- Today on Oklahoma Gardening, we begin our show by wrapping up our basil processing with fact seed.

Bailey Singleton has a cold weather project for your garden next season.

We're looking at different soil moisture meters for your plants.

And finally, we have a sweet potato recipe that everyone will love Underwriting assistance for our program program is provided by the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, food and Forestry, helping to keep Oklahoma Green and growing.

Oklahoma Gardening is also a proud partner with Shape Your Future, a program of the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, shape your future, provides resources for Oklahomans to make the healthy choice the easy choice.

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

We're back here at the Student Farm.

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

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

- We have come full circle as we've taken the basil out of the field into a product that we can use in the kitchen.

And joining me today is Darren Scott with Fact seed who's gonna tell us about the finishing steps of getting our basil into a product.

So we've gotta put some labeling on it.

Correct.

We're, we're gonna talk about the nutritional labeling - First.

Sure, sure.

You know, the nutritional label kind of represents sort of a snapshot in time of the nutritional content of the product that's in the package.

You know, sometimes might get confused and think that it's some sort of a certificate of analysis.

So really it is meant to represent sort of a range of values for that particular, for that particular product.

There are different formats based off of the size of the container, there are different formats based off of the actual nutritional content of the product.

Okay.

So just to kind of keep it simple, today we kind of are focusing on, we have the two different formats, which known as the full vertical format is actually the preferred format of the FDA based on the size of the package.

And there are two types that you typically see in the grocery store.

One is the single column and the other is the dual column.

Single column is going to be typically for those products that have multiple ingredients in them that are nutritionally significant.

Okay.

For the basil, since it's a single ingredient product and is not nutritionally significant, it actually doesn't actually require a nutritional label.

- Okay.

So there's not much nutritional difference in the basil that we're adding in it.

So - That's correct.

- But now if it was a single ingredient saying like sugar - Exactly.

Right.

You know, some, yes.

Something like sugar has lots of calories in there.

So for a product like that would definitely require a nutritional label.

- Okay.

Okay.

So it's not just about the number of ingredients, but it's that nutritional - Significance.

Right?

Yes.

Yes.

That's exactly right.

- Okay.

Well, sometimes I see things that have like two columns, like a prepared and unprepared.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Sure.

You know, and that's gonna be the dual column format.

And sometimes the dual column format for prepared versus unprepared or prepared versus per packaged is actually not mandatory.

But it is if the manufacturer wants to provide you with a little bit of more information, nutritional information about the product inside the package.

So you would have the product in per package would be the first column or the middle column, depending upon how you look at it.

And the second column immediately to the right would be as prepared.

And so, for example, a bowl of cereal or you might have as packaged for just the plain cereal that's in the box.

And then as prepared would be the addition of milk or you know, there are two different ways that you can actually put together a nutritional label.

One, a person can do wet analysis or chemistry to extract out all of the nutrients and measure them.

Or what's more common is to use nutritional labeling software, which is a nutritional database that has basically the information from all of that chemistry has been entered into this software.

So that I can say, for example, put in 10 pounds of sugar and it will spit out how many calories are in that 10 pounds of sugar.

Okay.

So that's gonna be a lot more efficient, a lot faster, certainly much more convenient than trying to do a, a full chemical analysis every time that you need a nutritional label.

Not that the, the nutritional analysis or the chemical analysis is bad or anything like that.

It's just a little bit more expensive and a little bit more involved.

- Okay.

So obviously it can be very involved depending on which label you're gonna use and that can affect your packaging, correct?

- Oh, that's exactly right.

And you know, that's why my colleague and Andrea Graves is available to help with answering questions, designing different types of packaging for our clients at FAPC.

- Okay.

We'll chat with her as well.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Well, Andrea, thank you for joining us.

I know it's packaging can be quite complicated.

Tell us a little bit about what's involved here.

- Oh my gosh.

There's, there's so much more.

I, it's, it's, it's, I never thought about this until I got in the food business, but there's so much that you need to think about.

You know, talking about the basal product that you have.

There's, that's function, there's cost, there's the look of it.

There's all these different factors.

You have to think of the food safety about it.

Like your, your basil, you know, you have different spices that you have.

Well, do you, what kind of budget do you have?

You can put it in something simple like a plain plastic bag, but at the same time, how's it gonna go on the shelf?

Do you want some presents?

I think I would get irritated a little bit if it didn't have a shaker in it, because that's what - We kind of expect on spices.

So one might be more for farmer's market versus one might be what you would buy at a store and expect to see on a shelf present.

It could be, or - Also how is it fillable?

Okay.

You know, does it's, it might be easier to fill this versus something like in this very small bottle, the time it takes to, to do that.

The manufacturing process.

Yeah.

So there's so many things that you have to think about.

Same with what type of packaging is it?

There's, we think of plastics and things.

There's so many different layers that can help with shelf life.

That can help with, with the, with the texture, what the, the actual product looks like.

The actual mad - Versus glossy - And that sort of thing.

Definitely the size, you know, you have to figure price point.

It's fun.

It's - Awesome.

This is one of the favorite things for your, your clients to go through is the packaging.

Right.

Why don't - They like it?

I enjoy it, but it, it's kind of a puzzle.

You have to be a little different on the shelf.

Again, all these things you have to have to think about colors, you know.

So this sort of represents - You and your brand when you're putting it out there.

Right?

- Absolutely.

Branding, we haven't even talked about that.

You, we tell our clients that you've gotta have some kind of logo.

Like Della Terra does a nice job.

So what - All has to go on a package?

Of course we talked about the nutritional label, but there's more than that as well.

Can you tell us about - Some of those things?

Yes.

Some of the, there's about four to five basic things that have to be on the package that are mandatory.

Okay.

The first one is the statement of identity.

So that we understand what is actually in the, in the package like we have here.

You know, it's pasta.

Yours is real easy.

Basil is the, is the statement of identity.

And this very front panel is called the primary display panel.

Okay.

That is what goes, that we see on the shelf when we're shopping.

That has to be on the primary display panel as well as the net quantity contents.

Okay.

So that we are, we understand how much we're buying minus the packaging.

So when you have a weight or, or whatnot, it's whatever's in that product minus the packaging.

- Okay.

So you always need it, what it is and how much you're getting of it.

- Yes.

And then the nutritional label if appropriate.

Right.

Well then you, when you take a package, and I am gonna pick something up, even though some of these directly to the right of the display panel is called the information panel typically.

Okay.

And on the information panel, actually let's go to the basil one.

That's a good example.

'cause we've talked about yours.

This is called the information panel.

You need the ingredient statement comes first and then the manufacturer statement so that you can, if you need to contact that particular manufacturer, you can find them.

- Okay.

So that's always on every product is where it was - Manufacturer.

Yes.

That should be.

- Okay.

- Now the nutrition fact panel, actually it's the rule of nim NIM, the nutrition fact panel goes first, but if it doesn't fit on on the panel, then it goes on any other panel.

Oh, okay.

But those are the five, five things that need to be on the label typically.

- Okay.

Okay.

And of course we don't need that because we are, there's no nutritional variable really.

- Correct.

With basil.

Right.

And also sometimes you'll, you won't see it on small producers because there's also an exemption.

- Oh, okay.

- If you have $50,000 or less in sales of that product, you don't have to have it.

- Okay.

Well the packaging and the labeling is always exciting because it's kind of seeing your product come to fruition.

Yes.

Here and you've got it ready to go to the customer at that point.

And of course a lot of it is personalization - Yes.

- For the person and, and who the manufacturer is in creating that.

So it's kind of an exciting time for your - Clients.

Sure.

It is.

And it's, it's so important because if it's not eye catching and pretty and beautiful, people won't pick it up.

So it's, don't underestimate the packaging.

- Right.

But of course you gotta keep that budget in mind.

True.

Absolutely.

And I know you guys are here to walk people through all of these decisions, right?

Yes.

And, and again, this has kind of been fun to see this process over our season, but for more information, people can always check out your website as they might want to follow this process.

Absolutely.

Call us, we're here to help.

Well, thank you so much, Andrea.

Thank you.

- As the season begins to wind down, we're getting kind of tired of being outside and the plants are getting really tired of all this heat that we've been experiencing over the summer.

So this is a nice little craft that we can do in the fall months or in the winter months as we're amping up for next season.

So instead of having the little plastic plant labels in the garden, those get broken.

The writing disappears with the sun and water.

And so these rocks are an excellent way to know what plants you have planted where.

And just an excellent way to label your plants out in your garden.

They add a little bit of character and you can add your own spin to each of these.

If you find these online, they are quite expensive actually.

And they're actually really easy to make.

So the first thing that you need are some stones.

So you can find these at your local landscape store and you wanna make sure that you have these smooth stones.

That way it's easy to write on.

And you have a flat surface.

This stone right here is a little bit too small 'cause you can't really write really long plants unless you wanna abbreviate, but it's not necessarily ideal.

And then these stones are a little bit too jagged to ride on and they just, it's really hard to get your marker pen on there.

So once you find your stones, you wanna make sure that you wash them and get them clear of any dirt or any soil that might be on them.

And then once they dry, I like to take some spray paint or whatever kind of paint you wanna use.

This specifically is outdoor paint.

So that way whenever it rains and as the sun beats down, it doesn't fade as much.

So you take a base layer of paint, and I use black just because I like the look of it.

You can use whatever color that you want to, if you wanna brighten up and paint it like a strawberry, you can do that.

Or just whatever colors that you want in your garden.

And then after you paint your base, then you get to write what your plants are.

So I just use these paint pens.

They have different tips on them, so that way one's fine, one's extra fine.

They have thicker tips also, and you can write whatever your plant is or whatever you're wanting to label.

And then once you get done labeling them, you can add any extra decorations onto it if you want to.

But the most important thing is to let it dry.

So once you spray your base paint, make sure you let it dry.

And then you can write on there with your paint marker.

And then make sure you let that dry.

And then you can spray it with a sealer.

I use this clear matte finish because I didn't necessarily want it to be shiny, but if you like that look, you can go ahead and use that also.

So instead of using those plastic or wooden labels that deteriorate over the summer months, these are a great option that can be used from year to year, as long as you're growing the same plants or you can make even more.

So this is a great craft to do over the fall and winter months.

You can even give it as a gift to your fellow gardener.

- Today we are here with Claire Caldwell, a recent OSU graduate, and we've asked her to evaluate some of these consumer moisture probes that you might find at your local garden center.

So Claire, thank you for doing this, this, thank you.

Oh, you're welcome.

Thanks for being on the show with us.

- Tell us what you kind of found with all of these.

So all of them kind of operate similarly in which you'll stick 'em down in the soil, wait about five minutes, and then collect your reading.

But each meter kind of differs on the instruction.

So the user will ha gonna have to refer to the packaging and be sure how long they're putting them in the soil to get before getting their reading if they need to calibrate it beforehand, things like that.

- Okay.

So let's talk about the ones that you maybe liked and the ones that were a little more complicated.

- So I kind of haven't been ranking here.

This one, the excess moisture meter.

It's very straightforward.

It only measures moisture.

- Okay.

- And so it's very, very easy to read.

Just the one probe.

It's pretty small and straightforward.

You just, you know, insert it into the soil, collect your reading about five minutes later and make sure you clean it in between uses.

- Okay.

All right.

So that there's no moisture soil staying on there.

All right.

So - Any oils or - So, because it is only a moisture meter, it's a little bit more straightforward.

Some of these, like this one I see it's got three - Probes.

- Tell me.

And it says four way, - This is the four-way analyzer.

So it measures fertility, light, moisture, and PH.

So one thing with this that I've learned is make sure it's on the correct setting, because I was measuring pH for a while and wondering why the needle was being a little weird.

- Okay.

- But it still is pretty easy to read.

It's still user friendly, just as long as you have on the right setting.

And I like this one because it's compact and small.

- Okay.

- So, but - Maybe not gonna be able to go down as deep in the soil profile - Super deep into the soil profile, like you said.

- Okay.

All right.

And it, but it, yeah, you're right.

It is very lightweight, easy to carry out somewhere.

And that's the light meter.

Now, we didn't necessarily measure the nutrient or the light meter aspects, just the moisture meter.

Just - Moisture.

- Yeah.

And this one here is also a three way.

It says - They all are operate pretty similarly.

I would say this one and this one, and this one really are all kind of the same.

It's kind of hard to rank them because they all do like very well.

They're all pretty, pretty easy, easy read.

- Okay.

- This one does differ a little bit.

So this one is the first one out of all these that you actually have to calibrate yourself.

So as long as you have a screwdriver, small enough to fit inside, you can turn this screw to make sure the needle is at a five or an ideal moisture that you need for your plant.

So as long as you know what your ideal moisture is, calibrate it to that setting and then you're ready to use it.

- Okay.

All - Right.

- And it's also very easy to read and it only measures moisture as well.

- Okay.

And with a longer probe, you can go deeper, probably more outside - Outdoor use.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

- And the next couple, - So this one is a little bit more tricky.

I wasn't the biggest fan of this one.

You have to insert it into the soil multiple different times to kind of get an average reading, take it out, clean it, and then you have to use this needle.

I want you to press on this.

It was a little bit more confusing, a little more tricky.

So I was kind of like, that's not my favorite.

And you have to leave it in the soil a lot longer.

Okay.

A lot of 'em recommend you don't leave it in longer than 10 minutes.

But this one was kind of right at 10 minutes.

- Okay.

- And then this one I wanted to like, 'cause it's kind of just goes along with these ones.

It's easy.

They're all kind of look the same, but we found this one was kind of a dud, not really measuring accurately.

So, - Okay.

All right.

So at least all of these kind of give us a little bit more of an accurate reading.

Yes.

And a lot of versatility with the probe length and the other features that it offers too.

Were the ones that had more functions, were they more expensive than the other ones?

Or can you talk about pricing a little bit?

- So this one I believe was our most expensive along with this one.

And so with this one I was like, it has all this extra stuff.

It's, I think over $50.

I was kind of like, I think one's like these where they're just as accurate and cheaper and more straightforward.

I kind of would go for those.

- Okay.

All right.

All right.

Well I know sometimes, you know, as a horticulturist I can get really nerdy about these things.

So I appreciate you kind of taking that consumer approach to these and just saying, which one seem to be the most user friendly.

Right.

Right.

And also, you know, some of the times these meters can be a little bit trickier to read if they, you know, you get older, it's harder for me to see things, meet your readers.

Yeah.

So thank you so much for sharing this with us, - Claire.

For sure.

- Thanks.

- Today we're making sweet potatoes.

And joining me in the kitchen today is Julie Bisby with Shape Your Future.

How are you?

I'm good.

How are you?

Good.

- What are we doing today?

- Well, we're gonna make sweet potatoes, not just make sweet potatoes, but we're gonna show you how you can add different toppings to make sweet potatoes several different ways.

Now, it really is important when you, before you use potatoes, that you wash 'em under running water with a vegetable brush to make sure that you clean any dirt or anything that might be stuck on the outside.

So we've already done that.

Now we're gonna take the, the potato and we'll need to put, poke it with a fork a few times.

- Is this, why are we poking it with a fork?

- That's a good question.

So even though potatoes seem like they're a hard dry vegetable, they're actually, they've caught a lot of water inside.

So when we poke the outside skin, it's gonna allow the the water to escape or form steam, which will cook it evenly.

But we just need to poke it a few times and then we'll wrap it in plastic wrap.

If you can go ahead and take that one and wrap it.

Yeah.

And that'll trap that steam and let the potato cook while it's in the microwave.

Does that help it cook faster?

It does.

It helps it cook faster, but then also, yeah, more evenly, it just kind of traps that steam on the potato.

So it's kind of a steaming effect.

Got it.

So I'm gonna go ahead and start on this one.

Could you go ahead and share a little bit of information about Shape Your Future?

- Yeah.

Thanks for asking.

Shape Your Future is a program of TSET, that's the Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust.

And our goal with that is really to help Oklahomans have healthier diets, be more physically active.

And so we have a lot of recipes that incorporate fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, and also things that are easy for busy families.

We know time can sometimes be a barrier for people to eat healthy.

And so we try to use that as a resource to say, this is something you can do with your kids.

This is something you can do quickly.

Mix up your leftovers.

Second life for your leftovers.

- Yeah, that is a good idea.

'cause you know, baking the sweet potatoes and you can find what you've got in the refrigerator, what you've got available, or maybe what you know that your family will eat.

- Yes, yes.

- Yeah.

- And a lot of these recipes, including this one I think we're doing today, can all be on shapeyourfuture ok.com.

- So today we're gonna go ahead and get started on cooking the sweet potatoes.

So we'll need to cook each potato in the microwave for five minutes.

So now that our sweet potatoes are cooked, now we can start building our sweet potato meal, sweet potato.

Excellent.

And yeah, it's important that, especially if you're baking these with kids, that you let them know that they're gonna be hot when they take 'em out of the microwave.

- Yep.

- And this part can get a little bit steamy when you take the plastic off.

So we just cut 'em open and put whatever toppings that that we want on our potato.

- Excellent.

- And I know I like broccoli, so I'm gonna go ahead and add broccoli to mine.

And probably a little bit of cheese.

- I am gonna go for a Southwest flavor with black beans and jalapenos.

- That sounds good too.

And the great thing with this is that, you know, we mentioned if you had leftovers or what you had in the kitchen, but it's also a good way to, you know, if you already have things that you have like, like Taco Tuesday.

- Yes.

- Instead of having a regular taco, you could build a sweet potato - Taco.

Yes.

Adding some more of those important vegetables.

- Right.

- And vitamins.

- Yeah.

And the sweet potato alone that provides a good amount of vitamin A and vitamin C and potassium.

But all of these other healthy options are gonna go ahead and give it more nutrition.

- Yes.

Very good.

- Now some of the examples that we have from the Shape Your Future Recipe, we'll go ahead and show some of these that we have.

We've got a, this is like if you were gonna have a sweet potato sandwich, you could have deli meat, some cheese, and maybe some barbecue sauce.

- Oh, that's very nice.

That would, would you call that a cowboy potato?

- It does kind of With the barbecue sauce.

Yeah.

Maybe put, you could add the jalapenos to that one too.

And then a barbecue chicken with some chicken, barbecue sauce and jalapenos, broccoli and cheese, which is like, what, what I just made.

Or this one was like the taco.

If we've got some ground Turkey meat and black beans, avocados, tomatoes and cheese.

And then the last one I thought was really interesting.

It's the breakfast.

Okay with scrambled eggs, Turkey, bacon, avocado, and tomatoes.

- Excellent.

Have you ever had the sweet potato toast?

Have you thought of that?

- I have not had sweet potato toast.

- I've burned it in the toaster.

So I think this is a much better solution.

- Yeah.

This, yeah.

Yeah, it does sound good.

But where, so if somebody's who's wanting to look for this recipe or another shape your Future recipe, where would they find that?

- They can find all of this on Shape Your Future ok.com.

Recipes like this that are very easy to do, you can bring your kiddos in on it, but also something that you know fits in your budget and is also healthy.

- Well Julie, thank you for joining me today.

I know you have a lot of great recipes and we look forward to, to seeing more of those.

I can see.

Let's go ahead and dig in.

Let's, let's dig in.

- For more information about Shape Your Future, visit their website for this recipe and more like it.

Scan this QR code.

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

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

Next week we're wrapping up our season, but you won't wanna miss what we're planning for 2025.

Join us again right here on Oklahoma Gardening.

- Oh my goodness.

Okay, now you know how it feels.

Yeah.

- Cut.

Cut.

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.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 in to 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.