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Post by hmoosek on Nov 13, 2021 8:40:58 GMT -6
Good grief, close that barn door, it’s getting cold here, but not that cold! I’d help you shell if I was close by, but I’m way down South. That’s a whole lot of okra!
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Post by macmex on Nov 13, 2021 12:53:06 GMT -6
Ron, I thought of you and your okra seed shelling when I sat down and processed all my okra seed, for two varieties, in less than an hour and came up with a lot less than a quarter pound of seed each! My challenge has been digging sweet potatoes, and since I cut my finger last Monday, I haven't been able to do that.
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 13, 2021 16:32:24 GMT -6
You gotta be dedicated to do the stuff we do. On this very place where I live, it used to be farm land. I remember one year we grew about 15 acres of corn to feed the farm animals. Picture a hot august day. We have the old pickup our there, we’d pull corn, throw it in the back of the truck, move the truck, pull more corn. Rinse & Repeat. It’s hot, no breeze, gnats flying up my nose, and I’m tired! Dead tired! I’d had just about all the farm I could stand. I stopped, blew my nose and I muttered “I’ll tell you what, I ain’t gonna be no dadgum farmer!” My Uncle must have thought that was the funniest thing he had ever heard because when he started laughing, he couldn’t stop. He must have been tired too cause he put his hand on my shoulder and said “C’mon, let’s go get a glass of tea.” He was still laughing when we walked in the house. He always called me “hotshot.” He said “hotshot, farming is hard work, no doubt, but it can be very rewarding.” I didn’t understand exactly what he meant until later on in life. I love the work now or at least I loved it when I was more able to get around without my back acting up. There’s few things I enjoyed more than plowing. Sitting way up there on my old Farmall was just pure pleasure.
On another note, I still don’t like pulling corn! I don’t much care for shucking corn or twisting the dried corn off the ears either.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 13, 2021 21:15:51 GMT -6
Great story, Moose. I enjoyed reading that. 15 acres is a lot of corn, kind of makes my arms itchy just thinking about it. I kind of had the same experience every August, except with hauling hay. Dad had 90 head of cattle. They required a ton of hay per head to put them through the Winter months. A ton is about 30 bales. So, we'd put 2,700 square bales of hay in the barn every summer. (I hated cattle!) My whole life, I'd spend every Summer putting up hay and every Winter feeding out 20 bales of it per day.
Finally, after all of us kids were grown and married, Dad started using round bales instead of square. That's about the same time he quit burning firewood and started using gas too. Despite having cut 20 ricks of firewood every Winter my entire life, I still enjoy doing it. I never did develop a liking for the hay hauling though. I agree with you on the plowing part. I enjoy plowing. I just plowed again the day before this last storm moved in and got another 20 pounds of red clover and a quarter pound of turnip seeds sown. My first attempt was killed by drought. I've never planted a Winter cover crop this late before. I hope it has time to germinate before Winter arrives. Tuesday's forecast calls for weather in the mid-seventies, so maybe there's hope? If the clover doesn't make it, I'll have to switch over to Austrian Winter Peas. Winter Peas don't mind getting a little frost on their sprouts.
I just opened my website at 3:00 am this morning and already have orders for 2,100 seeds. I shelled out about 4 pounds today. There are about 6,000 seeds per pound, give or take a thousand. Those won't last long at this rate. I've only got about 56 pounds shelled out for Baker Creek so far. Lots more to go on that order!
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 15, 2021 13:06:20 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra, I too, regret I am not closer, though your weather kinda scares me. Though, if I were closer, I'd be happy to help process your seed for you.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 15, 2021 17:27:56 GMT -6
Hank is planning on coming out tomorrow to help me shell some seeds. I didn't get much shelling done today because of having to label, package, and ship off the 25 seed orders that I received over the weekend. I shipped out 4,500 seeds today. It was a busy, busy, day and I got a lot accomplished, but it put a big dent in my shelling routine. Today was a beautiful day too. It was a shame to have to waste it by running errands. Tomorrow is forecast to be 75 degrees though, so equally nice as today, plus 3 degrees warmer.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 15, 2021 21:36:38 GMT -6
Here are some of the weather basics I'm going to need to deal with --> Tucson, AZ weather <-- After loading this link you need to scroll down a little, then click on, "All Months" to see the entire year.
Those are just averages, there are commonly outlier days. And every so often it even gets down in the 20'sF. But usually not during March to November. Potentially I can grow okra during those months. I'm continuing to care for the okra I've been growing this season, they're in pots, and they are all still producing, though pods don't ripen as quickly, and some even become tough while they're still small, but there are many more pods, than earlier in the season. I'm trying to see if I can keep these going into 2022.
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Post by macmex on Nov 16, 2021 7:41:45 GMT -6
That will be interesting. The nearest I've come to those conditions was in the Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo area, of Central Mexico. We were at 5000' elevation. Had very low humidity and infrequent rain. Though desert we had abundant irrigation. The soil where I gardened was silt and sand with white alkali conditions. I had to apply sulfur almost every year in order to lower the PH. Our temps were similar to yours. In the winter we'd have occasional frost from November until mid February, temps occasionally dropping into the upper 20s. Even on the coldest days, the sun generally came out and, by 9:30 am one could walk around without a coat.
I planted Stewart's Zeebest there, just once, I believe around 1999. Probably planted it in April or March. The plants did not thrive, possibly because of soil ph, but also, I believe because from June on, it was usually cool enough at night to wear a sweater. I harvested only one viable pod of seed, saving it until we were back in the USA to reproduce seed after that.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 16, 2021 11:39:55 GMT -6
as George mentioned, soil pH is an important factor to consider.
Also, the days are so much shorter right now that any plants still living will be slow-growing.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 23, 2021 6:01:56 GMT -6
Hank and I shelled out 12.7 pounds of okra seeds yesterday afternoon. That's our world record day so far. Usually, we get about 7 to 9 pounds per day. It takes about 80 okra pods to get one pound of seeds. You can fit about 160 pods in a 5-gallon bucket. Each bucket of pods contains about 2 pounds of seed. So far, we have 130 pounds of seeds processed and only three more boxes of pods to go. Each box takes two days to complete, so we are now seeing light at the end of the tunnel.
A special Thank You, for all the help you've been, Hank! You've been a lifesaver! I would have been shelling pods 'til next year without Hank's help. He's been here every day but Sunday for a couple of weeks now. We're getting ready to take a few days' break for Thanksgiving though. I'll be out there in the summer kitchen, cleaning up okra chaff and escaped seeds for quite a while, trying to get things in order for the Holiday.
If you look closely, you can see the handles of the wheelbarrow poking out from under the pile of boxes. (Those are big boxes!) Two more boxes and a wheelbarrow are all we have left to go now. Woo-Hoo!
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 23, 2021 9:44:19 GMT -6
I’d like to offer a thank you to Hank for helping Ron out. Lots of work that will make a ton of gardeners very happy this coming year.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 23, 2021 18:34:48 GMT -6
I’d like to offer a thank you to Hank for helping Ron out. Lots of work that will make a ton of gardeners very happy this coming year. Amen to that! Hank is a gift straight from Heaven!
I went back out there last night after Hank left and shelled out another 3 pounds of seed before bedtime. Then, Hank came over again today and we shelled out a little over 12.3 more pounds to add to that. Together, we've shelled out 15.7 + 12.3 = 28 pounds of seed, over a 24 hour period for a total of about 143.5 pounds for the season (so far). I think we've got 1-1/2 more boxes and a wheelbarrow left to go and we'll finally be done for the year.
All that's left after that is boxing them up, shipping them, repackaging into seed packets, and distribution.
143.5 pounds is about 846,000 seeds. We were talking today about how many seeds those were in bulk (almost six, 5-gallon buckets full of seeds) and we are not even up to 1 million seeds yet. Some people have more dollar bills than we have seeds in those buckets! I don't think most of us comprehind what one million actually looks like. That is an incredibly huge number. Hollywood would have one to believe that 1 million would fit into a back pack. One million okra seeds would weigh very close to 170 pounds.
The current population of the United States of America is 333,701,877 as of Tuesday, November 23, 2021, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. One million okra seeds would only be one seed per every 333.7 people in the united States. (what an incredible number of people that is!)
I'll post a photo of our pile of okra husks as they stood before we even started shelling pods this morning.This pile of okra husks started out as mulch for my pawpaw tree. Now that it's nearly 5' feet tall and over 8' feet wide, I'll probably have to rake it down a little or it will end up burying the lower branches.
(What wonderful weather today has been!) Days like this were custom made for harvesting pods and just enjoying one another's company. What a blessing good neighbors are!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 24, 2021 5:51:53 GMT -6
I told Hank, "People used to come over to Grandpa's house to help shuck field corn for his livestock; he'd place a pint of whiskey on the ground before he dumped the wagon load of corn, so the bottle would be on the bottom of the pile for inspiration in getting to the bottom of the corn shelling project later."
I was asking Hank, "Since neither of us drink, I was trying to think of something to put down under all these pods that we'd both really like to see. What would you like to see down there?"
Hank didn't even pause and said, "THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX!"
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 24, 2021 10:57:49 GMT -6
Laughing!!!!!! Now that’s funny!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 28, 2021 9:27:40 GMT -6
Hank and I finally hit the bottom of the barrel last night around 8:00 pm. ( No, we didn't find a pint at the bottom of the pile of okra pods, we just finally found the bottom of the box)! I think we got somewhere very near 170 pounds of okra seeds shelled out in total. (Seven, 5-gallon buckets full of seeds in all). As near as I can figure, that's just a little over one million okra seeds, give or take a few thousand. According to the following okra seed packet chart, from True Leaf Market, we're closer to 1,360,000 seeds, if you figure 5 pounds of seed in bulk contains roughly 40,000 seeds.1 g - Packet - Approx 14 to 18 Seeds
10 g - Packet - Approx 175 Seeds
1 oz- Wholesale - Approx 500 Seeds
4 oz - Wholesale - Approx 2,000 Seeds
1 lb - Wholesale - Approx 8,000 Seeds
5 lb - Bulk - Approx 40,000 Seeds
25 lb - Bulk - Approx 200,000 Seeds
50 lb - Bulk - Approx 400,000 Seeds
100 lb - Bulk- Approx 800,000 Seeds Baker Creek said they'd arrange for freight pick up sometime soon.Now, I've just got to get busy bagging all these seeds up in 20 pound seed sacks, tying each one shut with tiewire, putting one 20 pound seed bag per heavy duty cardboard box, taping it good, and hoping like hech a fork lift doesn't spear any of them in transit.
When I was a kid, back in gradeschool, each week our teacher would hand out a newsprint flyer called "The Weekly Reader" it was a couple of pages of news, written for 5th graders. I remember one of the articles highlighting a million dollar shipment of dimes that was involved in a traffic accident, spilling 10 million dimes along an Interstate highway in Nevada. Each year when I bag these seeds in those bulk shipments, I can't help but picture what that photo looked like.
THANK YOU, GOD! For the abundance of our harvest. THANK YOU, HANK! For your wonderful generousity and neighborly spirit.
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