(gentle 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 Universe, 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.

We've got another great Oklahoma Gardening lined out today.

We start by thinning some carrots we planted earlier this season.

We learn how to graft vegetables at home.

It's time to get those mowers dusted off and ready to run.

Then finally, we visit with a familiar face to Oklahoma Gardening, as she transitions into a new season in her career.

(gentle music) - It's almost like an ombré of sunset color.

(gentle upbeat music) (laughs) (gentle upbeat music) - You might remember a couple of weeks ago I was planting some cool season crops by seeding them directly out into the garden.

And one of the samples that we did was some carrot seeds into a container.

This is one of the easiest ways to get started into gardening if you're new or especially if you've got some kids that are showing some interest, this is a really great way to do that.

So at this point, you can see our carrot seeds have taken off.

They are germinating and they've grown quite well.

So they're about three or four inches tall and we need to go ahead and begin to thin them out.

Now, thinning out is a process where you open 'em up a little bit and allow for less competition so that the carrots that you do have remaining have plenty of room to grow and aren't fighting for water and nutrients.

Right now, they're too densely seeded and that's because the seeds were rather small so we couldn't exactly know where we were planting them.

And you get plenty of carrot seeds so it's not a big deal to lose a few of 'em.

So we're gonna go in here, just with your fingers, simply pull out some of those carrots that have germinated.

You can see they're rather small right now so we haven't lost too much of an investment in them but we're gonna allow for a couple of inches in between each seedling, to again, provide them with plenty of room to develop that carrot.

Now, you wanna do this on some of your other cool season root crops that you might have planted, regardless of whether they're in a container or out in the garden, you wanna go ahead and thin them.

So radishes, turnips, beets, think about thinning those as well.

Also, look at some of your leafy greens, thinning your lettuce and some of your romaine.

You wanna go ahead and thin those out so that they have plenty of space and airflow to continue to develop above ground as well.

Doing this will ensure that you have a great crop going into the spring season.

(gentle upbeat music) - So today we are going to talk about vegetable grafting.

If you have heard about this you think about the fruit trees.

We have been using grafting for thousands of years for fruit tree production and it's very similar concept.

This is what is actually used for commercial production and you can also use it at home garden.

And so I'm gonna show you this scary part.

This is actually from two plants.

This is called Scion.

You use the top and you can use whatever variety you wanna grow for fruit.

The lower parts, this is called the rootstock, and this is some kind of variety breed to be very good at disease resistance or very vigorous.

So if you search tomato rootstock online you will find different rootstock varieties and you can bind the seed and grow these parts.

But you never wanna grow the rootstock seeds to give you the fruits because their fruits are not good.

They are just breed to have very good root systems.

And by grafting, you combine these two different varieties into one plant.

So by grafting, you change the roots and you can bring the disease resistance to your protein varieties.

At the same time, you can improve the vigor and so you can have higher yields from the grafted plants.

That's why people will use grafted plants for their production.

And so this is a grafted tomato plant after it heal and reconnect.

Now you can grow them as a regular tomato plant and get a very good fruit, but the plants will be stronger because you make the transformation by grafting.

The next question is how we can make it happen, how to graft the plant.

I have these two examples.

These are two tomato plants and these are two pepper plants.

We use the same methods to graft tomato and pepper.

It's called splice grafting.

It's the most common and the easiest way to do it and it's just so easy that you can learn it in a second.

- There are other vegetables also be grafted very commonly like the melons including watermelons and some like cantaloupe and mixed melons people also graft cucumbers.

Those are currently the most common grafted vegetables in the world.

And I think it's just about the imagination.

You probably can graft anything.

As long as you think about the genetic compatibility.

You probably cannot graft something very far away in their genetics, like across the families.

But as long as they are close enough like within the family, or even within the same genus species then they are compatible, then you can put them together.

The first example is tomato.

Now I'm gonna show you what are the tools you need.

Very, very simple tools.

Just need some kind of razor blades or whatever you can cut the plants.

And I always just use this single blade razor blade.

And you also need something to clip or hold the plants after you cut them.

There are different grafting clips you can buy online.

This spring is called Spring Grafting Clips.

It's the most expensive one it may cost more than $10 for a hundred pieces, but it works very well.

There are other types that are much cheaper.

Like this silicone type clips.

It works very well too.

It's just a couple dollars for a hundred pieces.

So these are very affordable or you can just use whatever you can find at home.

I used to make grafting clips myself and I just use the regular fish tank tubing, just cut it into like this length, and then make a sleeve in the center.

And I use it and it is so, it just works so well and it's so cheap.

To make the grafted plants.

Let's just pretend this is the rootstock.

It means the plants have much better root system and this is the variety you wanna grow for fruits.

Then the first step is to remove the shoots from the rootstock.

You wanna cut it below the two seed leaves or below the cotyledons.

Because it's very important to not let the shoots grow back from your rootstock.

I said, the rootstock is good for the roots, but never good for the fruits.

And after you remove the shoots from the rootstock the next second step is to cut the scion.

You can the scion wherever the stem diameter matches with your rootstock.

So it doesn't matter whether it's above or below the two seed leaves just cut wherever the stem diameter matches.

And after you cut the shoots from the scion the third step is to put the two portions together.

And after you put them together, use any type of clips you can find or buy and just secure those two portion together.

And that's done.

Now, after you have this grafted plant the next step is how to help it heal because it's really severely wounded.

You see, once you take the clips off it's still not connected.

And you need to do a very very good job by not letting the plants wilt in the coming about five days until the plants have time to heal.

Healing means the plants will connect.

And after reconnect, you can take the clips off and you will see that it becomes like one whole new plant.

During those five days for the healing process the key is to prevent water loss from those leaves.

So you need to bring up the humidity in whatever environments you wanna give the plants.

There are many creative ways you can help the plants heal.

If you are only grafting a few plants I kind of invented this method.

You can just take some kind of cups at home and two put together.

before you put the plants in you wanna bring in the humidity inside the cups.

So you just use a spray bottle to spray some water in and you can see there's some condensation on the wall of the cups.

That's a good sign.

You wanna check once a day and make sure you still see condensation on the wall of the cups.

That means the humidity inside is very high.

And then you put the plans in and just keep the cup closed for about five days.

You can put this in your room or in house or wherever but as long as it's not exposed to direct sunlight this will be perfect.

You don't need to have anything else to cover the cup.

Another way to do it.

I brought this small plastic container and you can find things like this at home easily.

The same concept you wanna make it humid inside.

So still spray water inside before you put the plants in and then you can put your grafted plans in this container and then you just cover it.

So this container create a humid environments for the plants to heal in the coming five days.

Another way to do it.

The third way, I think it's so it works so well when it's just so accessible at home.

Just use whatever cardboard.

And again, the same thing you wanna make it wet.

You may wanna wet the whole cardboard and that will keep the moisture inside very well for the coming days.

You may not even need to re spray for the coming five days.

And then just put the plants in, close up the cardboard.

- And that's it, so very, very simple.

And all these are for small scale or home garden setting.

But if you want to make hundreds of plants, you may need a larger container.

This is an example here.

This is one I made for large scale production.

You just use some kind of frame, and I used PVC pipe here to build a frame, and then cover the frame by plastic.

And as you see, I just use duct tape too, to tape the plastic.

And if you put this indoors, then that is all you need.

But if you put it outside, or wherever it will expose to the sunshine, then you may wanna cover it with some kind of shade cloth, or this is just landscape black cloth, but the idea is to keep it covered so it doesn't warm up inside, if it heats by the sunshine.

Another addition component you wanna add is kind of a, this is the capillary mat or whatever can hold water.

And you can put the mat inside at the bottom of the chamber, that way it will help increase the humidity inside.

So it's feels very simple but this single chamber can hold many plants.

So this he big enough or good enough for a large scale operation.

And this create a humid environment for the plants for about five days.

After that five days, when you take the plants out, you will realize the plants will be already heal and reconnect, and that is a time you can take the clips off.

And then you wanna still keep the plants for a few more days before you plant it outside as a normal plant.

So that's it.

And thank you for watching.

(bluegrass music) - It's almost time to dust off those mowers and pull them out of your garden shed, but before you do there's a few things that you want to do and check them in order to make sure they're working properly.

Joining us today is Dr. John Long, who is with the Biosystems and Ag Engineering Department, here at OSU.

Dr. Long, thank you for joining us.

- It's good to be here.

- So tell us a little bit about what we need to do to our push mowers and our riding mowers to get them ready.

- Sure, there's a lot of things we wanna think about.

Spring maintenance is an important task, and before we get into the busy mowing season to make sure that we're taking care of our mowers and making sure that they're good for the long haul.

Some of the big things is just pull 'em out.

First of all there's probably gonna be a lot of cleaning to do to start with, after sitting in that shed for a long time.

So we wanna get everything cleaned off.

Just look over the mower in general and make sure everything looks like it's in the same order it was when you put it up.

Look for things that are damaged, frayed cords, anything that we can think of that immediately just stands off.

And then kinda get into the process of actually looking at the mower itself and figuring out what are the things we need to actually maintain or change or adjust.

So the first thing we'll do is look at safety, right?

- [Casey] Okay.

- So safety is something that we should always be in our mind, any anytime we're around any type of machinery.

And so we should at least know about our mower, be familiar with it.

If we don't have our owner's manual definitely we will wanna make sure we find that.

There's lots of good online resources to find those from the manufacturer.

- [Casey] So when we talk about safety, are we talking about removing the spark plug before we start anything, or?

- [John] Yeah, that's probably the first place we'd wanna start, because the spark plug is the kind of soul of the engine, it's what makes the thing run whenever it's running.

And so if there's any residual gas in there and we try to start messing with the blade or anything, there's a chance we could possibly start the mower.

So when we disconnect that spark plug that kind of helps kill the mower, make sure nothing's gonna happen.

And so that's a good place where we should probably start when we start doing our maintenance.

- [Casey] Okay.

And what are some of the other things do we need to check the spark plug too, obviously?

- Yeah, so while we're there and we've got it disconnected, we'll look at the spark plug, make sure that that the spark plug looks like it's the correct gap.

We can use a tool to check the gap and then look for any type of fouling on the plug, which means basically if you look at the end of the plug, it's gonna look like it's worn out or there's black on the plug.

We can clean that out with a wire brush or a wire wheel, depending on what we have available.

If it's really worn down, then we might have to look at replacing the plug completely.

- [Casey] Okay.

But those should last more than one year, usually?

- Oh, they should last a long time.

- [Casey] Okay.

- Especially on a push mower that's only used seasonally.

- [Casey] Okay.

- Much different than a car spark plug that's gonna be used constantly, so yeah.

- All right, well, what are some of the other things that we need to consider before we start up our mower?

- So the thing we wanna look at is, one, the gas tank that we have.

We wanna make sure that if, we should have drained it in the fall.

So if we didn't do our fall maintenance, that's okay.

We can drain the gas tank now, make sure there's no debris in there, clean it out, blow it out with a little bit of air while it's disconnected.

Make sure it's clean.

- [Lang] And then when we get done at the very end we'll have it ready to put fresh gas in.

- [Casey] Okay, and also about the blades, that's the important thing, so we can get that crisp look, right?

- [Lang] That's right, that's where that actually occurs.

We wanna have good, healthy grass so we don't have tearing of the grass.

We wanna have a good sharp blade.

And so we'll want to go ahead and remove our blade from our mower.

We'll make sure we support it well and protect our hands while we're doing that.

Because the blades are still gonna be sharp even though if they've met a season's worth of grass, they're probably still getting a little bit dull.

And then we wanna make sure we sharpen that blade.

Now the big thing with sharpening blades, is that's kind of really the key here.

We don't wanna take too much material off because they are balanced so that when they rotate and spin, they don't vibrate.

And so smaller amount taken off is better.

- [Casey] Okay, is that something you would recommend for somebody to try at home or probably leave it to the experts?

- I would leave it to the experts if you don't feel comfortable and anything with this mower maintenance or any type of machinery, if you don't feel comfortable with it, you know keep it safe, refer to the experts.

And there are a lot of, you know, small businesses and others that will take blades they've removed and help you sharpen 'em and return 'em back to you.

So even if you don't haul the whole mower to 'em, you can at least take part of that.

- [Casey] Okay, and what about oil filter?

Any of that other stuff we need to think about?

- So on small push mowers, the push mower's not gonna have a filter.

But we usually wanna change the oil, you might wanna refer to your owners manual.

Some brand new mowers that have just recently hit the market have become no oil change mowers, where you just add oil.

They consume oil a little bit at a time.

But you wanna just, most of the older mowers that you run into are gonna be ones that you wanna change the oil whenever it gets, usually seasonally is the best way to do that.

- Okay, what about a riding mower?

Is there more to that obviously I would imagine?

- So a riding mower is a little more complicated.

Some of the same things apply.

We still wanna have our blades nice and sharp.

So we're gonna have to remove those.

It's gonna be a little harder to get to 'em, and safety's another consideration with trying to get under the deck of a riding mower.

It's something that could crush us, more so than a push mower.

So we have to be very careful about that.

But everything else, spark plugs, the oil.

The big thing with the riding mower is they usually have a larger engine that usually has an old filter much like your car or truck.

So you might have to replace that while you're changing the oil also.

- All right, well thank you Dr. Lang for all of this information.

Is there anything before we go, is there anything we should do as far as maintenance monthly or as we're going into the season?

- So as you're going in the season, as you are using the mower, just keeping an eye on it.

Make sure everything looks good, there's nothing, you know that's going wrong with the mower.

You can just listen to it just like you listen to anything else.

And it'll tell you when things are awry.

- All right, well, we'll be back so that we make sure to winterize it properly.

- That's right - This fall.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

(bright acoustic music) - Today I have bittersweet news to share with you.

We are saying goodbye to Laura Payne who has been instrumental in helping both with Oklahoma Gardening Television Show and the Botanic Gardens here at OSU.

In fact, she started at the gardens over 20 years ago as she was finishing up her undergraduate horticulture degree.

Laura has been instrumental in developing a lot of programs both for the Botanic garden, and a lot of segments for Oklahoma Gardening as well.

In fact, the success can be attributed to what she has done both with leading the ambassador program, the concerts and the events at the Botanic garden.

Laura Payne has been instrumental in helping behind the scenes of Oklahoma Gardening, not only with the production and the lighting and the scheduling of our segments, but we've also coaxed her on this side of the camera on occasion, doing segments such as pool tools and hort tips.

Before she gets too busy in her new role, as the Payne County Horticulture Educator, we thought we would check in with her.

Hello Laura, we're not interrupting are we?

- Hey Casey, how are you?

- Good, we just thought we'd stop in and see how your new role is going as the Payne County Horticulture Educator.

- Well, I have to say, so far so good.

- So tell me a little bit about your role as a horticulture educator.

How's it different?

- Well, a lot of what I've been doing over the last 20 years at the Botanic Garden applies here.

- Okay.

- At the extension office.

So I am answering horticulture questions, I am taking in soil samples, then writing recommendations for that.

I do site visits for people.

And so it's kind of a lot of what I was doing at the garden only in different setting.

- Alright, well also, let's talk a little bit about the bigger scope of extension, because I know it's not just you, there's an office here of several educators, and a lot- - Correct.

- Of offices across the state.

- [Laura] So here in Oklahoma, we are very fortunate that we have an extension office in all 77 counties.

But we only have seven horticulture representatives in the state of Oklahoma.

And so I'm one of those that rep. - Percent horticulture - [Casey] And you're a elite group with a horticulture educator but a lot of times there's other services that those other offices provide.

- Right.

And so that's where AG comes in, that's where 4-H comes in, that's where FCS comes in.

And so we are the front line or the front door from the university to the community, or the citizens of our counties.

And then we are also the front door from the citizens of our county to the university.

- Yeah.

You're kind of that liaison between OSU and then, - Exactly.

- And the communities.

Well, I'm sure you're doing a great job in your role.

- Well, thank you.

- You work a lot with Master Gardeners too.

Is that correct?

- I do.

We have the Master Gardener program here in our county, and they pretty much are running themselves right now.

It's a great group of people that they help me with the horticulture side of what I do.

And they also have a Tuesday Gardening Series that they promote, and that's a free programming offered at the Greenhouse Learning Center on campus on Tuesday.

And you can check out their Facebook page for more information.

- All right, well look, we wouldn't put it past you to miss an opportunity to plug an event as you've always done for the, the Botanic Gardens over the years.

And what people may not know is that Laura and I have actually known each other for over 20 years.

We were both in, working on our undergraduate degree in horticulture together.

And we did a lot of studying together over those years.

But I have to say that Laura even though we used to study together, it's you that have taught me so much over those years.

- Wow, thank you.

- And so I appreciate, and I've enjoyed the last six years coming to work, and getting to work with one of my best friends.

And so I'm going to miss that, but no tears, we're happy for you in your new role, and we're excited for you, - You can come see me here.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

- Anytime.

- You're just down the road from us here in Payne county.

And so thank you for everything that you have done for Oklahoma Gardening and the Botanic Gardens, and continue to do for OSU extension.

- Thanks, Casey.

It's been fun.

If you want to enjoy some of your seasons color, then before a frost, you want to go out and harvest any of your flowers and take those indoors so you can enjoy the color inside.

There are a few signs that let us know fall is just around the corner.

The bulb catalogs are starting to ripe.

So you want to place those orders, so that you'll receive your bulbs in plenty of time to plant in this fall.

- [Casey] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of the year.

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

From our lawns who are vegetable gardens, there are green sprouts coming up all around us.

Next week on Oklahoma Gardening, I'll share with you a few more things we need to do, to prepare our landscape.

We scout the vegetable garden for the first signs of a popular perennial, and then, I just can't help myself but pot up a colorful container.

- Very good.

If you do down like this, and then just rise up, wouldn't that be cool?

- We thought about that.

- We'll shoot that at the end to do that for the blooper.

Do that - Let me just step of my, step off my box here.

- [Casey] 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 www.oklahomagardening.okstate.eu Join in on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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

Tune in to our okgardeningclassics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous posts.

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.