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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 14, 2020 17:56:14 GMT -6
@ Beginner Gardener; George pretty much covered it.
It usually only takes about 4 days from the time you see a blossom until the pod is ready to harvest at 3" or 4" inches in length. Though, you can harvest any time after the blossom falls away from the pod, depending on what you want to use them for. I often harvest 1" inch pods, for pickling my 'Christmas Garnish' those are the pods that I pickle to display on Holidays, so they are really tender and crisp. I also harvest very small pods for stir fry or for pizza toppings.
Otherwise, I harvest most of my pods at 3" or 4" inches in length. Those are the size of pods that I use for making gumbo or cut up to be fried. If I'm frying pods whole, I harvest them at only 2" to 3" inches; same thing if I'm harvesting them to be grilled. The largest of these pods is about 5" inches long. The smallest is about 1/2" an inch. Various sized pods are used for various purposes, depending on the dish or the garnish needed. Okra is really versatile and can be used in many ways, in many dishes. You can also use the blossoms in stir fry or you can stuff them and batter fry them. The young leaves can be boiled as a pot herb. The dried plant stems are fibrous, like hemp and can be used in the manufacture of paper. The mature seeds can be pressed to make oil.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 18, 2020 19:39:54 GMT -6
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Post by WD - Lawton on Aug 19, 2020 8:50:48 GMT -6
I like that cutting board picture.
My heavy hitters just started putting on this week. I, too, was late getting them planted because I didn't find out about HH until about June while doing a Google search.
Glad I did!!
I hope to get some okra put in the freezer and also save some pods for seed.
Ron, when should a person stop cutting okra to let the last pods grow to maturity for seed? Late Sept or early Oct?
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Highdeserturbanfarmer
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Post by Highdeserturbanfarmer on Aug 19, 2020 12:43:54 GMT -6
How does one obtain these seeds? I have a friend that really wants them and I’d love to gift them to him.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 24, 2020 8:07:48 GMT -6
@highdeserturbanfarmer,
I'm out of stock on Heavy Hitter Okra seeds until Thanksgiving weekend. (That's the time I take each year to crack open my cured pods to get fresh seeds for the coming year).
At that time, You can order them online at: www.heavyhitterokra.com/
Here is a peek at this year's crop. I just took these this morning.Due to an extremely cool, wet, Spring, my plating date was set back a full month this year, so everything is 30-days behind schedule. My plants are extremely small for this time of year, but they are coming along. These are examples of the 2020 branching habits. I've harvested as many as 15 tender pods per harvest from some of these plants already. In years past, I've planted my rows of okra on 5' foot centers and have had them overlap by this time of year. So, this year, I planted on 10' foot centers and currently have about a 4' foot walkway open down the middle. It will be interesting to see how that progresses as the season wears on. Here's what that looks like at ground level. No way I'll ever get my 66" inch tiller through here before Winter.
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Post by glen on Aug 24, 2020 16:05:15 GMT -6
Amazing photo's of some extreme exceptional plants Ron. Thanx for sharing.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 25, 2020 20:38:28 GMT -6
@ WD-Lawton,
Sorry, it took me so long to answer your question about when to stop harvesting in order to save seeds... I didn't see your post until this evening.
I try to allow 8 weeks of growing time before frost, in order to get really good, fully-matured seed pods. So, the cut-off date on harvesting fresh pods needs to reflect that according to your local frost date.
Our first killing frost came on October 12th last year. I've had it come as early as October 8th before and as late as mid-November.
As of today, October 12th is only 48-days away ... Wow! that's kind of scary to think about.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 27, 2020 12:25:06 GMT -6
Hurricane Laura made landfall early this morning; the result for us, here in Tahlequah, being heavy cloud cover for the entire day and only 77-degrees by noon.
Laura was a category 4 hurricane when it made landfall at about 1:00 am this morning, with sustained winds in excess of 145 mph. The last time a hurricane that strong hit Louisiana this early in the season was when Katrina hit on August 29, 2005.
Katrina was a category 5 storm at sea but was downgraded to a category 3 storm before it made landfall with sustained winds of 125 mph. In that regard, Hurricane Laura was a stronger storm, but Katrina holds the record for the lowest pressure ever recorded, which is what really drives our weather, this far inland.
The reason I am writing this is that Oklahoma sustained a severe drought following Katrina. Katrina started a trend of very light rainfall, from September of 2005 to August of 2006, totaling only 17.41 " inches. Our total rainfall in 2006 was only 26.53" inches; with most of that occurring in the 'off-season' for gardeners and farmers alike. Hay, for our livestock in 2006 was very hard to come by, (prompting me to think a fellow should lay up extra this year if possible).
I remember the Spring of 2006 as being an odd Spring, whereby lettuce seeds planted in April, never germinated, because of dry soil conditions.
The months of May and June of 2006 brought no rain whatsoever.
In comparison, we had a fraction over 73" inches of rain here in 2019. In 2015, we had 82.5" inches of rain, and this season, (year to date), we've had about 39" inches of rain so far.
Hopefully, 2021 does not follow suit with the drought of 2006, but farmers and gardeners should keep that in mind and try to be prepared for any possibility.
After the drought of 2006, I dug a shallow trench from my house, all the way to the garden, using a lister and a team of mules. After the trench was dug, I installed a 1" inch PVC irrigation pipe about 500' feet in length, which I covered by hand, with the help of my two eldest granddaughters. (I'm sure they probably enjoyed the wagon rides more than the trench backfill) but life is not all fun and games. It was a lot of work, but I've never regretted that decision. The investment in time and money was substantial during those lean days, but that irrigation pipe has saved my garden more than once in all the crazy years of weird weather that have followed.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 27, 2020 14:18:07 GMT -6
Thanks Ron! Is it hooked to tap? Did you put a spigot on the end? Have been considering different options for my garden.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 28, 2020 1:21:49 GMT -6
Bon,
I buried the 1" inch PVC water pipe just a few inches below the surface, so I could mow over the top of it and burn leaves or grass if I had to without damaging the PVC. Both ends of the pipe are above ground, so, in essence, it's just a 500' foot water hose buried between two points. It's just a 'dead' line, buried in the ground, with a shut-off valve on both ends. When I want to use it for irrigation, I hook it to my house spigot via water hose. In Winter, I use an air compressor to blow the water out of the PVC line, so it doesn't freeze and break. I chose the 1" inch schedule 40 water pipe for its ability to stand up to rock punctures and such.
On the house end of the PVC line, I attached a 1" inch PVC pipe, to water hose adapter, with a 1" inch shut-off valve, to keep critters out of it when not in use. (A threaded hose cap would do the same thing).
On the garden end of it is the same setup. I just run a short water hose from the garden end of the PVC pipe, to my homemade irrigation manifold. That way, I can turn the 1" inch valve off while changing things around on the drip irrigation to cut the pressure off while I'm working on things down there.
On the garden end is also a backflow preventer, so no mucky water will be able to siphon back into my well, plus there is a 15 PSI pressure regulator, so the well pump won't explode my thin walled drip tape.
As a manifold, I use a blue lay flat 1-1/4" hose, and attach several barbed fitting shut-off valves along the length of it; one valve for feeding each row of drip tape. That way, I can selectively shut-off my rows or restrict water going to each one as needed. For example; okra doesn't need as much water as tomatoes, so each row can be custom watered each night. Or, if one of my drip tapes becomes damaged, I can use the barbed shut-off valve to take that one out of service until I can fix it.
Usually, the damage to the drip tape is caused by rodents chewing the plastic. Sometimes, I can fix that by jamming a sharpened, dead stick into the chew hole. The water inside the drip tape will cause dead wood to swell just enough to plug the hole (Kind of like a tire plug does). If it's really badly damaged, I'll just cut out the bad spot and place a compression coupling there to fix it.
I just tie a couple of really hard knots at the terminal end of each drip tape, to stop it from running out on the ground, but if you have extra barbed shut-off valves, you can use the compression fitting side of one of those to secure the end of the drip tape and close the valve.
In Winter, just roll up the drip tape to be stored in a yard box until Spring, so you can plow or burn the entire garden if needed.
So far, my 1" inch PVC irrigation pipe has been in use for a little over 12-years with no major problems, aside from both ends of it being broken off at one time or another, by hitting it with a tractor or a mower. (Now both ends are protected by a steel Tee-post driven at the riser as a marker.)
The good thing about PVC is that it is easily repaired. My poor old Uncles had to use galvanized water pipe when I was a kid. Those were kind of tough to repair when run over by a tractor or rubbed over by a cow. We have things so easy these days. I wish they were still alive to see my setup here. (I had great mentors growing up). I enjoyed working with my Uncles. All eight of them were WWII Vets, except Uncle Emery. Uncle Emery was a WWI Vet. They were all very good at 'patching' things up and getting by without spending a lot of money on new parts.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 31, 2020 19:24:10 GMT -6
I picked another 30 pounds of okra this morning. The torn ligament in my right arm sure is giving me fits today. I'm starting to wonder if it is never going to heal.It takes forever to pick my way to the end of one of these rows by myself.My dog, Peppy is good help though; he sticks with me every step of the way. I've yet to find a dog that doesn't like to eat okra.This is the reason I space my rows 10' feet apart. (It's a lot easier to till my garden that way.) All this dust sure makes it tough to keep my filters clean though! It's a good thing I irrigate.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 31, 2020 19:55:17 GMT -6
No rain yet, but from what the weatherman is telling us, It looks like I got through plowing and pulling weeds, just in time to get poured on for the next several days. I've got lots more okra needing to be picked, but it will probably just go to waste if it ends up raining every day this coming week. At least I got my peppers in.
I also got about 25-pounds of cover crop seeds sown on top of the dust, before the rains began. They'll get a good soaking this week. Then, in about two weeks, my garden will look like a disaster, when all that hairy vetch, rye, and clover germinates between my rows.
When it all gets about knee-deep, I'll plow it under for Winter and sow Austrian Winter peas on top of that as a Winter cover crop. (The deer will like that). It's pretty dry and dusty out there right now though.
Hopefully, sometime this Autumn I'll also spread another ton of chicken litter out there. I didn't get any litter spread last Autumn, because I came down sick with some kind of respiratory crud and didn't want to aggravate it by breathing any chicken dust.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 3, 2020 5:38:39 GMT -6
The seed I sowed as a 'green manure' cover crop is already sprouting. It sure is tough to allow grass to grow in my clean walkways, but I need the organic matter added to my soil or it will soon die.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 5, 2020 11:40:39 GMT -6
Today is a scorcher, but Thursday is forecast to only be 65-degrees for a high. Thursday night could get as cool as 50-degrees, which brings to mind that October 15th is only 40-days away!
Is it just me or has this been a really short summer?
I'm not ready for October and the end of my garden to be so near.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 6, 2020 5:13:05 GMT -6
This year, it feels like our Spring garden was actually our 'Fall' garden.
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