(gentle music) (upbeat music) - "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.

Welcome back to "Oklahoma Gardening" I'm happy to bring you a new episode.

While the weather outside can be unpredictable this time of year, I'll show you an option to bring the garden indoors.

Becky Carroll joins us to talk about adding fruit trees into our home landscape.

And then I have someone new I wanna introduce you to.

We've got a, a ground to cover, so let's get started.

(upbeat music) Gardening really is versatile and can be adapted towards any lifestyle.

The industry is actually making it easier to bring your vegetable garden right into your home and into your kitchen.

And not only does this allow for more convenience but it's actually been proven that bringing plants into your home living space will improve your mental health as well.

So today we wanted to take a look at one of the smaller growing kits that you can bring into your kitchen countertop and grow some of your own fresh greens.

We thought we would spend our money before you spend yours to kind of check out this product.

Now this is the smaller version of this but they start around $70 and for $70, what you get is this kinda tabletop station here.

It's got kind of this basin here that holds the water.

And then this arm that reaches over is what lights the plants down below.

Now this particular one offered two different trays.

So we've got one tray that has three holes.

Again this particular kit came with three seated pods.

So we've got a couple of different herbs here that it offers.

And then it came with some other plugs that we were able to use our own lettuce seeds in.

And that's what we have growing right here.

So really with these indoor grow kits what you're paying for is convenience and also the look.

Now obviously this has more of a modern sleek style.

Most of them are also hydroponic systems which means the plant is growing in water with these little plugs, so there's no soil, which means less mess on your kitchen counter.

With this modern style also having it in your kitchen will allow you just to visibly see it more frequently than what you might check your backyard garden.

Now, of course, this limits what you can grow a little bit but it is provide opportunity for you to grow greens, herbs and they do market this with miniature tomatoes, miniature eggplant, and also miniature peppers as well.

And again, you can't get more convenient with this kit because it has everything that the plant needs including the light that's right up here.

This is equipped with an LED light that has kinda the red and blue light waves on it.

This also expands, up to about 14 inches as those plants grow.

Now, as far as the footprint on your counter space, again, this one's a smaller one and it's only gonna be about 12 X 3.5 inches.

So not too much counter space that you're dedicating to this.

Now these plants were started about two weeks ago so you can see how quickly they've germinated.

And, again, depending on which species of plant you put in here will vary when you can harvest it.

If we were after micro greens, we could harvest these a little bit sooner but if we're wanting a full salad mix then we're gonna need to wait for a little bit longer.

Again with convenience one of the things you need to think about is not only light but also watering and fertilizing your plants.

So it has all of these reminders on there to notify you when to do this.

There's a little light up here that will blink and flash every two weeks reminding you to add some liquid feed that it comes with right here.

And it tells you exactly based off of your kit how much fertilizer to put in there.

So we just put two cup fulls into this little reservoir.

You wanna monitor your water level.

So this is a hydroponic system, so the good thing is you can't over water, which is one of the tricky things about gardening outside is when to water and how often to water.

This has a see through front face here so you can kinda check your water level there.

But also again, if you do happen to forget to water your plants what it will do is it will turn off the light for you.

Again, signaling to you, hey, you need to check the water level.

But there's actually sort of some science behind this.

If the light shuts off the plant won't photosynthesize as much therefore it won't require quite as much water therefore buying the plant a little bit extra time before the watering issue becomes detrimental to it.

Now, the light that we have here is an LED light system which means it's a low energy light, so you don't really have to worry about it burning out too quickly.

And it's really gonna provide the right wavelength that those plants need as well.

- It will run for 15 hours regularly.

So you can set that however, whenever you want it to run.

It doesn't actually matter to the plant.

So if you wanted it to run during the night, you could even use this as kind of a nightlight or ambient light in your kitchen as well.

So again, you're getting convenience in this system.

It's as simple as putting your plant plugs in here, filling it with water, and simply plugging it in over here on the side, which will allow it to turn on the light.

You can see the bright light in there that comes down on this plant.

The other thing that this kit did offer too was these little germination cups that you can put over to sort of help get those seeds germinated with the humidity.

This also does come with some recipe cards and really, I think that's sort of the benefit of this system, is often when you're cooking, you just need a few herbs to add to your recipe.

In fact, you can even monitor the growth of your plant fairly easily, since the it'll be in your kitchen or in your living room.

So you could see if your basil is getting too tall or too leggy, that maybe you need to utilize it in a recipe in the future.

The other thing is, especially in the wintertime, if you're not buying your greens or your lettuce from a local farmer, by purchasing some of those bag lettuces, they can go bad so quickly, and if you just want a little bit of lettuce to add to your sandwich or to a wrap, this is a really great tool for that.

You can just harvest a little bit and have it throughout the week for your sandwich.

Now of course this is not gonna replace the outdoor garden and I'm not suggesting that, but this can be a nice supplement to an outdoor garden, especially during those dreary winter months.

Or, for somebody who might have limited access to outdoors or limited mobility, this might be an ideal situation, just to grow a little something in your home, office, apartment, or even a retirement village.

(upbeat jazz music) Today we are here at the Cimarron Valley Research Station in their fruit orchard.

We are joined by Becky Carroll, who is our Fruit Tree Extension Specialist.

Becky, I know a lot of times this time of year, people are looking to add fruit trees into their backyard.

Tell us a little bit about some advice you might give that first time grower.

- Well, the most important thing is make sure that you're buying something that is adapted for your area.

Oklahoma is not California or Washington, so we have very fluctuating temperatures.

So we want something that's gonna be adapted to our climate and the amount of disease pressure that we might have.

That's really important things to consider when you're looking for a fruit tree.

- [Host] Now I know a lot of times that's the big thing, is when is the last frost gonna happen, and that can be detrimental to those fruits being set.

- Right, we wanna make sure that the trees that we're ordering are gonna be adapted to our climate.

One way we can kinda look at that is the number of chill hours that are required for that tree to start to grow in the spring and produce fruit.

And so, a chill- - Talking about the winter hours, right?

- Yeah, the cold temperatures.

It has to be between 32 degrees and 45 to 50.

There's a couple of different models.

But the number of hours after they go dormant, we accumulate those hours when they're between that 32 and 45, and those numbers, we accumulate to see how many chill hours these trees might need.

In Oklahoma, we range from about 800 chill hours that we normally get in the southern part to maybe 1,000 or 1,200 hours in the northern part of the state.

And then some of these trees are going to be low chill varieties or higher chill varieties.

You think of things like apples, and pears, and cherries that are grown in the northern states that do really well up north, they usually have a higher chill hour requirement.

- [Host] So they need more cold temperature in order to set that fruit.

- [Becky] Right, and it can't be too cold because that doesn't count.

It has to be above 32.

- [Host] Okay.

- [Becky] Now if we get above 60, it starts to take away some of those hours.

- [Host] It actually subtracts.

- Yes, it will take away our chilling.

So if we ended up with a really warm February, we might lose some of that accumulation that we had gotten earlier.

- Okay.

So it kinda can get complicated if you're trying to buy fruit trees.

But I know some companies make it a little bit more simple.

- Oh yeah.

- By, just enter your zip code, and we'll recommend certain varieties for you.

- And it's also by zone.

- Okay.

- Most of Oklahoma's gonna be in zone six and seven.

So just know where you are in the state and then find those trees that are gonna fit.

But like you said, some, you just put your zip code in, they say these are the trees that are gonna work for you.

- And are there any that you probably should avoid?

Like if it says Texas or Florida, should we avoid some of those southern states?

- Those have been bred to do well in those areas without a lot of chilling.

So if you see something that says Texas Star, or Gulf something, or Florida Sweet, those are probably gonna be low chill varieties.

When we plant those here in Perkins in the central part of the state, they may meet all their chilling requirements before February.

- Get a couple of nice warm days and they start to bloom or even leaf out.

And so ... - Which means ... - Yeah, - if we have another freeze that comes through, you've lost your crop.

- Right.

And sometimes you can even have tree damage because if they're actively growing, you can have wood damage to those trees as well.

So it's best to day away from those.

- And that that's applicable to all most of your fruit trees?

- Most fruit trees are gonna have a different amount of chilling needed.

- Okay.

- So things like figs and pomegranates, they just need to lose their leaves and they're ready to start growing again.

And so that's why a lot of the time our figs die back to the ground every year, because they don't actually ever stop growing.

They just start accumulating those hours, when we get warm, they start growing again.

And so if they're actively growing and we get temperatures that are below about 17, they're gonna die back to the ground.

- So what about that backyard gardener who might live in an urban space that is very limited on space available for a fruit tree?

- Well, they might consider something, well they need to be careful because if they're planting things like pairs or apples, some cherries and plums even they may need two trees for cross pollination.

Now it just doesn't mean you can plant two golden delicious and have pollination.

You have to have two complimentary varieties that flower at the same time.

- Okay.

- And so, most of the time the catalogs give you a good idea of what is going to pollinate each other.

So they give you some help there.

So if you have limited space, you might consider growing something that's a columnar nurse type of apple.

Has short spur growth instead of long shoots.

And so it is more upright.

It doesn't spread out very much.

Or you might look at a dwarf apple tree.

These are some of the dwarf types.

We have some semi dwarf, but you can keep them at a size that's manageable with your pruning.

- Okay.

- And so it is important to make sure that you know the pollination requirements, especially for for those pairs, apples, cherries, plums.

Most of our peaches, nectarines, and things are gonna be self pollinating.

Peaches and nectarines are gonna be more difficult to manage the insect and diseases.

They have a lot of issues and have to be sprayed pretty much from bloom time until harvest.

- [Interviewer] And that can be organic spray, too.

- It can be organic spray, but it has to have some type of insect and disease control.

We start disease control on peaches at bloom time and then introduce our insecticides at petal fall.

So we're avoiding spraying those pollinators.

- Okay.

- But it has to be continued every 10 to 14 days until harvest.

So it's a big investment of time.

- Yeah.

Okay.

Well, what about sourcing these trees and what size should we be looking for?

'Cause I know they vary from anywhere from a whip that you get in a box or a little sack to something that's already over our heads and in a container.

- Well, I like to invest in those smaller trees if possible.

And I like to order my fruit trees from a nursery that specializes in fruit tree production.

They're gonna have the best quality, they're gonna have the best varieties and know what they're selling you.

So they can provide you some assistance in gonna work best as well.

But if you buy a large peach tree, and I've seen some that may be 10 feet tall, and you bring it home to plant in your yard, I'm gonna recommend that you cut it off at knee high.

And so it may be $100 worth of tree, but you're gonna cut it back to knee high.

So that's very difficult for you as the home owner to do that pruning.

But if you don't get the structure set especially for peaches and a lot of those Prunus types, you're never gonna have enough sunlight or airflow through those trees to help with the disease problems.

- And not only are you losing a lot of your investment that you just paid for, but also it's usually a larger diameter that you're cutting versus some of those smaller whips.

- Yeah, if I can, I will order about a 24 inch whip tree, plant that, especially for peaches, and it will catch a larger tree in year three when it starts producing.

- Right.

- So they have better adaptability, better transplanting.

And it's just gonna be easier on your pocketbook and your your heart when you have to do that pruning to it as well.

- Well, I know this is kind of the time that people are starting to order.

So, what do you do once we get those in?

- I like to have my trees delivered about the time that I'm ready to plant.

And I like to plant about mid-February to early March.

And so I got in a box of trees just the other day and I'm not really ready to plant just yet.

Now if you get 'em in early and you're ready to plant, go ahead.

But if you're not ready to plant, I'm gonna show you a way to kind of tie them over until you're ready to get them in the ground.

- [Interviewer] All right, let's go take a look.

- Okay.

So I've got the order box that I received last week.

And so whenever you get them in, before you're ready, you wanna make sure you open 'em up, make sure there's enough moisture in there, because if they're too dry you're gonna have trouble with their survival.

And so make sure they're moist.

A lot of them will come in with peat moss or newspaper shavings or something.

And so I'll leave all of that on right now because we're gonna heal them in H E E L heal in.

So it's just, - We're not planting.

not planting, we're just gonna store them until we're ready to plant.

- And so what we've done, and this had plastic so we removed that.

But if it's got other material, the newspaper, mulch just leave that on there.

It'll be fine.

- Okay.

- Now this is just protecting the roots from freezing or drying out.

And so we're gonna lay them in this little ditch that we've already prepared.

So it's kind of a flat surface and then it levels out and we're gonna protect the roots the most.

So we'll use this mulch pile that we've got here with some soil in it - And just cover 'em up - Just cover the roots well and then make sure that it is wet.

Right now we're kind of in a drought.

So we wanna make sure that we keep this moist while we're keeping them healed in.

- And if the trees actually came in a little bit dry would you wanna soak those before?

- Yeah.

Yeah, I think so.

Soak them for a few hours before they are placed in the, in the hole here.

And that's, that goes for before you plant as well.

You would wanna make sure that they are that they have a lot of moisture.

- And how far up do you go?

Just where the - Well, you can cover the rest of it with mulch if you'd like but the most important thing is just make sure that it's tight with no air pockets in here.

So it protects those, those roots.

I mean, I, it looks pretty rough.

- I know you're just stepping on it - But it's really not gonna hurt them.

And the, the more soil, mulch that we're covering them with the more protection it's gonna provide.

Now we really want these to stay dormant until we plant them.

And so that's another reason we could cover them completely over.

- Okay.

So basically we're just laying them down.

They're not gonna start rooting in here or anything like that.

- Now, if you leave them, they will.

But we want to just keep them here until we're ready to plant, which is gonna be in just a couple of weeks.

- Okay.

So just buys us a little time until we have that perfect spot figured out.

- Yep.

- All right.

Well, thank you Becky for this little introduction into backyard fruit trees.

And I know there's a lot more to be known about this so we will catch up with you again later.

- All right.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Today I'm so excited to introduce a new person that you will be seeing regularly on Oklahoma gardening who will be providing us with nutritional recipes.

Jessica Riggin is the Lincoln county extension director and also the family consumer science educator in Chandler there.

And Jessica, thank you so much for joining us today and joining us as we move forward with Oklahoma gardening.

We're excited to have you on the show and I wanted to take some time to allow the audience to kind of get to know you a little bit.

I know I've enjoyed talking with you behind the scenes but you've got quite a history with OSU.

Tell us a little bit about, you're from Oklahoma, right?

- [Jessica Riggin] Yes.

I'm from Oklahoma.

I grew up in Marietta, Oklahoma down in the Southern part of the state.

And when I came to college at OSU, that's actually where I met my husband on the cheerleading squad at OSU in 2004.

I graduated with a bachelor's degree in hotel and restaurant administration.

And then aft I came to work for after coming to work for extension.

I went back to school to get my master's in nutrition.

Okay.

And so I have three degrees from OSU - And you definitely know what you're doing in the kitchen but with family consumer science that it's not just about cooking.

Tell us a little bit about what all that encompasses.

- [Jessica Riggin] Yeah.

I get to do a lot of fun things as the family, consumer sciences educator cooking and nutrition is where my heart is.

It's probably my favorite thing that I do but I also do a lot with financial management, personal financial literacy with junior high and high school age students and then fa-family financial management with adults.

I also do some parenting programs and some physical activity programs.

One of them is yoga for kids where I just go and do yoga with kids.

And then I also have a walking program for people with arthritis.

- It sounds like you really span the age range there.

And obviously physical activity is important for somebody who's a former cheerleader as you are.

But a lot of times when we look at new year's resolutions people are thinking about that sort of stuff as well as getting organized.

And I'm excited that we're gonna talk about meal planning today because as a busy mother of two, which you are as well how can we get more organized in the kitchen?

- [Jessica Riggin] So the best thing you can do if you want cook more at home, is to have an actual plan and you can do it any way you want whether it's you're planning for a week at a time or two weeks at a time or a month at a time I prefer to do a month at a time.

And I also prefer to write it down on just old school paper.

I print out a calendar that's principal.

I fill it out by hands, but there are also smartphone apps that you can download.

You just have to search for one that you think works for you.

- There are some that as you fill out your menu and put in your recipes, it generates a grocery list, but those do cost money and I don't have any good recommendations on a good one versus a bad one because, like I said, I really like to do it by hand and then I just put this on my fridge and I can look at it anytime.

- And then obviously you make your own grocery list off of what you've decided.

- Right, I put my grocery list in my phone using just a list app that came with my phone and it just go from there.

- So, how do you organize, again, looking at a blank calendar, something like this, this might be intimidating for me.

Where do I start?

Am I thinking Italian, pizza, beef, what is it?

How do you go fill this in?

- So, the way that I like to fill this in is using a formula, giving each day of the week a different theme.

So, I have more time to cook on Sunday nights, so I'll do a bigger dish that takes a little longer that's gonna generate some leftovers.

So, I call that big supper Sunday and then right now our evening activities on Mondays are really hectic.

So, I would do a slow cooker meal on Mondays, so I can kind of just set it and forget it.

- [Interviewer] And whatever time you get home, it'll be ready then.

- Right and on Tuesdays we have soup nights.

On Wednesdays, I take those leftovers from Sunday and I turn them into something else and I call that makeover night.

You could call it planned overnight.

You could call it cook once and eat twice night.

but I call it makeover.

On Thursdays I always do leftovers, by Thursday I'm just kind of worn out from the week and so we do leftovers, but we have- - And you probably have a selection of leftovers at that point too maybe.

- A lot of times we do have some few things to choose from.

Probably not everybody can have the same thing, but we try to use up all the leftovers and we'll have dessert too and then my Fridays and Saturdays change back and forth, right now on Fridays, we're doing a sheet pan supper night so that everything gets cooked on the same sheet pan.

I cover it in foil and then I don't have to do any dishes.

- [Interviewer] You don't want dishes on Friday night, right?

- And right now we're trying a new thing in our house where Saturdays is kid cook night, where my two girls get to take turns cooking with me or my husband and learning how to make a new dish.

- Well, Jessica, I love that idea of kind of evaluating your personal schedule as to how much time you might have in the kitchen from night to night.

Are there any more time saving tips you might have for us?

- Well, I can do a whole segment on kitchen time saving tips but one quick one would be smaller pieces of food cook faster.

So, if you wanted to cook a chicken breast, if you cut it up into bite size pieces, it's gonna cook a whole lot faster than leaving it whole.

- That makes sense.

Well, I love your energy and I'm so excited to have you on the show with us and it sounds like you've got a lot more ideas for future segments for us and so we look forward to seeing Jessica on the show as we continue through the season of Oklahoma Gardening."

(upbeat guitar 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.

(upbeat guitar music) Join us again next week on "Oklahoma Gardening" as we begin sowing cool season crops, learn about frost pockets, take a look at our dry winter weather and finally we will top it off with some ways to spruce up those house plants.

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 and we always have great information, answers to questions, photos and gardening discussion on your favorite social media as well.

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 into 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 still water 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 Shops, Greenleaf nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society and Tulsa Garden Club.

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