Fellowship Around the Table
Great conversations about life, faith, and the Bible from Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma (www.fbctulsa.org).
Fellowship Around the Table
Gardening in Oklahoma w/ Monica Reed and Jim Bruns (Part 2 of 2)
Unlock the mysteries of gardening in the unique Oklahoma landscape with guidance from seasoned green thumbs Monica Reed and Master Gardener Jim Bruns. Whether you're starting with a blank slate or you have a garden that's already a slice of Eden, our conversation will inspire you with the dedication and passion that goes into cultivating healthy gardens. We dig deep into soil preparation, the cornerstone of successful gardening, and share why understanding the specific needs of Oklahoma's diverse soil is crucial to your botanical success.
Imagine your garden thriving through three Oklahoma seasons, bearing the fruits of your labor and the beauty of nature's variety. Our episode blooms with practical tips for garden construction and layout, emphasizing the importance of sunlight, drainage, and plant seasons. But it's not just about the plants; it's about the people and the community.
Gardening isn't only a source of sustenance; it's an act of conservation. We share the enchantment of starting a garden from scratch, from the thrill of selecting seeds to fostering a haven for pollinators, like the majestic monarch butterfly. Whether you're gardening with family or flying solo, we reassure you that each seed planted is a step towards a greener tomorrow. Join us as we cultivate a conversation that'll leave your gardening heart full and your thumbs greener than ever.
You are listening to Fellowship Around the Table.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Fellowship, around the Table, where we endeavor to have great conversations about life, faith and the Bible. I am your host today, heath Casey, and around the table for week two I have Monica Reed and Master Gardenerener Jim Bruns. Wow, that's right, master, that's a technical title right, it's legit. What is a Master Gardener?
Speaker 3:A Master Gardener is someone who goes through an eight-week training course all day on a Wednesday at the Tulsa County Extension Office, the OSU Extension Office at the Tulsa. County Extension Office, the OSU Extension Office, and really they take people with zero gardening background if that's where you are and take you all the way through. You know teaching, seed, starting, pest control, identification. We go down to the garden at OSU, go through greenhouses and it's an amazing program. An amazing program.
Speaker 2:Anybody could do that. Is that kind of open to the public?
Speaker 3:Yes, you have to apply. It's a lottery. Yeah, you apply and it's a lottery.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, but my beef with it is it's on Wednesdays all day.
Speaker 2:It is that's tough?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:It's about eight weeks. You said yes.
Speaker 3:Okay, I think mid-September and goes right close to the end of the year.
Speaker 2:Okay, so who are all the Master Gardeners at Fellowship Bible Church? Do you know?
Speaker 3:Well.
Speaker 1:I know Sue Jim and Sue Greg. Mitchell is amazing. He doesn't have the title but he's just.
Speaker 3:He's way above Master Gardener level.
Speaker 1:He is so smart and just he's.
Speaker 2:Dr Gardener, he is. Yes, greg is amazing.
Speaker 1:He's, and just he's. Dr gardner, he is yes greg is amazing.
Speaker 3:He's out. Yes, shout out to greg. Yes. And then george is amazing. Yeah, george curdini. So I I feel like there is another yes, that we're forgetting somebody master gardener, but escapes me yeah, so sorry if we forgot your name.
Speaker 1:I still love you. We still love you, yes right, and I'm just a wannabe.
Speaker 2:You're a wannabe, you're a junior gardener, you're an apprenticeship I have a badge.
Speaker 1:I'm earning my badge, yes.
Speaker 2:Well, last week we talked about the ministry and the actual garden, but you guys are doing a spring impact class where you really get into the weeds on having a garden in Oklahoma. It's a personal passion of mine. I have a big garden that I love to work with every year, so I just wanted to walk through some of these. You know concepts, and so let's start with soil.
Speaker 3:So the first week we talk about preparation soil. The thing about Oklahoma is we have so many different kinds of soil.
Speaker 2:Dude.
Speaker 3:And very little of it is good. We have sand, we have clay, we have rock.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:And the problem with all of those is they need amendments to make them usable. Soil, which is organic material.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Whether that be leaves or mulch or composted leaves or whatever that you have to add to it to help get some organic material in there which helps retain water, adds nutrients to the soil, okay, and it just gives you a better medium for growing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so those other things, on their own not much is going to happen. A sand, a silt, clay type. But you've got to add amendments, as you call them, mulch stuff that fertilizes and provides that.
Speaker 1:It's all about the soil.
Speaker 2:It's all about the soil, Definitely. I know my yard here South Tulsa is super sandy. I feel like I can water it for an hour and it just drains right through. I mean, it's easy to dig, it's soft, but man, is it sandy?
Speaker 3:And I'm not far from here and mine's super clay is that right?
Speaker 2:yes yeah, I don't know where the sand line stops.
Speaker 3:But it's not in my house so, yeah, I've got about four or five inches of moderately decent topsoil, and then it's nothing but clay, clay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what I mean happens there? It just holds water.
Speaker 3:Well, it not only holds water, but it's just that the clay particles are much smaller than like sand.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And so Not only does it hold water, but when it dries out, then it gets so hard that it's unworkable. Okay, so you need a combination of sand, silt and clay, really to make everybody happy. The silt adds a bunch of nutrients the smallest particles, minerals, nutrients and then the clay to help retain water when you need the water.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:But then some sand also to help it drain when you need the water. Okay, but then some sand also to help it drain when you're getting too much rain. So you know, it's just finding that right balance of all that stuff so that that balance between those three.
Speaker 2:If I run up to the local gardening place and I get a scoop of what they call topsoil, is it going to be a blended mix of those three? Is that what I'm basically getting?
Speaker 3:yes, most likely, then with some compost added to that. Yeah, okay, top soil with compost. With the amendments, the organic material okay, all right.
Speaker 1:So getting the soil right is is hugely important if you're going to start correct a garden in oklahoma yes, and we also talk about testing your soil okay and the osu extension here does that so in class we actually allow people to take soil samples, bring them in, label it and then I take them up to the OSU extension and they'll get analyzed and then we'll get the email results back and talk about them in class.
Speaker 2:So what kind of results? What kind of tests do they run on the soil?
Speaker 3:They check out what's called NPK. It's like they get their cholesterol.
Speaker 2:HDL, LDL, triglycerides called NPK.
Speaker 3:It's like they get their cholesterol.
Speaker 1:Right HDL, LDL, triglycerides.
Speaker 3:NPK, so nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And just looking for specific numbers in those, making sure they're not too high, not too low. Then, based on what they find, then you can add Whatever you need, if you need nitrogen, whatever you need.
Speaker 1:If you need nitrogen, you can. Amendments is what I was shooting for. Okay.
Speaker 2:So that NPK would help you get a feel for the organic matter in your soil at the moment.
Speaker 3:And also tells you the acidity. Okay, To tell you where you're at as far as if your soil is acidic or if it's alkaline. If you need to adjust that some too.
Speaker 2:Where do you want it to be?
Speaker 3:Depends on what you're growing. It does depend on what you're growing for most everything. You want it relatively neutral. Okay. There are things like blueberries, blackberries, azaleas.
Speaker 2:They love high acidic soil is that why, when we plant azaleas, I always give you that peat. Is that thing?
Speaker 3:that's just to make sure that what they call their feet don't get wet.
Speaker 2:So that's not an acidic thing.
Speaker 3:No, peat doesn't really add any acidity, but something that does and that works amazing for azaleas are pine needles.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Just to mulch around the base with those azalea plants with pine needles, that'll help with the acidic piece of the soil, and azalea plants with that'll help with the for sure piece of the soil. Okay, and moisture, yeah, so you're going to find out the mpk, you're going to find out your acidic alkaline levels. Yeah, what else does it test for? Is that kind of the key things to get going?
Speaker 3:yeah, pretty much, because that's all you're looking for. You know, in a soil test they have another test that you can do that digs a little deeper to check for things. Like you know, if you say in a spot closer to downtown or closer to an industrial area that might have had industrial waste.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:That you can check for mercury, lead, things like that, but not on their normal test. Okay, they don't test for that.
Speaker 2:All right, so we get our soil right. We kind of know where we're at. And you mentioned the Oklahoma State Extension. Talk a little bit about that. I don't think people realize what a resource we have in our state. Oh, it's amazing. Yes, it's available to the public. It's such a great resource.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, they have the Tulsa Master Gardeners Association here locally that you can join that Jim already talked about. But they have so many resources online, just Google. Many resources online, just google, like osu, extension, tulsa, and they have so many fact sheets prepared already. We actually use a lot of the material in our classes. Anything you have questions on, they're going to have an answer for for sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they have a call center too. Is that right?
Speaker 1:yes, yes so that's where we go and we drop off the soil samples. It's right by the fairgrounds and you go inside and you can see the call center there and then it's that's.
Speaker 3:That's one of the things you have to do when you go through the program is, once you get done with the master gardener program you have to volunteer so many hours through that first year okay, but in specific areas you have to do the call center. You have to do classroom time, like going to kids' classrooms and doing programs with kids.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a great resource available to the public.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so take advantage of that.
Speaker 2:All right, so we talked about soil. Let's talk about the big one the sun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's kind of in week two where we go into planning phase. So if you're going, it doesn't matter what kind of garden you're going to do. You need to look at your area where you're wanting to. You know we talk about looking at where your trees are and other hard physical structures to make sure you get enough sun because, that's. A lot of people don't realize that you need six to eight hours at least to grow the summer vegetables that everybody loves, like tomatoes and peppers.
Speaker 1:You think about your landscaping, your trees, when they leaf out, how they're going to change over the years, so kind of some forethought into the future planning. When you build your beds Slope. What else did we talk about? Irrigation?
Speaker 3:Drainage, drainage, drainage. You know, not building the bed or in ground, not building in a low spot.
Speaker 2:Okay, you do need water, but you can have too much.
Speaker 3:For sure, and you need it to drain effectively, right, okay?
Speaker 2:And then you said on the sun, like six to eight hours is a good measure for general vegetables. That's minimum.
Speaker 3:Yes, Okay, good measure for general vegetables. That's minimum. Yeah, that's minimum, Because anything less than that your summer vegetables just aren't going to produce. Where we have the garden here at the church it gets nothing but sun all of the time and it does amazing. And I don't get that much at my house. My plants don't do as well as they do here for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you can't really go wrong with full sun.
Speaker 3:I don't think you can Okay. No All right, you have to be a little more careful about what you plant.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:But you have to plant cool crops when it's early and cool crops again later in the fall. You can do great with those on either shoulder season, but you need the sun for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and in class we break down you know what is a cool crop and then what's a warm season crop, and just the basics, and about reading your plant labels and there's a lot of great information on the seed packets. Or when you're buying a plant and just realizing that because they're selling the plant in the box store doesn't mean it's necessarily the best time to buy it or whatever.
Speaker 2:And, I think, a lot of people that aren't really nerded into it. In Oklahoma I think the stereotype is the big summer garden, but we really can get three seasons not huge long. But the fall and spring, there are things we can grow pretty well. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 3:The best time to grow things like kale and collards and broccoli, cauliflower, all that is real early spring here, okay, and then again planting in August or September through the end of the year, yeah, and if you have any kind of availability of a cover, I mean you can keep things like kale and collards going all winter long Is that right yeah? I've done it several times, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:See, I love the idea of a fall garden. I've never done it because I'm always pooped out by September and I'm like I'm done.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we talked about growing some stuff here at the church last fall and by that time we were both just like we're done.
Speaker 2:Yes, Time for a break.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:The greatest gardening puzzle that I want to solve as an Oklahoman is I love cilantro. And I have a big crop of it that just voluntarily comes up now it comes up super early spring and then, right when my tomatoes are great and I want to combine the two they're done. And then, right when my tomatoes finish, a fall crop starts coming up. They cannot get those timed up to save my life it's impossible.
Speaker 1:I know it's cool season Buy it from the store.
Speaker 3:No, you have to harvest it when you can Put it in ice cube trays with water.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a great idea.
Speaker 3:Freeze it.
Speaker 2:Is that right when the tomatoes come up?
Speaker 3:into the salsa.
Speaker 1:I've done that with basil.
Speaker 3:Basil, parsley, cilantro, all that. I've done it with basil too, and I make pesto.
Speaker 2:Yes, and freeze that. Freeze it in ice cubes. Yes, love me, some pesto, I know Me too Okay. You talked about seasons. Oklahoma, we were zone seven. Tell me a little bit about that. What are these zones and what is our?
Speaker 3:we actually just changed to zone 7b. We were so zone 7a. I didn't realize there's a distinction there, and it is really amazing how much different the warmness is moving north okay and I mean we're right on I say right on the borderline of becoming an eight, because it stays warm here, so much we still get that occasional cold snap yeah but I mean nothing, like we used to, even when I moved down here 35 years ago you know, it's changed so much yeah, it used to be a longer in terms of colder winter right and it feels pretty mild, except for like two weeks where it's just ridiculously cold but the zones are all.
Speaker 3:It's a rating. I don't even know for sure who does. I guess the usda probably it's all the way from one to ten, ten being the hottest and one being the coldest. So the majority of of the northern half of the country is six and under. Okay, six, five, four. I know where my mom lives up in illinois. She's in zone five, but tells you how many chill hours is called chill hours that you get per winter, which is a big thing for fruit growers.
Speaker 3:They base the trees that they plant on how many chill hours that they need okay and how susceptible they are to frost when they flower, what your late frost is and things like that, so that all kind of factors into the zones when your last frost is, when your first frost, things like that.
Speaker 2:But a lot of the times when you're researching plants, they're pretty well labeled in terms of what zones they can thrive in, right yeah?
Speaker 3:they are very well labeled. Like Monica said earlier. Earlier, if you take just a few minutes to read the back of a seed packet, there is so much information.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah excellent getting into that. When you're starting a garden, do you go with seeds or do you buy plants and transplant?
Speaker 1:yes, yes, okay, all of the above all the above, yeah so it depends on what you're growing. So some seeds, like lettuce, you can sow directly into the ground and it comes up just fine. But other things germinate differently and need warmer soil temperatures, so like tomatoes and peppers for example. I don't know that you could just stick a seed in the ground and have it grow. I mean, they come out of my compost bin, so yes, you can.
Speaker 3:But I've always just but when you? But when you want them to, yeah, exactly yeah yeah, so we do a little bit of both.
Speaker 1:We have been extremely blessed and have community partners at stores donate us tons of seeds, so we've been able to use those, and then we actually give them out to all the volunteers or whoever wants them. So if you're listening to this and need some seeds, call me. So then from there we also kind of plan out hey, what do we want to plant this year? And we need to do a better job of that, because somebody just goes crazy and grows too many varieties.
Speaker 3:We have the discussion, and then somebody gets a hold of the seed packets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, that's true. Or they start looking at seed catalogs like, oh, let's grow bok choy, why not?
Speaker 2:If you get on a seed catalog mailing list, your mailbox will be full come February. That's right. Yes, january.
Speaker 1:So we do both. We both start seeds for the garden. Jim and I grow a lot of plants for the garden because it's really expensive. I mean when you go to a store to buy a tomato plant or pepper, it's like three bucks and up three to five dollars, and when you have a quarter acre that really adds up.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and the heirloom plants are five to seven.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, so you know, in order to be good stewards, we've kind of Jim already knew, but I learned how to grow from seed. We start in February really, and you know different, various methods at our house with grow lights and mats and soil blocking and all of that can go on for hours.
Speaker 2:I know it's so fun.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited Soil blocking, which my friend Brenda taught me about from Harvest Garden. So yeah, there's that, and then other seeds like beans and warm season we just planted green beans and cucumber, and then you have, of course, potatoes, which are different. Yeah, so it's a little bit of everything.
Speaker 2:Okay, I actually talk about nerding out. I visited the Baker Creek seed.
Speaker 1:Did you? I want to go there In Missouri.
Speaker 3:Field trip. It's amazing. Have you been there? I haven't.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's like its own little village yeah, that's what I've heard it's, I mean, a massive property and you can go and see how they package seeds, how they get them and ship them and all that. But, like on a sunday, it's like a festival. There's there's a band playing, there's a restaurant wow it's, it's wild road trip road yeah for the gardening nerds yeah, because they're in missouri, right. Yeah, yeah okay, yeah, it's probably about an hour drive from springfield oh, that's not bad yeah yeah, it's kind of in between springfield and branson.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, you should go in there for next season all right, you mentioned it last week about things you're doing in the garden, but what can a person do in terms of thinking through the pollinators in their backyard?
Speaker 1:The main thing is well, two things come to mind Don't spray your yard. I know that's a whole different conversation.
Speaker 2:We're talking about people spraying their lawn using the service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you're trying to get pollinators in, even though they say it's good for the bees and all that. It's not really so. That's one thing.
Speaker 3:But the main thing is to incorporate more flowers into your garden, because that's what brings all the butterflies and bees and wasps and all the beneficial insects, which not only pollinate your crops, but they also kill off the bad bugs as well. The thing with pollinators are not only are they steadily decreasing and you know, and certainly all the studies show that, but we don't. We're just really now getting a good grasp on how much work they do do for us. Wow, I just heard on a garden show I was listening to the other day that that the monarch population in the nesting ground in mexico was down almost 60 percent. Wow, this year is that right, which is crazy. Yeah, you know now. Why did that happen? Was it a weather thing? Was it? You know, I don't know, but that's a huge number. But you know, you know. Something else I heard is and I think it was on Joe's podcast- Joe Gardner Showed out Joe.
Speaker 2:Lample the Joe Gardner podcast, excellent podcast.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's one of our favorites.
Speaker 3:It's so smart when you're driving. Yes, you still hit bugs. You don't hit as many bugs though. Yeah, that's true. Every less bug we have is a less bird that we have. You know, the bird population has dropped so much and it's because we don't have as many insects wow, yeah or one of the reasons is that we don't have as many insects, so well, my wife is doing some part of helping that.
Speaker 2:We had a bird build a nest in our garage and I wanted to get it out and she keeps watering it and feeding it and now there's babies in there, so we have one garage at a time.
Speaker 3:Every year we have a wren build in our garage is that right? And I think that's. We do not know when she comes and goes, or whatever, but the babies grow up and they go away.
Speaker 2:So there you go.
Speaker 3:They're pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:So we are having issues with pollinators and that whole cycle.
Speaker 3:No for sure yeah. Just the amount of time that we've spent spraying everything for every little thing is kind of taking its toll.
Speaker 2:It's catching up.
Speaker 3:And we just don't have the pollinators. And certain pollinators need other bugs to feed on, and if those bugs are gone, then the next level of bug goes away.
Speaker 2:It's a whole ecosystem, isn't it?
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah, so we've got to do what we can do to promote them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:So cutting down on the spring and planting more flowers yes what I'm hearing yes, flowers and things like dill, parsley, swallowtail butterflies, their larvae feed on parsley yeah, or some milkweed, yeah, milkweed certainly for, for the monarch and when you walk into the garden, there's there's big garden beds that we built last year and there's a lot of different perennials in there, which are plants that come back every year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we kind of tried to build monarch ecosystem and a pollinator garden there on both sides so, and then we incorporate those into the garden as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a big, big plant of oregano. And it always grows up next to a bunch of basil and I don't know which one of it is attracting it, but that seems to always have a lot of pollinators and butterflies those two yeah, any of those little flowers, for sure they're gonna attract all that stuff I think they bloom at different times, don't they?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, so oregano goes first.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes what about composting?
Speaker 1:I love compost, y'all so I'm so, so excited. We extended our compost bins. We had three giant ones and now we have four.
Speaker 2:Do we?
Speaker 1:And it's just so cool to see how your kitchen waste and your leftover stuff from the garden breaks down into this usable, amazing soil that will help your clay and your sand.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Nurture the plants, and it's just really cool to me. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I have some questions because we have three kind of bins. I just used pallets to make these bins and we put our kitchen waste in there. But the bigger part of what I put in there is mulched up leaves, because we have a lot of leaves. The best and I use the mulcher on the lawnmower and bag and just dump them in there. But best and I use the the mulcher on the lawnmower and bag and just dump them in there.
Speaker 3:but it's gotten pretty big and I know you've talked about this in the class, but you need certain level of oxygen, water and nutrition and temperature. What are those ratios to? So you got browns and greens, okay, and greens basically being things that supply nitrogen.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And browns being things that supply carbon, and so the balance you're looking for is kind of a one to three, one to four ratio. Somewhere in there you want one part of green to three to four parts of brown, okay, and you need to mix them together as you're building the pile. And you need to mix them together as you're building the pile, but also as you're building those layers, you need to water the layers Because, oddly, if you don't water it, it just gets hot and you'll take the pile apart and it'll look ashy, but nothing's really happening. There's not really any breakdown going on. It needs the water to help everything break down.
Speaker 3:I think that's the part that I forget about. But and it's, it's easy, especially because if you turn it sometime and it looks relatively moist, you think, oh, I'm probably fine, and it takes more water than you think for sure. This time of year I I'm bagging perennial rye that I've seeded last fall, bag that and I'm putting that in my compost with leaves that I've saved from last year green, yes, okay and I mean it turbo charges a compost pile.
Speaker 3:Okay, I don't have any problem getting mine to 160 degrees all the time, so 160 yeah and that you need to be close to 160 to help kill any yeah, seeds, but also unwanted pests that might be in there.
Speaker 3:If you put garden waste in there and there's any eggs or anything like that from any of the pests that you don't want to propagate, then that'll help to kill those off too. And the other thing is you can't just build the pile and walk away. It has to be turned. Oh, it does build the pile and walk away, it has to be turned. Oh it does and when you turn it, it has to be watered okay, talk about the frequency of turning.
Speaker 2:How often should I be turning it and how much? Time you got yeah, every day, if you can just build that into my physical workout routine.
Speaker 3:the more you turn it, the quicker it's going to happen. Okay, and it'll happen if you don't turn it. But it takes a long time. Okay, but like this time of year when I'm putting grass in mine and I'm getting it really hot, I can have it to a usable state in about five weeks. Okay, that's turning it once a week. I don't turn it any more than that. Okay, because I don't have time.
Speaker 2:How are we big piles out here? Is that by hand Percetta?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Percetta, she's a beast, she's amazing she loves to turn compost. She is. It's such a good workout, yeah, so really, you know you have the separate bins because you have, like your bigger, chunkier stuff on one end. And as it breaks down, you turn it into the next one and you kind of, as that breaks down, then you'll turn it into the next one, so at the end you're moving.
Speaker 1:Yes, so the one on the far end will have your finished product that you can then use, and that's what we used a lot of in our beds when we refill them?
Speaker 2:do you sift the finished product or is it?
Speaker 1:no it doesn't need to be done okay people do it and it's great for it, but I don't want.
Speaker 3:I don't want to spend the time yeah if, like at my house, I get a lot of unwanted sticks and twigs that fall off of the trees into it. So I sift mine just to try to help get that stuff out here. We don't really need to. I mean, the stuff that comes out of ours, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, and one of the misnomers about compost is I don't want one in my yard because it stinks, and I don't want to attract rodents. If you're doing it properly, it doesn't smell at all. So that's why you have the correct ratios of green to brown and everything else.
Speaker 3:So something else that's important to talking about the water you have to make sure the time of year that we are in we're normally getting a fair amount of rain and coming up. You need to have covered so you're controlling the water, that it gets Really Right.
Speaker 2:You need to have it covered, so you're controlling the water that it gets. Oh, really Right.
Speaker 3:Because if we do get a deluge of rain, then it's going to have too much water and it turns into a slimy mess.
Speaker 2:So do you use like a tarp?
Speaker 3:I used to have pallets. I built some new compost, a new compost system using 2x12s, but I have them roughly three feet wide, 12s. But I have them roughly three feet wide and I have leftover roofing sheet material. Okay that I just lay over top of them. That's easy to pull off if it's not raining. It's easy to put back on there if I know it's going to rain, just to help shed some of that water off okay, yeah, what about getting air?
Speaker 2:I know some people use some pipes. Is that necessary, helpful? What?
Speaker 1:do you think? It's on how much you turn it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't think it's worth the hassle. Okay, I mean, I have slits in mine. You know, in the sides and like with pallets, you get all kinds of opportunities for air in there. Is it reaching all the way in the center? Probably not, but you know, that's why you turn it.
Speaker 2:That's why you turn it, and the best implement to turning is it just a pitchfork?
Speaker 3:Yes, I find it's a pitchfork until it gets down to a certain point, and then I've got to switch to a shovel because I'm just not getting anything.
Speaker 2:What about a backhoe?
Speaker 3:A backhoe would be fantastic, skid steer would be amazing.
Speaker 1:yeah, one of our teachers in our impact class, so we have different teachers for the class and we break it up. So, like jim will take a week, and then greg mitchell and we have some guest speakers and the person who does our compost? Natalie mallory. She used to own her own composting business and that's what they use to turn it so they would actually take scraps from different restaurants and collect them and then turn those into compost, um, and they used to use a backhoe to do that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that sounds fun giant. Yes, all right, I want to talk about some common hurdles weeds, water, wind, but disease too, and we've got to talk about squash bugs. I can never grow squash here and don't even try. Just stop. I did, stop trying. I just don't even do it.
Speaker 1:We don't either we did it last year and we were all just, oh right, when they're right, right, yes. And then you walk outside the next morning what?
Speaker 2:where are those things? Are they in the soil? I?
Speaker 3:don't know, I don't know the devil. They come from 80s. Yeah, there is one type of squash. Some people like it, some people don't. We have both sides of that coin at my house okay it's called trombosino squash.
Speaker 3:It's a type of zucchini, but it looks like a long stretched out butternut squash. Okay, doesn't get very big around, but it does have a little bulb on the end where the seeds are. So there's no seed in the long neck part and you can use it green. You can also let it finish maturing on the vine and keep it as a winter squash. Oh so it is amazingly versatile, but it's not as flavorful as butternut squash. It's not as flavorful as zucchini.
Speaker 1:You can eat it, but it's not.
Speaker 3:It's very good, but it just doesn't have. You know, it's kind of like an all-in-one chicken. It doesn't give you great eggs and it doesn't taste fantastic, but it's a chicken. It's a chicken, but it does hold up very well to cooking because it doesn't have the same pithy kind of inside as zucchini Okay. You can cook it and it doesn't get mushy and weird.
Speaker 1:We need to grow some in the garden.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, try it. Yeah, but they climb like crazy.
Speaker 2:Huh.
Speaker 1:They need a structure to climb on.
Speaker 3:We just have to put up a cattle panel.
Speaker 1:Like we do our cucumbers Right.
Speaker 3:That's a good one. Other than that, I don't know how you control squash bugs. I don't have enough time to pick them.
Speaker 1:I've heard that you can grow them in the fall like plant them later and it goes past the squash bugs cycle but. I haven't tried it.
Speaker 3:I haven't been brave enough. I know we've never tried that either.
Speaker 2:We've never tried that either, so what other advice do you have for if somebody wants to be really organic and not use pesticides in their garden, right, so the biggest thing is you have to spend time in the garden.
Speaker 3:You've got to go out there. You've got to know when it needs water. You've got to know when you're starting to get pests. You've got to know when the plants are starting to look sick so you can be proactive and be on top of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and go out there at different times of the day. We talk about that. We just spoke about this last week. Go out there in the morning time and turn over your leaves and see if there's any eggs at the bottom of it or like those caterpillar worms that eat all the broccoli, and they just ate everything.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Cabbage. So go out there and familiarize yourself. Like Jim said, you go out and if your plants look wilted and funky, something's attacking them, and then just educate yourself.
Speaker 3:Right, sure, there's so much information you can find out on the internet that if you just type in the symptom that you're seeing on the plant and you're going to get a ton of stuff back yeah, good yes okay, the other thing, trying to grow organic. Unfortunately you just kind of have to over plant. Some of it's gonna not make it, it happen. So you know, try to plant enough that the pests get some and you get some and everybody goes home happy, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it helps also to bring in the pollinators. So bringing in the flowers and interplanting, because that brings in the beneficial insects and the predators and that sort of thing which will eat the bugs.
Speaker 3:Here in Oklahoma. You know you were talking about water a second ago. You have to have consistent watering schedule.
Speaker 2:And we do not have consistent natural watering schedules.
Speaker 3:It makes so much difference if you have some type of sprinkler system or something, you can even a timer on a yard sprinkler. We prefer not to have top water because sometimes it does help to increase the amount of disease in plants. Yeah, so we try to water from the base of the plants, but just to have it happening at a particular time of day every day makes so much difference. I mean, I've never been able to grow carrots at my house, is that right? And the carrot germination we had here this year was insane because they were getting some water.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, I love carrots.
Speaker 1:Yes, and that was so fun last year. Last year was our first full season, so we got to plant all the spring stuff. Last year was our first full season, so we got to plant all the spring stuff and just people bringing their families out there and the kids going out there and pulling a carrot up and just straight eating it out of the ground.
Speaker 3:It was awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like this is what it's about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and kids digging up potatoes and seeing where it came from and taking a bite in a radish and they're like oh. Yeah, it's so fun to have families out there and kids and all of that.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you guys came in. We've been talking about doing this for a while. Finally made it happen.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, thank you.
Speaker 2:Anything else you guys want to add?
Speaker 3:Just invite everybody out on Saturday morning. Saturday morning, yes, and if you have any questions we do have an email address, which is fellowshipgardenandfbctulsaorg.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And then, or just grab Jim or I if you see us.
Speaker 3:Yes, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or come out We'd love to have you or just pop in on the impact class.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:So we're a lot of fun, we keep it fun, we keep it light, and gardening's a journey you know each year's going to be different, be different and and everyone can garden, no matter where you're at, even if you're in an apartment. You can start small, yeah. Yes, that's kind of what we talk about in class is don't get overwhelmed. You can start with a window pot or house plants, and it doesn't have to be some big, precise thing. I mean, if you kill a plant.
Speaker 3:It's okay, not too late, to late to get started. It's not.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh absolutely.
Speaker 3:You can start anytime. There's always something to plant there you go yeah.
Speaker 1:And it just brings just such joy. And it's just we were talking about, like, when you go out in a garden, you just get this sense of peace and it's a great place Like the fellowship garden in particular. Just go out, speak to the father and pray, and I don't know, it's just really cool, oh absolutely.
Speaker 2:And fair warning it is addicting. Yes, it is, but you're right, like this is a as a physical thing, but with the right lens, it's being a part of that whole process it is so obvious of the creator and the whole way he designed everything, and getting to be a part of that is spiritual for me.
Speaker 1:Yes, very, very much so, yeah, yeah, lots of conversations with God in the garden for sure. Yeah, lots of prayers.
Speaker 2:I've told my kids that we keep a garden because there's just too many life lessons when you have to go out and pick weeds and how quickly they can come up Right.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 3:That is for sure.
Speaker 2:It's continual life maintenance. Well, thank you all for coming in. All right, thank you Thanks. Heath. We'll see you all next week.
Speaker 3:See ya, thanks for joining Phyllis for Brown the Table. If you'd like to learn more, go to fbctulsaorg.
Speaker 2:I had a big garden light in our utility room which faces kind of the main road, and so it's like purple, you know, at night and Shay's like we're going to get busted. Come on, People think we're growing weed.
Speaker 1:Like mine's right by the front door of my house. Right I have this little alcove so I have my shelving and then all my lights up. So when you drive by, all you see are these bright red lights yes, yeah.
