(bright music) - Welcome to "Oklahoma Gardening."

Today, we start out a full show as I revisit the unique beans and squash I planted earlier this season.

We head to the Teaching Garden at the Tulsa Garden Center to look at a fun floral display.

Shelley Mitchell shows us how to turn our harvest into something musical.

We learn a new way to bring the garden indoors.

And finally, it's time to harvest the hops in Perkins.

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

If you're looking for an easy, low maintenance perennial.

(bright music) Have two different types of flowers on one plant.

(bright music) That gives the pepper it's- (bright music) I wanna give you an update on the warm season beans that you might remember we planted earlier this season.

And here you can see the product of the Japanese winged bean.

It of course, gets its name because it has this really unique wing to the bean here.

And so I will say, we didn't get too many of these.

We're just now starting to get them.

However, they will continue to produce until the first frost.

So I'm anxious to see how many more of these we get.

But they're definitely a conversation piece to add to your garden.

Now, the next thing that I wanna show you is the one next to it, and it's kind of grown over more at the top here.

And this is the Chinese red noodle bean.

And so you can see how long it is, they'll get about 18 inches long.

They're very thin and cylindrical.

And so you can just chop those up and add those to a stir fry.

But again, another unique vegetable to add into your garden.

And the next one we have here, now I misspoke a little bit.

We have a Thai soldier long bean.

And I originally had heard that it was a bush type bean and so we planted it here in the middle where it didn't have much trellis.

But you know, when you grow new things, you learn things also.

And so what we have learned is this definitely is a vining bean.

And so it's actually taken off on either side and is growing up.

And we're just now starting to get a few of these beans coming on.

And you can see, it's got that sweet pea flower, but then it also has a little bit more of a modeled effect on the actual bean there.

So it's got flecks of red on your green pod as well.

But of all the four that we planted, the showstopper is this one right here behind me, it is called the Indian snake bean.

Now, I have to say this actually isn't a true bean.

It's actually more related to the gourd family.

And so you can see here why it got its name, snake bean, however, because it definitely gives you that snake vibe when you're in the garden, especially as it kind of curls towards the bottom there.

So if you have a phobia with snakes, maybe don't add this one to the garden, but definitely a conversation piece.

Now, earlier in the season, before they actually started producing, of course, we had the flowers.

And so they produce a small, probably about a one inch diameter, sort of frilly, white flower, something you might see on, like, the birdhouse gourds if you've ever grown those.

So again, this is related to the gourd family and this one is almost ready to harvest here at this point.

Again, another plant that you can kind of chop up and add to a saute also.

So here you have four unique international foods from Japan, China, Thailand and India.

And I've got one more from Italy that I wanna show you.

(birds chirping) So here we have an Italian squash going called zucchino rampicante.

And you can see it's really neat to also trellis it.

We've got it on a children's trellis that's a little bit smaller so they can kind of wander through here as they're hanging down.

Now, a lot of times you might think with both the Indian snake bean, which is actually a gourd, and then also this one that you might think you need to hang it or support it with a sling or something like that.

These are not supported anyway.

They have grown themselves over this trellis and are hanging free.

So you do wanna kind of be careful 'cause they can break off, but we're not actually supporting them in any way.

So it's pretty neat to see these.

You can see they get several feet long also.

Now, this is a mild tender summer squash and so it actually is used a lot for gnocchi and also ravioli, if you wanted to stuff those.

You could use it that way, but it can be also used as a winter squash as well.

So they make a lot, have a lot of different forms.

You can see we've got one here that's, we've been able to harvest and we've got several more coming on.

So if you're looking to add a little international flavor into your cuisine and you can't find at the market, you might try, next summer, adding it to your garden.

- Today we are here at Tulsa at the Teaching Gardens at Woodward Park, joined by Andy Fusco, who is the Director of Horticulture.

And we're looking at some unique designs that you've got here today.

So you guys are an All-America Selection Display Garden, correct?

- That's right, yep.

- So as part of their landscape challenge, you've got kind of a fun display.

Tell us a little bit about this.

- Yeah, so we've been an All-America Selections Display Garden for many years, and every year, All-American Selections offers a design contest, and we'd never participated.

And this year we really wanted to, the theme is A Whimsical Garden, which, you know, there's a lot of whimsical things you can do in a garden.

- [Casey] You can go all sorts of directions with that.

- [Andy] But something we've always really wanted to do is living sculptures.

- Okay.

So we toyed around with some ideas, and we thought about just doing one, but, just like everything here at the Teaching Garden, we always had to go bigger.

And of course we had to do koi fish, because of our wonderful koi collection in our pond here.

- [Casey] Well, they are oversized koi for sure, And of course you can't just have one koi fish, right?

- No.

- [Casey] So you've got a whole school of 'em, you got about four?

- [Andy] Yeah, four.

- [Casey] Four koi that kind of go across the path here.

Tell us a little bit about how you built these, and also the plant material.

- Well, it was a learning experience for us as well.

We kind of built them from the ground up.

There's some filler material in there, some hay bales.

And then the structure was built with some rebar.

We've got some really talented staff and volunteers, our volunteers were integral to this whole thing, every step of the way.

Wrapped in some landscape fabric with some holes in it, and then we grew all of the plants out in our greenhouse and planted them out, and watered them, and fertilized them.

All the normal plant care that you normally do with a little extra TLC in this type of growing environment.

- All right, so is there irrigation mixed in there?

- No, so these beds have irrigation that hits them some, but we also hand water them every day.

Although it hasn't been too bad of a summer this year, it heats up, and these plants can dry out really fast.

But that's one of the great things about these all-American Selection plants.

A lot of the things that are planted in here are drought tolerant, and have already been tested to, you know, hold up in our hot Oklahoma summers.

- Right.

And they're still cranking out the color of those koi.

So tell us a little bit about some of the plants that you've got that are, you have both All-American Selection and a few others, right?

- Yeah, so in our design we couldn't use 100% All-American Selection, but that's okay.

That's within their parameters.

But these petunias, some of the zinnias, are all All-American Selection winners, and they mix together nicely.

And the beauty of these plants, and the way they grow together with their colors really mimics well those natural patterns of the koi fish, and that's what I really like.

- [Casey] You have yellow, and red, and orange Koi, and they're kind of graced by the koi, the live koi right behind 'em there.

So you guys are really very supportive of water gardeners around here.

Tell us a little bit, you got a little event coming up, too.

- [Andy] Yeah, so all of this is gonna kind of culminate in our Pond Plant Sale on September 16th, bright and early at 9:00 AM, we're gonna have plants for sale from our pond divisions, but there's also a few other of our plant societies gonna have their own plant sales as well.

So if you're not into pond plants, there's probably something here for you, though.

- Okay, so if you're looking for plants, September 16th.

- September 16th.

- Come here to the Tulsa Garden Center.

- Yep, right here at the Teaching Garden, and from there you'll be able to find all of our plant sales.

- Okay, thank you so much, Andy.

- Thanks, Casey.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - Today we're gonna make an instrument out of a gourd.

This is like, an official Shekeres, (gourd rattling) but we are going to make (gourd rattling) a cheaper version, all right, locally made.

So when you have a lot of gourds, you can make a lot of birdhouses, but sometimes you can make something different and more fun than a birdhouse.

So I'm gonna take this birdhouse gourd, I've put a hole in it with a drill, and we're gonna make this.

So the first thing we're gonna do, is we're gonna get a little piece of yarn, and we're gonna tie it around the neck of this thing, but we're not gonna tie it tight, and you'll see why in a second.

We need some space in there to work with.

All right, so it's tight around the neck, but we still got space here.

So to show you a closeup of what we're doing, to make these nets, you're gonna get pieces of yarn that are about four feet long, and then you're gonna divide them in half, and we're gonna attach them, this is the one around the neck.

We're gonna attach them by making a loop and going underneath, and then pulling the ends through.

So then it will be attached to the neck yarn.

We're gonna do the same thing.

You need to have an equal number of pieces.

So on a regular gourd, I'd be doing just about 18 times.

And again, they need to be about four feet long to begin with.

- All right.

So now the way to put the beads on to end up making a net and not just strands coming down, is you need to take one side of one and one side of the neighboring one.

So you have one, one side of two different pieces of yarn.

Then you're going to put a bead on it.

(birds chirping) And you're gonna slide it up about like that to make a triangle.

And then you're gonna put a knot in it.

And I just go around and come through again.

So you can tie a knot or you can just kind of loop it around like this.

All right, so you can see I have one of two different kinds of yarn.

So we'll do the next one again, taking one from each different yarn and want to kind of make it about the same as the last one.

So it's as uniform as possible.

All right, so you're gonna go around and the first row is going to look like this.

So you have a whole bunch of them.

Every other yarn is used.

So you go around that whole top.

For the next row you keep the same theme going.

You take one of each color.

These will all be the same color but this is just to show you.

One from each different kind of strand.

And you put a bead on there and you slide it up, make a little triangle, all right?

And you keep doing that.

And then you'll have the second row.

And so you keep doing it.

And as you go, you'll have a little net form 'cause these are all different pieces of yarn, all their neighbors share.

When you get as many as you want you could just tie the bottom off, or you can tie one around, and then cut these long ones.

Then you'll have a shaker instrument.

(upbeat music) - Hi, my name is Brook Langford, and I am a part of the Research and Extension Experience for undergraduate students here at Oklahoma State University.

And today we're gonna do a little activity that you can do out in the garden, out on a hike, something fun.

And it's called the flower weaving frame and it looks something like this.

So to get started, you basically just start with a simple wooden frame.

It looks like this.

You can get it anywhere, make sure there has no glass or anything in it, and you can use that.

So in order to begin, you're gonna get some twine that you have laying around the house, in a cabinet, in the craft drawer.

And you're gonna cut a piece out so we can staple it to the wooden frame to make a little zigzag, which is going to hold your flowers that you're gonna get from the garden or wherever.

In order to do that, you're gonna start by tying a knot at the end of your twine, so that way when you first do the first staple, it will stick to the frame and it won't come unraveled.

So now I'm just gonna put it here kind of in the corner of the wooden frame, and I'm gonna use a staple gun to staple it in place.

In order to use this, I just put the staple gun on the twine right in the middle, so it sticks to the frame and I push down really, really hard.

(object banging) And there you have it.

Now it's stapled to the wooden frame.

And now you just keep going.

Get as much twine as you want using some scissors to cut it.

Now you're just going to weave it across the frame, kind of like a little zigzag.

(birds chirping) Just like that.

And then you're just gonna keep going.

So eventually it will look like this.

And then next, in order to finish the frame, we're going to put a saw tooth hanger in.

So that way when you get done completing your frame, you can hang it on the wall as a decoration or set it in your house.

So we're just gonna place this wherever you would like to place it.

If you want your flowers to go horizontally, you're gonna place it on one side.

If not, you can change it and do it vertically.

- So, I'm just gonna place this on the wooden frame very carefully, and I'm going to get a hammer.

I'm just gonna hammer it into the wooden frame.

Just like that.

So, now it's all complete, and it looks like this, and you even have a place to hang it.

So, this is kind of what our wooden frame looks like with the zigzag twine in it.

So, now we need to finish it by interweaving the flowers in there.

So, what I have here is just flowers I got from the garden.

Just picked them or on like a little hike, wherever you're at.

You can get whatever you want, get some leafy flowers or things like that.

You can even put sticks and stuff in it.

Just whatever you want.

And you're just gonna take them and weave them through the frame until it's complete.

And I'm gonna start decorating mine where it's vertically so I can hang it like this.

So, that's how I'm gonna fill in the flowers.

I have different types of flowers, different links and varieties of things.

And you can get them from anywhere and you can use them for anything.

And this will probably last a few days.

If you keep it inside, eventually the flowers will die.

But that's okay, you can get new ones and different flowers and you can see which flowers grow in the different seasons.

Okay, so I'm gonna put one last flower in here just 'cause I think it's ready, and it's full and it's green and it's vibrant, and it's really up to you.

You can add in more flowers, take away flowers.

There's also some fresh mint in there so you can incorporate herbs and things from your garden to bring something else inside your kitchen or your home.

And that's kind of it.

This is my finished product, but before I wanna hang it on the wall, if you would like to, you can take your handy-dandy scissors if you like and just kind of trim up the edges.

You can kind of look behind the frame and kind of tell, this is okay.

This can go up against your wall.

But if the pieces are too long or anything, just feel free to cut them, trim them down however you would like.

And then it is good to go.

But here is my flower frame.

And it's really up to you and whatever you want, but it's just a little fun activity that you can do with you and your family or your friends and something that gets you outside and your hands touching things in the garden and flowers and just incorporate a different piece of art into your home.

(soft music) (soft music) (soft music) - We are back here at the Cimarron Research Station in Perkins joined by Katie Stenmark, who is a PhD candidate.

And her research is hops.

Obviously, we are here at the hops yard again.

And Katie, it's harvest day, right?

- It is.

It's harvest day in the hop yard.

- Tell us a little bit about what that entails.

What's going on here with your research?

- Well, we have mature hop cones, and it's time to get them off the bind.

So, we go through the hop yard and we assess the hop cones for their smelliness, their moisture, and check to see if they're ready.

If they're ready, we go ahead and hand pick them off the bind and take them down to the lab for processing.

- Okay, so that moisture's pretty critical in harvesting?

So, you've checked 'em, and what's that moisture range you're sort of looking for?

- Right, so you don't want to pick them if they're at 100% moisture, which can be difficult to tell, but you're going to wanna pick them when they've dried out just a little bit, when you've pinched them and they're a little bit papery or springy.

And that would be about 80% hopeful moisture content.

There's a more scientific way that you can do that, of course.

But for this purpose, we were looking for the more physical characteristics.

We take them to the lab and we have to cure them because if you don't dry them down further, they then spoil.

So, after 80% moisture on the bind, we take them down to about 8 to 10% moisture in the lab.

- And tell us a little bit about that process of what you're doing in the lab to dehydrate them further.

- Right.

So, we built a hop-drying device, which is essentially a large box that flows air through a screen where we set the hop cones on.

We allow the hop cones to dry with that air flowing through them, and once they get to a certain moisture content, that 8 to 10, then we can either analyze them or we can prepare them for storage by vacuum-sealing them under nitrogen and then freezing them.

- And so I know you got some help back here behind us that are doing some of the handpicking.

Now, is this what normally you would see in a commercial operation?

That seems very labor intensive.

Tell us a little bit about the difference there.

- Very good.

So the labor intensive hand picking would typically probably only be done in a very small hopyard, like this one.

For commercial production, you would have a hop harvester to help you get the job done.

A hop harvester is going to allow for the bines to be cut and pulled down, and then we'll send the bine through the harvester, that will separate the hop cones.

Once the hop cones are separated, they can get sent through a drum, and the larger ones can be saved inside of the drum for use.

So that would be the process for commercial production.

- All right, and of course, a lot of your stuff that you're collecting here is probably gonna go to the lab, and we're hoping to check up with you and see a little more about that process.

But really, kind of reiterate why you're doing this research here in Oklahoma again.

- Yeah, so we believe that hops could be an important crop for Oklahoma growers, because the craft beer industry in Oklahoma is absolutely booming right now.

And they are getting all of their hop cones not from Oklahoma, mostly the Pacific Northwest.

And so if we could figure out a way to develop or grow this crop for the craft beer industry, and also, maybe create a new commercial crop for our Oklahoma crop profile, then that would just be a great thing.

- All right.

Well, Katie, thank you so much for sharing this with us today.

- No problem.

(upbeat 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.

(upbeat orchestral music) Join us right here next week, as we introduce a new way to access the information on "Oklahoma Gardening."

(tool whirring) - Oh, wow.

(all laughing) - One from each knot.

(clapboard clacking) - [Casey] To find out more information about show topics, as well as recipes, videos, articles, fact sheets, and other resources, including a directory of local Extension Offices, be sure to visit our website at oklahomagardening.okstate.edu.

Join in on Facebook and Instagram.

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

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

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

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

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

Additional support is also provided by Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Oklahoma Horticulture Society, the Tulsa Garden Club, and the Tulsa Garden Center.

(upbeat orchestral music)