(gentle guitar music) (elegant music) - Welcome to "Oklahoma Gardening".

We've got some hot plants blooming in the garden.

We start out in the patio garden as the cacti putting on quite a show this spring.

I then share with you about the red hot poker plant.

Finally, we head to the OSU Student Farm as we learn how to harvest four different cool season crops.

Underwriting assistance for our program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma green and growing.

(elegant music continues) So if you're looking for an easy and low maintenance perennial... (elegant music continues) Have two different types of flowers on one plant.

(elegant music continues) It's capsaicinoids that gives the pepper its heat.

(elegant music continues) Our patio garden has been blooming here over the last week, and I feel like finding cacti in bloom is sort of like seeing a shooting star.

You know it happens, but timing is so important to actually experience it and see it yourself.

So today I wanted to bring and share with you our cacti that we have here in our patio garden as they are in bloom.

So here we have our Hedgehog Cactus that is native to northeastern Mexico and Southwest US and hardy to zones five.

Now, it's a bit shorter and more compact, and it is covered in white spines, but this time of year in late May, you get a nice display of vibrant pink flowers.

So just next to it we have the Texas Rainbow Cactus, which is just native to mainly the Big Bend area of West Texas.

You can see that it is more of a sturdy, singular stem that it creates here, and it'll be about four to six inches wide and only capping out at about eight inches in height.

Of course, it's covered in spines and it actually gets that name, Rainbow, because of the banding that will create on the base of those spines, kind of creating a rainbow effect on the stem there.

It also, when it blooms later in the season, later in the spring, I should say, and you can see that it's just now coming on while some of the others are done blooming, it actually has more of a yellow flower, but as that flower matures, it sort of turns this pink color.

It is hardy from zone six to 10, and so it's overwintered just fine for us here in Stillwater.

Now, switching a little bit, we have almost a shrubby or tree-like cactus that's known as the Tree Cholla.

It is also native across the Southwest US, and you can see it's very different than the others that we've featured so far, as it has more of a rope-like gray green stem that are again covered with spines, so you wanna be careful when you're handling it.

It does bloom, as it's one of the later ones to bloom here at the Botanic Gardens in late spring with a pink flower that's followed by a yellow fruit that will persist for several months.

And it's actually, that fruit is an attractive quality for wildlife.

The nice thing about this Tree Cholla, however, is that it's very sculptural throughout the year, even into the winter months, as it can remain hardy to below zero temperatures.

Now switching to a different genus, we have several different Opuntias here that I wanna kind of go through with you.

And Opuntias are actually some of the most cold tolerant of the lowland cacti.

In fact, they can spread all the way up into Canada.

Now, the first one that we have to look at is Opuntia polyacantha.

One of the single most widely distributed Opuntias is polyacantha that grows from the southern US border all the way to Canada.

It has a little less tidy appearance, as it can remain relatively compact and grows low to the ground, so often in the wild you'll see it kind of have a lot of grass growing over it or a lot of other plant debris that kind of intertwines with it and covers it up.

However, it is pretty fierce with both short and long spines.

The short spines tend to be darker in color and the long spines are thinner and lighter in color.

The flower can range from yellow to pink.

Now, the next one we have is another Opuntia polyacantha or Great Plains Prickly Pear, although this particular cultivar is known as Peter Pan.

And you can see it has a much different look.

It actually has more of a miniature, condensed look.

And the reason why it's called Peter Pan is because it continues, it's perpetually growing in a juvenile state which means it's never going to flower for us.

However, it creates these smaller pads that are covered with spines on them, so again, you wanna be careful.

But it creates a dense mat that has kind of more of a grayish color to it because of all those spines as it spreads out across your garden.

So here we have the Marblefruited Prickly Pear, which is another species of a Opuntia, and it's most distinguishable because it has circular pads and the spines that are in clusters of five to eight are kind of a reddish yellow color and they actually kind of sort of point down more than some of the other prickly pears.

Now you can see it has beautiful yellow flowers that come on in late.

- Spring, and this particular one is more native to Southwest Texas in the Chihuahuan Desert.

Next, we have the golden prickly pear, and it's known for having its yellow flowers, which is how it has its name, although you can see ours has a pink flower, and in fact, this particular species of opuntia can hybridize really well with other prickly pears, therefore, you often get offsprings that have more spines, or pink flowers, such as the one we have.

Also, there is a popular cultivar coombs, winter glow, that has more of a magenta flower.

Now, traditionally, the golden prickly pear is a low-growing cactus with oval-shaped, blueish-green pads that are mostly spineless.

As you can see here, they do, however, have a few spines that tend to be up around the top of each of those pads.

Golden prickly pear is hardy from zones five to nine, but in the winter, the pads will turn a darker purplish-gray color, but will soon green up in the spring.

The next one we have here is called beavertail cactus, which is native to Northwestern Mexico and Southwestern US.

It is a sprawling cactus that has flattened pads and it's relatively spineless when you first look at it, however, you still wanna be careful because it does have those fine hairs that are like spines that will get into your skin and are often more difficult to remove.

The next one I wanna feature here is called bunny ears, and this one actually gets about two to three feet tall with about a four to six foot spread.

Now, while it has a cute name, "bunny ears," it actually gets that name because of those short glochid spines that it has on here that kind of creates this cottony, fuzzy look to it, but don't be fooled because those are spines and they will get into your skin.

The other reason why it has its name is because when it produces, it tends to produce two pads on top of it.

So, you can see that it sort of creates this bunny ear look as it continues to grow.

Now, this particular one is only hardy to zone nine.

So you can see, we have it in a container.

We actually take it inside every winter and then replant it back out here in our patio garden each spring.

So, it makes for a really good indoor plant for that reason.

Now, you can see this particular one is not actually blooming.

It doesn't have any buds on it either, and in fact, it rarely does bloom.

It's actually most notable for that vegetation and again, kind of that structural form that it brings to the landscape, (birds chirping) and last, we have the cow tongue prickly pear, and you can see, like other prickly pears, it's going to, again, have some of those spines on there that you wanna be cautious of.

It tends to kind of lay down, but then we'll produce what it's really known for, which are these kind of elongated, more of a spade-shaped pad versus some of the others that have been more of round or oval shape.

It tends to be a little bit longer and wider at the base of it.

You can see we've got a new flush of pads that are coming on.

Unfortunately, this is one of the few that didn't bloom this year, but traditionally does have yellow flowers on it.

So, while cacti can seem a little different than our traditional ornamental plants, they definitely can add a beautiful aesthetic appeal to your garden.

(bright country music) I wanna introduce you to another drought-tolerant plant called kniphofia, or red hot poker plant.

Now, there are several different cultivars and so you don't always just get the traditional red hot poker look, which starts out with a red flower at the top, and as those flowers continue to mature, they actually fade to orange and then yellow.

So, you get three colors on one plant at the same time which really adds a unique interest into the garden.

You can see here there are other cultivars on the market, so some of 'em have more just of yellow, or they even have a pinky, rosy color, as well as a white and cream one, that you can add into your garden also.

Now, kniphofia are great for the garden because they are drought-tolerant once they're established.

So, you can see they've got this kind of grassy-like foliage that's pretty stiff, so you don't have to worry about the wind.

Now, these are some shorter ones, but there are some that get up to be about three to four feet in height, but even those stems are going to be pretty self-supporting, so you don't have to really worry about them needing staking or anything like that.

The other thing is you can actually cut these and bring these in as indoor, cut flowers as well if you want to, and they're going to continue to bloom for about a week for you, so you get a good long bloom time out of each of those flowers as well, and once they are done blooming, you wanna make sure to go ahead and cut out those flowers, otherwise, they will set seed, and by cutting those out, you're going to encourage it to continue putting up new flower shoots as well.

Now, kniphofia, is, again, I mentioned a drought-tolerant plant once it's established.

- So the biggest problem with it it really doesn't have any disease or pest issues, but the biggest problem is having root rot, or crown rot, so be careful of that.

And if you find that you are not getting as many flowers on it, you might wanna plant it in a raised bed or something like that.

Otherwise it's hardy from Zones 5 to 9, so it might be one you wanna consider adding into your garden.

(upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) (upbeat country music continues) - We're back here at the student farm, and Lynda, it looks like I picked the right day- - Yeah.

- 'Cause this is full harvest mode you guys are in.

- Oh yeah, we've been harvesting broccoli for about a week.

- Yeah.

- A couple weeks now.

- Well, and that's some beautiful stuff you got there.

- Thank you.

Thanks, we're excited.

- But I think one of the big things about broccoli is when do you harvest it?

- Yeah.

- How do you tell?

- Well, and we've been watching this stuff and it's amazing overnight, it grows, rapidly, so.

We've had some, earlier this week on Monday, we harvested about a hundred heads of broccoli and now today is Wednesday and we're harvesting again and we've got a lot more to harvest today and there were actually some that overmatured in two days.

- Really?

- So yeah.

- Okay, all right.

- Yeah.

- So tell us a little bit about those signs that you're seeing- - Okay.

- As far as- - Yeah.

- When it's ready and overmaturity- - Sure.

- If you don't mind.

- I'll just show you an example.

- Okay.

- This is one on Monday we didn't think was quite ready Monday, and then now today, as you can see, it's starting to get kind of a lime-green color, the florets on it are starting to get a little bit larger in size, bubbling out, and it's separating.

- Okay.

- [Lynda] So it's still very marketable, and it's still good, but it is on the borderline of being too mature, so.

- So it might not have as long of a shelf life- - Yeah.

- Once you're- - Yeah.

- Out there at the store.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, okay.

- Yeah.

And then like this one, as you see, it's got more of that blue-green color, it's more the dome shape, and everything's pretty tight on it so it's obviously a much prettier head.

- Okay, all right.

- Yep.

- [Casey] So yeah, a day can make all the difference, right?

- Oh yeah, yeah.

- [Casey] So really this time of year are you kinda having to check the fields daily almost?

- Oh yes.

- With- - Yes.

- Harvesting, yeah.

- Oh, yeah, yeah.

- [Lynda] We've been harvesting broccoli, we'll probably do it three times this week.

- Okay.

- [Lynda] And then we'll start in on, we've got several other crops we're working on too, so.

- Okay.

And of course this cool season that we're having is sort of helping- - Yeah.

- [Casey] These cool-season crops, right?

- [Lynda] Definitely.

The humidity, the moisture we've had recently, and the temperatures have all worked in our favor.

- All right, well I do see a few more holes than last time when I came out- - Yes.

- So it looks like you've got some pests you're dealing with?

- Yep, the cabbage loopers found us and we haven't sprayed yet.

- Okay.

- We probably will do a spray here before long just to prevent it from getting in on the next crops that we're gonna be harvesting.

- Okay, but at this point, you know even if you were to spray it to prevent the pests from harboring here, you're not spraying a crop 'cause you've already- - Right, yeah.

- Pretty much got everything.

- Yeah, yeah, that's right.

- Okay.

Well what about secondary growth on broccoli, is there- - Yeah, yeah, we've got several that are starting new little shoots, in fact, there's a shoot in here that I harvested, it was big enough to harvest, so that was actually a secondary shoot.

- [Casey] Okay.

- [Lynda] So when we're harvesting 'em, like I've got another nice head here.

- Yeah.

- [Lynda] We try to not harvest too far down and, you know maybe five inches at the very most, and then we can just take off these extra leaves, we leave a few on just 'cause it's pretty, and then from this growth, some of these they'll, like as you can see they've already started some new shoots up.

- Okay.

- [Lynda] And then we've got some others that we've harvested earlier that have bigger shoots on 'em.

- Yeah, there's one right here that's coming on too.

- Yeah, yep.

- Okay.

- So we'll be able to come back and start harvesting those secondary ones.

- All right, well I know you got some other people harvesting other crops?

- Yes, yeah, yeah, Matt's over, I think he's harvesting cabbage, and our students are busy harvesting as well.

- All right, well I'm gonna go check in with Matt next.

- Okay, great.

- Thank you.

- Thanks.

(upbeat country music) (upbeat country music continues) - Hi, Matt, it looks like you got your arms full there.

- Yeah, we do, we've been harvesting cabbage here.

- Yeah.

So how do you know when cabbage is ready to be harvested?

- Well, this particular variety it gets to be about three to five pounds, so really once it sizes up it's gonna be kinda what you see in the market, you know- - Yeah.

- Maybe bowling ball size.

- Okay.

- And then you can feel 'em and when they get pretty tight, that's when they're ready.

Like you see this one here, it's smaller and it's loose, you can actually feel it's loose inside there, so it's not quite ready and it's gonna size up more.

- Yeah, it's- - This one though.

- [Casey] It's gotta a little more give to it.

- More give.

- Doesn't it?

- And this one's a little firmer.

- Okay.

So this one you know will size up versus it just being a smaller head, right?

- Right.

- Right, okay.

All right, so how do we go about harvesting it then?

- So the way we do it- (knife scraping sheath) We'll take our, we'll just get next to it, push the leaves down- (leaves crunching) And take our knife and come right at the base.

- Okay.

- And remove the outer leaves and then we got a nice cabbage head.

- A nice head ready to go, just that easy.

What about all this extra stuff, I mean are you guys utilizing it, or could it be utilized?

- Some people do like to eat these.

I ran to people that like to cook 'em like collared greens.

But generally we leave them in the field.

And then just incorporate 'em back into the row.

- [Person In Jeans] It's really good organic matter.

- [Person In Hat] Yes it's really good organic matter.

- [Person In Jeans] All right, so we're gonna leave this for another day.

And you mentioned this particular variety.

What variety is this?

- This variety is artost.

And we actually chose these varieties.

We have, this was a earlier variety and it was one that we had done in variety trials in the past here at OSU.

And the next variety over a couple rows over is escazu.

And it'll be ready probably by the end of this week or next week.

And this one's about 60 days.

And the escazu is about about 80 days.

- Okay, and I would imagine kind of knowing the growth period also kind of gives you an idea knowing when to harvest it.

- Yeah, knowing when you planted and then when days the harvest.

So you got a rough idea when, okay they should be ready you know, however many weeks from the time we planted it.

- All right, so do you have any purple cabbage?

- We do.

And you know, they're not quite ready yet.

They were a little longer, but probably next week we'll be harvesting those.

- All right, well I know the students are harvesting something also so I'm gonna go check in with them next.

- All right, sounds good.

- Thank you.

(country music) So here at the OSU Student Farm, one of the key things is giving the students the opportunity to learn how to produce vegetables firsthand.

Parker, you're learning a lot, aren't you?

- I am, yes.

- So we've got some kohlrabi here.

Tell me a little bit about that.

'Cause I think it's sort of maybe a foreign crop for some people.

- Yeah, for sure.

So with kohlrabi, we're kind of going for a swollen stem base.

That's the main part that most people will eat.

You can also eat the leaves, the new, young tender leaves.

They'll go raw in salads.

Kind of a bitter turnipy taste.

And then cook the older ones.

- But the leaves are beautiful.

- They are beautiful.

- You can use this for plating or something definitely too.

So you've obviously been hard at it, harvesting a lot of it.

So we've got some beautiful stuff here.

Tell me a little bit about how do you know when to harvest your kohlrabi?

- Right so it's a little bit different with some varieties but most of the time what you're shooting for is about tennis ball, baseball size.

They can get a little bit bigger and you can harvest some smaller, it's not gonna hurt anything.

But if you let them get too big, they'll actually split open.

And we've got one here that it just pops open and then it gets all moldy and bugs in it and you just, you don't wanna eat it.

- So that one's no longer marketable?

- [Parker] No, we're not, at this point we're not gonna use that one.

- So we've got some, can you show me a little bit how you harvest them then?

- You bet, yeah.

So they've got a really woody tap root base to 'em.

And so one of the easiest ways is to just grab kind of low, use the leaves as leverage, and just twist.

Twist and pull it out of the ground.

And then you just kind of take and snap the leaves off you know, like we talked about, you could save them and cook 'em if you wanted to.

Or they make real good organic matter for compost, throw 'em back down and till 'em in.

Yeah, but then kind of.

- There you go.

- Just like that.

- And I imagine that taproot that's left in the soil profile is beneficial also for creating that corse base later on.

- It'll rot and create a cavity, yeah.

- So tell me a little bit, because you're kind of on the tail end of this crop here.

What's gonna happen with this row when you're done with this?

- So there's a couple things we could do.

We could just let this leaf litter lie for a little bit and come back and maybe mulch it with the brush hog on the tractor, get it broken down a little bit, and then till it in.

And just leave it.

And that'll be our organic matter for next year.

We might clean it off and put some summer crops, maybe some sweet corn in.

A little bit later, 'cause it's still early enough in the season that we could do that.

Or we might come back and put some more cool seasons in the fall.

- Okay, all right, yeah 'cause July is really about the time you start planting cool season again, right?

So July, August, so it won't be long.

(laughing) - Right, no.

- [Person In Jeans] And what particular variety was this one again?

- So this is purple Vienna.

And I think you've got some just regular green, white varieties too.

But yeah.

- All right.

Well I'm gonna go check in with Sam too.

- Okay, sounds good.

- Thank you.

(gentle country music) - Hey Sam, it looks like I just caught you in time as you're finishing up some spinach here.

- Yeah I've just been harvesting, kind of checking on any aphids, insect damage on these plants here.

- Okay, so are you spinach prone to getting aphids?

- Yeah, it is actually prone to spinach, or excuse me, it's prone to having aphid damage both in greenhouse and outside.

Just 'cause the close clusters tends to harbor insects.

- They like to hide in those.

- They do, they do yeah.

- So I mean, is this ideal time to harvest spinach?

What are we looking at?

How do we harvest it?

- Generally we'll tend to harvest them between 50, 60 degrees so maybe cooler times.

They've actually started to bolt, if you look at them some of these will have flowers that begin on them as it grows warmer.

- Okay, which means they've kind of gone from that vegetative to the reproductive and.

- [Casey] Then your foliage isn't taste as good, right?

- [Sam] Exactly, it tastes really bitter.

- Okay.

(both chuckling) - So you've got a few here that maybe are still salvageable.

- Yeah, we could.

We're smart here, we could harvest if you'd like to see.

- Okay, yeah, please.

- Yeah.

They actually direct seeded and transplanted.

Transplants usually not a common method for spinach, because it doesn't really form roots the best.

But we decided to try it out and see how it was effective, and we actually had an easier time harvesting the transplanted spinach versus the direct seed.

- [Casey] Why was it easier?

- The direct seeded plants had small bundles.

So we had to kind of group a bunch for delivery, for Our Daily Bread, and these ones grew with a taproot and it kind of created the bundle itself.

- So it really, was better for the spacing, too, on that.

- Exactly, yeah, for sure.

- Okay.

Well, these are nice.

So, what do you do?

Do you just go in there, do you select each leaf, or do you go through and take the whole head?

- For these, because of the transplant, you can kind of just pull it all as a head.

So I'll go underneath, at the base of the spinach plant, and kind of grab all the leaves, and twist and pull up, and then we get a full root on the bottom, and then the people who eat it can go ahead and chop off whatever leaves they want to eat, and it's easier to wash this way as well.

- Oh, okay, so you go ahead and leave the roots on there and all, so that it sort of stays fresher?

- Yeah, it generally tends to be the practice.

- Okay, alright.

Well, it's a beautiful spinach.

- Yeah.

- So what is kind of that growing temperature range for spinach?

- 50 to 60 degrees is usually what we go for.

- Okay, so we're kind of winding down, so I know there's a few smaller ones that are probably not gonna make this season, right?

- Yeah, they're probably gonna be turned over in the compost or in the tilling.

- Okay, you've got some, I think in there that- - Yeah.

- That one doesn't look so good.

- No, it's a little sad, unfortunately.

But, yeah, this will either be thrown into compost.

It's a good source of nitrogen if you want to add that to your compost bin, but we will probably turn over any of the leftover spinach to kind of be given back to the soil to help us for next year.

- Right, okay.

Well, Sam, I know we're switching subjects a little bit.

You're a student here in our Horticulture department.

Tell me a little bit about what this experience of working here at the student farm has meant for you.

- Yeah, it's been really exciting.

I'm Public Horticulture, so to be involved in something that contributes to the public and seeing how it's benefited people at Our Daily Bread is really exciting and really fulfilling.

- Well, thank you for sharing this with us.

- Of course, yeah, thank you.

- Thanks.

(classical music) - [Narrator] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(classical music continues) - [Narrator] Next week, OETA will be featuring fundraising programs, but we will be back with a brand new Oklahoma Gardening show on June 17th.

(classical music continues) - Ta-da!

Just hard at work here in the garden.

All right, we're shooting this one here.

(classical music continues) - [Narrator] 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.

Join in on Facebook and Instagram.

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

Tune in to our OK Gardening Classics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts.

Oklahoma Gardening is produced by the Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service as part of the division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our studio gardens, and we encourage you to come visit this beautiful stillwater gem.

We would like to thank our generous underwriter, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

Additional support is also provided by Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants.

The Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club and the Tulsa Garden Center.

(classical music continues)