in the garden and in your life going forward - In the future.

Yeah.

We've noticed that students are able to take that curiosity and not only apply it to learning, but then toward their lives as well.

Why am I feeling angry?

Or why is this happening that way?

How can I problem solve?

- Well, I can only imagine that this isn't just involving the students.

It's kind of contagious right.

At this point.

Definitely.

Let's talk about like, are the families, the parents, are they seeing a difference or are they getting involved with this?

- Definitely.

Our kids are taking their problem solving skills home with them.

How can I solve problems among my siblings?

And then of course, we're in a garden, so there's going to be food and produce.

So we do a lot of cooking here at Global Gardens.

Every during school student is cooking at least twice a year.

That's awesome.

Often many more.

Same with our afterschool students.

They're growing, they're planting things.

They're gonna be harvesting and cooking.

So in program, they learn a lot of really healthy recipes, or they're trying veggies they've never heard of before.

Like Radish, turnip, what can we make with sweet potatoes?

What can we make with beets?

And they're gonna take extra produce and those recipes home with their families.

- And the process of reading a cookbook, right?

- Yeah.

We have our cookbook.

So Global Gardens has worked really hard the past couple years, collecting all the recipes we make with our students and we put them in this cookbook.

There's about 50 to 60 recipes in here that are student tested.

So we collected them all and then we made them all with students.

Again, twice.

Double checking that yes, this is how you make it.

This does taste good.

So these are kid approved.

We also have a community garden.

Our union school, Rosa Parks Elementary, and a lot of the families there also contributed recipes to our cookbook.

- Awesome.

Well, I think Christie is inside cooking with some of your students.

- That's right.

We should go - Test it out.

Awesome.

Today we are out here at the historic and beautiful Fort Reno, just west of El Reno, Oklahoma.

And it's also home to one of the USDA research centers.

And joining me is Anne Marshall, who is the education director for the Blue Stem Agri Learning Center.

Thank you so much for having us out here.

So you guys are a STEM project, right?

That gets involved in the community.

Tell me a little bit about your reach.

- Well, we started this program in 2015 in conjunction with the USDA and the idea was that they really would like a STEM center in this area.

And so they, we started and it's grown into a, a huge program.

We service at least four high schools around here, as well as other, you know, smaller elementary, middle school kids.

They come out here and we do station rotations, but our high school program is probably our stellar program.

And they actually get AP credit through their high school.

They are here.

They get to work with USDA scientist and do primary research.

Wow.

So it's a, an amazing program that has grown exponentially in the last nine years.

- And you guys cover all sorts of science.

Yes.

Let's talk about some of the sciences that you cover and the partnerships that you have.

- Okay.

Well, we have a complete aquaponic system in our basement, but our biggest thing is that we really try to partner with people in the community.

And so a few years back we, we received a STEM designation that was because of our partnerships with the Canyon County Master Gardeners, with the USDA, with Redlands Community College and other entities as well as school systems in this area.

- Very good.

And I know one of those partnerships is with the Canadian County Master Gardeners.

Yes.

Yes.

Tell us a little bit about how you're utilizing the garden.

- Okay.

So we have a vegetable garden, which Carolyn Balson helped us start.

And our students are involved in that.

And they learn how to preserve food.

They learn how to can, how to pickle, how to make jellies.

And then they take it to our local farmer's market.

And that is on Wednesday and Saturday and they sell it.

And so it's kind of a full circle where they learn how to do a business as well as, you know, food preservation.

- Well, if you don't mind, I'm gonna go check out the garden.

Okay.

- Fantastic.

Thank, - Thank you so much for sharing this with us.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Hi Janet.

How are you?

Hi Casey.

Hi.

It's so good to see you be back here in Canadian County.

Yes.

It has been a while and you guys have been busy bees out here.

- We really have.

We are so excited to have you and Oklahoma gardening come out and take a look at our pollinator garden.

- Tell me a little - Bit.

So we're in the - Vegetable garden here too.

- So, and I, I don't do a lot of the vegetable work, but the master gardeners did help with this.

At one time, this was nothing but Bermuda grass, Johnson grass.

And we convinced the ladies, please go with raised beds.

So last year that's what we did.

We got these raised beds.

One of our master gardeners, McMullen - Came - Out and did a workshop showing everyone how you started a raised bed.

So, and - You utilized different things, - Tubs and we did, and - Water trs.

I love it.

Anything that holds the soil, - The ladies asked for a lot of donations and this is what they got.

And this is what we use.

This is fabulous, but it, it's - Wonderful.

But I know what's really dear to your heart is this pollinator garden.

So let's talk about this.

This is beautiful.

And I feel like we hit at the prime time - Probably to play all the time.

Right?

This, we started this in 2020 with about eight volunteers.

And this was nothing but Johnson grass.

- Wow.

- And so we divided it up into four quadrants.

Okay.

Because we knew that would be easier for us to take care of.

This is our Monarch Gardens.

We have a lot of milk wheated here and nectar plants for the adult monarchs.

I - Love the teia Mexican and sunflower.

They, - Those a great nectar plant over here.

We had to have a special garden for our eastern black swallow tail.

Okay.

That's our state butterfly.

So we have a lot of fennel and nectar plants for them.

- All right.

- We'll come out here and this will be loaded with chrysalis and caterpillars.

So there's a lot of - Them.

We got a little art in there too.

- Bless her heart.

That is Betty blue stem.

Okay.

And my husband Martin made her for our, we know we, we hosted the state conference last year.

- Right.

The Master Garden State - Conference.

And the this garden was part of the tour and he made that for me.

And this is a man who has trouble nailing a picture on the wall.

But he did this and it was wonderful.

- Well, it looks like - You have a few more.

The, the Gaillardia and blue grandma in here.

We, we had to have Oklahoma State wildflower, the Gaillardia.

So we had to have plenty of those.

We've got something for everything, for every type of pollinator.

When we started the garden, we knew that we wanted a pollinator garden and we wanted a diverse pollinator garden.

So the plants that we selected with Patty Ingram helped me.

The plants had to be drought tolerant.

- Okay.

- They had to grow in the worst kind of dirt you can imagine.

So this is the third year for all of this.

And you know what they say?

First year the garden sleeps.

Second year it creeps third year.

This garden is leaping.

It is leaping.

Indeed.

- And you've got some - Pollinators visiting us right now.

Yeah.

That's our, that's our Eastern Black - Swallow Tale.

So what are these two?

You kind of have designated, obviously the pollinators go all over, but you kind - Of designated.

Okay.

This one we've got a lot of our native grasses, like blue stem switchgrass, blue groma grass.

- Okay.

- And some of the native prairie plants.

Like this is a rattlesnake master.

That's a beautiful plant.

- That's a big one.

Yeah.

- This is our prairie sage.

This is one of our only native sages in Oklahoma.

- And I love that it gives you that blue color - In the garden.

Right.

I know.

I love that over here, because we were closer to the water fountain, we put in some plants that needed a little bit more water, like iron weed, little Joe pi, weed, flender, mountain mint.

So that's that.

We have a lot of golden rods that'll be coming up too.

- And some asters coming on later on too, I imagine.

- Yeah.

- Well it's smart making use of your kind of microclimate because you're by the, the spigot there that yeah, sometimes your water drains out a little bit.

- We just put it right in there and let the Yeah, the, those that need the water take it.

So Janna, I see some spiral - Gardens here.

- We are so proud of these spiral gardens.

Originally, this whole area was laid out with the brick walkway.

- Okay.

- And when we redid the garden, we had all that extra brick.

And so I said, well, let's build some spiral gardens.

So everybody said, sure, yeah, let's do this.

So the first one we started, this is our Native American spiral garden.

This one - Here.

Okay.

- And it's, it's planted with plants that were native to this area that were important to our Native Americans.

And so we've got the white sage, the blanket flour, and the butterfly weed.

Then over here, Carolyn Balson suggested we do one with the herbs that our settlers would've brought with them as they traveled the country.

And so these are all herbs that were brought from England and other parts of the country Asia.

- Oh, interesting.

- The lady that made us a sign that tells what each plant is for what their cooking purposes would've been, medicinal and ceremonial.

So yeah, we're very proud of this.

- And then you have a third garden over here?

We - Do gardens just keep growing around here, don't they?

And I have plans for next year, so, but when we finished this, we had this area and I thought, okay, they have beehives and so let's make them a bee garden.

- Okay.

- So we planted a lot of plants here that are not necessarily native, but that the European honeybee likes and that's what they've got.

So we planted a lot of blue Russian sage.

- Well, it's just beautiful.

Thank you.

You guys have put a tremendous amount of work into this garden is, I mean, is it on irrigation or tell us a little bit about, - Obviously a lot of these are native, so they are, we planted native plants and you know, a lot of those will have, like, they'll go, the roots will go down six foot.

So my husband and I have been watering these, but we only come out like maybe once a week if it needs it.

- Okay.

- So we hand water.

- So they're doing pretty well out here in Western Oklahoma conditions.

- And the reason I like to come out here in hand water is because I get to come out and hear the roar of the bees and see all the butterflies and yeah, I, I love it out here.

Well, it - Is not only a very active garden for, for all of the education, but it's also active with pollinators.

Thank you so much for sharing this.

- Oh, okay.

See, thank you.

And I just wanna thank all my volunteers who have helped all these years.

Yeah, you guys are great.

- Today.

We've got a lovely legume that I wanna share with you.

And this is called the blue butterfly pea.

Now you can see that it is a legume because of those characteristics that legumes have of this penate leaf, and then also that kind of sweet pea flower.

Now it's called a butterfly pea because it has sort of a butterfly like flower, not because it necessarily attracts butterflies.

The other common characteristic that we have on legumes is of course, that pea.

Now the neat thing about this plan is that it is also edible.

So any of your new shoots that are coming off as well as the pods and the flowers are all edible.

Now this legume is traditionally more of a vining.

You can see it's vining.

So you would probably want to actually give it a structure to climb on, and it's gonna get to be about 15 feet.

You can see here we have it in our herb garden and it's just sort of climbing on itself a little bit.

So it kind of creates that little bit more of a shrub look if you want to.

And it's doing just fine.

Now, usually people are growing this because of this blue flower.

I mean, it's hard to get this true blue flower in the garden.

And so that's why a lot of people like this.

Now, what gives it the blue flower is that phenol compound, which is anthocyanins.

And that is a common compound that we see in a lot of blue plants like blueberries, meaning that it also has a, a health benefit of the antioxidants.

So a lot of people actually utilize these flowers for dying.

And it actually has sort of like a, a pH litmus effect because if you were to extract this pigment out of flowers and then an add an acid to it, you can actually change that blue pigment to more of a pink pigment.

If you add something that's a little more basic or alkaline, that pigment will change into a green color.

So people that like to dye cloth, like to utilize this flower because they can sort of tweak that color that they're really wanting to find when they're dyeing their fabrics.

Now another fun sort of thing that you can do in the home garden or the, if you have it in your home garden, is actually to harvest some of these flowers.

And you're gonna need about a fourth cup of the dried flour.

Then you're gonna steep that into one to two cups of hot boiling water.

So like you would do a tea and leave that steeping for about eight minutes.

The longer that you allow it to rest in there, the darker your tea will actually become, but it will sort of extract these pigments.

So you'll have a blue tea from that, and you might even think about adding some lemon.

Now, lemon, as you think about it, is an acid.

And so when we add that acid into that blue tea, we're gonna see that pH change and it will become now a pink tea rather than the blue tea.

The blue butterfly pea is actually utilized as an annual here in Oklahoma because it is normally grown in the tropics of Asia and Africa, but it makes a great annual.

So whether you are using it for the ornamental, the edible, or the dying factor, it is a great plant to add into your Oklahoma landscape.

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

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

Join us next week for another best of Oklahoma gardening as we are going native.

So you want her talking to me about the cookbook a little more down to your yellow lemonade.

So it's just a fun activity to do with this blue pea butterfly p. 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 Oklahoma gardening dot ok state.edu DU.

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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 OS U is home to our studio gardens and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful Stillwater Gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Additional support is also provided by Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club, and the Tulsa Garden Center.