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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 19, 2023 15:22:32 GMT -6
Bologna sandwich time again. It has been 4 hours since my last break. I've got 7 rows harvested so far and already have close to three 55-gallon barrels full of pods hauled in to the dry.
Not all of the pods out there are ready to harvest yet, this is just my second round of picking. It will take close to another month for some of them to be ready, but you have to stay on top of it every time they begin to get ripe or else the first pods to dry will be lost to mildew or worse. I've had years when a week-long rainstorm soaked my first pods so thoroughly that they actually germinated inside the pods while still on the stalk.
That happens sometimes when you've got dried pods in the field and warm weather follows a heavy rainstorm.
I've had other years when heavy rains hit, catching me out in the field during harvest. The heavy rain got the boxes of pods in the back of my truck so wet that it caused them to mildew so badly that the seeds themselves turned black. (Those ended up going to the compost pile). Because of things like that, getting dried okra into the barn before it gets rained on is almost like trying to get hay into the barn before it gets wet. Lots and lots of long hours are spent cutting things and carrying them to drier places.
That's all good though. I'd rather be doing that than going without a harvest.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 20, 2023 10:54:05 GMT -6
I managed to get almost all of my first harvest of okra pods into the barn before dark last night. A few got wet, but nothing significant. There was only a partial row left when it got too dark to keep on picking.
I've probably harvested about 2/3s of my crop. The rest of the pods are still green. I figure they need almost another month to cure, then I'll harvest them too.
Man, am I ever sore today. That was a lot of tedious work.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 21, 2023 18:54:11 GMT -6
I've been busy in the garden all day long today. I got 50 more gallons of Heavy Hitter Okra seed pods harvested and put up in the dry before dark. Now, I'm one step closer to the day that I start shelling out okra pods for the 2024 planting season. Only a couple of rows left and I'll be done with this part.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 23, 2023 18:47:14 GMT -6
What a long day this was!
I plowed the garden this morning, getting it ready for planting a Winter cover crop. Man, was that ever a mistake to plow the garden first, then go to pick more okra. My shoes are brim full of dust right now. It has been so dry here that I feel like I spent the whole day walking through the Sahara Desert and have a pretty good sunburn to prove it.
I got another 8, 5-gallon buckets of Heavy Hitter Seed Okra picked before it got too dark to see what I was doing though. I've got enough pods picked so far to stack cardboard boxes all the way from the floor to the ceiling almost twice.
In my mind, I only had a couple of rows left to pick, so it wouldn't be any big deal. In reality, I got 8 buckets full of pods off just one row! I still have another row left.
Some day, I'll finally get finished picking, so I can get busy shelling out seed pods. Sometimes, I wonder why I keep doing this to myself?
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 25, 2023 5:50:20 GMT -6
October 24, 2023
I finally got all of my Heavy Hitter Seed Okra harvested for the year. I have enough boxes of pods to reach from the floor to the ceiling a couple of times, so, now it's time to begin the shelling process.
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Post by Scott on Oct 29, 2023 12:46:12 GMT -6
Do you use the good ole shelling by hand process? I've shelled 2 five gallon buckets so far and have a quart bag full of seed. I'll be ordering some heavy hitter seeds from you soon and I'm already looking forward to next seasons results.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 29, 2023 13:36:51 GMT -6
Congratulations Scott!
That's great news! It sounds like you already have a couple of pounds of seed shelled out. You're way out ahead of me so far. I've got so many irons in the fire right now that I've only shelled about half a pound of seeds this season.
You're right, we shell it all by hand. We've been averaging a little over 180 pounds of seed per year for three years running. I think I shipped 187 pounds of seed last year.This is a photo of last year's crop all bagged up and ready to ship out. Those are sand bags, each containing 25 pounds of Heavy Hitter Okra seed.
The USDA National Standard germination rate for okra seeds is only 50%. Our Heavy Hitter Okra seeds always exceed the required National Minimum by germinating in the mid to high 90% range. That's because we cull our seeds before we bag them. Each time I crack a pod, I pull out any odd-shaped or discolored seeds before I pour the rest into a 5-gallon bucket. Then, we pour the seeds from bucket to bucket, in front of a fan, to blow away the chaff and any seeds that might be lighter in weight than desired. Only what is left after that, ever goes into our shipping bags.
That process takes a lot of extra time, but it makes us feel more confident about what our customers are getting.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 31, 2023 15:12:44 GMT -6
I've been busy shelling okra pods most of the day today. Finally, it feels like I'm making some headway. I'm fixing to take a break here in a bit to make myself some of that mulberry leaf tea that George has been talking about. I gathered a shoe box stacked full of mulberry leaves this morning before they fell off the trees. They stack flat, like sheets of paper, so a box full is a lot of leaves.
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Post by kenneth on Nov 1, 2023 14:37:29 GMT -6
I finally thought to post about my okra crop this year. I did the usual of fertilizer, lime, slag and Epsom salt. I planted five in a straight line and the next five zig zag. I planted on 5-4 and replanted some on 5-11. I cut the first pods on 6-30. This is a little early for me. It is usually after 7-10. I did not think it would be a good crop because in May it was cold and wet. The cotton did not start to grow until after Memorial day.
The okra did not get as big of a stalk as the years before and the branching was not as good but it did not seem to make a difference. The main crop ended on 8-30. At this time my ten plants had produced 90 lbs. and 1010 pods. This is a pod weight of about 1.4 ounce. This is the highest I have ever had. I let the pods get a little bigger this year to see if I could get the weight up. I did not keep very good records after this because I thought the okra was through. I was wrong. It kept on producing until 10-8. I picked another 12 - 15 lbs and about another 300 pods. That is about 10 lbs. and 130 pods per plant. With all the rain I only watered very little. It was a very good year even with a slow start in May. It must be good eating because I have no problem giving it away. I have learned that you have to keep it watered, fertilized and cut.
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Post by kenneth on Nov 1, 2023 14:57:30 GMT -6
Last year in November I started working on transplanting okra. I planted the seed in 3" peat moss cups. I did the same thing in December. In January I plant in 3 and 4" cups. Then in February I planted in 4" cups. I found out that 14 - 18 days after planting that the roots would start to come through the sides. I decided to use the 4" cups. I put them in the ground around 5-8. I put fertilizer around the cup and under it. I used organic to keep from burning the roots. We had plenty of rain and the cups stayed wet. It was not long until the okra in the other bed was out growing it. When I dug up the cups I found that the roots had not grown through the cups.The idea was to start them in peat moss cups so that you could plant the entire thing and not disturb the roots. It was fun and I learned a lot but will not do it again, I will just put the seed in the ground.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 2, 2023 19:42:12 GMT -6
Kenneth, that was a great report and very valuable information you shared. My thinking was very similar to yours before I read your post; I too would have figured the okra roots would have grown right through those peat pots. I would have done the same thing you did.
Thanks, for posting that. You might just save someone in the future from making the same mistake. It sounds like you got some wonderful production this year though. Was that from the later planting that was direct sown into your garden, or was it from the earlier plantings in the peat pots?
Also, if you don't mind my asking for weather related reasons... What State do you live in?
P. S. I live in Northeastern Oklahoma. I've never had any good luck with transplanting okra either. I used to have a large hoop house here and had big dreams about pulling off an extra early okra crop, but no good came from that project. I don't know if it was the fact that the plants were transplanted to the hoop house or if the cooler nights in April caused my trouble, but my hoop house okra plants looked terrible in comparison to the ones that were directly sown into the garden at a much later date, after the nighttime lows stayed above 50° in May and early in June. I won't ever try that experiment again either.
Live and learn I guess. My hope is to live long enough to employ some of the things that it has taken me so many years of mistakes to learn.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 2, 2023 19:52:12 GMT -6
This year's final garden report is sadder than Eisenhower's farewell address.
I'm finally starting to get somewhere with the okra shelling job. It's a long, tedious process. I've worked for three days now and have a little over 15 pounds of seed shelled out. I've still got several boxes of pods left to go before I'm done, but I don't think I'll end up with nearly as many seeds as I have in years past. Production was sparse this year, due to grasshoppers eating the blossoms off of my plants before they had a chance to pollinate; that and the month's long summer drought that just came to an end about a week ago.
This has been a tough year for gardeners and farmers alike in this region. My hat is off to anyone who made a go of it this season.
The grasshoppers were terrible this year.
I've never seen grasshoppers eat a snake before, but when the grass is all gone, they'll eat darn near anything. Notice how bare the ground is in this photo. They had eaten the Bermuda grass right down to the rhizomes. It didn't take them long to do the same to this snake.
This was all the grasshoppers left of our 50 + heads of cabbage.
Our tomatoes didn't fare any better. We didn't get a single tomato this year. the grasshoppers ate every last one of them. They ate every last leaf of lettuce, every Kennebec potato, every ear of sweet corn, every squash, every last cucumber, ever sunflower, every Jerusalem artichoke plant, every pumpkin vine, ever hot pepper, every sweet pepper, every cantaloupe vine, every sweet potato vine ... In the end, they left nothing but roselle and okra, and of course, any noxious weeds that they did not care for. They even killed a twenty year old apple tree, and the pawpaw trees that no insect will eat were eaten bare by grasshoppers. Many of my pawpaws died.
The drought that we've had hanging on since Spring was only broken about a week ago. Then temperatures dropped to 20° within a few nights and killed everything except the grasshoppers. Incredibly, they seem to have survived somehow. I went out this morning after the frost had melted and saw thousands of grasshoppers still hopping around. I took a stick and drove my flock of a dozen chickens to the garden, thinking they'd appreciate this slow-moving, frost-bitten feast, but they were so tired of grasshoppers by now that none would peck at one, not even if I caught it first and pulled off its legs so they didn't have to chase it ... Pitiful, just pitiful ... So goes the end of the 2023 growing season, one sad defeat after another, but because of my 8 foot garden fence, the deer this year were no problem at all.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 3, 2023 7:38:25 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra,
It's amazing that you have that many okra pods to shell. Back when I visited your garden in mid-July I would have bet against you even having a seed crop this year. A grasshopper crop - yes. An okra seed crop - no. In spite of the obstacles you have a seed crop every year. I don't know how in the world you managed to do it, but you still got it done this year. Wow! Good job!
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Nov 3, 2023 13:16:31 GMT -6
That is incredible! Kudos for your persistence. Sorry the hoppers were even more persistent. Just devastating news.
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Post by kenneth on Nov 3, 2023 15:15:20 GMT -6
I live in northeast MS. Some call it the hills and some say the pines. Back in 2004 we got 15" of rain in June. This year was not that bad but it was close. I would spray fungicide on my tomatoes in the morning and it would rain that afternoon and wash it off. I did not have to water until July. All of my okra was harvested from direct seed. I dug up all the peat moss cups and they were all the same. The first ones I did in November the roots came out of the sides and bottom of the cups. The ones I planted in the raised bed did not have any roots coming through. I thought that if the roots had started through that they might die ( air pruning ). I might try two more cups next season ( or not ) and let the roots come out of the cup before planting .
I wish I had a solution for the grasshoppers but I do not because you are organic. I know they spray soybeans for grasshoppers. You might check with the extension service and see if you could use any soybean insecticide.
I was wondering about a ten gallon grow bag. You could put the bag on a cart or wagon so it could be mobile. The first problem is providing enough light. The next one is being able to move it from the cart to the ground. I do not believe this would be very practical.
I have not thought through using a low tunnel ( 3' tall hoops and clear plastic ). I do not know if the ground would be warm enough.
I have all winter to think about it and will probable do none of them. Just plant the seed in the ground because I know that it works.
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