- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

This week we learn about bats in the home garden.

David Hillock has the late blooming Oklahoma proven perennial.

We visit the OSU Student Farm as they bring in a sweet harvest.

And finally, we are taking you behind the scenes of filming as we start planting bulbs for next spring.

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.

Oklahoma Gardening 50th anniversary.

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

- People in Oklahoma love their gardens.

- I feel like this is the People's Show.

We all know we're working towards the common goal, and that's to produce the best quality television and information for our audience.

It's been a while since we've talked about bats here in Oklahoma.

And joining me is Mark Turner.

And Mark, thank you so much for sharing a little bit today with us.

So you're in the natural resource Ecology and Management Department, so bats are in your wheelhouse, right?

- Absolutely.

Yeah.

So - What are some of the basics that we need to know about bats?

- Yeah.

So bats are, are really interesting animals.

They're actually flying mammals.

Okay.

So they're, they're obviously different from birds.

So they're, they're really unique in that way.

Oklahoma's actually got over 20 species of bats, and, and most all those are predominantly insect eating bats.

Okay.

In fact, bats can eat over 600 insects in an hour.

- Oh, wow.

- And so obviously if you, you like sitting out in the garden and, and sitting out during the summertime, that's a huge thing.

If you've got much, many mosquitoes in your yard - And they're fun to watch too.

- Absolutely.

They're, they're really fun to watch.

They used this thing called echolocation to feed, so that's kinda like sonar.

They can detect insects in that way.

So it's nice for sitting out in the garden.

It's also nice in terms of agricultural production, they actually contribute about $3.7 billion worth of insect control annually.

Wow.

So whether you like just sitting outside and not getting eaten up by mosquitoes or you like having good agricultural production, they, they contribute a lot.

- Okay.

And we need to get rid of that myth.

Right.

None of these bats are gonna attack you.

Right?

- That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's a lot of association of, of bats with, with them attacking you or them having gra bees.

Certainly, we don't like picking up bats, but Right.

You know, as long as - You're any wild animals.

- Exactly.

It's the same as if you had any sort of wild animal or even a stray dog or a cat.

So if you leave them alone, let 'em do their job, they're really fun to watch that, that, you know, I love sitting out in the evening and watching bats fluttering around in the air while they're feeding.

So yeah.

They, they contribute a lot - And they're all across our state.

Different species.

Right.

So - That's correct.

Okay.

That's correct.

- So, so tell us a little bit if we're wanting to kind of invite them into our garden a little bit more, how do we do that?

- Yeah, so there's been several things that have, that have hurt Several bat species populations, things like destruction and closing up of caves.

In some places, there's, there's not enough dead standing trees that bats will use to, to raise their young during the summertime.

And so some of the things that we can think about doing, obviously, again, bats eat insects.

So we can think about maybe reducing insecticide use.

Also just encouraging native plants.

Native plants tend to have more insects that use them.

So that's, that's gonna be beneficial for bats.

But then one other thing that we can think about doing would be putting up bat boxes.

Okay.

That's kind of an easy thing for a lot of homeowners to do.

And, and certainly, you know, if you have dead standing trees on, on parts of your property that are maybe a little ways away from your house, you could leave those standing as well.

But in closer to your house, obviously you might not want that.

And so bat boxes offer a good opportunity to provide areas for bats to roost.

Okay.

Without having a dead tree there right next to your house - And there's different style of the bat boxes, what in particular should we be looking for?

- That's right.

So typically the bigger, the better.

- Okay.

- If you have bigger bat boxes, they tend to retain temperature, moderate temperature better.

So, so bats are really sensitive to both being too cold as well as being too hot.

Obviously here in Oklahoma, we tend to deal more with them being a little bit too hot.

So we like light colored boxes, but relatively large boxes are good.

It's also not a bad idea to put a few up, maybe some that are facing more to the north to stay cooler with others facing more to the south to stay a little bit warmer.

The other thing to think about is placement.

You know, potentially putting them out maybe 20 to 30 feet away from any trees.

Obviously the, some birds of prey can live in those trees and they, they might prey on the bat, so you want to give 'em a little bit of space from that.

You also wanna put 'em about 10 to 20 feet off, off the ground.

Okay.

Because that allows the bats when they drop out of there to be able to fly out easily.

Okay.

You can put them on structures, but the, the best thing to do is to put it on, on a post out in your yard - Because they kind of just fall out of the nest like that.

That's, - And so That's right.

Yeah.

They gotta have at least, at least 10 feet, if not a little bit more when they're, they're pitching down to be able to, to get, get up and moving.

- Okay.

So I would imagine you wouldn't want a lot of vegetation cover underneath that post or anything.

- That's too, right?

That's right.

You want it relatively low, low growth and, and yeah.

That's, that's a, that's a good easy option for folks that, you know, are wanting bats to use their property, but maybe don't want 'em either in their attic or, or somewhere else that they're gonna be - Negative.

Gotcha.

Okay.

So, no, I mean, the insects are their food in most cases.

A lot of cases.

Yep.

And so there's nothing we can do other than putting up a house to sort of bait them in.

Right.

Is that - That's right.

Yeah.

Like I said, I mean, the native plants are help.

Yeah.

But, but really, you know, putting up the house there, there are bats, again, different species all across Oklahoma, and for most folks, you know, you're gonna see bats in and around your property, and if you put up a house in a good spot, maybe they'll choose to use it.

And you can have that roost on your property.

- Well, I know a lot of people use purple martin houses Right.

To kind of entice and eat some of the mosquitoes.

But this is sort of your nighttime - Exactly.

- Mosquito eater.

Right, - Exactly.

Yeah.

- And they are nocturnal, right?

- So they're Yes.

- Not gonna be bothering us during the daytime.

- Right.

That's exactly right.

Yeah.

I mean, it's, it's not an issue to see a bat out in, in the early morning or in the evening, but, but certainly you're not gonna see them out during the middle of the day or anything like that.

They're gonna stay, stay in their roost and then, and then go, go out and feed at night.

- Excellent.

Well, for our viewers, is there any resources that we could direct them to that maybe would have some more information about different species in Oklahoma?

- Absolutely.

So, Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation has an excellent field guide to bat species in Oklahoma on their website that we can link in.

And that's a, that's a really great resource for folks to, to look at the different types of bats that we have here in the state.

- Excellent.

Thank you so much for sharing this with us, mark.

- Absolutely.

Thank you.

- Every year we like to offer garden gift ideas for Christmas and this year's number one gift idea for gardeners is the Oklahoma Gardening Eskimo Joe's t-shirt.

Make sure you get one before the season ends.

- Today we're highlighting our Oklahoma proven perennial for this year.

This is one of the many sunflowers that we have that grow native throughout the U.S.

and this one here is called swamp sunflower, or narrow leaf sunflower and tus and gua fos.

And this is a native to eastern, the eastern half of the us.

It starts eastern Oklahoma, up into Missouri, down to Texas, and then goes all the way over to Florida and, and New York.

So it's a very tough, very hearty, cold tolerant plant.

It, it's good up to zones five and down to zones nine.

It is, as you can see, grows really tall.

So it, and its native habitat, it, it grows in moist to occasionally wet soils.

So, you know, great for rain garden or maybe growing along a pond or other wet or moist areas in the landscape.

It'll tolerate drier soils as long as you can provide a little supplemental irrigation to it during the hot driest part of the summer.

Under good irrigation and, and good conditions.

It can get as like this one here, six to eight foot high.

But the thing I love about them the most are these beautiful golden yellow daisy like flowers that bloom so late in the season.

So these bloom into, depending on where you're at, midsummer, but really late summer.

And then all the way through October and into early November, I've had some of these in my yard and they were, they still bloom like crazy.

They're just gorgeous in the late fall, like around Halloween even.

They're still blooming.

So it's a really great plant.

The leaves, as you can see, are very thin, almost needle-like.

And they're also really rough, kind of feel like sandpaper.

I really like this plant because it's a native and because it puts on such a nice show late in the season.

Now this one here, we, you see, we've already got a couple planted and we're gonna go ahead and put this one in the ground.

It's a good size plant.

It's got a good root system on it.

We've dug a hole that's no deeper than the plant, the root ball itself.

It does have some roots that we're circling around inside the pot.

We're gonna pull some of those out, tease 'em a little bit so that it, they will grow vertically, horizontally out, away from the root ball.

If you don't do that, if, if it's a really root bound plant, then there's a good chance that those roots will just kind of stay in that little ball and won't grow much out into the soil.

So, eh, that's about right there.

So we're going to go ahead and back fill, got some nice, nice loose soil here.

Like I say, it'll tolerate some wet feet, so we kind of have it at a lower portion of the garden where hopefully it'll, we'll get some nice moisture that comes off the, the hillside here and keep it nice and happy.

So this is a fantastic pollinator plant being a native, it's a great source for pollinators.

The seed provide food for songbirds and small mammals.

So this is an excellent plant.

Again, the heianthus gustafolius swamp sunflower, ordinarily leaf sunflower.

Give it a try.

I think you'll love it.

- Well it's time to harvest sweet potatoes at the student farm.

And so we're gonna talk about how to get the sweet potatoes from the field to the table.

So Linda, tell us about how did you know when it was ready time to harvest our sweet potatoes here at the student farm?

- Okay, well we always try to, you definitely wanna harvest them before it freezes.

'cause you do not want the vines to get froze and that will cause the potatoes to rot and you have all kinds of trouble.

So this year we noticed that they were har, they were getting some size to 'em.

They were getting big.

And this was back in earlier September.

So we decided to go ahead and get 'em harvested as a little bit earlier this year.

Last year we waited till close to a freeze and we were hurrying up to get 'em outta the field.

- So what's the first step when it's ready to harvest?

Yeah.

- First thing is, is we gotta cut the vines off.

Okay.

So we mow the vines down and get them all mowed down.

We actually came back in a few days later and any of the vines that were still connected to the potatoes, we went and clipped 'em off.

- Get 'em out of there.

- Yep.

- Okay.

- Yep.

And so we let 'em kind of dry out and dry down, quit the irrigation on 'em.

- So you're cutting those vines, but you're not immediately harvesting.

You're gonna let 'em sit in the - Field for a minute?

- Yeah.

Okay.

- Yeah.

That will help toughen up the skin, which is really good for when we take the potato digger in.

We don't want the skins to get all beat up, so, so yeah, we'll go ahead and let 'em sit in the field and let that skin toughen a little bit.

- Okay.

- For about two weeks.

So, - So you had some help, you didn't do all this by hand.

You had what you called a potato digger.

Yes.

So tell me how that works.

- Yeah.

Okay.

The potato digger is attachment to the tractor and will go behind the row and it kind of shakes and vibrates the, the potatoes up out of the ground and then it puts 'em on the surface, - Brings them right up.

- Yep.

And so then from there we have to go down and use our crates and, and put 'em all in the crates and then bring them back to here and, and we'll start our curing process.

- How much do you think you harvested this year with your - About 4,000 pounds.

- About 4,000 pounds.

So that's quite a few potatoes, right?

- Yeah, it's a lot of potatoes.

Yeah.

- Okay.

So how do we get 'em ready?

- Okay.

- To come to your table.

- Okay.

So what we'll do is after we get 'em into a building somewhere, somewhere where we can control our heat and humidity.

- And we have one of those here, right?

- Yeah.

We've got two coolers here.

And so we took one of 'em and decided to make it hot because - You took the cooler but you made it hot.

- Exactly, yeah.

- How hot did it get?

- 90 degrees.

- Okay.

That's - Hot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So we did put a little heater in there and we also put a humidifier in there because you need high humidity too.

You need between - High heat, high humidity.

Yeah.

So what's the target ranges?

- 85 to 90 degrees temperature.

Okay.

And about 85 to 90% humidity.

- Okay.

So - Yeah.

- So how long do they need to stay in that temperature, in that humidity?

- Okay.

Depending on how hot you get it in the humidity, usually about five days to about two weeks.

- Okay.

- So if you don't get your heat as high, it's gonna take closer to two weeks probably.

- Alright.

So they're gonna sit in there and cure and do their thing.

- Yep.

- How do you know when they're ready?

- Okay.

A good question because you have to kind of look at how the skin is, and I can kind of show you just here on some of these, the skin gets tougher where when you rub it, it shouldn't peel off.

- Okay.

- You feel how firm they are too.

'cause that's a good indicator that they're ready and, and as they're in the curing process, they're sweetening, so the starches turn to sugars.

And so the other way of knowing is how sweet they are by actually tasting them.

- Okay.

I like that way.

- Yeah.

- And so, so that's important this process, not just for curing so that you can keep them - Right, - But also for that taste.

- Yes.

To - Be the - Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

- A very important step then, - Right?

Yes it is.

Yeah.

And their shelf life will be much longer once they've gone through the curing - Process.

Okay.

So you get these cured ready for the home.

How long can you keep them?

- I had some that almost made it a full year, - Is that right?

- Yeah, you do need to keep 'em in a dry dark place.

Okay.

Probably a pantry or something like that.

And with good airflow, you can't have 'em in like a plastic baggie or anything like that.

They need to be ventilated.

So yeah.

- Okay.

In the old days we'd say keep 'em in the root cellar.

- Right, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- And if you don't have that though, you can storm in the pantry.

- Yeah.

- Make sure you got AC and all those things and a little bit of airflow.

- Okay.

Yeah.

And probably another step in this is after that curing process, you kind of do a secondary curing process where you put 'em in like 60 degrees temperature and that's where, where we're at now.

So - You're holding them at that - 60 - Degrees right now.

- Yeah.

And you can do that for about six to eight weeks.

And then that even continues the sugars to keep building.

So Yeah, sure.

- And then they're ready to enjoy at home.

- Exactly.

Yeah.

- All right.

Well thank you Linda.

- Okay, you're welcome.

- And as part of our 50th anniversary, I thought it would be fun for you guys to see behind the scenes of how we film Oklahoma gardening.

And it looks like the guys are pulling up now.

So it is fall season, believe it or not.

I know it still feels pretty warm, which means we're gonna have a little bit more time to get our fall bulbs into the ground.

But it is time to plant those fall bulbs.

And when I say fall bulbs, we're really talking about planting them in the fall.

But these are the bulbs that are gonna bloom for us next spring.

And I always think it's really nice.

Go ahead and put the investment in now and it's gonna be a very pleasant surprise when they come back in the spring.

You can get spring bulbs that bloom throughout the season.

So there's some such as the crocus and grape ens that are gonna be the first to arrive on the scene.

And then daffodils often will bloom in the snow and sometimes your tulips are gonna be a little bit later.

And there's a lot of other bulbs that you can plant as well.

And we've got some other bulbs that we've got here that we're gonna plant and you know, kind of push the limits maybe a little bit here in Oklahoma with some of these.

And one of those that I'm gonna do here along this trellis, because they get so big, are these crown imperial frill areas.

So you can see how large this bulb is.

We've got a couple of different ones.

What I really like about these is they sort of have like this pineapple look to 'em when they're blooming.

'Cause they just have this crown of flowers that sort of fall down, but then some nice foliage.

In fact, one of them that we have is also a variegated foliage.

So we've got some orange and yellow ones that we're gonna mix and match along here, and we're gonna plan 'em about a foot apart because they are quite large and they're gonna get to be about three or four feet tall.

So the nice thing is, is right here on our trellis that is supporting our kiwi that's gonna serve support these as they're developing as well.

Now these bulbs will die back, so we're not gonna see that summer foliage as much.

So it'll just be a nice surprise appearance back here in the background of our backyard garden.

And so we're gonna plant those now because these are so much larger, we're gonna plant these about six inches deep.

So as opposed to some of these others that we have here.

So these are our typical narcissus bulbs or daffodils.

You can see how much smaller they are in comparison to our larger imperial fritillaries.

So these are gonna go down probably about three or four inches, and we're gonna make a nice cluster of 'em around each one of our poles here.

So we're gonna pile a little bit of those.

Now the thing is, is a lot of times for the most part, ball planting is about the same.

You're gonna plant them about two and a half times the diameter of the bulb.

So these are gonna go about six inches.

These are gonna go about four inches deep.

Now typically we make a joke about putting the pointy side up and that doesn't matter two extreme, because a lot of times plants will find their own way.

Now it's really recommended though on these imperials because they are so open that if you planted them where the roots are down, a lot of times this might collect some of that moisture in the winter and cause it to rot.

So we're gonna actually plant these on their side intentionally.

The roots will find their way down.

The vegetation will find its way up, but it won't have that cavity that will fill with that moisture over those winter months.

So, and there's some other smaller ones that we have here too that we're gonna plant not here because this is a little bit too sunny, but we've got some double snow drops and some single snow drops.

And again, you can see how much smaller these are in comparison.

So we're gonna plant more of these closer together so that we have a greater impact versus just one of these every foot.

So in order to do this, you kind of wanna dig your hole here.

This is sort of a nice mulched area where we've got it raised up.

Now these daffodils are pretty easy and very hardy.

So we're gonna go ahead and throw a few of these in our hole here.

And I think I have about 25, so I'm gonna do about five or six of 'em at each post just to make a nice little bouquet of these when they come up.

So now that I've got those planted by the pole, I'm gonna go every 12 inches and rotate between a yellow and an orange crown imperial.

So now that we have all of our bulbs nice and planted at their appropriate depth, it really is just a matter of sitting back and waiting for them to arrive for us in the spring.

And you'll be thankful that you did this this time of year because it's always a pleasant surprise when they do arrive.

Now they do need that chilling period through those winter months in order to initiate that vegetation and flowering.

So it don't worry that they're gonna not survive in those cold temperatures because they actually need that.

So at this point, we just let 'em do their thing, enjoy their rest through the winter months, and they're actually gonna start growing those roots.

And soon you'll have flowers in your garden again.

- And cut.

- Was that good?

- Yep.

Right on.

Now it's time to shoot some B roll, - And as we wrap up this bulb planting segment, we're also wrapping up at the last shoot of our season.

It's been an incredible 50th anniversary here on Oklahoma Gardening, and we thank you all for joining us along the way.

It's been a full year as we've looked back at everyone involved in reaching this milestone.

We kicked off this year with our beautiful documentary rooted in Oklahoma.

We were able to partner with Eskimo Joe's to offer the first Oklahoma Gardening t-shirt.

Several of the other hosts and myself took the stage at the statewide Master Gardener Conference here in Stillwater, a fitting return considering Steve Dobbs established the Master Gardener program and held the first state conference when he was host of Oklahoma Gardening in the early nineties.

And we had the privilege of having several of the former hosts make a return appearance on the show throughout this season.

But this anniversary wasn't just about looking back.

We also wanted to highlight the future of horticulture, which is why I was so excited about our youth gardening contest we held this summer.

It was refreshing to travel the state and visit with young people who are out enjoying the gardening world, whether it was selling cut flowers or native plants at their neighborhood corner or completing their first landscape project.

I'm excited about the young people who will be coming into the horticulture world, and while plants will always be at the center of this industry, we also have the opportunity to look at some of the future technologies as we travel to the Cultivate Show in Columbus, Ohio.

To finish out our year, you're going to notice that the best of Oklahoma Gardening shows are going to look a little bit different.

Instead of replaying some of the segments we aired this season, we're going to be showing best of some of our former hosts.

We think this is a fun way to conclude what's been an eventful year.

As we head into our planning season.

We hope that you're able to also reflect upon your garden and celebrate some milestones as well.

From all of us here at Oklahoma Gardening, we thank you for joining us this season.

There are a lot of great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

Don't miss your chance next week to see our documentary rooted in Oklahoma.

50 years of Oklahoma gardening.

Is that good?

Oh my - Gosh.

Alright, here it is.

You - Need to be getting, I just keep walking like this close to each time.

You're doing exact.

- 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.OK state.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 into our okay gardening classics YouTube channel to watch segments from previous hosts.

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

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.