(peaceful rippling music) (upbeat music) - [Announcer] 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 to "Oklahoma Gardening."

Today, I'll share a modern look for a raised bed, urban Forester Mark Bays joins me to look back at the challenges our trees have endured this past year and what we need to be doing now to help them.

We follow a textile from dirt to shirt.

Finally, as we are cleaning up the garden, we talk about the versatility of compost piles.

(rich energetic music) (music ends) - I really like different options for raised beds.

And in fact, I kind of have a problem now because I can't help myself when I go shopping, I look at different things and I think to myself, could I turn that into a raised bed?

Well, there's a lot of different materials that you can use for raised beds, and then I have another one here that I came across.

Now this is a fire pit ring.

It does cost about $50, but for $50, it's really easy to install, durable, and low maintenance.

And so basically all you have to do is find a location and put this fire pit ring down and then fill it with the soil of your choice.

Because it is a galvanized steel, you've got this nice industrial look to your garden, plus, like I said, it's low maintenance.

Unlike wood, it's not going to rot and deteriorate as fast, you don't have to paint it or anything as well.

And the other thing that I really like about it too, is if you have grass that butts up to it, it's really nice to weed eat.

You don't have to worry about it damaging the material either.

Now you can see here, we just found a location next to our fence that we decided we wanted to plant some plants.

And so again, like other raised beds, you can always amend the soil however you want.

So we have a blueberry in here that we made the soil a little bit lower in pH to give it that acidic climate that the blueberry likes.

So now this is an example of just using one fire ring, but we took that a step further and we purchased three different fire rings.

So now this is kind of a design that you could use in order to make a little bit bigger display.

But what I like about it is it gives you that industrial look, and again, it's low maintenance.

So here we purchased three fire rings.

So now we're at a price of about $150, but a lot of times that's the price of most of your garden kits.

So what we did was we have a full size ring up here that we just placed on the surface of the soil and then using a grinder, we went ahead and cut the other two rings.

And so here we have kind of an arc that fits into that full circle in the back.

And then we have another arc that fits into the other two.

You can see that each ring, we kind of lowered.

Again, this one is setting on the soil surface.

This one we buried a couple of inches.

And then that third one, we went down halfway on it.

So what is nice about this is it gives you that little terraced look, again, a contemporary look in your landscape, but a nice planting bed.

And each one of these, you can amend the soil differently.

So you could have a blueberry up top and then you can have your regular plants down below.

So yes, there are cheaper ways to make raised beds, but for a nice industrial modern look, that's low maintenance for $150, getting three fire rings makes a nice terraced garden for your landscape.

- It's been a year since last year's ice storm.

And we wanted to talk with Mark Bays, our urban Forester, a little bit about the recovery efforts that have been happening since last October.

So, Mark?

- Yeah.

- It's been quite a year, right, for trees?

- It's been crazy to think where we were just a year ago.

I mean, I was without electricity for 13 days in a row, and it's just amazing.

As we look back to see how not only the ice storm, but also the cold weather, that's the real pandemic, I think, that's been happening this year.

- Yeah.

So, to kind of recap.

This time last year, year to the date almost, look at what the trees look like with all of these leaves on it, and covered with ice.

- Totally covered with ice.

- [Casey] Let's talk a little bit about the devastation that we saw right after that.

- This tree that we're standing right next to here, it's about an eight-inch caliper tree.

And we've been trying to figure out just how much we've lost as a result of the ice storm.

When I talked with some of the cities that are in the central Oklahoma City area, based on the amount of tonnage of debris that was hauled away, we lost about 3 million of these trees that we're standing next to.

Now, if you think about that, I mean, that's not really the case.

That was just the debris that was taken away.

- [Casey] Right.

- But think about the other debris that we still have in our natural areas, in people's yards that they haven't even dealt with yet.

So, that could be as high as seven, even 10 million trees that we may have lost.

- [Casey] Now, that's just in the Oklahoma City area based off of the numbers that were reported, so.

- [Mark] It's only on the numbers that are reported, so it's much higher than that.

- [Casey] And then again, that's also based off of just the limbs and stuff equivalent to... - [Mark] Equivalent to that size of tree.

- [Casey] Three million of these trees, wow.

- [Mark] I know.

- That's incredible.

- And if you think about the benefits that we lost from that.

You think about the soil protection, you think about the air quality, there's lots of human health benefits that we get from these trees.

You know, if you're just interested to learn about more about how trees improve your everyday lives, you can go to this really wonderful website, it's called healthytreeshealthylives.org.

- Okay.

So we definitely know trees are important, and it wasn't just the ice storm that was so detrimental.

Then we were followed up in February by this crazy deep freeze that we've never had here in Oklahoma before.

- Yeah, we lost so much of our thin-barked trees during that time.

- Yeah.

- And we're actually still seeing some of that damage.

We've seen a lot of Oak trees throughout the summer months come out fully-leafed and lose all their leaves.

We're seeing a lot of problems with different Pine trees because they came fully-leafed out.

And the only common denominator is those that didn't get the ice damage, they've got the freeze damage that we're just now beginning to see.

Lots of trees, like some of the smaller trees, for instance Vitex and the Crepemyrtles, we're really seeing a lot of those that also got damaged with that.

- Yeah, so obviously things are affected by their own sort of resistance.

You know, how mature they were, if they were already in decline going into all of this, this sort of maybe took a couple of them out.

- Right.

- Last year when we talked, you said just kinda take care of any of the Widowmakers, you know, the ones that were hanging.

Let's talk about what we need to be aware of with our trees right now.

If we still have trees, I think the leaves are kinda hiding some of that damage, right?

Am I correct on this?

- Oh, yeah.

That's what's gonna happen.

As the leaves came out last Friday, everybody went on their way, they all got happy.

We forgot about how much damage is still up in the trees.

So, once the leaves drop, what you're gonna see is you're gonna see a lot of branches that are still dead in there.

Those, they're hanging, we still need to address those, and those should be removed, as well.

That's the first thing is, we still saw trees, branches die.

So anything that's dead, go ahead and remove that, remove those hangers, try and cut them back to the next union.

You've done a lot of shows on proper pruning and everything like that.

If it's too much for you, use a professional with that.

The other thing that you'll probably be seeing is, if you were fortunate to keep a lot of your trees there, is you'll begin to see those sprouts, water suckers.

And those are those little branches that start shooting up in time.

And that tree, what it's trying to do is replace all of the branches that were lost.

So don't take all those off at one time.

There are a number of them that are growing straight up, and those straight up ones, they have a much stronger union to that branch.

Those are the ones that we're trying to protect and save.

Eventually they may need to be removed, but right now those are the ones that we're trying to save.

There are some things that we need to be doing now, and in the next few years to help those trees still recover from this ice storm.

- And I always kind of equivalate like, the tree is trying to put up new solar panels, right?

And it's been devastated, so it wants to get 'em up there quickly.

That's why it tends to be weak, and we see a lot of water sprouts, is that...

But you can train those to be stronger if it's got a good union.

- Yes.

- But what about... We often see a lot of 'em come out at one junction together, so maybe those aren't the ones we would wanna keep?

Is that... - Well, let's just say you have the very tip of your branches- - Or your tree was pruned back to in-between a natural place.

You could possibly start seeing a hairball of these sprouts coming out.

It's still possible to find the stronger attachment on those and still thin those out as well.

So whether they're growing straight up or out at the very tip of it, there is a process it's going to be a yearly process.

- [Interviewer] Right!

- [Mark] And it's not this year.

It's not next year.

It's not the year after that.

It's a continual process to make the selection on those, to choose the strongest ones that are attached to eventually you may only have two or three.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

- [Mark] That are growing out on that very end.

- [Interviewer] And by slowly thinning off some of those water sprouts, you are going to encourage more of that energy into one or a couple to make those stronger.

Is that kind of the thought process?

- Yeah.

So why you're seeing so many of those sprouts coming out right now is the tree has been damaged in other places.

And so it realizes once the replace its food source which comes through photosynthesis in the leaves.

So that's why it's frantically replacing everything.

So if you remove all those water sprouts, you'll take away all that food production.

That's why it's important to be a slow process because you're trying to allow that tree to replace the food that was lost.

You just can't continually, you know, take all those suckers off because you're continuing to take... - You doing the same thing as the ice storm did right?

- There we go!

That's right So if anybody needs to have any information at all on what they need to do to help their trees survive from this ice storm, they can always go to our website: forestry.ok.gov.

- Excellent!

Thank you so much, Mark.

- [Mark] Thanks.

(theme song) - So often when we think of home composting, we think of something like this.

It's hidden in our back corner, but that doesn't always have to be the case.

Joining us today is Joshua Campbell here at Oklahoma county extension office.

Hi Joshua.

Thank you so much.

I know you're like an expert on composting and you've got several examples around here at the extension office.

- Yeah So let's talk a little bit, I think a lot of people can relate about this scenario.

- Yeah!

Well, I don't know that I'd call myself a composting expert, but I've done a lot of different types of composting.

So I've, I've failed a lot for sure.

- So let's talk through, is this working or does this not work?

This is obviously one of those three bins methods.

- Yeah.

- It's had a little neglect it seems.

- Yeah.

So this is a good example of what can happen when you neglect a compost pile, like you said.

So, we're actively managing this right before everything shut down with COVID and then basically it's just sat static since then.

But what I like about this is it's a great example of the fact that compost happens, whether we're actively managing it or not.

Now we can arguably get better compost by putting some systems around it and by following steps and procedures and processes, but compost is just a natural process, a natural process of decomposition.

And so we've got composts happening right here, even though it's not pretty.

- Right!

Right.

So on top, obviously it looks like some newer stuff that's been added on there, but you've got plenty of good stuff down underneath there.

- Right.

So is this the kind of the best system, or I know there's a lot of products for homeowners, the tumbler, you know, we've talked on our show about the keyhole garden.

Let's talk through some of those different products.

- So what we've tried to do here, what I've tried to do here is showcase a bunch of the different options that are available to homeowners.

When people think about composting, they most often picture this three bin or what we might call a New Zealand composting system, a large structure in your backyard.

But this isn't the best fit for everybody.

So we've got tumblers, tumblers are a great option for folks that are in smaller spaces that don't want to deal with an open eyesore like this, maybe that are afraid of pest issues that can come along with composting.

So tumblers can be a great option for that.

Now with any composting style, there are pros and there are cons.

And so, I'm a big fan of the saying, there's a compost pile to fit everyone's style.

And I truly believe that no matter who you are, what your circumstances are, I think there's a composting method that could fit you, but it's a matter of identifying what that is, - Okay.

and then weighing the pros and cons of every kind of method.

- Is there, I know you work with a lot of gardeners here.

Is there one that's kind of preferred over others or?

- I don't know.

I think it really comes down to individual preference.

I would say the most, the one that I think people get most excited about or there's the most energy is vermicomposting.

- Okay.

- People using the worm bins and seeing the worms turn food scraps or whatever material into just beautiful black gold is pretty cool.

So people get excited about that and kind of get the Ooh factor of worms.

- [Interviewer] And so are those kept in the garden?

Let's talk a little bit about some of that.

I mean, or do you keep those outside or in your own house?

- [Joshua] So you can do both.

You can build larger worm bins that are set up outside now, red wigglers, which are the most commonly used worms for worm composting really do have some temperature preferences.

And so their population may shrink and swell with weather.

So in the middle of winter, they'll probably move into the interior of a pile if it's outside and you may have some population loss.

So there are some considerations if you want to raise them outside, but you can do that.

Most people, especially... - [Interviewee] Home gardeners propagate them inside.

So I actually have a number of bins in our office.

I have one right underneath my desk that I feed lunch scraps to and we have a few just different places around the office that we feed and actually use those to propagate worms all year so that we can give them to folks when we do build your own worm bin composting classes or we teach our master composter class in the fall.

- And I know especially inside the biggest thing that comes to mind is the smell.

But there shouldn't be a smell if you're doing it right, correct?

- If you do it right, there's minimal odor.

You certainly have to be careful about not feeding too much and too much of stinky stuff, getting a good layer of material over whatever you're feeding but you're right.

If you're composting properly with worms, they're gonna be churning through that material very quickly and as they process it, they're gonna really not have much odor to the bin.

There can be times where it gets a little too wet or a little too dry and there's a little bit of manipulation that needs to happen.

But for the most part, it really doesn't stink.

I have a bin right under my desk and I don't ever notice it.

Maybe it's nasal memory or something but it really I don't get complaints from people that visit my office.

- So it's only like cooking a stew?

You gotta have the right ingredients but there's a little bit of give and take into what can go in there.

- Right.

- Also along those lines though, there's the moisture.

It is sort of a reaction you're creating, an exothermic reaction.

So let's talk a little bit about the heat, the temperature and you've got another project going where you're creating heat intentionally.

- Right, so with a worm bin or vermicomposting that's a cold composting process.

So you really don't want to create heat that's gonna drive the worms out.

We consider that a cold process for composting.

However, most composting methods you wanna generate heat if possible because that's going to speed up that composting process and it's also going to eliminate weed, seeds and disease pathogens and things that could be in the material that you started composting with.

So that's, when you think about a three bin system in this kinda of way that we're composting here, while composting is happening, the weed seeds and things that we're putting in here are gonna to carry through that composting material because we have an hot compost.

So when we hot compost, there are a lot of benefits not only getting composts faster, but just some of the other things that you can do to harness the power of that heat with compost.

- Okay, so what is the little project you've got going over?

You did some a layer composting.

Talk about why you've got that covered right now.

- So again, we're trying to showcase all sorts of things that people can do in their backyard easily and so this project that you're referencing is basically just a small little pile.

We took some wood chips, we got a local tree service that was willing to dump a load of wood chips for us and then we took some food scraps from our office and that we were able to gather and we layered the food scraps and the wood chips just kinda made some layering.

Just a small little pile and we're using the heat that radiates off of that pile to be potentially just an extra space where we can warm seedlings in the winter or if we've got some a flat of plants that were cool season plants that we're gonna put in the ground, we haven't planted yet.

We could utilize it as a space to protect them on really cold nights where we might have risk of a freeze.

- Okay, alright so you might be able to utilize that for some root zone heating on some seeds and staff like that.

- Right, exactly and just give some nice root zone heating, exactly.

- Excellent, well thanks.

I know there's a lot more to talk about composting and we will be back.

So thank you though for sharing this with us.

- Absolutely, thank you.

(upbeat music) - [Instructor] That's why these all natural fibers and the natural dyes are actually sustainable for the environment at the same time.

- Last year, we partnered with OA shoes department of design, housing and merchandise in order to learn more about the indigo plant and the natural dyes it produces versus synthetic dyes.

Well behind the scenes, this got us discussing additional plants and the importance that plants play in their textile industry.

Recently, we paired up with a department again as they took some fashion and merchandising students down to Altus, Oklahoma to see the cotton harvest firsthand as it goes from dirt to shirt.

- I'm June Park.

I'm an associate professor in the Department of Design Housing and Merchandising in the College of Education and Human Sciences.

So this field trip was made possible through the grants, curriculum grants that I and a group of our DHM faculty members received from Cotton Incorporated.

So currently over 200 students in our program are participating in one of the cotton grant participating classes for this semester.

So our program design housing and merchandising has three different option areas, apparel design, interior design, and apparel merchandising.

So our students can take a variety of career path from apparel and interior design, like a design and product development area and retail and marketing side of end products, clothing and interior design products made of cotton fiber obviously and sourcing and supply chain areas as well.

So we have a mix of those three different - [Instructor] For an option at areas in our group.

- My name is Carson Scott.

I'm a junior at Oklahoma State University, and I'm a Fashion Design major.

I'm thinking right now about becoming a Wedding Dress Designer, which uses a lot of synthetic materials, but it would be nice to figure out ways to incorporate natural materials like cotton, into wedding dress design.

I would definitely focus on sustainability, and working to reduce waste, and being more environmentally friendly.

- Sustainability is one of the things that in the cotton industry, we're working very hard for.

Now, sustainability has a lot to do with the way cotton's grown, really the people that handle the cotton, and what it takes to get cotton to market, and to the consumer.

There are 17 states that grow cotton in the United States.

Oklahoma is the fourth largest planter of cotton in the United States.

Most of the cotton you're seeing right now, is cotton that was harvested, what I'm gonna call locally, within a 50 mile radius probably.

And probably some of the best cotton in the world.

What makes the cotton here special?

Some of the best in the world, is the climate, the water availability, and the farmers that grow it.

- This is the part that the farmer is bringing to us right now.

This is what's called a module, an actual round module itself.

We take this product through the gin, We're extracting three main parts from it.

One being the lint, which is the main product that the farmer gets paid on.

The second main product that comes out of this is the cottonseed itself, and then the burr, the hull or the trash part of the module that gets hauled off and disposed of.

So, out of all our finished lint bales that come out of our gin go to the cotton compress.

And then, that's where it's marketed and distributed from there.

Whether the farmer is in the PCCA pool, or they have got outside contracts for each individual bale, or if they're just gonna sell the product on the open market themselves.

That marketing strategy is up to them, but all the bales leave here and go to the compress.

- [Harvey] When you saw it come off the press at the gin, there was a sample pulled from each side of this bale, and then one of the one of the cards that goes with this bale, everywhere it goes, the bottom of it was put with those two samples.

It goes from there to a Classing Office, it's a Government Classing Office.

And they will tell you this, the color, length of fiber, strength of fiber, a thickness of fiber, all the things that the merchants want to know about that the spinners later on need.

So you take that, and that is what cotton is sold by.

And it makes a big difference as to what our cotton is worth and what it's used for.

To me, I'm really pleased to see the fashion students look here because these are the people that are gonna be making the call somewhere down the road as to what fabric is used in what they're producing.

Because they will be part of the quote, "dirt to shirt" folks who will make the call.

And we want 'em to see the advantage of cotton, how it's handled, the importance of it, and when it comes their time to leave that fashion team, we want 'em to come back and say, "let's go cotton."

- [Carson] The coolest thing was being able to walk in the cotton fields and be able to see the cotton growing from the ground itself.

We always see cotton in its final stage, but never actually see it whenever it's in the ball, and that was such a unique experience.

- [Instructor] In the era of fast fashion and synthetic fibers, I think students might tend to think that, clothing is made out of some kind of materials that can be easily manufactured.

So this agriculture side of fiber production, is somewhat disregarded, because it's kind of hard to connect our knowledge of fashion to the agriculture knowledge.

So when they come out here see how the cotton is actually cultivated and harvested, I think they can develop more new and different perspectives on fiber fashion and hopefully more sustainable fashion.

(country music) (crowd laughs) - [Instructor] 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.

(country music) - [Announcer] As we wind down another season of Oklahoma Gardening, next week we will transition from fall mums to Christmas trees.

And not only will we be featuring some great plants, we will also be showcasing some special pups as well.

It's a show you won't wanna miss.

(gentle music) 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 in to our Okgardeningclassics 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 Pond Pro Shops, Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants.

The Oklahoma Horticultural Society and Tulsa Garden Club.

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