(peaceful twangy 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, we've got a berry special program today as we head to Stilwell, Oklahoma.

We will learn more about the past and the present as we visit with two farmers who are still growing some of those delicious red fruits.

We come back here to the gardens to learn from Shelly Mitchell about what makes a strawberry a strawberry.

And finally, Jessica Riggin puts a new twist on how to use those delicious strawberries in the kitchen.

(peaceful twangy music) - It's almost like an ombre of sunset colors.

It's not the flowers, right?

(woman laughing in background) - We are south of Stilwell here at Miller Farms and joining me is Bryce Miller.

Bryce, thank you so much for having us here.

- You're very welcome.

- You got a few strawberries.

- We've got a few.

- Tell us how many acres of strawberries you have here.

- Currently we got seven and a half acres.

- Okay.

So are you growing one type?

Everbearing?

June-bearing?

Tell me a little bit about them.

- Well, we currently grow four different types.

- Okay.

- One is an everbearing, the rest are June-bearings.

- Okay.

- [Bryce] So we grow our June-bearings, our ruby Junes, frontiers and a new one out called sensation.

Our everbearings is a Albion.

- [Casey] Okay.

And I noticed you're growing in plasticulture, have you been doing that for the length of this farm or is this the newer thing?

- [Bryce] No, we've been doing it for the majority of it.

- [Casey] Okay.

- [Bryce] The first year that we grew was in just traditional matted rows, after that we went to plastic because we get more plants.

It's cleaner, it's still labor intensive but it's not as labor intensive.

- And I know you've got rolling hills over here.

- Yes.

- It's just beautiful over on this side of Oklahoma and plenty of water, more so than the rest of this state.

- Plenty of water, yeah.

- So that helps with drainage as well.

Right?

- It does, and the plastic keeps the water from really getting too much in there.

So we have drip line that runs underneath the plastic and that's how we irrigate fertilize and all that.

So we control how much water we get, and that's another reason why we went to plastic is 'cause we don't always get rain.

And it also keeps the weed control down quite a bit, more than, you know, matted rows.

- So you just had the Strawberry Festival, so I know you're in prime picking season.

How long will you be picking?

- Normally we pick somewhere between six to eight weeks.

The traditional style is a lot sooner than that.

Usually three to four weeks, sometimes five is the max.

Currently we are three weeks behind, but as you can see, there's still a lot of blooms on the plants.

So we're looking to be picking for, you know, second to third week of June.

- [Casey] Okay.

And then what happens after that?

I know a lot of times strawberries put on their runners, do you save those?

- We don't save the runners.

- Okay.

- You know, this year we're gonna try something new.

We're gonna turn the cows in on the patch and let them graze it down, so we don't have a big foliage mat on top to pull the plastic up.

- Oh, okay.

- Because we pull the plastic up every year.

We replant every year.

And so we're still trying to figure this, you know, part out on how to get the plastic up the easiest.

- Right.

Which is a common problem with plasticulture.

- No, it is, 'cause it's, it's new to everybody.

- Right.

- Mainly new to everybody, you know, especially me, you know, being five or six years in, you know, we're still learning.

- Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I, think it's interesting how you're looking at even grazing your cattle on it.

- Yes.

- That's a kind of- - Yep.

- innovative way of maybe solving some of that problem.

- Some of it, yes.

And you know, trying to keep as much chemical out of the ground as we can.

- Yeah.

- So using new runners every year, do you find that that's more beneficial for your production versus trying to use some of the other runners?

- No.

So, once we get these plants they are third or fourth year generation.

And the further you go down the line, the more susceptible to disease that they are.

The tolerance is not there the further they get away from the mother plant.

- [Casey] Right.

- [Bryce] And so, that is one reason why we do not take our own runners, which you can, but we don't.

- Okay.

- Well, I know you've been growing strawberries for a few years, but you've gotten all-in with the association and the festival.

Tell me a little bit about that aspect of it.

- Well, I am currently the Strawberry Growers Association president, have been for the past three years.

- It's the group of, it's the group of farmers that we have here in Adair County, we all get together and we try to help one another out and discuss on you know, how to be successful as a farmer.

And we're trying to keep this tradition alive.

There's not very many of us that's growing strawberries anymore.

1950 something, there was 126 entries, over 600 acres grown in Stilwell, well now there's 20.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- With seven growers.

- Okay.

Well, and I hear you did well at the festival.

You won first place with your strawberries.

- Yes, we got lucky and got first, you know we will take it how we can get it.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

Well, congratulations.

- [Bryce] Thank you.

- [Interviewer] And I know that's a big event for the state, everybody knows Stilwell for the strawberries and so, this is where they come from.

- Yes, ma'am.

- And it's exciting to see this.

Do you mind if I help you pick a little bit?

- No, sure we can- - There's several there right over there.

(interviewer laughs) - Several, several.

And so normally this is not the ideal shape but this is the ideal color.

- Okay.

- And so- that one, that one is ready and you can see how the firmness, that one's ready.

- Okay.

- Obviously the green ones are not ready.

- And all of this is hand picked, correct?

- Hand picked, hand picked every one of 'em.

- So very labor involved.

- Very labor intensive.

I've got a crew that comes in and picks for me every, right now it'll be every other day until it heats up, then it'll be every day.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- [Bryce] My boys, they help pick.

This is a family run farm and it takes all five of us to keep it running.

- Well Bryce, it's clearly a labor of love and thank you for sharing your farm with us today.

- You're very welcome.

We're glad to have you out here.

- Thanks.

(upbeat music) - You've probably seen those delicious red strawberries showing up at farmer's markets, and when we're talking strawberries there's no better place to be than in Stilwell, Oklahoma.

Joining me today is Bobby Doyle, who has been farming strawberries just outside of Stilwell for quite some time.

Now Bobby, tell me a little bit about the history of strawberry production, here outside of Stilwell.

- The strawberry production really started in 1947.

The first Strawberry Festival was held in 1947.

There was lots of production and sold to Stilwell Canning Company who packed lots of strawberries in 50-pound containers.

The fresh market strawberry production was started mostly in mid 50s.

I started growing strawberries in 1957 and I've been growing them ever since.

- So you've learned a lot over those years.

Tell me a little bit about your process of growing strawberries.

- I established my strawberries in what we called a matted row production and I grew strawberries that way until 2002.

In 2002, I started transferring over to plasticulture.

These berries are established and destroyed every year.

They are set in September and what we try to accomplish in between September and November is we try to establish a plant and get seven crowns on that plant.

And each crown will produce probably from two to five berry pods, which will have from two to seven berries so each one of those berry plants in the run of a a season will produce a quart of berries.

- Wow.

Well, you definitely have learned what you're doing here, it seems like.

There's beautiful berries all over.

Tell me a little bit about, now that you're into picking season, how often do you have to pick?

- It really depends on the temperature and the amount of sunshine.

If we get 70, 75 degree temperature and sunshine, these berries will ripen and be ready to pick every third day.

There's 8/10 of an acre in this patch right here.

It will produce probably close to 500 flats, eight quart flats of berries, in a picking season.

- How was this winter on the strawberries?

Did you see any damage from them?

- The winter is protected by this cloth that you see laying out here.

That cloth is spread over these plants.

- [Bobby] And weighed it down with this chert rock and they're kept protected down to 18 degrees.

Other than that, you're not gonna get as much production because you're gonna lose some of them berry pods.

- And how is the harvest going for you this season?

- Great.

Labor problem is the biggest problem that we have today.

Market, the market is booming.

- So obviously strawberries have been grown here in Stilwell for a long time.

What makes this area so ripe for strawberry production?

- Most of it is chert rock, and that chert breaks down easily and the mineral from that chert rock is taken up by these berries and gives them a unique flavor that can't be found anywhere else in the United States.

Round Mountain, Mexico.

Bald Knob, Arkansas, Florida, California, all of those berries that are shipped in here can't match the flavor, and therefore Stilwell berry is in high demand.

- Well, I'd have to agree with you.

They are definitely the sweetest and juiciest strawberries that I've had.

Thank you so much, Bobby, for sharing your strawberries with us and the history about the strawberry production, here in Adair County.

(Upbeat Country Music) - Today, we're gonna take a deeper look into what's inside a cell.

Specifically, what we're interested in is the DNA.

Which just like humans, plants and animals have DNA, and that's like their instruction book on how to make body parts and how to grow and how to reproduce.

We wanna actually see the DNA.

Humans have two copies of every gene, strawberries have eight so there's a lot more DNA in their cells.

So we're gonna take one and we're gonna get to the DNA.

So the first thing you gotta do is you gotta destroy the cell wall so that you can get to the DNA.

'cause the DNA has several layers of protection around it.

So we're gonna mash this up, break up the cell wall.

All right, we're gonna add a little bit of water, just to make it easier because we're gonna mix some stuff.

Okay, so right now, we have exposed the inside of the cell underneath the cell wall.

You take this off, you've got the rest of the cell, which has a lot of parts.

And the next part we have to break through is the plasma membrane, which is basically made of an oily substance.

So what breaks down oily substances?

Soap!

And now, what we're breaking down is the plasma membrane.

So we're gonna mix that up.

Okay, so now we have gone through the cell wall, we are through the cell membrane and now what we need to do is, since we have gone through the plasma membrane, we've also gone through the nuclear membrane and that is where the DNA stays because the DNA has to be protected.

If we don't work fast, this DNA is gonna get chopped up and we won't be able to see it.

So we're gonna chop up the protein.

DNA is nucleic acid wrapped around protein.

So when you see a chromosome, what that is, and usually you see them represented by a little X, what this is, is actually the DNA wrapped around a protein.

So what we're gonna do is, we're gonna destroy this protein so that we can get the DNA by itself.

So that's what we're using meat tenderizer for, we're gonna destroy the protein.

So now in here we have loose DNA.

We wanna separate out all the chunks and get to the DNA.

So, we're gonna add some salt.

DNA does not dissolve in salt water, but all this other stuff does.

So what we're doing, is making it so that the DNA will stay out of solution and will be loose so we can strain it and see it.

So what we're gonna do, we are going to strain the DNA.

Okay, so now we're down to strawberry juice with loose DNA in it and we're gonna separate the DNA out from this.

So I'm gonna pour it into a clear cup so that it'll be easier to visualize.

All right, now, DNA is not soluble in salt water.

So it's floating around in chunks that we could see if we had really tiny eyes, alright?

Everything else you put in there: soap, meat tenderizer, it is soluble in salt water.

So we wanna put something else on there so that the DNA will get away from the water and we can see it by itself.

So we're gonna use really cold rubbing alcohol.

Alcohol and water will mix, and you don't want that to happen, so we're gonna go slowly so that we can have a separate layer of just alcohol and that will be where the DNA shows up.

So we're gonna slowly pour it at an angle.

There's a layer of alcohol and then there's all the strawberry stuff but you can see this pink looking goo and that is the DNA of the strawberry.

Now, after a few minutes, when a little bit more of it shows up, we can scoop it out and actually see the glob of DNA.

So now that we have.

- [Narrator] This is the actual lots and lots of DNA out of that one strawberry.

Now it's hard to think that this all fits in a strawberry, but your cells have lots and lots and lots of feet of DNA in each one.

And that's why it curls up into those chromosomes.

So it doesn't take up that much space, but when you take it out and look at it, there's a lot to it.

And this is what makes a strawberry a strawberry.

(upbeat music) - Today, I'm gonna be showing you how to make a balsamic strawberry flat bread.

And this comes together in about 20 minutes.

It's really easy.

It's a lightened up version of a flat bread where we're using strawberries in place of tomato.

So we're gonna start with our strawberries here.

I'm just gonna take the tops off and then I'm gonna slice 'em.

You need about a cup and a half of sliced strawberries.

And once you've got your strawberries sliced you can kind of set 'em out of the way and we'll come back to those later, and we can start on our dough for the flat bread.

This is less like a pizza dough and more like a biscuit dough.

And we're gonna start with a cup and a quarter of flour.

And to my flour, I'm gonna add a teaspoon and a half of baking powder.

I'm also gonna add a half teaspoon of baking soda and I'm also gonna add a half a teaspoon of salt.

So we'll go ahead and put that in there.

And we're gonna give this a quick stir.

And to this, we're gonna add a cup of Greek yogurt.

Now this dough is kind of like a biscuit dough.

It is gonna be a very dry shaggy kind of dough.

It's not gonna come together like a bread dough.

You're gonna have to really press it to make it stick together.

But because this Greek yogurt is really the only fat that we're adding to the dough, this is a pretty light dish.

And once it's kind of starting to come together, we're gonna flour the surface of our countertop here, I'm gonna turn the dough out onto it.

It's still very crumbly.

You definitely wanna take your rings off for this part.

So you don't wanna have all of this flour and Greek yogurt in your setting of your ring.

Just gonna kind of press it together and turn it until it all comes together into one ball.

And this can take a while.

And so if you used the smaller yogurt cup, this is where you're really gonna see that you don't have quite enough.

And you might add some water here, just a very little bit at a time, 'cause adding water to pastry can make it tough.

So you don't wanna add too much.

Now I'm gonna put my ball of dough on a cookie sheet that I have lined with parchment paper, got a little bit more here on my spoon, and just use your fingers and press this out.

We want it to be about a quarter to a half inch thick in a rectangular shape and it's easy to get it to the correct thickness on the outside.

And it'll still be a little too thick in the middle.

So make sure that you're really working from the middle towards the outside so that it is all the same thickness all the way across.

Now my dough's sticking to my fingers just a little bit.

So I'm just gonna get a little more flour on my hands.

Just keep going.

At this point, we're gonna add a layer of mozzarella cheese, about half a cup, just right on top of your dough here, leave a little bit of a border around the edges so that you have something to hold onto when you're eating it, 'cause this is a finger food.

Now I'm gonna add just a little bit of black pepper to the top of the cheese and we'll start adding our strawberries.

Just kind of spread them out evenly across the top of your flat bread.

They don't have to all go the same direction.

It doesn't really matter.

Just however it looks good to you.

And if like me, you've ended up slicing too many, you know, just eat 'em, I think that's enough.

And now to this I'm gonna add our final ingredient before baking.

It's about half a cup of feta cheese.

I'm just gonna sprinkle it across the top.

Feta cheese really makes this dish pop but you could also use blue cheese here.

I think that would be really delicious.

The combination of the salty blue cheese with the strawberries and the balsamic vinegar that we're gonna put on at the end.

So now I've got my flat bread ready to go in the oven and I've got my oven preheated to 425 degrees.

And it's going to go in for about 15 minutes.

While your flat red is in the oven, it's time to make your balsamic glaze.

And we're just gonna start with about a cup of balsamic vinegar and we're gonna boil this and let it reduce by half.

So we're not gonna put a cup of vinegar on the flat bread.

We'll just put our cup of balsamic vinegar in the sauce pan over medium to medium high heat.

You do want this to come to a boil and it's gonna boil for seven to 10 minutes until it's reduced by half.

- If your family is home while you're doing this, you're gonna get a lot of, what is that smell?

As it boils, it's gonna give a pretty strong smell, don't be alarmed, but you also wanna keep an eye on it.

Once it has reduced too far, it's too far and there's no saving it.

And so you just want it to reduce till it's starting to thicken to about a syrup consistency so that we can drizzle it over that flat bread.

And while it is boiling, I'm gonna cut up our basil that's also gonna go on the top of the flat bread.

I'm gonna do this in a chiffonade, it's little ribbons.

It's very pretty and impressive but not difficult to do it all.

So take probably five pieces of basil, five of your leaves and stack 'em on top of each other.

And then you're just gonna take it and roll it up into a tight little roll, and then take your knife cut off the stem side and discard that.

You can eat the stem.

It's fine.

It's just not gonna look as pretty on top of your flatbread.

So I'm gonna get rid of it.

And then I'm gonna slice across my roll.

Very thinly, as thin as I can.

And it'll come out with little tiny ribbons and this is called a chiffonade.

And then you've got these little ribbons of basil that can go on the top of the flatbread.

(bouncy music) The strawberry flatbread is out of the oven.

And so I am ready to top it with this balsamic reduction that I made.

I'm just gonna take my spoon and carefully drizzle some of this over the top of the flat bread.

Kind of in a diagonal motion.

If you want it to look really pretty.

And then I'm gonna put my basal chiffonade on the top as well, just kind of evenly over the top using my fingers to kind of spread those ribbons out and cut this into little strips for serving.

I like to do it in little triangles so that you end up with little wedges, almost like pizza wedges.

This makes a quick and easy light lunch for you and a couple of other people and just wait for the compliments.

(quick 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.

Next week, we'll be back here with another great show as we visit with some people who are preserving horticulture and it's history in Oklahoma city and Tulsa.

Join us again right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

(slurps) mmm Best one yet 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.

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You can find this entire show and other recent shows as well as individual segments on our Oklahoma gardening YouTube channel Tune into our okay 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.

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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.