- Welcome to the best of Oklahoma Gardening.

The seed catalogs are arriving in the mail, but before you place your order, join us as we take a look back at some of the different vegetables we grew last season.

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.

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.

Earlier in the season we talked about different ways of starting your warm season vegetable garden.

Well, today I wanna talk about two plants that you definitely wanna start from transplants.

And that is tomatoes and peppers.

And that's because they need a good head start in order to start producing before it gets too hot in our summer months.

And so here you can see we've got our transplants laid out and I just wanna go through some of the plants that we're gonna be planting in our table garden here.

So since we have a table garden, we looked for some varieties that were a little bit shorter.

Obviously we didn't want anything that was indeterminate that was gonna be five or six feet tall because those would just be way over our head to harvest.

So we've got some very small varieties here that we're looking at.

And the first one I wanted to show you here is called orange hat tomato.

And this is a cute little tomato if you think there is no way that you have space in your landscape or on your patio to grow a tomato.

Well this is one you need to check out because this actually only gets about six to nine inches tall.

Yes, you heard me right, six to nine inches tall.

So this is gonna stay very compact.

And in fact you can already see it's got some tomatoes that it's producing already.

Now this is gonna produce an orange cocktail type tomato.

So it's just gonna be prolific with all these little orange tomatoes on there, but a cute little tomato.

So we've got several planted in here about five in just this small space because they do stay so compact.

Now in front of me here we have a fish pepper.

So this is a unique pepper.

It is gonna get a little bit taller, but it is going to have a unique ornamental look to it.

Not only is it edible, but it is ornamental as well.

So the fish pepper kind of has a history of being an African-American pepper that was passed down and used a lot in Caribbean dishes.

So it's gonna add a little heat to your dish.

But what's unique about it and what's ornamental about it is you'll see that there's some variation not only on the leaves, but when you start to see that fruit being produced, it's gonna start out kind of a creamy color with some green striping in it.

As it matures that green's gonna get more of a darker color and eventually like all peppers that start turning color, eventually it's gonna have more of an orange color with brown striping and then it eventually will turn a solid red color to you.

So very ornamental to add to your edible landscape here also.

Now we also have this pepper.

This is called dragonfly.

This is a four lobed bell pepper, but don't be fooled by picking it when it is green because this is actually a purple bell pepper.

And they are gonna be not only ornamental but also edible as well.

You can eat these while they are green, but again, weight for 'em to be purple.

Now the nice thing about this and what's really set it apart from the other purple peppers that are on the market is the fact that it has a real thick wall thicker wall than some of the other thin wall purple peppers that are on the market.

So this is a nice one to add to your garden if you're looking for something that is more like a bell pepper.

Now in front of me here we have another tomato and this one's called early resilience.

So this one's gonna get a little bit taller, about two and a half feet tall, and it is aroma type tomato.

So it's gonna be really great if you're looking at canning or preserving some of your tomatoes, this is a great option for you.

Again, it's an All America selection, beating out some of the bestselling Roma tomatoes that are on the market.

Now next to it we have a San Joaquin Pepper and this is a jalapeno pepper, so it's gonna be a little spicy, but not too bad if you like that jalapeno flavor to it.

So San Joaquin is known because it is a one that's gonna produce a lot all at one time, which can be a good or bad thing.

So if you're somebody who likes to can maybe it's nice to have all of those jalapenos so that you can go ahead and process 'em at one time.

Or perhaps you're having a big party this summer and you wanna have some stuffed jalapenos for dinner one night with your crowd.

This is a great option for that.

If you don't wanna harvest everything all at once, you can just leave them hanging on the plant.

So jalapenos will eventually turn red as they mature even more.

So make sure that you are harvesting those that maybe are a little bit further on and further into red color versus some of the green ones if you're trying to allow your harvest to last a little bit longer.

Now in front of us here we have a patio choice yellow, which is again a great option for somebody who is looking for a smaller tomato to grow.

So patio choice and the orange hat are both great options, even for containers.

This particular one patio choice is only going to get about 18 inches tall.

So a little bit taller than the previous one, but not too much that it couldn't still be in a container.

So we've got two that we're gonna plant here in our table garden.

And just as a reminder, you can see these transplants have gotten a little leggy.

So when you have something that is this long and you can see it's windy here in Oklahoma.

As a reminder, what you might wanna do is trim off some of these lower branches here.

So as a reminder, with tomatoes, you can plant those deeper in the ground because what they'll do is develop adventitious roots.

So you can actually start to see these little white kind of nubs sticking out on the stem here.

And that is the beginning of the formation of those adventitious roots.

So we're gonna go ahead and you can see if I put half of this plant underground, I'm significantly reducing the amount that might be exposed to the wind.

So hopefully our transplants will be a little tougher out here in our Oklahoma wind than what they would otherwise if we had planted these.

So I'm gonna plant this this direction so that it will be over here and I'll plant this one going this way up over this direction.

So in order to do this, what you're gonna do is just make a trench basically.

And actually before I do that, I'm gonna kind of sprinkle in some slow release fertilizer in here so that I can work that in as I'm planting.

But I'm gonna just make a trench with my hands.

We're using potting soil obviously here in a raised bed.

So we're gonna bury that on its side.

And this actually works out really nice because these are already kind of bent to go upright.

I'm gonna go ahead and cut this last stem off right there and maybe even one more.

So I'm leaving these top two stems and then I'm just going to pack this potting soil back around it.

And there we have it.

You wanna make sure that that root ball stays covered so that it doesn't dry out as it starts to develop more and more of those roots.

So I'm gonna do the same right back here.

I'm gonna go ahead and cut some of these lower ones off again.

Again, we got a nice root system here, but we're gonna be able to develop even larger roots later on.

Now if yours doesn't have a natural bend to it, you're just gonna kind of gently push that plant up a little bit.

And then actually I'm gonna make that a little bit deeper here.

You can do it on a slight angle so that you don't wanna break that stem.

If you break that stem then you've kind of ruined your transplant, but you just wanna bury it and it will start to develop those roots.

So again, these are gonna get to be about 18 inches tall.

They got a little stretched as they were growing as transplants in the greenhouse, but they should do just fine.

So at this point now I just gotta put some other fertilizer and get the rest of these planted up.

And then of course we wanna make sure that we label our plants and water them.

Today we are talking tomatoes and not the traditional red tomato that we think of as king of the summer vegetables, but just like you, we are guilty sometimes when we're flipping through those plant catalogs and see some things that are kind of unique and interesting and kind of wanna experiment and try with it.

So I thought I would share with you our little bit of an experiment behind the scenes here.

What we've been doing, and I'm not necessarily recommending any of these tomatoes, but I just thought I would show you some that we've grown and kind of how unique they are.

So all of these that I'm gonna talk about are not a red tomato.

In fact they are orange and yellow and green and even in some cases a purple black color.

So let me show you what we've got here at this row.

So I wanna show you some of the ones that we're growing here and to start us off.

One that we actually really enjoyed kind of the flavor and all of these are slightly under ripe, but we went ahead and picked 'em 'cause they're starting to get that blush stage and I'll talk about that in a minute.

But this one is called Anna's Noir or Black Pineapple.

And so it kind of has that kind of pinkish red color to the bottom of it.

And as it transitions up, it goes through a yellow and green and that's actually what it looks like when it's ripe.

It's fairly large good slicer, but it has sort of a mild sweet flavor to it.

So, and we really just like the coloration of it.

Again, this one's a little bit still under ripe, but it will ripen up for us inside.

Now the next one we have here is called a black beauty and you can see that it gets this dark purple color on the shoulders of otherwise sort of a greener tomato, but again, a little bit smaller but a nice prolific producer for us.

The next one we have is called Chef's Choice Black.

And this one, I can't say that it really got that darker color for too much, but it does have sort of a a darker green red color to it.

And again, this one is an all America selection, the others are hybrids, but this particular one is an All America selection and so you're gonna get a little more disease resistance to this particular one also.

The next one is also an All America selection and this is called Chef's Choice Green.

So you'll notice it is similar to the Chef's Choice black, although it has more of a yellow that fades into the green on the shoulders.

Again, you'll get some disease resistance with these because they are cultivars versus some of the heirlooms.

The next heirloom that we have is a one that is well known and this is called Cherokee Purple.

This is a very popular heirloom and one that is often found not only in gardens but also in the kitchen because of the flavor that you get with this.

So it's gonna have a darker kind of red burgundy color to it as it ripens.

And again, a good sizable slicer to add to your sandwich.

Now the next one is really unique.

This one's called Orange Accordion and you can see how it gets that name because it will ripen completely just a vibrant orange color and it's got these sort of lobes to it, giving it that accordion a look to it.

When you do slice it open, it's gonna have a little more openness in that actual fruit when you're putting it on something very unique look might be a little different for some people to actually eat, but one that was actually a very mild and and kind of flavorful.

So we enjoyed this one as well.

Now the next one we have here is again another All America selection.

So again, you're gonna get some built in resistance on this one.

This is called Purple Zebra and it's going to have kind of dark purple stripes on a red tomato and you can see it's starting to turn red here.

So we went ahead and picked it.

This is actually a little bit smaller than some of the other ones that we have been getting and some of the other purple zebras that we've been harvesting.

So it's a little bit smaller, but again, overall Purple Zebra is a little smaller than some of these other cultivars that I've mentioned.

I would say it's a little bit bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball, but sort of like a plum size.

One of the unique features that we did notice, it's kind of got this acorn shape to it.

They're all sort of pointed at the bottom of this, but a good look to add onto your plate as well.

And then the last one we have is SART Rollos and it is a yellow tomato that's got purple shoulders on it.

And honestly, if I was looking at it between this and the orange accordion, you could have told me these tomatoes and I'd kind of question it a little bit because they, this to me looks almost more like an eggplant than it does a tomato.

Obviously they are related and in the same plant family, but again, a good producer for us.

So this is just some of the ones we tried.

Now this is just a little bit of an experiment to see what varieties we can get with some tomatoes here and we haven't had any problems.

Now, the one kind of things that we had to kind of deal with is the fact that all of are indeterminate.

You can see they've sort of outgrown our tea posts.

So if you are growing indeterminate tomatoes, keep in mind that you wanna have a good trellis system for them to grow beyond a regular T post.

Here in Oklahoma, we are in the hot days of summer, and anytime we get over that 85 degree temperature, it really slows the ripening down of tomatoes.

And if you start to see that coloring, that means it's ripening and you can go ahead and pick it and take it indoors to a cooler temperature and it will continue to ripen.

Now if you've noticed your tomato production have actually declined a little bit.

Again, that is because of our heat.

This is why we grow tomatoes as transplants to get them out in the garden sooner because really that 70 degree range is optimal range for pollination as well to occur.

So our evening temperatures are a lot of times higher than 70 degrees, so we don't get good pollination of our tomatoes at this point.

But keep in mind if you have a decent tomato plant and it hasn't succumbed all of the factors that can, they can encounter, keep it growing.

And as our temperatures start to decline as we come outta summer, you'll again see some fruit set on your tomatoes.

So again, just wanted to share some of the unique cultivars that we were trying here in our garden and don't be afraid to experiment a little bit.

Give yourself some leeway to go ahead and maybe pick one or two of those plants that you're curious about this winter when you're checking out the catalogs.

Today we're back out here at the OSU Student Farm and I wanted to take advantage of our crop of tomatoes that are growing and show you a method to help stake them and stabilize them in your garden.

So this is called the Stake and Weave method, and it's a very popular method for trellising your tomatoes.

And one of the reasons why it's so popular is because it's pretty simple and doesn't require a lot of materials that you have to keep out of tomato growing season.

So a lot of times people might use cattle panels or even those metal cages, but then it's a matter of where do you put those and store those all winter long.

So in this method all we need is some stakes and also some twine.

And what we're simply going to do, you can see I'm gonna tie this off right here at this first stake and I'm actually gonna work my way back.

So I'm doing this, we have quite a long row here, but I'm doing this in about 15 to foot increments between our T posts and then between our T posts, we also have some rebar stakes as well to just add a little bit of support as we go down through this row here.

So what we're gonna do is simply, like I said, we've got their twine and this is just baling twine tied off here and we're just gonna work our way back and forth between our tomatoes here.

So you can see they've grown up from the last time we've done this.

So we're coming up about six inches from the last weave, and then we're gonna go back and forth between our tomato plants.

And what that really does is that distributes the weight of the plant back and forth on this twine as we work our way down.

Now when we get to a post, what we're gonna do is circle our post a couple of times here so that again, it just supports that twine.

The tricky thing is making sure that it stays really tight as you work your way down this length.

So you can see I've worked my way down one side and at this point I went ahead and tied it off and I've started another line.

And at at this point we're gonna work with that second line all the way back and we're gonna weave, you can see how this tomato went over on this side.

This one is on this side.

So what we're now gonna do is take our second line and weave on the opposite side that we did.

The first line, you can see it's tied at the same height.

So these lines are gonna be crisscrossing right at about the same place on that tomato, kind of holding it, pinching it in between there.

But this is not pinching, it's not gonna damage it or anything.

I will say the bigger and kind of overgrown your tomatoes get, you might lose a few branches as you're doing this, but it's okay, it's just a little pruning on the plant.

So we're gonna work our way back again, keeping this tight.

Now you could have done one string all the way down and just looped around your stake here and worked your way back.

But a lot of times you'll lose that tension as you work bigger, longer distances with your string.

And so this is one method that we've just found that works really well here to go kind of about 15, 16 feet, tie it off, and then start another line to go the other side.

Again, you're gonna do this, you can see we've done it about six to eight inches every so often.

And as the plant grows, we'll continue to do that and that's when you hope you have a long T posts so that depending on how big your tomato plant is, that you can continue to stake and weave it as it grows.

So we we're using traditional T posts here, so we're not gonna be able to do too much longer, but these are indeterminate tomatoes, meaning that they will continue to grow.

So we've got this row of tomato plants all nice and trellis now using this stake and weave method, and it's just gonna be a matter of time as they continue to grow that we have to come back through and do another row.

So it can be a little bit labor intensive, having to constantly come back and check versus having a cage that you can weave your tomato plant or something.

But again, the nice thing about this is when you're done is a matter of just staking or cutting this bailing twine off and then removing the T post.

So if you have a tractor or something like that, you can easily get rid of this material and clean your bed and then you don't have a lot of materials to have to store during those winter months.

It definitely is probably easier with two people doing this, somebody to kind of manage and keep that string tight while somebody else is sort of finding the next tomato plant to divide them and weave between there.

So you can see it's a little bit messy, you'll get some of that tomato oils on you and stuff like that, but a great method in order to keep the plant sort of sandwiched and up off of the ground and that helps increase air circulation and reduce any fungus and disease problems on your tomato plants.

Earlier this spring we talked about different ways of starting your vegetable garden.

Well, we always recommend waiting till mid-April before you go out and plant your warm season crops.

And we're at that favorite time of year when we can now go out in the garden and plant freely.

It looks like the forecast is going to be okay and we are not gonna have any late freezes at this point in time.

Who knows, it can change in a moment here in Oklahoma.

But as of today, we are going to go ahead and do some direct sowing of some vegetables.

And we mentioned earlier that if you're doing transplants, that's kind of a great way to get instant gratification.

But if there is one plant to start from seed, I would highly recommend that you start zucchini and squash from seed in the garden.

So for the price of what one transplant might cost, you can easily get a packet of seeds that have several seeds in there and it'll be enough to not only plant your garden this season, but also to go ahead and plant a fall garden later on in the summertime or maybe even save the seeds for next year.

So you can see we've got our bed prepped here.

What we've done is we've taken this garden that we've grown different things in over the years and we kind of transformed the soil a little bit so that we have mounds here.

We actually have 12 different mounds.

So we have three mounds that we're gonna plant, four different varieties, two yellow squash, and then two rows of zucchini in this bed here.

Now we've planted a, we're gonna plant the seeds in mounds simply because it'll elevate the plant a little bit and allow that irrigation to almost sort of create a flooding effect around the root zone as they continue to grow deeper.

So when you're planting these seeds, they're pretty simple.

It's really not too much to it.

The nice thing about squash seeds are is that they actually are large seeds.

If you think about if you've ever eaten squash, you can see the seeds in there.

So that's how big they are.

They're about a half a centimeter in length, and so you're just going to make a little bit of a hole and plant a couple of seeds in the mound there.

You can do a couple of in each hole if you wanted to, you could do two in the center.

I've just got three here that I'm gonna plant in this mound.

And we might come back actually and prune some of those out if it gets too large and they're all successful.

But we're gonna go ahead and do that and we'll just repeat this process over.

Because the seeds are very small, you're only gonna go about an inch deep in the ground, and we are gonna make sure to water them in to ensure that we have good soil contact with that seed.

And as those seeds germinate, that's the most sensitive time to make sure that you are irrigating them well because they don't have very many roots established so they can dry out rather easily.

So especially on those spring days where we can really get some high temperatures, make sure that you are regularly checking your seeds that will be germinating soon.

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 right here as we kick off the 50th year of Oklahoma Gardening.

In case you think I don't do my own stunt, really a phenomenal plant.

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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.

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