- Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

Today we're visiting former TBG manager Jane Carter, to see her backyard transformation.

We head to Fillbrook to learn about Passion Vine.

Then we visit the OSU Student Farm to see what they're producing other than vegetables.

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.

Today we're back with our former garden manager at the Botanic Gardens, and Jane Carter obviously has a passion for horticulture and taking this home with you as well.

Now remind us, we've been here and we filmed in your front yard, right?

- Yes.

- About nine years ago.

So in that time it was fairly new landscape, right?

So it's matured beautifully.

Have you done any changes to the front yard?

- Not a lot.

It's pretty much stayed the same.

I've been focusing on getting the backyard done.

- Okay.

And so about nine, 10 years ago when Ray filmed with you, you didn't have anything done in the backyard, correct?

Not really anything, no.

Okay.

A lot of bare dirt.

All right.

But you had big plans.

- Big plans, - Yeah.

And so 10 years later, how's it looking?

Yeah, I think it's looking pretty good.

We'll have to look and see.

Can we go take a look?

Sure.

Okay, great.

Wow, Jane, this is amazing.

A complete transformation.

Thank you, Casey.

I appreciate it.

So what do you love best about coming out and seeing this view in the morning?

- Oh, I love coming out here and having breakfast in the morning.

Yeah.

And just, yeah, seeing the view and listening to the waterfall.

- Well, can we take a seat and just kind of enjoy it for a minute here?

Sure.

Tell me a little bit about like how you went from like just cut construction site, basically right.

To what we're seeing now.

- Well, you know, we chose the site because of the slope, so I could have a waterfall.

So that was key.

That was important.

- So before the house, it was about the - Waterfall design?

Yes, it was about the waterfall design.

Yes.

That was important.

But you know, just, just in my mind, I could see it and visualize it, and I just start drawing and getting a piece of paper out, graph paper, and take the, the plot of the land, you know, that we have, when you purchase a piece of land, you have a plot and just start drawing.

And that's how it, you know, lots of changes over the years.

But, yeah.

- Well, we knew you're an amazing designer from the work you've done at the Botanic Gardens, but who knew you were saving the best for your backyard here?

Of course.

Let's talk a little bit.

So the water garden was kind of the big thing, right?

The big focal point, a really great sound that it provides, right?

To kind of block out any city noise and stuff like that.

But a lot of rock, right?

- A lot of rock.

- Tell me a little bit about all of that.

- Oh, wow.

I don't, I think it's probably over 50 ton of rock, and that's not counting what's on the house for several years.

Pallets of rock set in this backyard and on the driveway.

My husband's very glad now to not have pallets of rock on the driveway, and I'm sure our neighbors are too.

So just, yeah, a lot of years of trying to figure out what the design was as I'd work on one area, kind of maybe change and flow with, you know, different changes that took - Place.

And I think, I mean, we've known each other for a few years now, and I think I've been hearing about this rock wall for quite some time.

But you really, I think I love what you've done by anchoring it with some of those larger stones too.

So did those go in first and then you built the horizontal stone around it?

- Yes, yes.

So all the large boulders were put in place with a skid steer.

Okay.

I had somebody come in and put those in and I built the wall around - Them.

Okay.

And I love how you have different kind of paths to lead you through.

So not only do you have that elevation for the waterfall, but you have that elevation for people to explore too.

Right, right.

It gives you different perspectives a little bit.

- Yeah.

And that was important to me.

I love walking through a garden and coming around a corner and seeing new things.

I also love the Japanese style and you'll see a lot of stepping stones, which are intended to slow you down and, and have a more quiet, you know, walk.

So that was real important.

So that's another use of stone for me was the large slab stepping stones.

- Okay.

And you've kind of played up that Japanese style a little bit with not only some additional hardscapes, some of the gates and stuff that you've incorporated, right.

But just the use of conifers.

Let's talk a little bit about that.

Yes.

- Oh, I love conifers.

Dwarf conifers are my favorite plant.

I, and you know, a lot of conifers don't do well.

Like spruces aren't the best ones for Oklahoma.

But there are some that do well, and I've found some of the blue ones that do like the dwarf Rh Montgomery and Glo Bosa Fat Albert does well here.

So, you know, I just have to be careful which ones I choose in the spruce family, family, but pines, there's so many dwarf wonderful pines.

There's a twisty baby, which you'll see that - Just, I saw a couple of unique ones - Coming in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love pines.

I love all conifers.

And they're very much focused with the Japanese style too.

Okay.

They do a lot of dwarf conifers and, and they keep a lot of full-sized conifers, very small with bone size.

Right, - Right.

- Which I'm trying a little bit with the thunderhead Japanese black pine here, so, - Okay.

Okay.

Very good.

So even in your front yard, there's so much to see and take in, but not necessarily in the flowers, but there's a lot of color to it.

Let's talk about kind of your design in using foliage.

- Yeah, I love foliage.

I love colored foliage.

It's more important to me than flowers.

I, you know, you'll see flowers in my garden, but especially in the back, you won't see a lot, which is typical of a Japanese style garden.

But I love the blues.

Obviously the, the shutters and the trim on my house is a kind of a teal blue.

And so I've, you know, wanted to accent.

So I have a lot of blue.

I love the gold because it pops.

So I have some gold, like the Golden falls sweeping red bud.

So yeah, I love doing something with foliage.

I can get color longer than a lot of times you can with flowers, annuals you can get a lot, but you gotta replant 'em every year and rebuy 'em every year.

So Silver falls dichondra though, speaking of annuals is one of my favorites because it over winters.

Okay.

And it makes a beautiful ground cover.

And again, you've got that colored foliage.

It's not a flowering, you know, it's not grown for its flower, but it has that beautiful silver foliage.

- Right, right.

And you've got the wooly morning glory over your gate too, which is a big foliage plant.

So, - Which is one of the ones I'm willing to rebuy every year.

Yeah.

It's a - Good thing.

It is an annual, the way it grows.

Oh my gosh.

- It would take over the house, - Wouldn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, this is just beautiful.

Thank you so much for having us back.

And I definitely, you know, good design creates a sense of feeling when you come in, and this definitely has this relaxing feeling back here.

So it's no wonder you enjoy it so much in the mornings especially.

Well, thank you.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

- Hi you guys.

I'm Peyton.

Welcome back to Philbrook.

Today I am going to be talking about purple Passion Vines.

So this is Pai Flora and Carta, also called May Pop.

And just to, to give you a little bit of perspective here.

So this is a piece of Philbrook that not a lot of people see.

This is actually our Collins property.

So it is to the south side of our property here.

And we have our high tunnel over here, which is a greenhouse structure that we have, that we do most of our native plant propagation and growing in.

So that's just kind of letting you know where we are here.

But this is the plant I'm going to talk about today.

This is a native plant here.

So this is a perennial herbaceous vine.

It's native to the southeastern and south central United States.

So you will see it widely across Oklahoma and Texas.

As you can see, it is very vigorous.

This is one year's growth.

So it is a perennial, it will die back to the ground in the wintertime.

And it grows again from its roots in the spring.

A lot of us know it from, its very unique and otherworldly looking flowers.

These are commonly grown as ornamental plants, even though they are very aggressive, but they also have a long history of medicinal uses as well.

So today I'll talk a little bit about making passion flower tea.

It is really, really good for stress and anxiety.

It's known for its sedative effects.

So it's good for nighttime teas for anxiety and stress relief and things like that.

All aerial parts of this plant are edible.

So anything from the ground up.

So it's leaves stems, flowers and fruits are all edible, but in moderation.

So it produces a compound called cyanogenic glycosides, which when consumed in large amounts, can release cyanide into the system, which in large amounts can be poisonous.

So this is actually a defense mechanism in some plants to keep herbivory down so they have the best chance of growth and reproduction.

So just so you know, and I'll talk a little bit about the fruits here.

So this is the most commonly eaten part of the plant.

It produces those little passion fruits, and they are edible when ripe, but should be avoided eating when they're not ripe.

And that is because of that compound that can make people sick if they ingest too much of it.

So a good rule of thumb for harvesting ripe passion, flower fruits are you're looking for when the skin of the fruit is a little bit wrinkled.

So if it's shriveled up a little bit and it has a nice yellow color, that is a good indicator that it is ready to be harvested and can be safely consumed.

Another thing that you can look out for is when the fruits fall off of the vine, that's also a good indicator of ripe fruits.

But sometimes, you know, if things do fall to the ground, they can have bugs and things like that.

So just really look for that yellowing and wrinkling of the, of the outer shell of the fruits.

And if you do break it open and the seed membrane has a nice golden yellow color to it, that is also a good indication that it is safe to eat.

And the seeds and the flesh of the fruits can be eaten and can be used in pies, jams, jellies, juices, things like that.

So that's a little bit about the fruit here.

It is a very, very popular item for wildlife.

They, again, don't eat a ton of it because it can poisonous if they eat too much of it.

But it is widely picked over by squirrels and things like that too.

But it is, today we're gonna talk mostly about the flowers and the leaves because these are what contain the most medicinal properties of this plant.

So I have taken the liberty to snip a few of vines from this plant, and I hung them to dry a few weeks ago.

So usually if you're drying, pulling, and drying herbs or plants for your own use, it's nice to hang dry them in a cold or cool and dark place like a closet, a pantry, something like that.

But just make sure if you cut a stem like this and you leave it to dry, if you wanna cut more than one, you can bunch them together.

But don't put too many in a cluster just to avoid spoilage.

So you can max maximize aeration.

So these plants are able to dry out thoroughly and evenly and not have any crowding or cluttering issues.

You can also utilize this plant fresh for teas.

It is better dried often because they're a little bit more potent whenever you remove all of the water from these plants.

But you can do these fresh if you would like, but it is always important no matter what you are foraging to wash what you collect, to just make sure that you are not getting yourself any dirt, any bugs, pesticides, et cetera.

Anything like that that could potentially be harmful to your system.

So rinse these in cold water, soak them, swish them around, bring, take them out of the water if you're going to use them fresh, dab them dry.

But it is the leaves and the flowers that we like to use for tea.

So usually, typically people say, you know, a teaspoon per cup of water plant material, but it also just depends on what you have available to you and how strong you want your tea.

So most tea brews are you steep the tea leaves anywhere from five to 15 minutes.

But again, depending on how potent and how strong you like, your tea will depend on how long you steep your passion vine for.

So not only is passion vine really, really good for medicinal uses for that relaxation, for sleep aid, and for anxiety and stress relief.

But it is also really good in the landscape as far as pollinator plants and filling up space and gaps in your landscape as well.

Thank you guys so much for joining me today at Ful work again, and I will see you later.

- It is time for bees with Dr.

Burr and Dr.

Burr.

You've done a great job to get some beehives out here.

- Yes.

This is the first year the student farm has had bees out here.

Typically, when you have a first year hive, you will not get honey that first year.

But we were very lucky.

The weather was really great.

We had a lot of rainfall here in still water, and so we were actually able to harvest honey today.

- Wow.

So, so the bees have been active then.

- Very active.

- And bees, you know, when you talk about this beekeeping, how is that classified in Oklahoma?

- So honeybees are livestock.

They're actually an invasive species.

They are not native to the United States.

So all of the rules and benefits that apply to beef cattle and goats and sheep and all of those things also apply to honeybees.

- So we have livestock here.

- You have livestock.

- Okay.

So walk us through a little bit.

You didn't expect to get honey this year, but you did.

So how, what do you do?

How do you get it?

- Sure.

So management of bees is really controlling space.

And so at the start of the year, the nucleus, which is what we had, which is a, which basically kind of looks like a tote of bees.

- Okay.

- And they have frames, they have baby bees, there's honey in there, there's pollen in there, there's an active laying queen.

So we installed that nucleus into the student farm hive.

And then we cultivated that, that beehive.

And so that looks like providing resources from established hives that I brought out here that looked like feeding them in the early spring while they got established.

And then once they had filled that bottom box and a medium box, we put a honey super on.

And at that point we stopped feeding.

You never wanna feed when you have honey supers on because you create what some people call funny honey.

- Okay?

- You want the honey that's produced by nectar.

- Yeah.

- And so once we had that super on, you know, everyone at the farm was very excited, hoping that we would get some honey.

And I kept telling them, well they maybe we'll just add wax to those frames.

Yeah.

We may not get honey, but we did get honey this year - More than just wax got - More than just just wax.

We got the actual honey.

- Yeah.

- So now that we're kind of in the fall season and there's not as much out here for the bees.

- Yeah.

- We went ahead and pulled that honey, we're treating for mites, which is a pretty standard practice this time of year.

Yeah.

So that we have really healthy bees going into winter.

- Yeah.

- So right now, the bees that are being born, they'll live all winter long.

- That's great.

'cause we want 'em to do their thing next year.

- Exactly.

So we left plenty of honey for them, we harvested the honey this after or this morning and we're ready to go.

- So walk us through that harvest, what's the first step?

How do we, how do we get it?

- So be prepared.

- I like - That.

We're gonna have a few bee puns here today, but being prepared.

So I am an economist, so I'm gonna talk some prices.

- Yeah.

- It's important to know your costs, what you have in your beehive.

We do have some budgets through Okay.

State extension to help you kind of figure that out.

- Okay.

So when we're ready, we got all the supplies ready.

Kind of walk us through how, - What - Does this look like?

Yeah.

- So your supplies are of course your jars of choice.

- Yeah.

- And then you'll need your label.

Gotta - Have - A label.

Your label has to have information on it.

And this is required by the Apiary Act, which governs all beekeeping rules in the state of Oklahoma.

Yeah.

So you need to have your farm name, a contact phone number, the location.

There's a little debate about this.

People feel a little uncomfortable putting their address on a honey label.

- Put put - The farm address on there.

The farm address is fine.

You could technically put a longitude and latitude if you wanted to.

- Okay.

Okay.

- I always like to remind people that property records are public in Oklahoma.

- That's true.

- So if people wanted to find your address, they could do it anyways.

All right.

So follow the rules and then the net weight of the honey.

Okay.

So some labels will have a blank space for you to rate if you don't know, or if you're gonna do different size jars.

Yeah.

It does take a little bit of planning.

So the honey is actually sold by weight, not volume.

- Okay.

So we're gonna weigh it out.

- We're gonna have to weigh it out.

- Okay.

- And honey is heavier than water.

So if you have, for example, the jars we use today are six ounce jars.

Yeah.

There's a little bit of space at the top of that jar.

- Yeah.

- Because really it could hold eight ounces roughly of honey.

- Yeah.

But six ounces by weight fills up that little bit smaller of space.

- Yeah.

Okay.

So you have your labels ready, you have your jars washed, and then you have your extractor.

You either purchased one.

There's lots of options for extractors.

We used a manual extractor today because, - So we got a workout.

- We got a workout.

- Okay.

- Got your workout in.

And I'm also a cheap economist.

Right.

So I am like I, I'll use some labor, but obviously if you have 10, 15, 20 hives having Alec electric.

- Yeah.

- Extractor would probably be a better bet.

- Maybe.

Maybe save your arm a little bit.

- Save your arm.

- Yeah.

And plus it, you know, you gotta make sure it's evenly distributed, right?

Yes.

Or they'll shake all you.

- And there's different sizes.

So we used a three frame extractor.

They go up to six and eight frames.

- Okay.

- So some of those are very - Big, so that'd be very large.

Yeah.

- Yes.

- So, so, so walk us through.

You got that frame?

- Yes.

- How do you get the honey out of there?

- So the thing about beekeeping is there's always lots of options.

- Okay.

- A lot of people will use a knife.

- Yeah.

- So either a very hot knife that cuts through that wax capping.

Okay.

Today we actually picked off the cappings.

Okay.

The reason why we did that, again, we're small.

Yeah.

So we can spend a little bit more time.

We wanna preserve as much of that wax as we can.

Yeah.

Because we'll store those frames very carefully.

All winter long.

- Yeah.

- In the spring, once they filled back up that bottom and that medium.

Yeah.

And we add the supers back on, you'll get even more honey next year.

- Okay.

- Because it takes about five pounds of honey to make one pound of wax.

- So it saves some time, saves some work.

- It saves some work.

Yeah.

And some resources.

- Yeah.

- Right.

And so that's why it tends to be that second year beekeepers maybe don't get quite as much honey.

And then the third and fourth year it tends to level out a little bit.

Right.

'cause you have some of those resources in terms of Right.

Drawn out - Wax.

So you got that, that wax and then what you're gonna put it into the extractor?

- Yes.

So you uncap both sides.

- Yeah.

- And then it goes into the extractor.

Each component of the extractor needs to have a frame.

Okay.

- So - Let's say you're getting towards the end of your harvest and you only have two frames that have honey, but you have a three frame extractor.

Put an empty frame in there to keep the balance.

- Just to balance it out.

Yeah.

Okay.

- So you put the, the frames in there and then you either push a button - Yeah.

- Or hand crank like we did.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- And then you flip it.

So once you've extracted honey, you turn it - Around, turn it around, - 'cause it's centrifugal force, and then do it again.

- And do it again.

Okay.

Okay.

Then you got lots of honey in there.

Yes.

So now, now what?

What do we do?

How do we get that out?

- Right.

You can purchase buckets that already have the spigots attached.

Yeah.

They're a little bit harder to find and they're more expensive.

- Okay.

- So typically what people will do as they're preparing for honey harvest, maybe in the winter or in the summer, is you will buy buckets.

- Okay.

- You can get 'em at the farm store.

You need to make sure they're BPA free.

Okay.

And food - Grade.

Okay.

- Very important.

Right.

Very important to be food grade.

Yeah.

You drill a hole the size of the spigot, a spigot can be purchased either at a beekeeping store.

- Okay.

- Online farm stores actually have pretty big B sections now.

Yeah.

So you can buy a lot of those - Things and just make it your own.

- And make your own.

- Okay.

- We do have an online course.

We have a beginning beekeeping online course.

We cover everything you really need to know in the first two years.

And we have diagrams on how to build out some of this equipment that you need.

- What a great resource - It is.

Great.

- OSU extension.

OSU extension.

- So once you have your, your bucket preassembled, most people will filter the honey.

When I say filter, we're not doing anything, we're not pasteurizing it.

Okay.

We're not doing anything crazy invasive, but they make these filters that go on top of the buckets.

- Okay.

- And that basically, so they - Just pour it, pour it right over.

- Yeah.

So the spigot, you know, will release into the filter, - Open it - Up, comes out, there's usually a, a bigger mesh and then a smaller - Mesh.

Yeah.

- And you're really filtering out maybe some of the wax cappings.

- Gotcha.

- There may be some bee legs or pieces of grass or other things.

Yeah.

I mean these hives are outdoors, right?

- They are.

- Yeah.

And so that filtration just kind of makes sure that your honey doesn't have any of those pieces in it.

- Okay.

So you get all all that out now.

Now you've got the stuff.

- Right.

So now you have, you have the real deal, - Honey.

- Yeah.

You have a bucket with a spigot.

Yeah.

And it's time to fill your jars.

- Okay.

- Some beekeepers will let that honey sit.

Okay.

Maybe even overnight.

- Alright.

- Basically to make sure that the bubbles all go to the top.

- Oh, okay.

- And one thing I didn't mention earlier is moisture level.

- Yeah.

- So we today harvested, only capped honey.

We had checked the moisture level sure.

In advance as we were pulling it, but a lot of people have a refractometer.

- Okay.

- And you will check the moisture of the honey before you bottle it.

Okay.

If the moisture level is too high, then it can ferment in the jar.

- And that's not good.

- And that is not good.

There's lots of different ref refractometers out there.

This year in particular, with all the rain we got in Oklahoma, there were beekeepers that were reporting high water contents.

Okay.

In honey, more so than other years where it's drier.

- Sure.

Okay.

So now we are ready to weigh it out.

- Yes.

- Okay.

- So some people maybe eyeball it.

Yeah.

Again, as an economist, I'm trying to get as many jars as I can.

Yeah.

So we actually weigh out the honey and then we wipe down the jar and then add the label.

And we talked about the labeling requirements.

Yeah.

People may ask like, well, what about wax candles and what about lip balm and all of those things.

- Sure.

- You can make those products.

There are some other rules.

If you start making cosmetics, we have a fact sheet on it.

- Yeah.

- We also have budgets to help you price those things.

- Very important, - Right?

Yes.

- And then so, so if I have a jar of honey versus maybe having the honey straws or something, right.

Totally different regulations.

- Right?

So the honey straws are still the same as the jars.

Okay.

Where the regulation changes if, if you start doing chili infused honey, - Okay, you start adding things to - It or honey butter, then - That's that value add.

Value - Add.

Okay.

You've now fallen under a different category of regulations.

- Right.

But you've got all the info.

- We do.

We do.

- And people should go look for it.

- Yes.

If you typically search for, okay, state honeybees, our honeybee page pops up and we have all of our fact sheets listed there as well as our online course.

- A lot of great resource.

What Great information.

Yeah.

Thank you Dr.

B, I mean, Dr.

Burke.

- Thank you.

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

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

Join us next week as we travel across the state to visit another former Oklahoma gardening host.

- My Fum board on, which is has a repellent on there that the bees don't really like.

Actually - Smells good to me.

- It smells really good to, they have other that smells like vomit, but we don't use that one.

Okay.

- 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 Oklahoma gardening dot OK state.eu.

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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.

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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 G. 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.