
Oklahoma Gardening July 29, 2023
Season 50 Episode 5 | 27m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
New Growth on Plants OSU Student Farm - Warm Season Harvest
New Growth on Plants OSU Student Farm - Warm Season Harvest
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Oklahoma Gardening is a local public television program presented by OETA

Oklahoma Gardening July 29, 2023
Season 50 Episode 5 | 27m 46sVideo has Closed Captions
New Growth on Plants OSU Student Farm - Warm Season Harvest
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship(light music) - Today on Oklahoma gardening, I'll share with you the new growth we are seeing on the plants here at the Botanic Garden at OSU and explain what is good and why some might be bad.
Then we head over to the OSU Student Farm and take a closer look at tomatoes, melons, squash, and cucumbers as they are bringing in the summer harvest.
Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.
(light music) So if you're looking easy, low maintenance plant... (upbeat music) We have two different types of flowers on one plant.
(upbeat music) Capsaicinoids that gives the pepper its heat.
(upbeat music) Each year we plant new plants in our landscape and anticipate that they will continue to grow for us.
Well, today I wanted to take a look at the new growth that we are seeing in our landscape and why it's important to know our plants.
Today here next to me, we have this boxwood and you can see it's got a lot of new growth that's coming on it with this lime green vegetation.
Now, this new growth is also a lot softer tissue than some of the older growth that's down in the plant.
Not only is that older growth darker green, but also it's a little bit woodier in texture as well.
So basically this lime green vegetation is a good sign.
It means that it is growing well and it is healthy.
It's just sort of a softer green color because it's not quite photosynthesizing as much as the older leaves have been and therefore there's less chlorophyll in them.
But it is a sign that the plant is off to a healthy start and will continue growing throughout this season.
(birds chirping) Here we have another example of some new growth that we're seeing in the garden and you can see that this is also green new growth.
However, that is not what we are anticipating off of this variegated plant.
Now, variegated plants, this is not uncommon for it to sort of revert back to its original plant with this full green stems that you can see here.
Oftentimes variegation comes about through many different forms of breeding.
Sometimes it is through natural mutation and other times it is through different breeding techniques.
And that can also play into how susceptible or stable it is actually to maintain that variegation or to revert.
And so you can see this one has started to revert back and that's not really a big problem at this point.
A lot of times what initiates that reverting is the fact that it's not in its ideal environment.
So I think we might have this plant in a little bit too much shade here.
And so what it's trying to do is compensate by creating more green leaves in order to photosynthesize and develop more energy.
So sometimes you might see that as a little bit of a signal that maybe the plant isn't in its prime ideal location.
But one way to kind of maintain the original intent of this plant is to go back and cut out these green chutes that are starting to sprout.
Now, you can see here it's generally just a matter of coming in here with some pruners and cutting these out which isn't too big of a deal, but it might mean that yearly you wanna check these plants if you don't change their environment and you see that they have started to revert.
If you do not prune them out, then what's gonna happen is this is going to be more vigorous because obviously it's getting more energy, and so it's gonna take off and outcompete your original plant that you planted here.
(birds chirping) I have another plant that I wanna show you, and in fact it's a tree in this situation.
And this is the Canada red chokecherry.
And now you can see it gives us this beautiful, burgundy foliage, which is what it's really kind of grown for.
However, when the new growth comes on you can see it's bright green in some instances and this might be alarming, and in fact after the last plant we just looked at, you might think, well, it's reverting.
I need to cut this out.
However, you do not wanna prune this because you would actually be pruning off the new growth that it creates.
And in fact, it is mentioned in the description that this particular cultivar does have bright, new green growth.
And this is why it's important to kind of know which plants you're dealing with so that you don't accidentally cut off healthy tissue.
Now, in this particular instance, this plant because it has dark leaves, darker vegetation doesn't photosynthesize as well as green leaves because you can see how much chlorophyll is in these green leaves as opposed to the darker vegetation.
So it actually, in fact, puts new growth on, trying to compensate, trying to get more energy before they actually turn dark burgundy.
- Now you might see the reverse happen in some other trees say Maples and Black Gums are two common trees that we often see the complete opposite.
So typically we think of those trees being green in the summertime, but when they put on their fresh new growth in the spring, a lot of times that vegetation comes out either a red or maybe even a brown color.
And you might think, what's going on?
My new plant, my new tree, it's not doing well.
But it's just hasn't matured yet.
Like our leaves up here that haven't matured to their dark color, those dark brown leaves haven't matured into their photosynthesizing vegetative state yet.
And so just give it a little bit time.
As that new growth continues to mature, it also will turn green and be very healthy.
So again, that's an opposite example of what's happening on our Canada Red Choke Cherry.
And so that's why it's always important to also know which plant you're dealing with.
Here we have another example that I wanna show you and this is called an Orange Rocket Barberry.
Now you'll see we've got a lot of different colors that are happening on this.
In fact, the newer growth has more of a pinker color to it.
You can see again, it's that softer tissue where that new growth is developed.
And on the older tissue here it's got a darker red color to it.
Now that's part of the cultivar.
It's supposed to have this color.
And so all of this is good signs that it is growing well for us.
But the thing that might kind of make you curious a little bit is if you look down at the base of this plant, you'll notice that that vegetation tends to be more that traditional green color again.
So you might be curious as to whether it's reverting, or if this is okay.
Well, really this is more about light exposure.
So being down in the base of this plant, it doesn't receive as much light that allows it to express the colors that it's supposed to.
In fact, it's just trying to compensate again, trying to photosynthesize more, and have more chlorophyll down here.
And so that is what is happening down in the base of the plant.
But really overall, you can see you have a nice healthy plant that is exhibiting what the cultivar is supposed to do.
Now this often, having variations in the color is typical in some plants such as Heucheras as well as Coleus.
So you might say that it's supposed to be this sort of color or have this sort of color pattern to it.
But again, depending on how much sun or shade you expose that plant to, you can have some degrees of variation in that color pigment.
I have one final plant that I kind of wanna show you here and this is a Dragon Tears Japanese maple.
And you can see the desirable characteristics are that it has these kind of lacy leafed foliage that are a burgundy color.
It sort of gets this, you can see this one branch is coming out, but it's supposed to do that.
It's supposed to kind of have horizontal layers to the branching, and all of that is valuable, for the landscape and the desired intent of this plant.
Now you can see on the new growth we've got some both green new growth here, as well as some bright red growth.
Again, I'm not concerned about it reverting or anything.
That means it's healthy and it's growing well for us.
However, there is one part of this plant that I wanna show you that is more concerning, and that's this growth that's happening down here.
So a lot of Japanese maples, red buds, fruit trees are often grafted.
And if you see any vegetation that is coming up from down on the root stock, then you wanna be cautious, and make sure to go ahead and cut this back.
You can see where the graft is because of that variation in the diameter of the trunk right there.
So below here is the root stock, and above here is the Scion wood, where this Dragon Tears was grafted onto some heartier root stock.
Here what we're seeing is the growth of that heartier root stock.
So you can see it's completely different in its appearance and because it is a green heartier Japanese maple, if we allow this to grow, it will pretty much eventually consume it, probably is gonna get much taller.
And so it's gonna consume the desirable characteristics that we had intended with our plant here in the landscape.
So we wanna go ahead and make sure to cut that out.
So while we anticipate new growth on our landscape plants each season, it's important to know which plants we are dealing with, so that we can continue to maintain them successfully for years to come.
(upbeat guitar music) We're back out here at the OSU Student Farm and joined by Matt Beartrack, who is one of the co-managers.
And Matt, I gotta tell you, it's been about a month and a half since we've been here.
- And I feel like you're getting overwhelmed with these plants.
It's amazing how much they've grown.
But we're in the watermelon patch.
Let's talk watermelon and other melons if you don't mind first.
- Okay, yeah, we have three melons we're growing this year.
Three kinds of melons.
We're growing watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew.
And right now we're just about to start picking watermelons.
- Okay.
- So our two varieties of watermelons are sugar baby and crimson sweet.
- All right.
- Sugar baby is a shorter, shorter day, 75 days.
And we're right about that, you know, last week.
And then crimson sweet's about a hundred days.
And then the honeydew is also about a hundred days.
And then the cantaloupe, it's about 75 days, but it's a little further behind.
- Okay, okay, 'cause we've had some milder temperatures and.
- Yeah, had some mild yeah, hot and mild.
So it's kind of, you know, a little, little fluctuations.
- Right, right.
So what do we got right here?
- [Farmer] These are sugar baby watermelons.
- [Interviewer] Okay, so I think the big question is how do we know when to harvest our watermelon, right?
- [Farmer] Yeah, of all the melons, I think watermelon has the most items to look at when it, when you're talking about ripeness.
For us, the main thing we look at is the tendril.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Farmer] And that's the tendril that's closest from where it attaches to the main stem.
There's a tendril right at the junction.
And what it'll do it is it'll turn brown and it'll dry up.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Farmer] And that's a very good indicator of when it's actually ready.
- [Interviewer] Okay, so this one's still green so not ready yet.
- This one's still pretty green.
So another thing, you know, a lot of people like to look at is the field spot or the sun spot, which these sugar babies don't have a really pronounced sun spot.
Some of 'em do, but most of 'em just kind of turn green.
- Okay.
- So if you're going by that, you could say, oh, this one's ready.
But really if we cut it open, it's still gonna have quite a bit of white in it.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Farmer] So the tendril has been, has been our main indicator.
- [Interviewer] All right.
- This one's not quite ready.
And over here we do have some that are brown and dry and should be ready to go.
- Oh yeah, you can see the drier part of that tendril there.
And I've heard that that kind of means there's no more water going into the watermelon right?
- Yeah, it's kind of done growing and really in the last few weeks, you know, you can kind of cut back on your watering of your melon.
So you don't get, so you don't get, they'll be more sweet.
- Okay.
- If you kind of cut back.
- Okay, concentrates those sugars a little bit?
- Yeah, concentrates those sugars and doesn't water 'em down so much.
- Okay.
So tell me about cantaloupe and honeydew.
How do we know when to harvest those, other than their maturity?
- Yeah, the days of maturity, that's the first indicator.
But cantaloupe is probably the easiest.
It does what's called a slip or a full slip.
And you really wanna harvest it before it slips, about the time you can, about the time you can take your thumb and press on it and it'll come off the vine.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Farmer] If you wait until it falls off the vine, it's probably overripe.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Farmer] So the time you can go out there and just either move it around or press on it a little bit and it falls right off the vine, it's ready.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- So that's the end.
And it'll look like a cantaloupe you get in the store.
It'll have a, you know, a darker color.
It won't be so white.
And then the honeydew is probably the hardest.
It's, you know, you gotta really pay attention to your days.
And then for it, the color will change kind of white to light green to maybe even, you know, depending on the variety, like a gold or yellow.
- [Interviewer] Mhm.
- [Farmer] And then the blossom end will get soft.
- [Interviewer] Oh, okay.
- And if you ever feel one in the store you can definitely tell the difference from one out in the field that it's super hard.
And then the one in the store will be, will be noticeably softer.
- [Interviewer] Okay, well what about, have you guys had any fungal problems or anything?
'Cause I know we've had a lot of rain and humidity.
How is everything going as far as the health of the plants here?
- Everything's been going well with these plants.
Haven't seen any powdery mildew, you know, that's pretty susceptible to these.
But these are, I think some resistant varieties to a lot of things.
- Okay.
- So, and we know basically the watermelon and cantaloupe do really well.
These three varieties do really well in Oklahoma.
We're not so sure about honeydew 'cause none of us really ever grow 'em.
(interviewer laughs) But yeah, we haven't had any disease issues or even any bug issues with these melon crops so far.
- All right, well I think Lynda's over there by the tomatoes, so I'm gonna go catch up with her.
- Sounds good.
- Thank you, Matt.
Hey Lynda, how are the tomatoes looking this year?
- Oh they're looking beautiful.
We've got some gorgeous, good sized tomatoes here.
- You've got some nice ones there.
- Yeah, yeah.
- So tell me a little bit about how you got this crop started.
'Cause I think last time we were here, you were just planting 'em.
- [Lynda] Yep probably so.
Guess we planted, we did our raised beds with the drip tape down - [Interviewer] Uh-huh.
- [Lynda] and then transplanted three different varieties of determinant tomatoes.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Lynda] So then after we transplanted them, we trimmed up, pruned them up a little bit and added our first line of the stake and weave.
- Okay, so tell me a little bit about that stake and weave process.
- Okay.
- And what you used.
- We just use baling twine.
We use T-posts and rebar.
So the T-posts are a little sturdier.
So we do those like 12 foot apart.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Lynda] And then we'll put rebar in every two to three plants.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Lynda] And then that weave goes back and forth between the plants where each plant is contained.
- [Interviewer] And are you using, what sort of line are you using that doesn't stretch?
I know that's one of the things.
- [Lynda] Yeah.
- [Interviewer] When you get the weight then those lines will stretch a little bit.
- Yeah, it's just baling twine.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- [Lynda] You know, buy it locally.
- All right.
Well, they look healthy.
Your plants look nice and green all the way from the base to the top.
- Yeah.
- So I think everything's going well.
- Yeah.
- And now you're harvesting.
Tell us a little bit about what you're looking for when you're harvesting your tomatoes.
- Okay, we, probably the best thing is we'll harvest them at the breaker stage.
- Okay.
- [Lynda] This one is just starting to turn color.
When you harvest them at this stage, you've already got your flavor and your nutrients already there.
So you can take 'em and put 'em in the house on your counter or put 'em in a paper bag.
- [Interviewer] Okay.
- And they'll ripen the rest of the way and.
- Have all the flavor you need in them.
- So, breaker meaning that they're just starting to turn and break into that color a little bit.
- Yep, exactly.
- So, there's no, I mean, we all hear about the vine ripened tomato.
So, it's basically vine ripened.
- It is, yeah.
- But we're just gonna finish it off on the counter.
- Yeah, and the reason being, you'll run the risk if you leave it on the vine till it's completely ripe, you run the risk of insect damage, critter damage, as well as just, you know, splitting, sun scald, cracking, those kinda things.
So, stink bugs is another big issue as far as that goes.
A stink bug leaves a mottling.
The stink bug pierces into 'em and leaves this mottling color on 'em.
- [Casey] Okay.
- So, we try to pick 'em before they get into 'em.
- So, it still is okay to eat just maybe not quite as marketable anymore.
- Right, yeah.
- Well, as I'm looking here, too, I noticed some of your leaves.
Even though they're nice and green, some are curled up here.
And then some of them have this distorted what we call epinasty.
So, is this some 2,4-D damage potentially?
- It could be.
It could be a little bit of residue from the compost we had brought in.
But normally, if they didn't get directly sprayed with 2,4-D or something like that, they're gonna grow out of it and it doesn't usually affect your production.
- Yeah and your newer leaves look fine and everything that's going on, so.
All right, well thank you for sharing this with us, Linda.
And I'm gonna go check on Parker, if you don't mind.
- Okay, great.
Thanks.
- So Parker, you're telling me there's rows here, right?
- Yeah, there's supposed to be, yes.
- Okay.
So what are we growing here and how far are they spaced apart?
- So we've got spaghetti squash and butternut squash here.
And I believe they're on eight to 10-foot centers.
I think we should put 'em on more like 20 foot centers 'cause these vines, especially the butternut squash they'll grow 35 feet in one direction.
- And they're definitely starting that look, absolutely.
So you're starting to harvest your butternut and also your spaghetti squash.
Let's talk a little bit about both of those and how do we know when to harvest them?
- Okay, sure.
So a lot of people think about butternut squash and spaghetti squash as winter squashes.
And so, you know, fall food, you think soups and towards the wintertime.
And you're not wrong, but they can actually be harvested about midsummer, as well.
So these have been growing since the 1st of May and this is the first harvest we've got on these.
- Okay, so even though they're a winter squash they are a warm season crop and harvesting's already started.
- Yep, yep.
- All right.
- And when you're harvesting them this one's actually kind of small but one thing you're looking for in spaghetti squash is you want kind of a bright yellow rind on it.
And you want the skin to be tough enough that when you push your fingernail you don't really leave much of a mark.
So you think of like a normal summer squash like zucchini or a yellow squash and you know how easy that will scratch.
You know, you can just pick it up and you put a dent in and it feels like.
If it's that soft, it's not ripe yet.
- And that's kind of what makes these that winter squash, right?
'Cause they're gonna have a longer shelf life with that harder rind on there.
- [Parker] That's right, yep.
And kind of same for butternuts.
But you can notice here there's some green lines on this.
This one's not quite mature yet.
For a mature butternut, you're looking for kind of a skin color, a dark tan.
You don't want any green on it.
And ideally, the stem is starting to turn brown, as well.
- [Casey] Oh, okay, okay.
- For the fruit.
And on both of these, you want to leave stem because that helps preserve it for the winter.
If the stem breaks off, it's still good to eat and you know, it still might last a month or so.
But it's gonna rot faster on that open flesh there on the end.
- [Casey] Okay, so y'all are taking your pruners or a knife to actually cut that stem.
- [Parker] Right, we are.
- [Casey] Instead of just trying to pull it off.
- [Parker] Yep.
- [Casey] Okay.
- [Parker] Yep.
- [Casey] All right.
Well it looks like you're gonna have a lot to harvest pretty soon.
- [Parker] We do, yes.
- And harvesting will continue probably for several weeks once it starts, right?
- Right.
The plants will keep making until the first frost.
So, yep.
- All right, well I hope everybody loves spaghetti squash and butternut squash.
- Yes, hope so.
Thank you.
- Thank you.
And I'm gonna go check up with one more person.
I think Sam is over there looking at some of the traditional squash.
- You bet, sounds good.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
- [Casey] Hi Sam.
- Hi, how are you?
- Looks like you've got some cucumbers you're harvesting there.
- Yeah, tons, tons of cucumbers.
(Sam chuckling) - So what we've kind of been doing is asking how do you know when to harvest all of this stuff?
So let's talk cucumbers.
- Yeah, these ones are pickling cucumbers, so between four and five inches is the ideal range for harvest.
We also kind of want a dark green cucumber versus a lighter one.
These wider ones with this specific variety tend to be a little bitter and not appealing.
So this is the size and the color that you're gonna want.
- Okay, kind of like a pickle, right?
- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- So these that are much too large?
I mean, they're still edible.
- [Sam] But the skin is a little tough.
So if you've ever had a pickle and the skin is real hard to bite through, that's probably because the cucumber was a bigger cucumber that wasn't the best harvested.
But we kind of throw these.
Let 'em go to our compost pile.
'cause they're not really the most edible.
So, yeah.
- Gotcha, well you've got beautiful vines here.
Tell me a little bit about this structure.
I think it's kind of unique how you've trellised 'em here.
- Yeah, we usually use cattle panels in this setting but they're kind of expensive and they tend to get too hot for the vegetable.
So we chose to use a nylon mesh netting.
It's about 350 feet long and four feet tall.
It's 35 bucks for all that netting versus 35 bucks per cattle panel, so it's more cost effective.
And you're not gonna burn your produce.
Only thing we ran into was the weight of the cucumber vines - Pulled it down, so we took like, hog wire and ran it through the top to kind of hold it up.
And that made harvesting much easier and visible, yeah.
- So you got those clipped up high to really support the weight on 'em.
- Exactly, yeah.
Those posts are posted 12 feet apart.
It's about a 250-foot row.
So it supports it evenly throughout the entire length.
- And so, when the end of the season is near, I mean, it's a lot easier to clean up and tear down.
No storage of those cattle panels or anything like that.
- Exactly, yeah.
We're kind of lack storage out here so this is the most ideal thing for us to do.
- Awesome, I love that idea.
And I love how much cheaper it is than cattle panels, too.
So let's shift a little bit to, we've got some zucchini over here.
- Yes.
- Some still lookin' good, some looks like maybe squash bugs have found it.
- Yes, we have been hit by squash bugs.
They've kinda taken over in this area.
And we fed a lot of folks through Our Daily Bread for about a month now, maybe a month and a half with our zucchini.
And we're kind of ready to just let it go.
- Okay, so you've got a good month of production off of it.
- Yes.
We've had plenty.
- That's awesome.
- Huge zucchini, yeah.
- Have you had any problems with vine borer or anything like that on?
And you've got several different squashes out here.
- Yeah, we saw some issues in June.
We decided to do a treatment the 15th and the 21st, so a five-day wait period.
And Matt, one of the managers here, he decided that maybe BT, Bacillus Thuringiensis, would maybe be the best option for treatment.
It's usually used as a foliar spray, but we just decided to inject it directly into the tubes of the vines, yeah.
- [Casey] Yeah, so that's where vine borer usually attacks is at the base.
- [Sam] Exactly.
- [Casey] So how did you inject that?
- We used a syringe with a needle.
We tried, initially, to do just the needle on the syringe to inject the BT, but we kinda got meat stuck in the needle.
So we had to use two to get it all done.
So we pierced the hole and then inject at least two 35 milliliter syringes into each plant and found great success.
It worked fantastic.
- Well, everything seems to be doing really well.
That's an interesting approach to get the bacteria right to the spot sooner, maybe.
- Yeah, for sure.
- Excellent.
Well, everything's just looking great out here, Sam, and I know you've got a lot to work so I will get of your hair.
- Thank you for coming to see us.
Yeah, I appreciate it.
- Thank you.
(symphonic music) There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.
Be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead.
(symphonic music continues) It's the show you've all been anticipating since we announced this year's garden contest.
Join us next week on "Oklahoma Gardening" as we feature the winning water gardens.
(symphonic music continues) - Behind the scenes.
(symphonic music continues) - Hey tomato.
(Casey laughing) Hey tomato.
- Hey, tomato?
(symphonic music continues) - [Casey] To find out more information about show topics as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources including a directly of local extension offices, be sure to visit our website at OklahomaGardening.OKState.edu.
Join in on Facebook 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 Green Leaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club, and the Tulsa Garden Center.
(symphonic music continues) (symphonic music ends)


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