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Post by glen on Jul 10, 2015 8:43:46 GMT -6
Skip, those are some tall plants! Congratulations on the fine crop of okra. I am from Florida myself, but I moved several years back to Panama. I miss gardening in florida. Okra is tons of fun to grow and is pretty easy isn't it? I am hoping that Ron will be able to send you some Heavy Hitter seed so we can see how it grows in florida. Great Project and welcome to the fórum. Where I live, I get Little dwarf okra plants! But, I get enough okra for the kitchen. Its fun though, to see okra get tall like yours. Try giving them more space. Plants might just put on more branches and produce more pods!
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skip the guest not logged in
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Post by skip the guest not logged in on Jul 10, 2015 11:23:18 GMT -6
Glen, I really don't have much space as you can see. If I can get some heavy hitter I'll also do them in huge pots and space them out next year. Presently I am getting all I need for both the table and freezing some for gumbo this winter. I would love to try the Heavy hitter though. I would probably dedicate one plant for nothing other than pod saving for seed. Thanks for your replies.
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Post by glen on Jul 10, 2015 17:21:15 GMT -6
Skip, you don't need to do anything fancy for okra. If conditions are right, there is plenty of sun and heat, and water, you can grow okra. I can see that you are having fun, getting plenty of okra for the kitchen etc. Thats all that counts. I ordered some HeavyHitter okra because I was intriqued by Ron's reports of large branchy plants that produced twice as much as ordinary okra. I ordered some seed, and Ron was kind enough to throw in some Zeebest okra seed as well. The wierd part was that the Zeebest okra actually performed better than the Heavy Hitter okra in my conditions and climate. But, I still got plenty of okra from both variety's. I live in the tropics. Esculentus Abelmoshus, is what they call day length neutral. I live in a short day climate since I live so close to the equator. Abelmoshus does not like my climate that well. Unlike where you live, where okra just loves it. That's why my plants will not get tall and branchy like they do for Ron in OK. It doesn't matter really since I am not a farmer. I grow okra for fun and for my kitchen. I get plenty. If you are just growing for the kitchen, you can plant them just about any way you want to. A foot apart, or 4 feet apart. You should get a nice crop for the kitchen. Give em more space and lots of compost and goody's along with the right conditions and you get larger plants with more branching and more production. You just can't keep up with it when things are just right for them. When things aren't right then okra can be hard to grow. Like not enough warmth or not enough sun or too much rain etc. I am learning a lot about okra now that I have the time to observe and experiment with it. Have fun with it. Okra is a great survivor veggy. One of the best.
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skip
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Post by skip on Jul 11, 2015 13:35:19 GMT -6
Glen, I checked out the Zeebest variety online and it looks almost identical to Emerald. Both have long, narrow and smooth pods. I guess I am partial to Clemson Spineless because it has much more "meatier" pods. A 3 1/2 inch Clemson weighs as much as a 6 inch Emerald pod.
How do you guys eat your okra? My favorite is cut into pieces and sauteed with tomatoes and minced onions over a bed of rice. I could eat that every day. Another way that I like is put on skewers, doused with olive oil and then seasoned with "your choice" of spices. I like it charred on the grill, nice crunchy flavor. What I do not care for is boiled okra. It's way too slimy and loses it's taste. Amazingly, the okra and tomatoes combined and sauteed does not render the okra into a slimy mess. Cooked just right and it retains a bit of crunchiness.
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Post by macmex on Jul 11, 2015 14:15:12 GMT -6
My favorite way to eat it is to cut it up and saute it is a bit of olive oil, sprinkling with some Creole seasoning or Rosemary. Hope Ron shows up here soon. He'll have more recipes.
George
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skip
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Post by skip on Jul 11, 2015 15:52:13 GMT -6
My favorite way to eat it is to cut it up and saute it is a bit of olive oil, sprinkling with some Creole seasoning or Rosemary. Hope Ron shows up here soon. He'll have more recipes. George
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skip
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Post by skip on Jul 11, 2015 15:53:47 GMT -6
Hello George. Nice to meet you! Interesting forum here and thanks for the replies.
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Post by glen on Jul 12, 2015 8:04:41 GMT -6
Skip, there is a good thread on Zeebest right here on this fórum. George wrote it. It doesn't get much attention but its a great thread. I am with you, I like the taste of ridged okra better, but that is only because that is what I ate when I was a kid. Maty, my partner, likes the Zeebest okra the best. She had never eaten okra before I started growing it here in Panama so I attribute her "lack of taste" to inexperience. She likes the look of the zb plants better and the feminine curved long look of the lady's fingers. I have to admit that the ZB plants grow better here in Panama and look better overall. I just prefer the taste of ridged okra better.
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Post by fourteenmilecreek on Jul 13, 2015 21:35:48 GMT -6
Hey guys, sorry I've been out for so long... ever since the last heavy rain we had last Friday; and the resulting flood, my dial-up Internet has been too slow to even open this site to let me read the posts. (Our phone pedestal was under water for a while). MESONET says we've had 43.61 inches of rain this season.
Skip; glad to hear back from you over in Florida... I have a thread here on the green country seed savers website that is nothing but okra recipes. Some are pretty interesting; like okra french fries.
My favorite is still cornmeal fried okra, with fresh cut homegrown tomatoes, along with smoked pork roast, and brown gravy.
Fried okra is actually part of the official meal of the State of Oklahoma. I delivered okra to the Cherokee Casino over in Tulsa, Oklahoma for the state Representatives meals once.
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Post by fourteenmilecreek on Jul 13, 2015 22:07:44 GMT -6
I apologize for the inconvenience... I've had a lot of requests for Heavy Hitter okra seeds this month, but have been out of stock since early June. I should have more seeds available by Thanksgiving though, as I usually harvest pods shortly after first frost. I air cure my okra pods in the rafters of my Summer kitchen for at least 30 days, before shelling the seeds, so it's almost always Thanksgiving, before they are ready to go into Winter storage.
I have some awesome okra plants this year. I find myself crawling along the rows for hours, raising leaves to take note of the progression of multiple branches. Some are clones of last year's plants, some present never before seen mutations; it's very interesting to watch them take on new forms.
The leaves this year are huge, due to the overcast skies that persisted for so many weeks. The plants are shorter than usual, due to lack of sunlight and adequate heat, but with the next few weeks calling for temperatures in the high 90s, I don't expect they'll be short for much longer.
I can't find software to interface my old Sony Cyber shot camera to my Acer laptop, so I don't have any new photos yet from this season. Hopefully, I'll find a camera in the coming weeks, and start posting photos of my 2015 okra crop.
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skip
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Post by skip on Jul 13, 2015 23:17:36 GMT -6
Hey Ron! Save me a few seeds please! I have no idea what you charge for them but if I got 25-50 seeds I'd be more than happy.
I guess everyone has different tastes. I don't care for boiled okra. I honestly don't care for fried okra either, I think I ate too damn many as a kid and lost my taste for that. Also I don't eat a ton of fried food anymore. Like I think I said, on the grill charred, okra and tomatoes stewed and in gumbo is how I eat them. My girl friend just made some freaking awesome gumbo including my garden supplied pods. It included sausage, chicken, shrimp, okra, and broth from the shrimp shells and other goodness she put in there. I'll have to ask what all she put in there. She made about a two gallon stock pot full and we still have some and froze the rest for quick meals. Wrong time of the year I know, we just turned down the air conditioning to 68 degrees and it was heaven! lol
Skip
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Gary in Mississippi
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Post by Gary in Mississippi on Jul 14, 2015 8:59:31 GMT -6
Our 2014 crop is in! You can now place an order for Heavy Hitter Okra seed from DRY CREEK FARM, by emailing fourteenmilecreek@yahoo.com For your convenience you can now use PayPal. We also accept personal checks, cashier checks, money orders, cash, and sometimes barter. Happy gardening, from our family at DRY CREEK FARM. How much to send you for a small order, say 100 HH seeds? I would like to buy some from the 2015 season. Can you also put up where to send payment? Thanks. p.s. I sent you a recent email on this.
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Post by glen on Jul 14, 2015 9:32:02 GMT -6
I have 2 rows of okra growing, 6 hh plants in one row and 8 zb plants in the other. I had to pull up 2 hh plants yesterday due to the plants being deseased. Plants are a Little over 2 months old. About half are putting on pods. Almost all are putting on branching now, showing at least 2 branches coming off the lower part of the plant. This includes the zb plants. Plants are all at least 24 inches tall, with larger than normal leaves and nice big Bloom heads. Stalks almost 1 inch in diameter. They have put a growth surge on since the sun has returned from all the overcast sky's we have had in the past months. Leaves are bigger on the zb plants however, all the plants in general look the same and look good. I do not know yet if I am going to be swimming in okra or how long the cutting season will last since this is the first time I have grown okra during the rainy season. But, I suspect that I will have okra coming out of my ears very soon. Plants are 18 inches apart and are now already so wide that they are growing into each other. It appears that I should have given them at least 2 feet of spacing. We'll see. I have a second planting that is a Little younger. The plants are bunched together since I planted the sedes and have not thinned them out. I am only going to thin out a few probably just to see if the plants can stand being so close together. These plants get a Little more shade than the first planting and are smaller but appear to be getting ready to Bloom and put on pods. I am pretty sure I will be cutting okra from this planting as well. Comparing both variety's of okra. ZB and HH are both branching variety's of okra and are very good variety's. Its just a matter of taste. My girlfriend loves the ridgeless beautifully curved and long zb pods. I prefer the old fashioned clemson style pods. So, I will continue to grow both variety's. It whatever toots your horn I guess. Okra just isn't that difficult to grow. I have grown the old fashioned clemson okra most of my life and I always had plenty of okra in my garden for the kitchen.
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Post by fourteenmilecreek on Jul 14, 2015 16:30:35 GMT -6
Gary in Mississippi,
I am currently out of stock. My 2015 okra crop won't be available until I harvest in November 2015.
Send me an email about Thanksgiving time.
fourteenmilecreek@yahoo.com
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skip
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Post by skip on Jul 18, 2015 14:00:04 GMT -6
I apologize for the inconvenience... I've had a lot of requests for Heavy Hitter okra seeds this month, but have been out of stock since early June. I should have more seeds available by Thanksgiving though, as I usually harvest pods shortly after first frost. I air cure my okra pods in the rafters of my Summer kitchen for at least 30 days, before shelling the seeds, so it's almost always Thanksgiving, before they are ready to go into Winter storage. I have some awesome okra plants this year. I find myself crawling along the rows for hours, raising leaves to take note of the progression of multiple branches. Some are clones of last year's plants, some present never before seen mutations; it's very interesting to watch them take on new forms. The leaves this year are huge, due to the overcast skies that persisted for so many weeks. The plants are shorter than usual, due to lack of sunlight and adequate heat, but with the next few weeks calling for temperatures in the high 90s, I don't expect they'll be short for much longer. I can't find software to interface my old Sony Cyber shot camera to my Acer laptop, so I don't have any new photos yet from this season. Hopefully, I'll find a camera in the coming weeks, and start posting photos of my 2015 okra crop.
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