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Post by Wendell D. on Jun 22, 2020 22:34:21 GMT -6
"Okra is lazy; if you ever let a pod go to seed, the plant will just stop producing, so, you've got to trick it into thinking it is under heavy predator pressure, by harvesting the pods almost daily and by pruning quite a few of the lower leaves (not branches, just leaves).
Once it sees that its first few dozen pods are not going to make any seed, it will double and redouble its efforts to produce more and more pods, as the season progresses."
That right there is great info to learn! Thank you for passing on you knowledge, Ron, from years of growing the okra.
I got my seed I ordered from you quickly, and thank you for the bonus seed.
Your paper towel germination method worked perfectlly. 100% germination.
Been getting so much rain in SW OK lately. 6 inches in last 6 days. Okra is planted and up and growing, though.
Thank you again!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 1, 2020 10:09:42 GMT -6
Wendell,
We haven't had any rain here in the Tahlequah area for a little over a month. The temperatures have been steadily in the 90s each day with unusually high winds. The Illinois River is running low, and the fishing here has been no good lately. If I didn't water my garden every evening, I think I'd be losing plants right now. Japanese Beetles and Flea Beetles are thick, and I saw my first squash bug this morning.
Count your blessings that you're still getting rain down in the Southwest part of the State.
I had a wholesale produce buyer come by this morning, looking for okra and tomatoes for sale. From what he was telling me, it doesn't sound like anyone in this part of the country has any fresh produce to sell. He said corn was going for $19.00 per bushel (about 40 to 50 cents per ear). Watermelons were going for $7.00 to $10.00 each, cantaloupes were selling for close to $5.00 each, okra and tomatoes are not available, and peppers are unheard of. He said even the berry producers got wiped out by the May 8th freeze. So it sounds like a person needs to thank their lucky stars if they end up with any kind of garden this year at all.
Thanks, for the update from down in the Lawton Area. It's always good to hear from other growers in the surrounding parts of the State. I'm really glad to hear someone has been getting rain. If everyone was in the same boat as we're in out here, things in the world of agriculture would be getting scary pretty fast.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 4, 2020 3:22:57 GMT -6
Wooo! Whooo! God's fireworks! We finally got some much-needed rain! The booming thunder, and bright flashes of lightening, woke me up at 4:00 am this morning, because I had my bedroom windows open last night, enjoying the cool summer breeze. I'm glad I had left them open; it allowed me to enjoy one of God's many wonders (Summer Rain!) Oh how much more special those Summer rains are than the dreary, cold, Spring rains!Thank you, God! That was much appreciated!!! I've been hand watering my plants every evening, for nearly a solid month. Our hard-pan garden soil was packed as hard as cement. We really needed this break in the weather!
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Post by macmex on Jul 4, 2020 6:22:22 GMT -6
Amen!
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Post by WD - Lawton on Jul 6, 2020 10:32:13 GMT -6
God's fireworks are the best...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 6, 2020 20:36:51 GMT -6
I've got deer over here like nobody's business. They are destroying everything!It might not be quite so bad, if they didn't take the time to sign their work with hoof prints, like my garden was the Deer's version of the Hollywood walk of Fame.These are some photos of what they've done to my okra.It might be different if there was nothing else for them to eat, but they jump the fence of a 1,280 acre cow pasture to raid my garden, instead of eating grass.Not much left of this one ...All the holes in this plastic were caused by deer walking on it because they think it's fun!This is what's left of my sunflowers.This is what's left of my sweet potato patch.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 7, 2020 22:28:32 GMT -6
Not everything, but most everything. I'll send George some photos to see if he can post them. I don't have access to the website that posts them.
A Quick Note about photos:
Thanks to some help from George, I posted several photos above, on the July 6th deer reply, so you can scroll up 2 posts to view them. This has been a terrible year for deer depredation. I've run deer out of my garden three nights in a row.
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Post by rdback on Jul 9, 2020 16:47:59 GMT -6
Wow, that's got to be VERY frustrating Ron, not to mention costly. I just got done installing a 3 wire electric fence. The low wire (8-9") is for rabbits, the middle wire (16") for groundhogs, and the high wire (28") for deer. It's worked so far. I had to use a solar charger because my garden is as far away from the house as yours is. Now keep in mind I'm just a home gardener, not a farmer like you. An electric fence might not be feasible for you.
I think a hunting rifle might be your best choice. By the way, get one of those flashlights with a red lens. Deer won't see ya coming.
Best of luck my friend.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 9, 2020 17:40:51 GMT -6
I used to have a 5 wire, 5' foot electric fence around my whole garden but that never kept the deer out either. They'd just jump it. All it did was make it tough for me to get in and out. One day, it got struck by lightning and basically evaporated. I finally took it down so I didn't have to mow and weed eat around it.
I might end up putting one back up? I built a scarecrow out there yesterday and ran more deer of from there last night around midnight. They are very persistent.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 11, 2020 17:06:00 GMT -6
I replanted about 300 okra seeds yesterday evening. The scarecrow I placed out there had little or no effect on the deer. After I made my rounds with a flashlight, gun, and two dogs about 11:00 pm, the deer still sneaked in and destroyed several more plants. I did manage to get lots and lots of weeds pulled this morning though. The weeds gave me something to take my deer frustrations out on.
I ordered two game cameras about two weeks ago. They finally arrived this afternoon.
One is a 'WILDGAME INNOVATIONS' brand, Cloak, Lightsout 14 Pro (Don't buy this brand).
The other is a 'BROWNING' Command Ops. 16.
For the money, the Browning is a way, way, way, better camera. If I hadn't ordered online, the Wildgame Innovations camera would be going back to the store tonight. The Browning is easier to program, has way more features, takes higher quality photos and was well worth the extra $20.00 in price. Hopefully, soon, I'll have some time stamped photos to give me an idea of how many deer I have out there and what time of night they are raiding me.
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Post by WD - Lawton on Jul 14, 2020 9:51:28 GMT -6
Am sorry to hear of the deer eating all those plants, Ron.
If I had won the lottery, you would get an 8 foot chain link around that garden, but I don't even play it.
My neighbor had huge, tall, sunflowers he called Skyscrapper variety.
We had a real early frost last year in SW OK, about the third week of Oct. I hope that doesn't happen this year so you get a chance for good production of seed on all them okra plants you just set out. I see your website shows you sold out of seed this year already..
Good luck to you going forward on the deer problem.
WD
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 16, 2020 2:05:14 GMT -6
I guess, if there's anything you can depend on in gardening, it's the fact that you can never depend on anything ...
WD,
We had an incredibly hot, and very dry year, back in the Summer of 2011, with 65 consecutive days over 100 degrees, and a full two weeks of that were days reaching over 110 degrees, with our record hot day arriving August 2nd, hitting a high of 115 degrees.
Even so, that year, I grew the best okra I have ever seen, bar none. That okra absolutely loved the scorching hot days and the long, hot nights ... even though we got no rain at all that year from May until October. What we did get that year, was a lot of deer depredation.
Because my garden was irrigated from my well, it was a lush oasis of greenery, growing up through a protective sheath of plasticulture. That year, I had 20' foot skips in my okra rows from heavy deer destruction, though, one of my record plants did find a way to put on over 65 branches that year and well over 200 pods, it was unmercifully destroyed by an unseasonably cold first week in October.
On the night of October 8th, it got down to 23 degrees for a period of about 6 hours, with winds as high as 35 mph. Though I had built a makeshift hoop house, just for that one record plant, it succumbed to the high winds and my best plant ever was killed, having only 5 mature seed pods at the time of its demise.
Hopefully, things won't turn out quite that bad this year, but the fact that deer have so badly stripped my plants that I've not even got my first successful okra blossom this season, makes me worry about things just such as what you stated.
I foresee this being a very lean year for seed production.
From what I've seen all around me, I suppose I should feel lucky that I didn't get totally skunked this year. I'll be as happy as a lark just to get any harvest at all this year.
Things like that really make me glad I took the time to make the most of last year's bumper crop. I guess, if there's anything you can depend on in gardening, it's the fact that you can never depend on anything ...This is a single, Heavy Hitter Okra plant, grown here, on our farm, in the Summer of 2011. My youngest Son, Josh, can be seen standing behind this plant, with his Red Bone coon dog, "Little Ann". He was only 13-years old at the time and was dwarfed by the size of this plant. The hoop house was 8' feet tall by 12' feet wide. (This plant had 65 branches). GOD gave me this plant the year of that terrible 2011 drought. It was a real freak of nature! It was killed by an unusually early, hard freeze on October 8th; only 5 mature seed pods survived. All my plants since that date have descended from the seeds of its 5 surviving pods.This is Bill Trammel, and his mule, "Earl", in February of 2011, standing in about the same spot where that record okra plant sprang from. Every time I see this photo, I wonder how much Earl might have had to to do with the 'secret ingredient' that was used on our okra beds that year? (Those were the days!) The Golden Years of gardening for our good neighbors and our happy little family. I'm really happy we took time to enjoy the good things in our lives back then. Even though we couldn't afford a tractor, or even a real garden tiller at the time, we still got by quite well with what God had provided for us. ... Good neighbors and good health ... Both of those things are fleeting and ought not be taken for granted. The, "Big, Green Monster" a 2020 descendant of the 65 branch record breaker shown above; grown 9 generations later. I've been working on this seed line since 1972. All my hard work is starting to pay off. This rascal was loaded with fresh, tender pods today. I should have some really good seeds from this one, for years to come.
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Post by WD - Lawton on Jul 20, 2020 9:09:37 GMT -6
Ron, that record plant boggles the mind, even looking directly at the picture,,, all the pods and blooms at once....
Okra has been a struggle here in SW Ok in all the gardens I've seen. Also been a bad year for okra talking to family in Noble, just south of OKC and Norman.
I've planted 3 times. About 1/3 of my okra came up and died right away as a seedling... about 1/3 came up and got a little size and then died from the ground up. About 1/3 is hanging in there, looking healthy, and continuing to grow.
I hope we have at least 3 more months for it to produce.
Now my peas were just middling, the yellow squash was middling, but the white squash has produced like crazy.... been a real good year for them.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jul 26, 2020 20:19:24 GMT -6
Despite the deer, I harvested my first mess of okra for the season this evening.
Of the plants that have survived the deer depredation, most of them are looking incredibly branchy so far, even though they are very small for this late date. They are about a month behind schedule, as the 60-plus-days of rain we received from mid-March thru mid-May, set my planting date back to May 22nd. (I usually plant in late April). So, my usual first harvest date of June 26th has been postponed until July 26th.
I'll try to keep you posted as photos become available.
These branchy little plants are just beginning to put on their first few pods of the season. They are a about 1/4 their finished size at only 65-days of age.Lots of good genes showing through this year, not a spindly plant in the crowd!The deer wiped out about half my crop this year, but what was left is showing good promise. I harvested my first 5-pounds of okra this evening.
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Post by WD - Lawton on Jul 30, 2020 1:56:31 GMT -6
That is great, Ron!
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