Pulling Up Okra

[OkieinAltus]

I am an Okra newbie and this question may seem simple to you, but it's an honest question. What does it take to get these plants pulled up? These things are bigger around than a three year old tree. Easily bigger around than a Coke can and strong enough to stand in gale force winds. 

Im still producing okra so it will be a bit before I need the plants out, I'm just trying to get some input from y'all before I get started. 

Thanks!

[heavy hitter okra]

OkieinAltus,

My Heavy Hitter Okra has an extensive root system and is nearly impossible to pull by hand. Even after frost hits, the stalks are hard to pull because the bark will slip off after a freeze when you try to give them a good tug, then the mucilage on the cambium will be too slippery to get a good grip on.

That's why I wait until February to pull mine out. By then, the mucilage has dehydrated and the roots have all but rotted away from a Winter's long decay.

[OkieinAltus]

Once the plants stop producing I would like pull it up so I can work some nutrients back into the soil and let it sit over the winter. I hear okra really depletes the soil of nutrients.

Have you tried pulling them out with a truck or tractor? If my ground isn't soaked from rain I could use my 4x4 or my lawnmower to try pull them out.

[heavy hitter okra]

To: OkieinAltus,

I've pulled them out with a log chain and a 4x4 pickup truck before. That works pretty well, but no one will believe you when you tell them you had to use a truck to pull your okra plants in the Fall of the year; so if you resort to that, you might want to take photos to go along with your story.

[OkieinAltus]

Thanks for the heads up Ron! I'll be sure to have photographic or video evidence for proof!

[heavy hitter okra]

To: OkieinAltus,

Are you aware that we are hosting a "2016 HEAVY HITTER OKRA PLANT PHOTO CONTEST?"

1st prize is $50.00
2nd prize is $25.00
3rd prize is $10.00

Send your photos to me at: heavyhitterokra.com

We are looking for evidence of heavy branching and uniform pod production, so if you can include a photo with an example of a typical tender size pod, it would help improve your chances of becoming a winner.

You'll have some stiff competition, though, from the Monks at Clear Creek Abby in Hulbert, Oklahoma. Their Heavy Hitter Okra plants look pretty good this year. Still, your's might be even better?

The only way to find out is to compare photos once thy start pouring in.

I originally planned on judging the photos by the end of October, but this unseasonably warm Autumn weather that keeps hanging on in the mid to upper 80s has extended the growing season, so it might be sometime in November before frost kills the plants and puts an end to the okra season.

Best of luck, I'm looking forward to seeing those pictures of you pulling out your plants with a log chain.

Ron Cook

[OkieinAltus]

My okra isn't heavy hitter Ron. However, it will be next year.

My plants have all but died off. Nothing to speak of and I don't even know what kind they were. The seeds were given to me. I think I will be pulling them up tomorrow afternoon.

[heavy hitter okra]

Pulling them out will be interesting nonetheless.

[heavyhitterokra]

Over the years, I've found that if I leave my winter-killed okra standing in the garden until warmer weather in early March, they are much easier to break down, because, by that time, microbes in the soil have begun eating a ring around the base of each plant, right at ground level. If I use a baseball bat, 2x4, or other means of delivering a sharp blow to the stalks, about a foot above the soil, the stalks will readily break, much the way glass breaks along a score line when you tap it sharply.

This makes Spring clean-up a much easier task.  I jumped the gun a few days ago, during warmer weather and cleared all my okra stalks about a month earlier than normal.  They still had a lot of moisture in them that would have been dried up if I had held off until March, but I just wanted to get it finished and moved out of my way so I could start removing my rows of Plasticulture.



 This stack of okra stalks is about 10' feet tall, by about 15' feet across.  I'll have to use my tractor to push it to the composting area outside my garden later.

 I only planted 3 1/2 rows of Heavy Hitter okra last Spring, but I still harvested over 900 pounds of tender pods, for Market.  All those lumps are turnips.  Deer ate all 50 pounds of the Austrian Winter Peas I had planted out here as a winter cover crop.  They even ate all the greens off the turnips.  After that, they moved on.  The turnip tops are just now leafing out once more after the deer invasion.

[macmex]

With all the rain, this winter, I'm pretty sure mine will be easy to remove. 
Surprisingly, I found this morning's 18 F temperature to be a relief. Instead of slogging through the mud, during chore time, I was able ... to walk on top of it!

[john]

Many years ago I did an internship at the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. One of the jobs I had to do was to go through the collections and pull out "weed" trees that were growing in the collections. They had this tool that worked great. It could handle trees with a 2" or bigger caliper. It definitely was a back saver. Something like that would work if you had a patch as big as Ron's.
Here is a video of the tool being used.https://www.theuprooter.com/

[heavyhitterokra]

Thanks, for posting that Uprooter demo, John. That looks like it would be a handy tool to have.  That would be a good 'gadget' to post under, "TIPS AND TRICKS".

I'll bet it does a great job out in the woods, where the soil is more compact.  It might help someone to clear a new garden spot.  (That would be pretty cool).  When I cleared mine, I had to pull stumps with a mule and a length of trace chain.

I have a tool similar to the one in the video that you posted a link to; mine just employs a little different way to attach to the sprout is all. (Mine reaches down to grab around the base of the stem, to grip the plant by the taproot).

The problem lately, has been that it's so muddy, that when I use the 'L' shaped foot as a fulcrum to pry against, it just sinks the foot of my tool in the mud and the thing I'm trying to pry up remains right where it is.

I like the uprooter's 'T' shaped fulcrum design better.  I might have to alter mine to the flat 'T' foot, rather than the standing 'L' shaped foot.

The same thing happens when I try to pry plants from my sightly raised Plasticulture beds.  The soil beneath the plastic remains very 'fluffed' for lack of a better word, due to never becoming compacted by heavy rainfall.  That causes the foot of my prying tool to sink into the row cover instead of pulling up the plant.  For that reason, I just leave the roots in the ground and snap the stem off flush with the surface.

When I pull the plastic off the rows, to plow in March, all that raised bed gets chopped up anyway.

[Tom H]

THANK GOODNESS these older message boards still have this information for newbie planters like me!!  THis was the first time I ever grew okra in my small garden in my backyard of a residential development here in New Jersey.  My okra grew to 7 to 8 feet tall and gave me a lot of okra. But the okra plant is about 1.5" to 2" circumference at the soil line and I was wondering how in goodness sakes i was going to get these stalks out of the ground!!!   I have been researching on line and I am getting that I should wait until March to take them out so the roots can die off over the winter. 

But what I wanted to say is I followed the link to the UPROOTER TOOL video and said to myself after watching several of the youTube videos, DAMN!  I am GETTING ME THIS THING even if it is $250!!!!  My back will say thank you to me I am sure!! 

[heavyhitterokra]

Tom,

In years past, when I had way fewer okra plants to pull, I used an old car rim as a fulcrum and pulled my okra stalks with a short length of chain or rope attached to a 2" x 4" x 12' feet long piece of lumber. That worked really well back then, but I currently have about 1,800 stalks to pull, so I need to work a little less on each one. That's why I now just wait until Winter is nearly over when the stalks become brittle.