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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 11, 2022 10:49:25 GMT -6
I haven't posted here in quite a while. I guess I've been too busy working on my biochar project. I've got about 1,500 pounds of goodies curing in the biochar pile now. It has been a several month's long project that is just now beginning to come to fruition.
I got some plowing done yesterday, while the temperatures were in the mid-sixties. I spent much of the afternoon, lounging on the hammock, soaking up the warm sun, but ultimately got frozen off my project before I finished with what I had been doing in the garden. This morning, I awoke to a beautiful 3" inch blanket of snow!This is what the hammock looked like by 8:00 am this morning; quite a contrast to yesterday's sunny, blue skies. Tonight is forecast to be in the low teens. Just goes to show, you can't let your guard down here for a minute when it comes to Oklahoma weather. Glad I ordered propane this week! It just arrived yesterday morning.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 18, 2022 17:25:42 GMT -6
Though it is only about 39 degrees here today, yesterday was a balmy 79 degrees. Thank goodness I took the time yesterday to till in some of the manure that I hauled in this week. On March 16th, I was able to trade for a little over a ton of a mix of cow manure and old hay from cleaning out a neighbor's barn. I unloaded it into the garden the same day but didn't have time or energy to work it into the soil until yesterday.
It rained fairly hard last night and it sprinkled off and on most of the day today, so my garden is way too muddy to be worked today. Good thing I didn't let yesterday go to waste. I was looking at last year's garden journal and was reminded of the April 20th, 2021 snowstorm, the April 29th record hail, and the May 8th freeze. I sure hope this year's weather turns out to be a little less tumultuous.
This was about all my poor old trailer tires could stand to haul in. It doesn't look as heavy as it really was. It had a load of snow get melted on it last week, so there was a lot of water weight here that made the task a lot harder on the equipment.
I got seven rows, each 150' feet long covered in manure on March 16th, hopefully, between this and the biochar project I've been working on all winter, my garden will improve some over last year. Last year, I spread 3,500 pounds of chicken litter out here, but it's a large area that takes more than one year to amend.
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Post by Jim Parker on Mar 24, 2022 8:02:35 GMT -6
I am new to growing heavy hitter okra and I cannot wait to try it. I have a question, I live over in Poteau Oklahoma not far from tahlequah. Is it ok to plant the seeds in those planters and grow small plants to plant intead of just putting the seeds in the ground? Last year we had such a wet spring, I planted some okras seeds I had ordered it got washed out, i planted a second time it got washed out, then I planted seeds in a planter and grew some plants and planted them and then i had a pretty good crop of okra. Is it ok to do it that way? thanks jim.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 24, 2022 10:15:30 GMT -6
Jim,
I've not had much good luck with growing okra in pots, then transplanting them to the garden later. It always seems to stunt my plants (transplant shock? Change in soil type? Temperature, sunlight change?)
Although ... life in the garden is just one big experiment. Someone else might have huge success at doing a thing that I don't seem to be that good at. The best thing I know to tell you is, "Try a few as an experiment and see what happens." It might help if the pots were biodegradable so that the roots are not disturbed at transplant time.
It doesn't seem to do me much good to plant indoors to get an early start because of stunting of the plants, however, I do get an earlier harvest that way, just nothing to write home about. The stunted plants still branch out and still produce, they just don't end up with the same sturdy form as the ones I wait and direct sow later when it's warmer outside.
During the earliest stages of development it seems like cool nights are the main factor to take into consideration . Anything below 50 degrees will set them back slightly, anything below 45 seems to be harmful, and since they have zero frost tolerance, anything around 30 is usually fatal.
Sorry, I couldn't be of more help in answering your question. Let us know how things turn out and if you had success with potting them before hand planting later. That would be interesting to know more about.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 18, 2022 21:29:08 GMT -6
I shelled out my saved pods of Heavy Hitter Okra this morning. I ended up with 1 ounce of seed, which is plenty for me, and I tried to imagine multiplying that work by sixteen for just one pound, and then multiplying that again by nearly 200. Ouch!
Our really cool nights are a thing of the past, and I cleared out some space in my garden over the weekend by lifting some garlic that had collapsed. (It wasn’t mature, but it wasn’t going to mature with no greenery, so we figured we’d dig and get an earlier start on okra than we had planned). I have ten seeds soaking now, and I’ll keep them in a moist paper towel till I see sprouts, then plant them out. It’s kind of exciting to be beginning a new crop.
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Post by hmoosek on Apr 19, 2022 21:11:10 GMT -6
I generally hold off on Okra till it’s nice and warm during both days & nights. For me that’s around middle of May. I sometimes even wait till June. I’ve never attempted to transplant Okra. That’s not to say it can’t be done, I’ve just haven’t went to the trouble of doing it.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 20, 2022 20:52:26 GMT -6
I think our potential for frost is long past. Yesterday was a weirdly cool day (high only of 68), and working in the garden allowed me to notice that the water in my ollas (the clay pots I bury in the garden) was actually warmer than the air. I think we’re safely warm enough for okra now, but I can’t plant all of my heat loving crops (okra, corn, sweet potatoes) until I make more room by harvesting onions, garlic, and potatoes. I keep my garden beds and myself busy. I think the soil (and water) in raised beds warms up faster.
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Post by hmoosek on Apr 20, 2022 22:39:10 GMT -6
I THINK our time for frost is past, but I remember back around 06/07 I was sitting in a cafe watching it snow in which blue bonnets were being covered. Ya just never know. The second you THINK you know what the weather will do, Father reminds us we don’t know squat.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 21, 2022 12:45:20 GMT -6
Yep, I've been reminded I don't know squat plenty of times, kinda 'gunshy' about even taking a guess now. Last year's April 20th snowstorm was a first though.
I've intercropped okra with onions here before and everything turned out okay. By the time the okra got bushy enough to shade out the onions, it was time to harvest them anyhow, so I just got double use of the planting space. I've intercropped sweet potatoes and okra too. You kind of have to watch the vines to keep them from climbing the okra stalks, but not too bad. Sweet potatoes are happy on the ground and usually don't try to climb too much.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Apr 23, 2022 22:19:43 GMT -6
My gardens are a lot more crowded than yours, I think. I had to pull some potato plants to put in the last of my tomatoes and some cucumbers today. My onions are spaced just about four inches apart. I had to pull some of those a bit ago to plant peppers.
Today my husband did a little digging for me, and there were some volunteer sweet potatoes in the bed. He actually dug up a little Ginseng potato.
I wanted to note here that my Heavy Hitter Okra seeds got planted out the day after I soaked them overnight. I did transfer them to the paper towel in the morning, but I ended up planting them later that day because a couple already had sprouts, and I had time. Today in the garden there were four baby okra plants, I believe. (There are also some seed leaves from some volunteer plants, but these four sprouts all looked identical and were in the proper locations, so I’m pretty confident.). I was very excited to see them.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 24, 2022 23:21:12 GMT -6
We've had so much rain here that I haven't been able to get any work done in my garden for about a month. We are currently under a flash flood watch, but I don't think we will get that much more rain here before it lets up. This has been an exceptionally wet year here so far, which is crazy when you consider how close to us the drought conditions have persisted. I expanded my garden this winter from a quarter of an acre to half an acre. If it ever dries up enough to work it, I'll be so far behind that I might not ever catch up. I don't foresee being able to plant my okra for at least another two or three weeks.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Apr 30, 2022 12:46:44 GMT -6
I finally got all of my Plasticulture laid yesterday. I ended up with 12 rows about 150' feet long. Today, I planted my first okra of 2022.It rained every day last week, so this is a muddy mess, but it's done.
I have an experiment going this season. I've been working on making Biochar since March of 2020, yesterday, I spread a little over a thousand pounds of it down my rows before I laid the Plasticulture. I left this row half covered with biochar, half unamended, as a control for comparison to see if it was actually a worthwhile effort.
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Post by chrysanthemum on May 1, 2022 19:33:18 GMT -6
I know you inoculated your biochar, so that should make it more immediately effective, but will you know after just one season with this experiment, or will it take more time to let the biochar become more active, so to speak? I’m very interested to see what you discover. I had my camera in the garden this evening so took a shot of the first of my okra seedlings that popped up. My mom put some okra seeds that I sent her on some moist cotton balls early in the week, thinking that they would take some time to sprout. They all sprouted roots in just a day or two. She hadn’t planned on putting them out quite so soon, so she tided them over with some soil in toilet tissue rolls. I think she put some in her garden this weekend after her cold spell passed. She has more seeds if these don’t flourish with the early planting.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 2, 2022 11:45:44 GMT -6
In regard to Chrysanthemum's previous post: If you or your Mother ever run short of seeds just let me know, I'd be happy to replenish them for you. My okra seeds usually germinate within 24 to 36 hours after I put them on a damp paper towel inside a sealed Ziplock bag. After 48 hours, I'd be getting a little concerned. After 72 hours, I'd probably discard any that were not germinated by then.
I've never tried Biochar before, this is my first experience with it. I've only read about it in such applications as the South American, 'Terra Preta' and watched videos of other people making it and using it in their home gardens.
From what I've read, it is most effective on slightly acidic soils, as the charcoal part of the mixture has a pH leaning toward alkaline. I'm not sure if it would work amongst your Texas Limestone? However, the things that I used to inoculate the charcoal with were quite acidic, i.e., green cow manure, hot or green chicken litter, rabbit pellets, decomposed oak leaves, water from the bottom of the goose pond, and urea derived from animal urine. I have no way of knowing what the pH of my final product was. I left it uncovered, cupped in a giant tarp, to retain the 'goodies'. I left it to decompose that way for about 3 months, though ideally, it would have decomposed at least one month longer. I had to spread it because my planting season warrants that I have everything in the ground by the first week of May.
I'm hoping the final product was somewhere around neutral, but that's really hard to imagine with the amounts of fresh manure applied.
When I'm making compost of those same ingredients, I always add hardwood ashes or a little Lime to the mixture to keep the acidity in check. Though, not at the same ratio as the charcoal that I used this time. I only use a 'sprinkling of Lime or a 'dusting' of ashes per layer when I'm making my lasagna-style compost. This time, I have a very high ratio of charcoal, probably 25% of the mixture was crushed charcoal. So, I'm in uncharted territory.
I'll keep notes and take photos as I go along this summer ... As a control, I laid off one row, half amended with biochar, the other half unamended with anything. I also laid one full row of biochar beside one full row with no biochar for comparison of the two.
If it turns out well, I'll probably continue to make more of it each winter, but if it turns out not to make much of a difference, I'll probably pursue other avenues of amending my soil in future years. I do have high hopes for it though, as it appears to be a very well composted pile. The application of it made a noticeable color change to the soil that it was tilled into.
Which reminds me, I also tilled the biochar into several rows before I raised and covered the beds, then on other rows, I only used it as a top dressing, as a comparison to which method works best in the long run. One theory is that applying it as a top dressing will provide quick access to the seedlings to give them a 'boost' before hot weather sets in to stress them out. The opposing theory is that tilling the biochar into the soil will give the plants better access to the nutrients as the season progresses. I marked the different applications with brightly color coded survey tape to help better keep track of which row has been treated, and with which method of application was used.
There are several facets to the experiment. It ought to be an interesting summer. My Mom would have loved this; she was always experimenting with something. It makes me wish I had tried this while my kids were still at home.
It's sort of reminiscent of the time my youngest son and I tried to mimic the digestive tract of a bovine, by wrapping huge piles of green weeds, dead leaves, cow manure, and topsoil as an enzyme, into a huge tarp. We rolled it up like a giant burrito and left it in the hot sun to 'digest' for about six weeks. It was so heavy that we could hardly turn it by hand, so we placed ropes beneath it as we built it up, so we could roll it over, using our old Ford mini-van. Our improvised 'farm truck'. We didn't have a tractor back then, or a truck. We were still using a team of mules to plow each Spring.
When we were finished 'digesting' the contents of the tarpaulin burrito, we used it as a top dressing on some freshly planted fruit trees. When Spring rolled back around, the trees grew so fast that the bark split, trying to keep up. One of the peach trees used had been a $2.00 special, purchased at Atwood's, after a July storm had toppled it and it had been well baked by the surface of the hot parking lot.
The Spring, following the planting of that poor tree, it grew to a height of 10' feet and had become about 10' feet wide as well. The spindly trunk grew to be the diameter of the large end of a baseball bat.
When we took photos of that tree back to Atwood's, the Manager there told us straight up that it was not the same tree she had sold us, because she had the litter mate to it at her house and hers was no bigger than it was the day she had planted it.
Unfortunately, the drought of 2011-2012 and the grasshopper plague that followed, killed all but 6 of our 50 fruit trees, the peach tree included, so we never got to see if what we had done would produce better fruit.
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Post by chrysanthemum on May 2, 2022 22:24:21 GMT -6
Thanks, Heavyhitterokra, for the offer of replenishing okra seeds if necessary, but I don’t think it will be needed. I sent her some of yours last year, and just recently I sent her some of the ones I finally shelled out from one of my own plants. I got about an ounce of seeds, and I’ll probably only use 25 or so this year (which is a huge number for me, but I’m aiming to grow 16 to 20 plants, which is also a far larger number of plants than I’ve grown before). It’s funny how 25 seeds is a lot for me and is just a drop in the bucket of what you shelled out this fall. Your numbers still make my head spin.
Thanks as well for that detailed description of your biochar experimentation. I thought your mention of it changing the color of the soil when it was tilled in was quite striking. I’ll be very interested in hearing the results of amended versus unamended and top dressed versus tilled.
That ruminant digestion burrito sounds like quite an endeavor, but what amazing results with the poor peach tree. I’m sorry to hear that it met with such an untimely demise later on, and that so many of your fruit trees perished in the drought and grasshopper plague. Are the six that survived still flourishing?
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