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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 11, 2022 20:50:56 GMT -6
I planted another 100 or so seeds today, bringing my total to somewhere around 600 and some change. I've got 8 more rows left to go. It was 90 degrees by 1:30 pm today. Since I'm not yet used to the heat, I got cooked off of my project by about 11:00 am.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 13, 2022 11:36:10 GMT -6
Rained out again!
I spent 6 hours yesterday, mowing the grass, and about two more hours working on the mower, pulling the deck, and replacing the blades after the belt broke. I didn't get any planting done yesterday at all. So I thought I'd surely make up for it today, but I had a seed order to fill first thing out of the box, and as a good business practice, chose to get that done first. On the way back from the Post Office, it started getting really, really, dark outside, but I went to the garden to plant more seeds anyhow.
Before I even got the truck unloaded, it started pouring down rain. Hopefully, this will pass after a while, so I can get back out there and get some planting done. What a wet Spring this has been. I keep praying for some of this good rain to drop on Chrysanthemum, and on Bon, but it just keeps coming back here instead. The forecast does look favorable for them though, so maybe, God heard me and is working on it right now. If nothing else, I think they'll have a break from the hot sun for a day.
A nice, cloudy day this time of year is better than nothing.
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Post by Deleted on May 13, 2022 16:33:05 GMT -6
Thanks Ron. We worked really hard this morning while it was 70 degrees and overcast. I watered anyway which was fortunate because it never rained. We were mulching with cut grass when . . . the mower broke. I think I'll just let it grow a bit more and then break out the scythe. We will likely get some rain tonight.
Now, if we can get Chrys wet . .
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 18, 2022 14:43:23 GMT -6
Sky Rocket Experiment I just got my 8th row of okra planted today. Only 3 more to go and I'll be finished. I think I've got somewhere around 1,250 seeds planted so far. The last 215 or so of them were some old 'Sky Rocket' seeds that have been in the freezer since 2019. I thawed them out two days ago and they germinated in the high 90% range. It always amazes me when the older seeds like that have such a high rate of germination.
Sky Rocket seeds are some mutations that I selected from branching plants, which grew three to five okra pods at each fruiting node, rather than only one pod per node. The multiple pods at each node made the pods splay in every direction, resembling rockets exploding on the 4th of July, hence the name, "Sky Rocket".
I finally took the time this year, to separate them from the other plants to carry on some trials with them to see if I can get that gene to replicate for future plantings. I'll keep a close eye on them this season, looking for multiple blossoms at any certain nodes, so I can hand pollinate them.
I planted them in a row covered in biochar, so this ought to be a doubly interesting experiment. I'll sure be glad when all of my rows are finished. I've got about 1,800' feet of raised beds total. Each bed is about 28" inches wide, double-planted, covered with Plasticulture, with a drip tape running down each center for irrigation later on in the summer.
I'm writing all of this down here today, just so I don't forget where I planted them. The first 22 "Sky Rocket" seeds start on the North end of Okra Row #6 starting from the West side. They extend the entire length of Okra Row #7. (Edit) They now extend the entire length of Okra Row #8 as well.
So, I ended up with two full rows of Sky Rocket, plus 22 plants on the North end of Okra Row #6.
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Post by chrysanthemum on May 18, 2022 20:11:21 GMT -6
Wow. So many gardening adventures. (And so many okra seeds!)
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 18, 2022 22:24:47 GMT -6
If the Farmers Market backs off their covid rules and they actually let the customers buy veggies the same way they do in the grocery stores, maybe I'll have enough okra to sell some fresh pods and some seeds too this year.
For the past two years, I've only been growing okra for seeds, because of market restrictions that didn't fit my way of packaging. (I don't package). I just let the customers sort through my produce from open boxes and weigh out what they need, the same way as the grocery stores do it. When the customers weigh out, they take their veggies home in a bag at the counter, not a plastic clamshell or a pre-measured container.
That way, you just take home what you need, or what you can afford. If you only need half a dozen pods, that's okay. If you need 50 pounds of pods, that's okay too. I move about a hundred or two hundred pounds per week that way. The other vendors get cross with me for under pricing them, but I don't like ripping people off. If everything goes as planned, I might be giving them some competition again this year for the first time since 2019.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 19, 2022 19:54:04 GMT -6
I finished my 10th row today.
One of these days I'll finally be done with the planting. After that, I'll have a 60-day reprieve to pull weeds while waiting for the veggies to come on ... Then, WHAMMO!!! It will all be ready to harvest in the same week! From that day on, I'll be busier than a one-armed paper hanger until Autumn.
Oh well, way better than twiddling my thumbs all winter, wishing for a sunny day and a tomato.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 20, 2022 20:26:16 GMT -6
Well, I'm finally on my last row. Just 80 more seeds to go and I'm done planting. Just in time for a solid week of rainy weather and cold nights in mid-May. I read one of my posts today, from the last week of May 2021. It was 46 degrees that night while we were camping out on Memorial Day Weekend, curled up in a tent, wishing we had a heavier sleeping bag.
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Post by Jim Parker on May 22, 2022 7:17:35 GMT -6
My HH is now up and I need to thin it out, how far apart should I thin?
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 22, 2022 12:52:32 GMT -6
Jim,
It kind of depends on what you are shooting for as far as long-term production goes. If you want lots of early okra, leave them spaced about 12" inches apart. That way, when they are still small, you'll have lots of individual okra plants in production, but they'll be too crowded to branch out much, and you'll lose production on the back end of summer.
If you want heavy production later in the season, you thin them to about 30" inches apart. That will leave you fewer plants for the early harvest, but it will allow them to branch out better and you'll have heavy production once the side branches mature. Each branch represents a potential of 10 to 15 extra pods, but it takes time for those branches to develop and mature, so you just kind of have to 'play it by ear' and try to strategize according to what you want the final outcome to be.
A safer bet might be to space them about 18" inches apart and thin the weak ones out just as branching begins to occur.
I usually plant mine about 18" inches apart, then deer, geese, and insects thin them for me. Sometimes, I end up with 20' foot skips in the rows because my garden is so far away from my house that critters do quite a bit of damage while I'm not looking.
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Post by Jim Parker on May 22, 2022 13:02:28 GMT -6
thanks. I just put a fence and electric fence around my garden so I hope to keep some of the critters away from my okra!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 3, 2022 16:08:36 GMT -6
I had a surprise in the garden this morning. I actually first spotted a couple of flowers on different plants. I had not been looking for them this early, but once I spotted them, I checked this plant and found the dried flower and developing pod. I had missed it when it bloomed (probably yesterday when I was filling in all the holes where something once again dug up a number of my garden beds—there was a coon in our trap this morning after we put out marshmallows). According to my records my first okra seedlings popped up on April 23, so I make this out as being 42 days after germination. Why so early? It’s been really hot and sunny, so much so that I’ve deployed my shade cloth in preparation for additional heat this weekend. I’ve got 17 okra seedlings growing now and three spots where I reseeded just the other day. They’re all at different stages of maturity, but I’m really looking forward to some fresh okra soon. I hope this early pod is a good sign and not a sign that the plant is so stressed that it’s trying to make seeds early. I’ve been really faithful about watering, but the heat and drought are intense.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 5, 2022 20:32:56 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum,
Glen, from Panama reported the same thing, as did Chandra, from India. Both have intense sunlight and are much closer to the equator than I am. My okra comes off at about 55-days up here at 34 degrees Latitude.
They also reported that HH rushed through its lifecycle there in the intense sun and dies earlier than mine does. I plant mine toward the end of April or in early May. It puts on pods until October. I probably won't have okra here for at least another 30 days, due to cold, wet weather early on.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 6, 2022 16:56:13 GMT -6
Thanks for the information, Heavyhitterokra. It’s good to know that it can be normal. I wondered if it was some sort of daylength thing, but I’m a lot closer to Oklahoma than I am to Panama. My latitude is around 29 degrees, similar to New Delhi in the very northern part of India. The heat has been intense this year, so if it’s just a factor of heat hours, so to speak, that would explain it. It’s about 102 degrees outside right now, but I checked on the garden a bit ago, and the shade cloth has done a good job keeping the plants from wilting too much. My newer garden area is a bit more shaded by trees but gets full sunshine at various hours of the day, and the plants there are showing more stress. There’s no okra over there, though.
Last year was the first year I grew Heavy Hitter, and our summer last year was wetter and therefore a bit cooler than normal. It was great for the garden. I don’t recall any rushing through the lifecycle, but this year could be an entirely different experience. It’s very different weather after all. I remember your saying that your okra did well during the 2011 drought, though, so if I can keep mine watered, it should be fine, I expect.
I only have two pods right now since one of the flowers I had seen didn’t make. It will probably be quite a while before my okra plants are producing enough for me to feed my family a meal. Early pods are nice for a garden snack, though.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jun 6, 2022 20:55:52 GMT -6
I'll try to post a photo of what I grew during the drought of 2011 with 65 consecutive days over 100 degrees. Oddly enough, that was my best year to date. It was unseasonably warm by February that year with temperatures reaching 80 degrees. I planted my okra on April 15th that year with great success. To kind of put that into perspective, last year we had 15 below zero temperatures in February and we had snow on April 20th. We had a frost on May the 8th. Nothing like that was going on in 2011, just lots of hot, sunny, days. However, as I mentioned earlier we did have 22" inches of rain over an eleven-day period between late April and early May of 2011, just before the very lengthy drought, so we had water in abundance early on, just no more rain in the months of June, July, August, September, or October.This photo was taken in early October of 2011. This plant had 65 branches. It was so dry that year that the weeds couldn't grow, so the garden was very easily maintained. I grew this okra in black Plasticulture with a single centerline drip tape and irrigated with water from my well. My computer crashed later that year and I lost all of the photos on my hard drive. This one was returned to me thanks to website, "Dave's Garden" where it had been posted earlier. This plant didn't grow in the temporary hoop house where this photo was taken. That was hurriedly constructed the week before a killing frost was predicted, but it failed to save this plant. 30 mph winds the night of the freeze tore the plastic off the far end and sustained temperatures of 23 degrees overcame my night fires, killing nearly all of my seeds. I was only able to salvage 5 seed pods for planting the next Spring. In 2021, I was able to salvage roughly 1,400,000 seeds from its descendants.
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