Welcome to Oklahoma Gardening.

As the school year is winding down, we were able to visit John Rex Elementary to see how they've incorporated gardening into their learning all year long.

We then catch up with one of our horticulture professors to learn how she has also taken the learning beyond the classroom with her college students.

And finally, Shelley Mitchell breaks down the importance of soil pH.

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 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.

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It's a place to learn, to grow, and be inspired.

It's where Oklahoma State University bridges research, education, and passion.

We share one goal, to serve the gardeners who inspire us.

That's what makes Oklahoma Gardening true to Oklahoma and true to gardeners.

Today, we are downtown Oklahoma City at John Rex Elementary, and joining me is Allie Ottes, who is the outdoor garden lab instructor.

Did I get that right?

So, Allie, it is amazing what you guys have done in this space, and just in two years you've transformed this?

Yes, yes.

We have 33 raised beds, so there was a lot of summer work.

So, how do you organize it amongst all, is it K through 4th grade here?

It is K through 3rd grade in this building, but we also see 4th grade here too.

Okay, so how do you organize it and have them each have an experience in here?

So, I see every class for 45 minutes or so every week, or every other week.

So, one week I'll see kindergarten and first mostly, and the next week I'll see second and third.

Third does a lot in the garden.

I see them every week because they are assigned a bed that they're completely in charge of.

So, I have them quite a bit, and fourth, they're my heavy lifters when they come over.

Oh, I have so many things for them to help me do.

So, I see everybody in the whole school, 400 plus students, every two weeks.

The leaves are big.

Yep, okay, ready?

Kind of pokey.

Ready?

One.

Two.

A little straight up, okay?

One, two, three.

Yay!

I got one!

Lots of carrots and beets and radishes at the little ones' plants, and then the older ones do a lot of research on the plants.

They're all assigned a vegetable, an herb, a flower, a berry, and they do all the research on that, and they're in charge of these beds, so they have to know exactly what's planted in here.

We do square foot gardening and companion plantings.

This is not just us as adults working on it.

This is what the kids do every day.

They work with the worms.

They have the beds that they plant the plants and harvest, and that is something that they may not be able to provide at home, certainly couldn't provide elsewhere, and just being able to give them that experience is really what they've been the most thankful for.

Every four students in third grade has their own bed they're in charge of, and we have it all in a grid system, so we do square foot gardening that way, and they're able to tell exactly what square everything is going to go in, and they plant all of them.

So nasturtium, you can eat it, and it's edible.

You can eat the flowers, because they're, and they're like, they taste good, and if you eat these, they're a little spicy at the end.

I like the flowers.

They're really good.

They taste like apples, but I don't really like this one, because it's like spicy and hot.

We have 23 vegetable beds that are the ones that they're in charge of, and then we have 10 pollinator gardens that we, it's just all the flowers that come from the hydroponics, we just, we can move out there and see what happens.

We do a lot of comparing.

Anytime we hear that something works, we'll do, we'll try it, and we'll try not, and see how those things work.

We measure things and weigh things, always science, but our art, one of the things that we did that we really loved is the students draw flowers and sign it, and then we put it in our laser engraver, and we laser engrave fence panels so that are on acrylic.

We also make plant labels out of those drawings, so they've learned everything about those laser engravers and how to work that, so we do a lot of technology.

We do a lot of things with apps and research, and we're designing an app right now, third grade is, so that's been really fun.

We did research on different plants we assigned to put it on an app.

And since we're learning about Cosmos, I'll just go ahead and do Cosmos.

This is your pests that Cosmos want to stay away from.

We made this app so like plants stay healthy for people to grow like their vegetables and all of that.

And I know you love incorporating technology in the garden, right, so a lot of times we see that as opposition, but you're all in on and tying that together.

And I know you've got some stuff up in your classroom, can we go take a look at that?

Sure!

Okay, great.

We're the First Grade Nature Club!

The difference between the potatoes and the sweet potatoes is, so the potatoes you have to like, so like when you first have them, you like bury them, and then you bury them, and then they grow, and then you bury them until they get like this big, and then you wait.

And then the potatoes are under there and you let them sprout, then you get them out.

Hallie, your classroom is amazing, and I love how you brought the nature indoors, even the lights, the tree, everything, but let's start with the hydroponics, you've got a couple of different systems.

Yeah, so I have four hydroponics that are flatbeds, and then I have two tower hydroponics, and every one of our third grade classes has a tower hydroponic as well.

So it's really nice when the weather is not the way you want it to be outside, we can come in and continue our learning just the same way.

With our hydroponics, we grow a lot of plants in here, like Thai basil, and we grow some flowers.

We grow the same stuff outside in our greenhouse, and we compare them to see which one does better, and it always ends up to be the hydroponics.

Why do you think that is?

Because the hydroponics are always the same temperature, and there's no bugs that keep them.

I like to help in the garden.

I've learned a lot about plants, and where they're supposed to grow, and how they grow.

At first, the little ones are real concerned that there's no soil.

And then they learn about the whole system.

The nutrients, yeah, so we go through all of that.

Well, and I know just outside the hallway here, you have convinced everybody to allow you to have so many worm bins, I've never seen so many, tell us a little bit about what you have.

We have 108 worm bins, so every student from kindergarten through fourth grade, in groups of four, keep their own worm bin.

So they built them, we call it worm lasagna, they did it with paper and coco coir, and then we dump worms in, and they feed them with some of their lunch that's left over, they bring and put it in their worm bin, so they all know how to take care of it.

It's amazing, but there's a lot.

Very good, yeah, and that kind of came out of them wanting to do it year after year, right?

Oh, yeah, I only did it with one grade, and then the next year, they'll, can we do worm bins?

We want to do worm bins, so now everyone's doing worm bins.

Every grade, right?

That's fantastic.

Well, let's talk a little bit, I mean, just looking around your classroom here, you've got a laser engraver, and you've talked about apps, let's go into that technology a little bit more, and how you've incorporated all of that.

So our students do a lot of research, so we use a lot of technology doing research.

We do some chat GPT, and have it help us lay out some beds, and then the students double check it, because they know about their companion gardening, and their enemies, so we do a little bit of that on their iPads or on their Chromebooks.

They're also building an app, so that's been fun with all of their research, so they've developed an app in third grade, which is amazing, and they're super excited about that.

But I loved it.

I love integrating technology into all the things that we do.

Do you find that they're really leaning one way or the other, as far as like, oh, they still want to do tech and not gardening, but they're... Oh, they want to garden, but they love when they have a question, say, Ms.

Otis, how do we know?

I'm like, you have a Chromebook, you tell me, and they love it, and I go, yes, and they'll look it up.

So they have a great time.

Kind of like back in the day, they used to tell me, go look in the dictionary, right?

Yes, yes.

They don't have to look in the dictionary, it's so much easier.

That's fantastic.

Well, it seems like you've really created a learning environment here, both indoors and outdoors.

And I know there's probably a lot of other teachers out there that are like, you know, they're a full -time teacher, right, doing whatever grade or subject matter.

Any advice that you would have for them about how to maybe incorporate a little bit of nature and gardening into the classroom?

Well, God bless the classroom teachers, we'll start there.

And it is, you know, it's a commitment.

I would say some of the most important things is to have other teachers so that you have a team of people that are working together towards the same thing.

Start really small.

I mean, I started my first garden bed because I like salsa, and I thought, oh, I'm gonna grow my own, and here we are.

But starting small, having a water source is really important.

But I really, when I started, I really didn't know what I was doing.

I'm not a huge gardener to start with.

I just did a little bit at a time with things that are easy, and, you know, I've come a long way.

I have a lot of mistakes, which is part of it, that's part of it.

So I did a lot of things wrong and learned from my mistakes.

School is difficult because a lot of things that you plant, you harvest in July, and you don't have students.

So we've done a lot of work to make sure that all the things that we're doing right now, in the fall when they come back, they'll be able to see the fruits of their labor.

Right, and actually, it's like the third grade that's helping to grow for the fourth grade next year or whatever, right?

Fourth graders, when they come back, the first thing they're gonna say is, I need to go see the pumpkins.

I know.

Their teachers are gonna say, what has happened?

Because as a third grader, they planned it, isn't it?

Yeah, so they were in charge of all those beds, so they're gonna come over next year and see exactly what happened to the beds that they were in charge of.

So you mentioned it's important to have a team that helps with all of this.

It's just not one person's responsibility, right?

No.

So can you share a little bit about who your team is and who's kind of critical to get on board with this as a teacher?

I think it's really important to have different grade level teachers.

We've had lots of community help.

We have volunteer days that we'll have a whole community of people come out and help pull some weeds.

But really, most importantly, that we could not do it without it is our leadership.

Our principals and our superintendent are on board.

They don't say no.

I mean, if there's something that sounds crazy, like 108 Warren bins, it's wonderful.

And they've seen the difference it makes with students and how invested they are in their learning.

It's far more than what I could have ever imagined.

It's a level of work and love that I didn't think was going to be required to create something for the kids.

But being able to see that the hard work and the effort of not only Miss Ottis, but the staff to really be able to bring the kids in and learn not just about the garden, but nature, life cycle, science, math, all that in one space that really brings their academics inside to life outside.

They kind of look like twins, except this one's more pink.

This one's darker red.

This will be here as long as I'm here and for decades after.

We use a seed and we drop it in the hole.

I think we dig it back up, give it water and sunshine and soil.

And then after a few days, a sprout and then a seedling, a sprout and then like a grown-up.

Today, we're here at the OSU student farm and we're not talking about vegetables.

In fact, we are being joined by Dr.

Johanna Bing, who is a new faculty member in the horticulture department.

You've been here a year now, I guess.

It's not quite new, but we've got some fun classes that you're bringing online and this is part of that as a laboratory.

Let's talk about what this space is.

Yeah, so I developed a class last semester called herbal plant production.

And so this space supports that class so that students can come and learn about herbal plants and their uses.

So it's kind of a teaching slash research space.

I'm also doing a little bit of research in here at some point on cut flowers, but more for the teaching side of things, I would say.

Okay, so yeah, we've got a little bit of a space back there that's not quite developed.

And it's all a work in progress because this is your first season with this?

Yes, this is the first season.

We put the raised beds together last fall and then we got them filled last fall and we started planting this spring.

And so it's definitely a work in progress.

I'm going to probably change some things around that I already am not sure about.

Also starting to learn the lighting of the space too.

There's some areas that are a little bit more shaded in the afternoon and some plants might like that better long term.

So kind of making a lot of observations this year and then going to move forward with a couple of changes.

And you both have in ground and raised bed options as well.

Can you talk about maybe kind of what you've chose to put where?

So initially the idea was to put all the annuals in the raised beds or things that we might want to do like a small scale study on.

But the in ground area wasn't ready for the perennials at that time.

And so now it's a mix of annuals and perennials.

But as we've developed the outer area, the outer beds, that's where I want to put more of the long term perennial crops or anything I want to grow in a larger amount that would be in the ground.

And then the raised beds would probably be more focused on annuals or even flowers.

And this isn't a new subject matter for you.

You came from Georgia.

Tell us a little bit about what your background is with this.

Yeah.

So I came from the University of Georgia where we also had a student farm called U Garden.

And part of that farm was a medicinal herb garden.

And it was production based.

So we were growing herbs to make medicinal teas, salves, lip balms, all kinds of different products that we sold as a fundraiser for the farm.

Okay.

And Georgia gets hot.

It does.

It's hot.

It's humid.

And the soil conditions are a lot different, including the pH.

And so I'm learning a lot being here in Oklahoma.

We have the wind.

We have a lot of sun all the time.

And we do get humid, but not quite as humid as Georgia, although today is a little different.

And the pH here is kind of like crazy compared to Georgia.

We are on the acidic side.

So I was always liming the soil.

In Georgia.

Yes, in Georgia.

Here it's the opposite.

We have higher pHs.

So in some areas I have to think about potentially lowering the pH, usually with sulfur over time.

Okay.

And your class, though, is wrapped up.

We're after the end of the spring semester.

You guys were able to turn some products out.

Yes, we made a couple of different blends of tea.

We did a Tulsi tea.

So Tulsi is a type of basil.

It's more known in Indian cultures as a very sacred type of herb.

You dry it and then you use the leaves for a tea.

And it helps your body kind of adapt to stressful situations.

So it's really good for... We all need that, right?

Exactly, exactly.

So we did that.

And then we did a blend called Calm Your Cowboy.

And that is obviously a calming tea blend, which everyone needs at the end of the semester or any time in your life.

And that one had Tulsi, Roselle, Motherwort, Red Clover.

And some of the ingredients we sourced here at the OSU farm, the Roselle and the Tulsi.

The other two ingredients we actually purchased from UGarden.

And so they were able to give us some for our first batch.

But we're planning to grow those things and harvest them for next year.

But the students actually put all that together?

Yes, they blended all of the herbs, packaged them, put little stickers on them, made it look really professional.

And we sold them at the Herb Fest at the Botanic Gardens a few weeks ago.

And then we also made a couple of salves.

One with comfrey and one with calendula.

Okay.

And you've got a lot of different plants here.

You mentioned Tulsi and then the Motherwort.

What are some others that are kind of more unique?

Other than, you know, sage, thyme, basil, we all know those.

So we've grown, we've got some dye plants that I'm hoping to kind of play with as well.

We have a Dyer's Chamomile that I've never grown before.

Something called Matter that's also supposed to be good for dye plants.

Roselle is also in our tea blend.

And that's a type of hibiscus.

Hibiscus sabdorifida.

It's tropical, so it's not hearty for us here.

But we can grow it.

And the part of the plant that you use is the calyx.

Okay.

So the calyx surrounds the seed pod.

And we harvest it after the bloom has fallen and the calyx has swollen.

It's about half dollar, quarter size.

Clip it.

You remove the calyx from the seed head.

Dry it.

And then that's what we use for the tea.

And it does create a very red tea.

Okay.

So if you've ever had red zinger tea, that's one of the main ingredients.

Okay.

But it's a late blooming plant, right?

Yes.

So you're kind of experimenting with some different species?

Yes.

It is.

It reacts to short days.

So as the days are getting shorter, it tends to bloom more.

But then we have issues with frost as days are getting shorter.

And it is a tropical plant.

Okay.

However, we are able to source some from the islands, the Virgin Islands, that are day neutral.

So those should, as soon as they hit maturity, they should flower and make the calyx regardless of long or short days.

Okay.

Well, we look forward to hearing more about that.

And you've got a beautiful yellow one behind us, Lemon, too.

Can you tell us about that?

So that's the calendula.

And that's what we use for a salve.

Okay.

So once the flower opens, we harvest it and we dry it.

And then we combine that with olive oil.

We make what's called an infused oil.

Then we strain that and add beeswax and it creates a salve.

And that salve is really good for any little cuts or bug bites.

We're getting into mosquito season and ant season.

So it's really good to have on hand for any of those little bites.

Okay.

Well, these products aren't for sale just yet, if you missed the herb festival.

But stay tuned for who knows what next year's class.

Stay tuned.

We're ramping up.

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

Today we're going to talk about the pH scale.

The pH scale is a measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions in an aqueous solution.

So what is the pH actually referring to?

Just like temperature refers to whether something's hot or cold, pH refers to whether something's acidic or basic.

So some examples of acidic and the lower numbers on the pH scale represent more acid things.

So examples are like pH 1 is stomach acid.

You know how that feels when you have heartburn.

Coffee is pH number 5.

Neutral is water.

And then as you get more basic and less acidic, you get to stuff like milk of magnesia and drain cleaner.

This is a logarithmic scale.

So this is a factor of 10 between each one.

So this is 10 times more acidic than this.

So it's logarithmic.

So it's not just a simple factor of 1.

It's a factor of 10.

Why is this important for life?

Well, pH affects how things act in the environment.

And biological processes usually need to operate within a narrow range of pH.

So some examples of pH in the human world is if you get heartburn and your stomach acid, which is a pH 1, is really making you feel bad, you can take a base like milk of magnesia to help neutralize that feeling.

If you get stung by a bee or a plant, that pain is acid.

So you can neutralize it by using calamine lotion to help neutralize that.

So as you can tell, pH influences biology and it also influences chemistry in the garden.

And as always, if you have a question about today's show, feel free to stop by your local county OSU Extension office or leave us a comment on our social media.

There are many great horticulture activities this time of year.

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

Next week on Oklahoma Gardening, we are going to take a look back at some of the beautiful gardens that were recently featured on the Tulsa Garden Club's annual garden tour.

I wish we could get in there.

Thank you guys!

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.

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

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 Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources at Oklahoma State University.

The Botanic Garden at OSU is home to our Studio Garden 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 the Tulsa Garden Club, Greenleaf Nursery and the Garden Debut Plants, the Tulsa Garden Center, the Oklahoma Horticultural Society, and the Tulsa Herb Society.