- "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.

Today on "Oklahoma Gardening," we go back to the basics and learn how important it is to play in nature.

We pair up with an OSU Soil bioremediation class to learn how plants can help improve the soil and why soil structure is so important.

Then we head over to the Tulsa Garden Center to learn more about a unique garden project.

(gentle music) It's almost like an ombre of sunset colors.

It's not the flowers, right?

(laughs) (gentle music continues) Watch out!

Don't move!

(gentle music continues) As gardeners, I'm willing to guess that a lot of you grew up playing out in nature and I did, too.

In fact, my mom tends to think I just never grew out of making mud pies.

Sometimes I wonder, if I didn't play out in nature, would I have discovered my passion for horticulture?

Well, now, as a mother of two, I'm trying to juggle technology and tripping over brightly colored toys in my house and I think back to my childhood and some of my favorite memories were just with a metal spoon out underneath some trees playing in the soil.

And my brother and I used to make up cities and scenarios that only he and I could see that were etched out in the ground.

Well, those were some of our favorite memories.

And back then it was just called playing outside.

Nowadays it's called unstructured nature play.

And with all of the influences of time and accessibility, a lot of times kids aren't getting to experience nature play as much as they used to.

But it's actually been shown in research to help with childhood development, so it's very important.

It can, in fact, help their physical activity, their cognitive development such as imagination, as well as some of their emotional and physical resilience.

But with all these benefits, it's kind of curious that we're actually seeing a decline in unstructured nature play or playing outside and among the reasons being time and safety and also just competing interests, one of the reasons is accessibility to nature.

We're here at the Botanic Garden at OSU and I just wanted to show you what the Ambassadors have come up with, called our mud kitchen.

Well, it is pretty elaborate, I have to say.

And it doesn't necessarily have to be this elaborate in order to create a space for nature play in your own backyard.

In fact, a lot of the things that you would incorporate are sticks, water, soil, dirt, sand, all the things that you probably already have in your backyard.

So you can see here we've got a pretty elaborate, thank you, bub.

We've got a pretty elaborate kitchen set up and one of the things that I wanna share with you is just go to a secondhand store and find some kitchen appliances.

And of course the ingredients are whatever natural materials that you might have.

The kids love to stir and mix and pour.

And so this is a great way to kind help their development.

And you know what?

If it gets a little messy, that's okay.

'Cause really there's not much cleanup.

- That's messy.

- It's messy over there, isn't it?

- Yeah.

- So we've got a lot going on here and I wanted to share with you about this mud kitchen.

So like I said, a tip is to go to a secondhand store and get any sort of materials that you think might hold up outside to kind of reuse those, so you're not worried- - Get some mud.

- About your fine china.

- Are going to get some mud?

- We're gonna go get some mud, definitely.

(laughs) So your ingredients that you're playing with in the mud kitchen can be everything from sand to sticks to even a bowl full of acorns that you might wanna add to the recipe.

Can I give you some of those?

(laughs) So this is just one way to sort of develop those skills that your children are developing.

And I know a lot of times kids are naturally attracted to water and sand and they might be inclined to throw the sticks and throw the rocks, but how else are they gonna learn how to skip a rock or play fetch with their dog?

So as your child is developing, make sure to put down the screens and the technology and get outside and play a little bit.

It doesn't have to be this elaborate.

Again, it can be all those different things that you might find in nature.

And, if you live in an apartment and don't have access to a space in your own backyard, make sure to visit those neighborhood parks or even your local botanical garden.

The best thing about nature play is the fact that a lot of the materials are free.

There's no right way or wrong way to do it.

It helps with childhood development.

And, of course, no batteries are necessary.

You want some acorns?

How about an acorn?

(quirky music) (laughs) Good job.

(cheerful gypsy jazz music) (music continues) (music continues) (music fades) - Pollutants, contaminants, and toxins are probably not words that come to mind when we talk about plants, but did you know that plants can actually play a very important role in cleaning up heavy metals, excessive nutrients, petroleum, pharmaceuticals, and even pesticides that might be in our soil?

And this is known as phytoremediation.

Now, we know plants are cool and they do a lot of different things, and one of the things that we know them best for is photosynthesis, where they're actually taking nutrients out of the soil, water, and sunlight, and converting that through a chemical process in order to make energy.

Now, this energy is often what we use by eating them and also animals then also eat plants to get energy.

Well, we know about photosynthesis, but through other chemical means, plants can actually also take these compounds that we have deemed either excessive or toxic in our environment and actually convert those so that they're less toxic or, in some cases, they just hold onto them to prevent them from being biologically available in their environment.

Now, all of this is called phytoremediation, but the way each plant does it is kind of unique.

Phytoextraction, or phytoaccumulation, is when heavy metals are absorbed by the roots of the plant and then moved into other inactive metabolic parts of the plant, like the plant cell wall or membrane.

Phytostabilization, or phytoimmobilization, is when the plant roots attract the contaminant and hold onto them so tightly, limiting their bioavailability and mobility, therefore reducing their toxic effect.

Rhizofiltration is similar, but focuses on plants that are growing in a saturated environment, cleaning up contaminants in bodies of water.

Cattails and water hyacinths are two examples of plants used in rhizofiltration to clean the water.

In some cases, plants can take the chemical out of the soil and turn it into a gas that is then released out of its leaves, reducing its potency.

This is known as phytovolatilization.

Phytodegradation, as you can probably guess, is when the plant takes the toxic compounds out of the soil and then degrades their toxic potential.

- Whoa, wait a minute!

It sounds so scary with heavy metals like lead and arsenic in your soil!

- Yes, but phytoremediation can also mean using salt-tolerant plants in order to make saline soils more productive once again.

In fact, there's a lot of garden plants that we know of that can actually help remove contaminants out of the soil, including garden geraniums, cockleburs, sunflowers, and even the Bermuda grass that you probably have in your own front yard.

- This sounds so good, why don't we hear more about phytoremediation?

- So as concern over our impact on the environment continues to grow, phytoremediation is getting a lot more attention because of its economical and environmental approach.

However, there are some drawbacks, and one of those being that most of the research has been done in a controlled environment.

As gardeners, we know that growing plants in a controlled environment is a lot different than growing plants out in the field.

For example, we know certain plants are only hardy in certain areas, so while one plant might actually fix a contaminant in the Southern United States, it might not actually be able to grow in the Northern United States.

Or perhaps maybe the plant can fix the contaminant in North America, but if you try to use it as a solution in Asia, there might be a natural disease or insect that prevents that plant from actually growing.

Even if you are able to get the plant to grow, they can only grow so much, and if the contaminants are outside of the root zone, they likely are going to remain uninfluenced by the plant.

If you get the right plant for the right contaminant in the right location, phytoremediation is not necessarily a quick solution, as it can take up to three to five years to see results.

Finally, although the soil may be remediated, unless the remediation involves volatilization or degradation, the toxin is now contained inside the plant, which has to be removed and managed.

So while phytoremediation is not a new concept, it is still definitely emerging.

And we often look at flowers for their aesthetic beauty, but the real beauty might be happening on the inside.

(cheerful gypsy jazz music) (music continues) (music fades) - Did you know that soil can be healthy or unhealthy?

- Well, how do I know that my soil is healthy or unhealthy?

Well, look to your garden.

If your soil is allowing plants to grow their maximum potential without disease, without pests, and without the need for more synthetic supplements, then yes you have a healthy soil.

Healthy soil is steaming with a lot of tiny creatures like bacteria, fungi, protozoa, algae, and they are very important for plant, and soil health.

Soil bacteria, for example produce antibiotics that helps plants to resist to certain disease, or soil fungi that helps plant, and assist plant to absorb water and nutrients.

Together, bacteria and fungi are known as organic matter.

My name is Barbara, and today my friends, Grace and Gabriel will show you guys through an amazing demonstration how a healthy and an unhealthy soil react after rainfall.

- Hi, my name is Grace, in the first part of our demonstration, I'm going to focus on rainfall simulation on degraded soil.

So, the flour right here is going to represent our degraded soil.

This water bottle full of orange dye is gonna represent chemicals, and then this little water bottle is going to represent rainfall.

So, completing the demonstration, I'm going to first actually spray the orange dye on our flour.

This represents chemicals on the degraded soil, and then the rainfall.

So as you can see, when it rains on degraded soil a lot of the rain is actually not absorbed by the soil, but instead runs off it, and creates more of a puddle with the orange dye.

To better represent this we are gonna pretend my finger is a plant, and I'm going to stick it in the flour.

And when I take my finger out you can see that most of it's dry.

There is a little bit of it wet, but this shows that when a plant sticks its roots into degraded soil it's not able to absorb a lot of the water, or nutrients.

Two of the biggest problems with degraded soil when rainfall occurs is that when the degraded soil is not absorbing a lot of the water, or nutrients, it causes soil erosions, and then also the runoff creates pesticide runoff into a lot of our waterways.

A huge example of this would be in the Mississippi River.

A lot of pesticide runoffs occur into the Mississippi River which then leads to the Gulf of Mexico, creating an area in the Gulf of Mexico called the Dead Zone.

This Dead Zone has a decreased amount of oxygen which kills a lot of the marine life in this area.

- Hey, I'm Gabriel, and this is the second part of our demonstration.

Here we have the bread that represents a healthy soil.

And actually a bread, and a healthy soil, they have some similarities.

In both cases, their structure are caused by microorganisms.

In the bread, we have yeast, living microorganisms that makes the bread structure, and kind of pores, and empty spaces that makes the breads fluffy.

And in the soil we have organic matter.

And this organic matter is a product from the decomposition caused by microorganisms.

Before demonstrating the rain, I will spray some color on this bread that represents chemicals that we usually spray on agriculture like pesticides, and fungicides.

And when it rains on the bread that represents a healthy soil, we're gonna see something totally different from we first saw on the flour example, because the healthy soil it will act like a sponge absorbing all of this water.

And it doesn't matter how many rain you have, the soil is able to absorb this water, and you won't see a runoff.

Did you know that beyond the structuring the soil, organic matter also has the ability to hold up to 20 times its weight in water?

It means that if we face a drought, a healthy soil will be able to hold water on it, and a healthy soil would be a water saving for plants roots.

- Now that you could visualize the difference between healthy and unhealthy soil, I'm gonna leave you guys with two very interesting facts.

First one, there can be more microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil than the people living on earth.

Microorganisms are one of the keys for soil health, and they luckily, they reproduce really, really fast.

What brings me to my second, and for me the most interesting fact.

Soil has a natural ability to self-regenerate.

By managing properly your soil, and taking actions that are aligned with soil health, we can create options for a different pathway.

Your soil can be source of clean water and air, bountiful crops, forests, grazing lands diverse wildlife, and a beautiful, and amazed landscape.

But it's up to us to take care of soil health.

(music) - Today we are here at the Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park.

And joining me again is Andy Fusco, who is the Director of Horticulture.

And Andy, there's always something going on here (chuckles).

- There definitely is.

- So we're on probably kind of a little bit of the lesser frequently visited part of the garden- - Yeah.

- The south side.

And you're really building this up.

Tell us a lot, what's going on.

- Yeah so, the area we're in right now is our Tulsa Arboretum.

It's been here since '64 and it's undergoing a major renovation right now.

Our friends at Up with Trees have been out here doing a bunch of dead-wooding, and mulching, and all kinds of sprucing up that the trees have needed for some time.

- No pun intended, sprucing up, right?

- Yeah, I try not to, but it's too easy.

- You also have a rain garden that you're looking at renovating.

Tell us a little bit about that.

- Yeah, so in the back corner of the arboretum is an older rain garden that was put there to catch a lot of the runoff from the park.

And it's needing a little bit of work as well.

And so I've been really looking at it and trying to figure out what kind of plants we wanna put in there.

And then I got an idea after visiting with some of the folks at part of our Oklahoma Mycological Society.

And they were telling me that you can actually inoculate garden areas with garden mushrooms.

- Oh!

- And I thought that would be a great place to showcase some of that.

- [Host] Yeah, and it really supports one of your societies too.

- [Andy] Yeah, yeah.

The Mycological Society is one of our fledgling societies.

They're young but mighty.

And they know way more about that kind of stuff than I do.

- So what are you gonna find in a mushroom garden?

That's not a typical garden we find around here.

- So normally when we see mushrooms in the garden we kind of get worried.

But you can actually put some beneficial mushrooms in, like our mycorrhizal stuff that is beneficial for our roots.

- Right.

- But then there's some others like King Stropharia I here is a good one.

And it's just another fun thing to grow in your garden.

Sometimes they're edible, sometimes they're not.

Sometimes they're just fun additions to that native ecosystem in our backyard.

- So Andy are growing mushrooms in Oklahoma that easy?

- That's what I hear.

We're gonna try some garden mushrooms in our rain garden area, but you can even grow them in a bag in your kitchen, or other dark area of your house.

- Cool.

- Actually, one of our society members is in the teaching garden doing a demonstration right now.

You wanna go check it out?

- Yeah, definitely.

Hi, Jack.

- Hey.

- I heard you've got a demonstration set up for us.

- Yep.

- Tell me a little bit about what you're doing here.

So what I've got today is Gold Oyster spawn.

- Okay.

- And what we'll be doing is making a grow bag.

- Okay.

- I've also got- - Now, I know you can buy these, but you're making your own.

- Yes.

- (laughing) Cool.

- Yep, yeah.

This is a good method for at home cultivators- - Okay.

- to grow their own mushrooms.

I have some aspen wood shavings right here.

- Okay.

- And what we'll be doing is layering these wood shavings and the Gold Oyster spawn.

- Okay.

- This is myceliated millit right into this bag.

- So all of this is just different products that you can buy in order to- - Yes.

- incorporate 'em together.

Okay.

- Yep.

I got all of this online.

- Okay, all right.

- It's just the grow bag, the spawn, the substrate, and then I'll be wiping my hands down with some 70% isopropyl alcohol.

- Okay.

- Just to make sure everything stays sterile.

- Okay, excellent.

'Cause you are gonna be eating these, right, later?

- Yes.

- So we wanna make sure we're not growing anything else (chuckles).

- Yep, exactly.

- So tell me a little bit about yourself and how you got into this.

- Well, when I was about 14 or 15, I was really interested in foraging mushrooms and edible plants out in the wild.

And one day I just decided I would grow my own, try my hand at growing some.

- Uh-huh.

- And I really enjoyed the process and so I just kept on getting into it.

And it kind of spiraled into an obsession.

- And now you volunteer here and kind of are helping with the new garden they're trying to establish.

- Yep.

- That's awesome.

- Yeah.

- All right, so what's the first step?

- So the first step, I'm gonna add a layer of these aspen wood shavings.

- Okay.

- And I'm gonna squeeze them to make sure no water drips out.

- Okay.

- And that's called field capacity.

And that's the proper moisture conditions for the substrate for mycelium to grow.

- And did you use just regular tap water or do you use any special water for that?

- Yep, yeah.

This is just regular tap water.

I boiled it and I poured it over these shavings.

- Okay.

- And I left it overnight to pasteurize it, just to kill off any microbes that might want to compete with the mycelium.

- Okay, excellent.

- Okay, so now that I've got that first layer of substrate in there, I can add a layer of this Gold Oyster spawn.

- [Host] And it's kind of off that chalkiness to it.

So that's the spawn that's on the millet seed?

- Yeah, exactly.

- Okay.

- All right, so I just wanna sprinkle a thin layer in there.

- Okay.

- Then I can go ahead and add another layer of substrate.

- All right, so we're just doing a layering effect here.

- Yep, just like making a lasagna.

- All right.

So how much would one of these bags actually produce for you?

- I'd say, well, it depends on like for example, what substrate you're using.

- Okay.

- Depends on how much you actually pack in the bag.

- But probably with this aspen shavings, up to a pound.

- Oh, wow.

- Let's say.

Yeah, and it can produce probably at least three flushes.

So as you harvest, it'll grow again.

The harvest keeps on growing, all right.

- So if you really like mushrooms this might be the way to go.

It might be cheaper, huh?

(laughs) - Yep, it's always best to do it yourself, I think.

- And you can kind of control and know what you're getting that way.

- Exactly, yeah.

You can choose when to harvest, all kinds of stuff.

- Now, I noticed this little- What is this little patch here on the side of this?

- So this is an air filter.

We probably won't be using this.

I'll just poke some holes for air exchange.

But yeah, a lot of the times, if people have like a sealer you can seal this up.

And that will be the method of air exchange.

Yep.

Okay, so now that we've layered the substrate with the remainder of the spawn, I'm just gonna add one final layer of substrate.

And then we can close off the bag and add some drainage holes and some holes for air exchange.

So we got that last layer here.

- So you've got a lot of moisture in there but you still need that air in order for it to actually start growing.

- Yeah, exactly.

- So I guess the nice thing about building your own bag, you can kind of create your own size depending on how much you might eat.

(laughs) - Yep.

So I've got a zip tie right here and I'm just gonna close off the bag with this zip tie.

Then my seedlings' also gonna need to breathe inside of this bag.

So I'll add a few holes in the sides for airflow.

And once it's colonized the substrate, the mushrooms will actually fruit right out of these air holes.

Yep.

- So just those small holes will be enough?

You don't have to make a bigger window for 'em or anything like that.

- No, yeah, they can fruit out of some pretty small holes.

All right, so we're just gonna finish off these air holes and this is our finished product.

- All right!

So we will have mushrooms growing out of this pretty soon.

How long will it take?

- So what you'll want to do is put that in a dark area just kind of like a closet, you could put it on top of your fridge or something like that.

And it'll take about two weeks for the mycelia to fully colonize this substrate.

And then once it's fully colonized, you can add it anywhere with ambient light, just kind of spray it with water every once in a while.

And you should have mushrooms growing out of those holes after a week or two.

- All right.

So then we can start harvesting those when they're kind of the appropriate size for the mushroom.

- Yeah.

- Excellent, Well, this is so fascinating.

Thank you for sharing this, Jack.

I appreciate your passion for this.

- Thank you.

Yep.

(cheerful guitar music) - [Announcer] There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

(Cheerful guitar music) Next week we finish bringing in the last of the harvest.

So join us right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

(cheerful guitar music) - [Parent Offscreen] Say "Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening!"

(indistinct talking and laughter offscreen) (cheerful guitar music) - [Announcer] 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, 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 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 Pond Pro Shop, Greenleaf Nursery, and by Garden Debut Plants, the Tulsa Garden Center at Woodward Park, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, Smart Pot, and the Tulsa Garden Club.

(cheerful guitar music)