[Music] today on Oklahoma gardening We are following up on an announcement that was made four years ago as we get a sneak peek of the Landscaping that will be installed around the New Frontiers facility then we'll take a look at a spring showstopper we'll head back to campus to get an introduction to the food and agriculture products Center and finally we head over to the greenhouse to get some transplants started 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 want to share with you a tropical plant that you might find in some Oklahoma Landscapes it's important to know w
hich plants we are dealing with so that we can continue to maintain them successfully for years to come as we've told you this season We are following the New Frontier agul landcape development and this is the beginning of several episodes that we're going to do over this season as you can see we're just starting out but joining me today is Nicolette who is with OSU landscape services and you are responsible for turning this into a beautiful landscape right so yes yes Casey thank you um yep I'm
our landscape University landscape design manager and like you said part of facilities management landscape services and we have a design team of two okay that's a lot of work so we've got a lot of construction happening on osu's campus so you're not unfamiliar with this sort of uh pallet to start with right no not at all so we have about 700 Acres that Facilities Management maintains on campus and our design team of two um gets the pleasure to look at the big picture of everything on campus and
be involved throughout the whole design process and uh manage the landscape master plan which kind of sets some of our guidelines and how we follow things and uh um that kind of sets the groundwork for everything we do right so obviously we're still kind of visiting a construction site today so it hasn't necessarily been turned over to you guys yet but you're not waiting for that right you've been planning you've got it all laid out what's going to happen here tell us a little bit about that ye
ah I'm trying to think of when maybe we started but I bet you it was back from like 2018 2019 maybe when we first started kind of um understanding some of the design developments that studio architecture kind of worked on so we knew um the layout the um kind of the plan of the building say the architecture features um and then that's when long range planning brought us aboard to kind of really understand then um how we can design the landscape and make that accessible and kind of tie uh that int
o the existing parts of our landscape okay so there's a lot of big features that are going to be added into the landscape around here and you got some of those nailed down of course you know things change right with construction and stuff so there's going to be some flux and everything but can you tell us a few of the stuff that you know is going to happen here well it's like you said so um you know we start off with dreaming big right so we try to understand uh you know what makes uh you know t
he site very conducive for um student interaction and engagement and learning uh possibilities also looking at um how that site safety and site access and how it flows um so we kind of come up with some plans then of how it ties in and then start developing the planting beds understanding utilities looking at um what kind of utilities we're working with how the landscape beds and sidewalks um work with those utilities our grade is a big one understanding uh drainage of water how that kind of goe
s and a lot of these are same things that homeowners of new homes would be thinking about too got to think about your your site condition so basically we develop a analysis that really kind of uh is what all of that is and kind of helps direct you know um a lot of our landscape choices based on the conditions of the site and what the plans are the features of the building okay and we're on the back side here so we're um you know it's going to be a lot of shade between here and the noble research
center right and so again that exposure goes into planting big big time so um you know we actually had to make quite a few changes in this area when it came to when landscape Services kind of got their feet into the project because immediately we noticed that U you know maybe uh drainage from uh the way the water goes across the sidewalk and how there's no sun to dry that up and kind of prepare the side and you're thinking about students in the winter time with ice and that sort of stuff too ri
ght because not only are we maintaining it for just you know classes and then you got yes all the winter activities that goes on and understanding the whole flow of All Seasons well I know one of the features that you guys like to do is also go vertical right so I mean you've got a large building and so you don't want just this short landscape in front of it so what are some of the tree features that you might be adding around yes that's a great question so we kind of have what I consider an Ins
titutional design on campus and we use a lot of architectural features to kind of accuate our Neo Georgian architecture that we have and uh we have uh tailored junipers U which is a type of Juniper that is only maybe 2 feet wide and maybe gets about 40 65t tall so we have a lot of that to kind of balance some of this architecture and it's got that continuity then and it ties it into what we already have existing on campus with some of those plant features otherwise we have uh other types of tree
s that are maybe like shade trees and other types of upright ones too but uh that's probably the biggest one you'll see when you come here and I know one of the things that I love about our campus is you guys are really good about finding little niches and niches to put in unique Garden spaces and have those kind of private study areas and stuff like that so what might we be expecting as regard to that that's probably the most fun in this whole type of design part is um looking for those spots t
o create the learning activities so we do have a small Plaza area right now it's developed with our campus standard site Furnishings that includes like bike Loops um our standard trash can standard lighting standard table standard benches and and uh we're actually in a pretty close proximity to where uh there'll be a Dairy Bar inside this egg Hall and U we have a special little outdoor seating area with some outdoor architectural elements that we're bringing that are reclaimed architectural elem
ents um that kind of help kind of tie everything together too so we're pretty excited about that and then insinuate the landscape around it using a lot of our Natural Stone um rock mulches and uh different types of plant material to kind of make that space more inviting and create that sense of uh learning space so it's hard for me to Fathom that just in a few months this is going to go from this into a beautiful landscape this fall when you actually get on this side what's the first step that y
our crew is going to actually do well we have our uh we call them site meetings with the general contractor and that's flintco that is managing this project so we kind of get with them to start putting a schedule together we start reviewing our drawings how our drawings tie into theirs and uh the first thing that's going to occur is kind of them getting the grade initial grade set and that actually is coming up here it'll be in about a month from now uh we expect the very south into of this proj
ect to start having its grading completed uh or initiated and they'll kind of move themselves then around the east north side and kind of go a clockwise position and then we'll follow in right behind him and irrigation is the first thing that we'll kind of go with kind of setting in um the groundwork our utilities is first you know there too and then we start with some hardcap materials so some of the more of the pathways Garden features things in that nature and then kind of tie in the landscap
e and soil reconstruction at that point I I would imagine soil reconstruction is going to be a big thing after seeing what it looks like right now and having all this heavy equipment on it as well so yeah to start a project like this they have to get to a 99% cons uh compaction rate on their soil so we're really taking you know compaction construction soil which is not conducive for growing plants and things of that nature um and our budget is not that large either so we have to work with what w
e got um but you know again we've uh this isn't our first building we've done on campus so we kind of have got the process down and understand that uh scarification and which is basically the process of kind of breaking the top layer of the soil and Ling the water and oxygen to kind of percolate and mixing in then our types of soil that works best for for those type of plants that we have so each each garden bed kind of has its own soil modifications um that are all tied into well Nick I know yo
u and your team know what you're doing because there's plenty of evidence around campus so we look forward to checking back in with you well thank you I look forward to share it with you [Music] [Music] thanks today I wanted to talk about a plant that a lot of us probably already know about however I know that there's always new people coming into the world of gardening and this is a plant that if you know about it it might remind you of your grandmother's Garden um and if you don't know about i
t it's one that a lot of times this plant goes unnoticed but for those two weeks and it's blooming and creating this massive color it will stop you as you're driving through a neighborhood Hood so if you don't know what this is this is called creeping flocks or flocks subul now you can see it just makes this massive blanket of flow which is what it's known for it only gets to be about 6 Ines tall and each plant will have a spread of about 3 feet now it's pretty popular it's it's relatively commo
n in a lot of gardens because a lot of times if you're in the gardening World they'll other gardeners will share it with you it's easy to divide um so just with some division you can dig some of it up and share it but you can see here what happens is it actually um kind of grows over different areas so having a height of only about 6 in it makes a really nice low growing plant what you might not know about this plant however is it is actually a native all the way up into Ontario so being hearty
from zones 3 to n um you will find this naturally growing in kind of Rocky well- drained areas Ledges and things like that and so we try to replicate that a lot of times in the garden being a native it does however have relatively few Pest and disease problems um you might see that it will get some red spider mites on it in the hot dry summertime um but other than that it doesn't have too many problems the rabbits might like nibbling on the foliage a little bit but it's actually considered unpal
atable for the deer so you don't really have any problems with a deer eating on this now you'll notice that the foliage um for most of the year what you'll see is just kind of this green mass of foliage um some people also called it Moss flocks because of that foliage has kind of a needle like or all shaped Leaf um it can be a little pricky prickly when it gets more mature but as it's new vegetation coming out it's pretty soft so it's it's not too bad um nothing that you have to be worried about
or anything it comes in a range of colors however so you can see here we have this kind of light purple Pur Le color you can also get really a dark pink or even a light pink goes into whites and even into blue Shades as well regardless of which color you end up choosing you're going to have a beautiful plant relatively low maintenance that gives you a nice display each spring and also with this mass of star-shaped tubular flowers it's also going to be appealing to the butterflies and hummingbir
ds as [Music] well [Music] today we're here at the Robert M cerr food and agriculture products Center and joining me is Dr Roy escoba who is the director of the facility here also known as fapsi right can we shorten it to FY for this conversation AB terrific so um let's talk a little bit about what all you guys you've been here for 25 years and you've provided a lot of products to Oklahoma let's talk about some of the services that you all provide here well uh first of all we are um completely u
h Economic Development so our services are to help people in their plants uh help them troubleshoot a problem that they have uh to help in their product development in the plant maybe it's fine-tuning their equipment so they get the best out of it at any moment in time but often times it's it's either product development here or it's it's uh training and education we do a broad range of services and um it's focused completely on the people of Oklahoma because there there's so many different time
s where I've you know met with people and I'm like you should turn this into a product right but that can be a big road to go from a recipe or a food product into a shelf stable marketable product right and that's where you guys are here to help we we are for people who are involved with startup businesses that's usually where it starts usually in those kinds of family recipes that people thought so well about they want to make a ton of money on them so they come here and get our help to do that
and if they were to go to the Department of of Health thinking that they would start there well the Department of Health would Point them to us and say they'll come here to us and then we'll work with them the first thing we do is make them go through our basic training short course okay so that they know exactly what their liabilities are what the hurdles they face the difficulties the funding all the things that relate to food safety and by the time they finish that one day's class they make
a decision that this isn't for me okay and so we usually probably green about 1 10% of the people who come to basic training will ever take another step forward so that's an eye opening training it's a wonderfully eye opening experience for them because it teaches them all the difficulties of moving into the food industry it's a highly competitive very difficult business okay so you can be a farmer or a baker or a producer of beef cattle but taking it to that next level you got to be a marketer
and an economist and all these different you skills right yeah and most people are so good at their product they're terrible at marketing because they don't know how to go about that right they know how to make their product but they don't know how to sell their product and so it really is a difficult thing you provide a lot of training right food safety um labels and all of that stuff I mean all the nutritional stuff that goes onto that label there's there's certain things that have to be on th
ere and you help people with that as well we do we we go through the full Gauntlet with them and we'll take them step by step by step okay and so if they have if they can be really good at one thing they know nothing about something else and we'll step them in and so if we were to receive a request from a large business they'll schedule come in do their work and be out in a day or two okay and we won't see them again till they need it again right but with a small business they come in and we're
with them for months and months and months and years and sometimes they're still with us after three and four years because they're they're learning step by step and we have to take them step by step so you really walk them through that process the whole bit of Life yeah okay well I think it's fascinating to see some of the products that you guys have had a hand in for 25 years you've been here helping uh the people in Oklahoma so I've heard that you guys are a very popular tour also just for an
ybody who might want to visit we we are in fact uh as I understand uh it's we've had these these tours scheduled uh and maybe as many as 4,000 people a year come through here okay and it's just a matter of walking in and doing that but we prefer someone schedule it ahead so that we can have a tour leader and we can bring them through the the lower level and even our second floor where we have all the action of food processing so people can find out more information on your website I'm sure about
that and it's it's the entry here is open to people if they want to come in and see some of the products but you've got a lot behind the scenes for people to visit tell us a little bit about um the equipment that you have to to offer different um producers one of the things that people don't realize in this building is that we operate under a USDA Grant of inspection so we have a USDA inspected facility here for Slaughter and dressing of livestock Beef Pork and lamp okay and so we'll we'll Slau
ghter and process maybe it's three and 400 head of of livestock a year okay and we'll move it through our retail shop which we have on Doc four right every Friday you every Friday afternoon delicious fresh meat here so all right so everything from beef to bread you guys are providing um and supplying to Oklahomans because one of the big things is we are obviously a big wheat producing state here and a lot of it was leaving right so why don't we make our own baked goods right here right yeah and
why not you know um and we have two Mills two grain mills in our shop on the west side of second floor and between us and the wheat qual lab we we're Milling often times during the week and so we can Mill gra mostly wheat mostly wheat and we bake bread and do all kinds of things in that shop and we offer technical assistance to people to bakeries in the field uh through at through our bakery shop upstairs okay and you also offer workshops too right for people that are wanting to learn about diff
erent types of Bak we do a lot of workshops we do baking workshops we do meat Slaughter and processing workshops we do basic training workshops for entrepreneurial business we do food safety workshops to talk about food safety the requirements for the USDA the FDA um and even home Bakery businesses we do a lot of workshops here and at various places around the state for small businesses startup businesses home processing businesses thank you so much for sharing this information with us and if yo
u want to find out more about the Robert M CER food and agriculture products Center check out their website [Music] this season on Oklahoma gardening we're kind of featuring a unique series we're in fact going to work with the uh Robert M cerr food and agriculture product Center to Showcase how they help people take a raw product and turn it into a marketable product for the shelf and so in order to do that you know I could do a simple segment on what that uh Center is all about but I thought it
would be more fun to actually go through the process as a customer and so this season what we are going to do is we are going to grow some basil out at the OSU student farm and then actually work with them to turn our basil into a dried herb product now it's pretty a straightforward of course you have seen us do segments about how to dry herbs and it's not too complicated of a process but really we wanted to do that so that we could see how to scale something up because a lot of times as you kn
ow what seems like something simple when you try to scale it up to a certain volume it gets a little bit more complicated so this season you're going to see as we are the customers going through this process with the food agriculture products Center um but in order to do that we first have to actually start our basil so today we are here at the greenhouse Learning Center on campus to start our basil as transplants um indoors first so that we can then transplant them later on in the season now th
e basil we have selected for this process is a Genevie series um and that's a pretty popular and common type of Basil that's often used um but this particular one is actually called uh NOA Prospect um we selected this one because it is very good for fi grown situations which is what we'll be doing out at the OSU student Farm um and also because it has high resistance to Downey milde and also fusarium Wilt um so those are two important things that can affect your plant obviously and also the vege
tation which is what we're after the other aspect that we really liked about this particular type of Basil is the fact that it also has tall uniform rapid growth and so of course again we're after the vegetation and so having uniform rapid growth that is high up off the ground is going to make it um more abundant and easier to harvest later on in the season now this particular um one has about a harvest date of 68 days um so we're going to go ahead and get these um plants started in the greenhou
se we're doing this mid-march which basically is just going to give us a head start so we will put these out in the garden around mid to late April after we're um no longer concerned about freeze um damage on these plants but really it's going to give us about a 4- we head start on that 10 we um harvest date so here we have some um cells that we're going to fill up and basically this is just something you can use whatever sort of cells you have these are just some that we like to use here and th
e nice thing about them is they're kind of angled at the bottom so later on when we're transplanting them they easily slip out so we are going to plant um a couple of hundred of these basil seeds actually because we are going to plant a full row that's about 250 ft long and we're actually going to do a double row down that length so we're looking at about 300 seeds because we're going to plant them on a 18inch center so we want to make sure that we have plenty of transplants um and we'll just ge
t these started I'm gonna go ahead and make just the most minor little divot here because if you look at these seeds they're very very small so we got this package this is actually a half an ounce of seeds as I sprinkle these out on my hands you can see how tiny these seeds are and we're just going to put maybe one to two seeds in each um little cell we have plenty of seeds half an ounce costs about $16 and actually there are over 9,000 seeds in this little pack so again that tells you how small
they are we have plenty of seeds to go around so I'm not concerned about that so I'm just um and because they are so small we barely want to bury them again the general rule with planting seeds is to plant them about 2 and a half times the diameter of the seeds that's how deep you want to plant it so these are almost immeasurable so we're just barely going to put them on there and you can almost just tap them on the surface there so as we continue this the other thing after we get this all plan
ted is we're going to put this on a Mis bench because that's critical you want to make sure to maintain that moisture on there we fortunately have a greenhouse here that we're going to put them in to get them germinated and they should be up in no time at [Music] all there are a lot of great horiculture activities this time of year be sure and consider some of these events in the weeks ahead it's not quite time to plant the whole garden yet but join us next week on Oklahoma gardening as we show
you some plants you'll definitely want to ask add to your landscape so we like know what it looks like birds and humming hummingbirds and butterflies 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. okstate.edu [Music] join in on Facebook and Instagram you can find this entire show and other recent shows as well as individual segmen
ts on our Oklahoma gardening YouTube channel tune in to 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 agricult cultural 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 gym 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 PL the Oklahoma horiculture Society the Tulsa Garden Club and the Tulsa Garden [Music] Center
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