(gentle bright music) - Welcome to a brand new episode of Oklahoma Gardening.

It's spring and the redbuds are popping with color.

The Botanic Garden Manager shares with us a little tool that has helped him this spring.

We visit the OSU Student Farm to see how they are protecting their crop as we transition out of winter.

I found something in the garden that I wanted to share with you and then we head down to visit Mike Anderson to learn about plastic culture with a new look and growing sweet potato slips.

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

Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

Shape Your Future provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

I love sharing with you guys the cool things that plants can do.

(triumphant bright music) We're back here at the Student Farm.

I wanna share with you a tropical plant that you might find in some Oklahoma landscapes.

It's important to know which plants we are dealing with so that we can continue to maintain them successfully for years to come.

(triumphant bright music) Here in Oklahoma, we've always had a fond appreciation for our redbuds.

But the horticulture industry over the last couple of decades has definitely recognized redbuds as well.

And in fact, they've released several new cult of ours.

Behind me here is one of those known as the Rising Sun, and this was actually selected from some collected seeds that were planted in 2004.

So the parentage is a little unknown on this, but it was identified by Cindy and Ray Jackson of Jackson Nursery in Tennessee.

And the reason why they selected this particular seedling that they were growing was because of this new growth that comes out with this beautiful apricot foliage.

You can see as that new foliage begins to develop and mature, it turns to more of a bronze color than a chart color.

And eventually those leaves mature to their traditional green color.

So in addition to those pink spring flowers that you get, you also get this nice foliage throughout the season.

And in fact, because it will continue to put on new leaves, you have that kind of ombre effect or that transition of all of those colors being on this plant at the same time.

Now it's known also because it's very drought and resistant.

You can see we have it here in full sun, and it's doing quite well.

It's been growing here for several years because sometimes they can be more of an understory or part shaped tree.

But this one is done just fine here for us in full sun.

The nice thing about this is it's gonna cap out about eight to 12 feet tall.

And so it's a good small tree for most landscapes.

So if you're looking to add a little bit of foliage color as well as those spring blossoms, you might consider the Rising Sun cultivar.

Now while the Rising Sun redbud is hardy from zones four to eight, here we have one that's called or known as Flame Thrower.

And this particular one is hardy from zones five to nine.

So it's still well within our Oklahoma hardiness zone.

And you can see this too offers quite a unique rainbow effect on the foliage as well.

In fact, Flame Thrower is a hybrid between the one that we just saw, the Rising Sun, and one known as Ruby Falls, which is a burgundy kind of weeping redbud.

And so you can see because of that cross, we've got a much more intense burgundy new growth that then kind of fades into more of a chartreuse lime color behind it.

Again, setting off quite a unique contribution as far as the foliage color that we get throughout the season.

And again, you're gonna also see that you have these red petals that are a nice accent against those chartreuse colors as well.

You'll still get those rosy pink flowers in the spring.

The other thing to keep in mind about both of these hybrids is that they are still our native genus species, Cercis canadensis.

So like our native redbuds that we find often growing around the kind of understory or the edge of the forest, they can appreciate that partial shade, especially in the hotter climates.

However, they do like to have some sun exposure.

We have it planted on the west side of some pine trees, and this particular one is gonna get bigger than the Rising Sun.

So actually it'll get to be about 15 to 20-feet tall with about a 10 to 15-foot spread, which you might be thinking, well, this is kind of a small area that we've planted it in amongst these pine trees here.

However, I will say that we're sort of succession planting.

We're planning for the future because these pine trees are.

- Quite old, and we have seen some decay.

In fact, we lost one last year, and we've got some others that we're keeping an eye on.

And so it's gonna take some time before this one actually gets to that mature height.

So we're going ahead and planting it, getting it established, while it still has that kind of protected environment.

But eventually knowing that these red buds might, or excuse me, these pine trees might come down, and it'll allow for this red bud to have more room to grow.

But both of them are moderate sized trees, and a great addition to your Oklahoma landscape.

(cheerful guitar music) - I've got a new seed starting tool today that we have started using at the botanic garden quite regularly.

So it is a handheld precision seeder.

Sometimes you have seed that's really, really small, or seed that's really expensive, or maybe you only have 10 very rare seeds, and you wanna make sure that every single seed makes it where it's supposed to go.

So I use this precision seeder for those kind of instances.

So what you do is that it has several needle nose tips on it, and you select the appropriate size tip for your seed, place it on, let all of the air out by squeezing, place it so that you can pick up your seed, and gently start letting that air suck in.

It'll suck the seed up onto the needle nose, and you'll be able to place it exactly where you want it to.

And then with just a little bit of a squeeze, it'll let go of that pressure, and place the seed precisely in the hole.

So if you are looking for a tool to help with seeding, if you're seeding precision, if you have expensive seed, or maybe even if you have a little bit of dexterity issues, and you need help picking up the seed, something like a mini handheld precision seeder would be perfect for you.

(cheerful guitar music) - It's late winter, early spring, and we are back here at the student farm at OSU, and joining me is the manager, Lynda Carrier.

And Lynda, as we know, yesterday it was 85.

Today we're experiencing a little bit cooler temperatures today.

- Definitely.

Yes.

- So you guys have some cool season crops, so let's talk a little bit about what you've got going, and how you're protecting, and mitigating those temperature swings.

- Okay, yeah, because we do have the Oklahoma weather where it's 80 one day and 20 the next, we'd like to have them covered just in case it gets really cold.

These are cool season crops, so they can handle some cold.

Last week we were supposed to have a low of about 28, and I think it got down to 22.

So it did bite some of these pretty good.

But they will come back.

The new growth on 'em is good and it looks good.

- [Host] So as long as you're just seeing a little burn on the leaves, you're okay.

- [Lynda] Right, yeah.

- [Host] But as far as the crown, it's still green and good.

- Yeah, so in case that should happen again where we get a really cold snap.

- And likely will.

- Yeah, we likely will.

(host laughs) And last year, you know, we thought well, we'll be okay.

And the kids all left for spring break, and we had a really cold snap come in, and Matt and I were out here, and we covered eight rows pretty much by ourselves.

We had a little help from the botanic garden students, (host laughs) but, and shoveling this was a chore.

- Not an easy task, is it?

- No, no.

I was a little sore.

(both laugh) - So let's talk about, you know, the materials you're using here for these low tunnels is what they're called?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Low tunnels or row covers?

- Yeah.

Either row covers, low tunnels.

Yeah, uh-huh.

- Okay.

- So what are we using here?

Is that thin plastic?

- Yeah, it's got, it's perforated.

It has holes in it.

And that's good for the ventilation, because when you do have the hot days, you need that to vent out so you don't cook 'em under there.

- [Host] Right.

- [Lynda] And then it still provides enough protection on the cold days that it keeps it warm enough.

so it has a dual purpose there.

- So if anybody's using just solid plastic or something like that, you know, I mean, it could be just 60 degrees, and it could get really hot inside of there.

So you wanna make sure to open 'em up.

- Definitely so.

- With these holes, it allows that.

- Uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, definitely so.

- So let's talk, you've got the sides buried.

Is that to help seal in that temperature?

- Yes.

- Or what is the purpose for that?

- [Lynda] The purpose of that is to keep the plastic from blowing away.

- [Host] Okay.

- [Lynda] Because, and that's, I've told when we cover these back up, you've gotta make sure you cover every inch of that that's on the sides, 'cause any little opening that gets wind under it, that hole, it'll rip it off.

- [Linda] You get a, you know, 40 mile an hour wind like we do in Oklahoma, and it'll just, it'll tear all this off and it'll be down the street.

- A nice kite.

- Yeah, yep (laughing).

- So you've kind of changed your method from last year.

- Right.

- You and Matt doing it solo for the most part.

- Yeah.

- Learned a few lessons, right?

- We did.

One thing we found out is when we make our raised beds, we, you know, it pulls all that dirt up, and then the tire tracks kind of leave it compacted on the sides.

And then we go back over those sides again with a tractor when we're transplanting, so your sides of the beds get really hard and firm.

And last year, Matt and I shoveled and shoveled, and it's so hard that it was very difficult to do.

So we decided this year we're gonna come up with a way to loosen the sides.

So we took an old cultivator and kind of revamped it where it was a little five-row cultivator, and we took the three middle rows out and left the two on the outside, and actually made 'em the right distance to where we could go down the sides of the bed and easily loosen that soil up.

- [Casey] Oh, okay.

- [Linda] And that has made a world of difference as far as being able to cover the sides.

- [Casey] Okay, so it sort of pre-dug it for you a little bit.

- Yeah, yeah.

- [Casey] And then you still have to go with a shovel and then put it over the plastic.

- You do, yeah.

But now you've got loose soil and clumps of soil that are so much easier to get over the plastic.

- [Casey] Right, right, okay.

So we've just got some thin metal rods- - Wire hoops, yeah.

- Wire hoops under here.

- [Linda] Yeah, uh-huh.

- [Casey] And every five, six feet, basically to support this?

- Yep, exactly, yeah.

- Okay.

- [Linda] So, and they come in pieces that are probably, I think they're about five or six feet long.

And then we just stab 'em on one side and then go over to the other side and make our little hoop around them, and- - So how long will you likely be leaving this out here?

Till April 15th, or- - Probably.

- Beyond then?

- Yeah.

I would say close to April 15th, just depending on the weather.

If the forecast looks like it's gonna be real warm, we might remove them a little sooner.

- [Casey] Okay.

- But yeah, we'll probably leave them on as long as we can.

- All right, well it looks like the plants are happy under there.

- Yeah.

- And I know we need some more protection ourselves out here today.

- Yes, definitely.

It's cold out today.

(Casey laughing) - Thank you so much, Linda, for sharing this with us.

- Sure thing.

You're welcome.

(upbeat music) - You guys, I just wanted to tell you about this little guy that I just found in the garden.

And it looks like a little alligator I always think, but this is actually a ladybug larva.

They don't look anything really like a ladybug.

They are black and they sort of have some orange spots on the side of them.

But this is the good guy right here.

So if you see this and you're not familiar with a ladybug larvae, and it kind of freaks you out a little bit, please don't, let them be.

We're gonna put this guy back out in the garden, because these are the ones that are really eating all the aphids that you might find in your garden.

So that's really what they're doing.

In fact, it's this juvenile state that eats more aphids than the actual adult lady beetles do themselves.

So this is a good guy and we'll put him back in the garden.

(country music) Today we're back with a familiar friend, Micah Anderson, who is an extension horticulture educator at Langston University.

But we're actually in Micah's personal yard today.

Micah, thank you for having us here.

I always love learning from you.

- Well, thanks for coming.

Yeah, this is my garden here.

The soil is a little heavy, but we're gonna keep working on it and try to keep making it better.

- So we're just north of Piedmont, so people kind of have an understanding of where we're at and what kind of soil and environment we're working with.

But one of the things that you are sort of experimenting with this year, you've always done plasticulture, we've done several segments with you about plasticulture.

- Mm-hmm.

- But the colors look a little Christmasy this year.

(both laughing) Tell us why you're experimenting with these colors.

- Okay, so in plasticulture you can get a lot of different, you can get different colors.

We have some red over here, which is supposed to be good for strawberries and tomatoes, and that the strawberries could be somewhat sweeter and higher production.

And also on tomatoes to get a higher production.

And we did do some stuff on red, back when I was at the Department of Ag.

And it seemed like we did get higher production on tomatoes, but I never did it with strawberries.

- Okay.

And I've heard of that using different red color underneath tomatoes before, so there is a little more research with that.

Is the red plastic very similar to the black plastic?

Or has there been any issues with that?

- Yeah, well it's a little different.

- If you hold it up to the sun, you can see through it.

And what we found out when we done it with the tomatoes before, we got a lot of grass growing under it.

So what I'm doing now when I do red or green, and both of them is the same issue, as I'm putting black underneath it.

And so these have black underneath there, so I won't get any vegetation growing underneath that.

- So it's a two layer of plastic that way.

All right.

And so what is the green about?

- So the green, what I read was that it could be good for cucurbits, cantaloupes get higher production, even maybe watermelons and cucumbers.

So right now I've got cold crops planted here, some cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower.

And when that comes out, I'm going to put the cantaloupes and the cucumbers in there.

- So there's not any necessarily effect on the cool season crops.

You just are utilizing it while you have it here, right?

- Yeah, there's nothing that I read on that I know of on the cool crop, but what we did do is we put cabbage here, cabbage there, broccoli, we put some on both just to see if there's any difference.

- All right.

And of course you got, it looks like a frost blanket on because we're in that time of year when you never know what's gonna happen, right?

- Yeah, we planted these plants, it got down to 25 degrees and 40 mile an hour wind that night.

So we covered them up.

And then it blew off some of it back here and we totally lost them.

But the ones that just stayed covered seemed like they may make it.

- Okay, and there's different types.

This is one that's a little bit more of the woven type, not perforated, but it is woven kind of a spun material.

- And there's different thicknesses.

This one here is a very light one.

It only gives you about three degrees, three to four degrees.

There's heavier ones that gives you five or six degrees of protection.

- So this, do you have to take this off pretty regularly, or can you leave this on?

Will it actually hold too much heat in there?

- I just left it on, we usually leave it on, but now since this is a cold crop, once I take it off, I'm gonna leave it off.

But the main reason I had it on there because it hadn't got rooted.

And 25 degrees is pretty cold.

- All right.

Well Micah, thank you so much for sharing this with us and we look forward to hearing more about the plasticulture.

- Yeah, we'll definitely let you know how it goes.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - So Micah, looks like you got some sweet potatoes laid out here.

It's a little early in the season to be planting them.

But we've got another project, tell me a little bit about it.

- So this is a setup to a bed of sweet potatoes to grow sweet potato slips to replant in my garden later or to sell slips.

So we laid out four different varieties here.

- So let's talk a little bit about the varieties.

This one looks like a white one, obviously, that you have here.

- Yeah.

This one is called Bonita.

It's a white sweet potato.

And as we see, very white.

- [Host] Got a white flesh to it.

- They're very good.

Very sweet.

- Now at this point, these sweet potatoes, they are last year's crop, is that correct?

So they're a little wilted down, kind of dried out looking, and you're really growing these just for the vegetative slips that are gonna be produced off of this?

- Right, right, these are sweet potatoes that I harvested in this garden in this area right here last year.

And we ate off of them through the winter and we stored them in the garage.

And we actually actually cooked some last week, - So they're still edible, but at this point, you've got your kind of stock here.

Tell me a little bit about what the process of growing sweet potato slips is really.

- What you usually want to do is you wanna make a bed and you want to put compost, some good composted material in there.

We put some rabbit litter in here.

We put some really good soil, the Fox farm soil, we mix that in there.

And so that is gonna, because they're gonna put roots down, and that gives them energy to keep producing more slips as the season goes on.

- Okay, and a slip is basically a vegetative growth that comes off of these and you just pull those off, and then sometimes they'll have roots attached, sometimes they won't.

But then that's what you plant, right, for your actual sweet potato production for next season?

- Exactly.

So we'll pull these slips off of these and we'll plant them or we'll put them in a sand dune or something until we get ready to plant them and they'll just keep putting more slips on.

Usually in a week's time when you pull the slips, by another week they'll have more slips.

And so you can plant sweet potatoes from May all the way to probably July, through the end of July.

Unless, there's some varieties that are 100 days, but most of these are like 70, 80 days.

And so you do need to kind of know that.

- But that would be too late to start your slip.

So that's why February, March is really when you wanna start this process.

So we've got a couple more, these look a little more of a red type.

- [Micha] Yeah, these is the Becca.

- Purple.

- Okay.

- [Micah] Which is what you have in your hand.

- [Casey] A nice purple one.

And you've actually got some of these... Oh yeah, it's a beautiful color there.

You've actually got some of the slips already starting, just that little bit of vegetation growing there.

- [Micah] Mm-hmm.

- So how long do you wait for those to come up?

How long will those get before you actually go through and pull those?

- We want 'em to grow about eight inches or so.

- Okay.

- To, you know, tall.

And then you'll pull 'em off and then let 'em grow some more.

- Okay, all right.

- Mm-hmm.

- So what are these last two varieties that we have here?

- [Micah] This one here is a called a Murasaki, and it's another white sweet potato.

- [Casey] Oh, okay.

But it's got a red skin to it then?

- [Micah] Yeah, it's very red on the outside.

- [Casey] Okay.

- And it's almost as red as the Becca Purple, but it's white inside.

- Okay.

And then your last one looks like a orange one here.

- It's just a orange sweet potato that most people are pretty familiar with.

It's called Covington.

- [Casey] Yeah, that's the little more traditional look that we're often- - [Micah] Yeah, traditional sweet potato.

- [Casey] So when you're growing slips like this, they're planted pretty close together.

There's not as much concern about spacing obviously, or anything like that 'cause you're just wanting that vegetation, right?

- Right, exactly.

And, yeah, you don't want 'em to run too much 'cause then they'll...

I don't want 'em to run into the other ones 'cause then I won't know which ones are which.

- [Casey] Okay.

- But, I separated them a little bit so I could tell which ones I'm getting.

- The varieties, okay.

So now what's the process?

Are we gonna bury these and then- - Yeah.

- These are a tropical plant too.

- Yeah.

- And it's March, so- - [Micah] So what we are gonna do is we're gonna put some good soil on top of 'em.

- [Casey] Okay.

- [Micah] And then we'll run the drip tape down through here.

And then we will build a little mini hoop house over top of 'em so when the sun hits that hoop house, it warms it up even more.

- [Casey] Okay.

- [Micah] And it'll cause 'em to grow the slips.

- [Casey] So how long do you think it will be before you get some slips that you can harvest from?

- I think since we're planting the 1st of March here, we're probably gonna have slips probably at least by the middle of April.

- Okay.

- Maybe before.

- Okay, so you'll be almost garden ready to then just go ahead and put them straight into the garden at that point?

- Yeah.

- Your slips?

- Mm-hmm.

- Okay, all right.

Well Micah, thank you for showing this and I guess we'll finish this project up, huh?

- Okay, all right.

(bright orchestral music) - [Casey] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(orchestral music continues) Next week on "Oklahoma Gardening," I'll share with you five ways to have a successful garden this season.

We wanna congratulate former "Oklahoma Gardening" host, Steve Dobbs on his recent retirement from OSU as the Director of Landscape Services.

Thank you, Steve, for all that you've done for OSU.

(orchestral music continues) 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.

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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 in 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 underwriters, the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, and Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

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.

(orchestral music continues)