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Post by macmex on Jan 22, 2020 11:38:17 GMT -6
I thought I'd start a thread on this. Ron now has his own website for selling this seed.
www.heavyhitterokra.com/
There are other sources offering this seed. Ron, himself, purchased some "Heavyhitter okra" seed from a vendor on eBay. He grew it out, and found that it wasn't anything like Heavyhitter.
Other, more legitimate sources may offer it eventually, but keep in mind, almost no one else is going to plant hundreds of feet of nothing but Heavyhitter okra and then, select seed from just a select few, the very best plants of the year. Essentially, purchasing from Ron gets you the best of the best. His seed stock continues to improve every year.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 22, 2020 16:18:58 GMT -6
Thanks, George.My youngest son, Josh, just got our new website up and running a few days ago. Thanks to all his hard work, you can now purchase heavy hitter okra seeds by visiting: www.heavyhitterokra.com/Or just Google search, heavyhitterokra.com and it will get you to the same place.I've already gotten over a dozen orders this week, plus I got an email from a fellow 'Okie' who is currently living up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is going to give okra a try at that latitude. I couldn't advise that, but who knows? It might work out if he plants it late enough in the season? He said he'd keep us informed about how that works out as the season progresses. I used to work up in Duluth, Minnesota, for Minnesota Power and Light. They had some beautiful gardens up there, due to their extra long, Northern days, but they grew mainly cool season crops; like cabbage, carrots, broccoli, and a few things like beans, squash, and corn. I don't remember ever seeing any okra up there.Communicating via the new website, with potential seed customers today has been a good way to pass an otherwise, dreary day.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 29, 2020 8:49:25 GMT -6
I've had 74 seed orders pop-up within the past 72-hours. You should have seen our poor Postal worker when I walked into the Post Office yesterday afternoon, in the pouring rain, with 3 paper grocery bags stuffed full of 6"x 9" envelopes to weigh, meter, and attach tracking numbers to. I felt for her, because I had just finished handwriting all those same, lengthy addresses that she had to type on to her postage meter. Postage for all those envelopes was pushing $300.00 by the time she was done.
Things like that are kind of scary to wake up to. Have you ever watched that episode of "I Love Lucy" where Lucy and Ethyl took that job, working the assembly line in the candy factory?
It felt kind of like that. Every time I'd look at my screen, more orders would be rolling in. It took me several hours, and two trips to Walmart, to buy more packing envelopes, and more seed bags, in order to put all those seed orders together in time for yesterday's mail to run. My poor address writing fingers feel like I'm back in college again.
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Post by glen on Jan 29, 2020 12:58:11 GMT -6
Ron, I am pulling for ya!! Best of luck with this new website. I do believe you are going to sell a lot of seed and the word is going to spread.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 30, 2020 0:10:43 GMT -6
Now that the Post Office has started using tracking numbers, it's a lot less stressful to mail so many packages all at once.
When I first started shipping seeds, back in 2012, the packages were not tracked, so I'd lose one in transit, periodically, and have to replace the whole order. You'd never be certain whether the Post Office lost the package or if the customer just misplaced it after delivery.
Nowadays, since the Post Office has upgraded their system, their computer verifies the customer's address before they print the tracking label, then, both the customer and the vendor can follow the package through the system. That way, you are almost certain that a package actually got delivered or not.
Things like that make doing business a lot less stressful. Plus, the website that I use (WIX) keeps a detailed record of every transaction. Every customer has an order number. Each order number has a history, so I can look that up and see each customer's email address, what day their seed was ordered, what day it was paid for, and what day I shipped it. Once I ship it, I log on and send each customer a verification of shipment, so they will be watching for their order to arrive. Each shipment has a tracking number, so we can check the progress of the shipment through all its stops, truck changes, and transfers.
It's a lot of extra paperwork, but it's a lot better than the olden days when I'd send an envelope and just hope for the best.
Some of the customers that I sent packages to yesterday, have already been confirmed as 'Delivered' within 24-hours of me handing them over at the Post Office. That is amazing to me.
Say what you will about old fashioned 'snail mail' but it's all really kind of a marvel, that our government can pull off something like that on such a large scale. If you've ever shipped anything overseas, you'll really learn to appreciate the good ol' United States Postal Service. They pull off some amazing stuff, usually with no kind of gratitude for the awesome service they provide. I have a lot of respect for our country's Postal Workers. They do a great job.
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Post by macmex on Jan 30, 2020 13:57:44 GMT -6
Their service has come light years, in recent years. Unfortunately, the prices have reached a point that I can't afford to send seeds very much. I'm taking a loss on every request I fill for the Seed Savers Exchange. Even a small padded envelope now costs something like $3.79.
Still, service at the counter is outstanding and dependability, while it's always been good, has gotten even better.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Jan 30, 2020 19:01:50 GMT -6
The prices just keep climbing on interstate shipping, but overseas shipping has gone down some. Even so, it still cost me $13.00 postage for a one-ounce envelope going to Canada this week. You could probably skip a rock from there to the place where I shipped to in Minnesota for only $3.90 for the very same size package. Some of their pricing doesn't make sense.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 12, 2020 0:35:45 GMT -6
Out of 95 orders so far, I've only had one package delayed by possibly being placed in the wrong mailbox by mistake; while delivering seeds to a family farm where everyone had the same last name. (All their mailboxes were on one continuous stand). Even with all that, it only took a couple of days to get it all straightened out.
Not bad, considering how many people placed orders all within that very short time period.
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Post by john on Feb 12, 2020 6:40:12 GMT -6
Congratulations Ron it is good to see that your variety is getting put out there and you are able to make some money off of it. If a seed company were smart they would look to add your okra to their listings. However If they chose to produce the seed themselves I bet with in a few generations the Heavy Hitter would lose some of it's growing power. It has been your efforts and keen breeding sense that has brought out the best traits. If it were mass produced at a farm somewhere I am sure they would not take the care you do by selecting only the seeds from the best plants. Howard Dill Developed the Atlantic Giant seed and he got a Plant Variety Patent on his seed. The Atlantic Giant seeds that are sold through most seed companies are nowhere near the same thing as the stuff you get from the growers who are constantly looking to improve the line. they select their seeds with care just like you do with your okra. A similar thing has happened with the Sugar Snap pea. Over the years growers have been carelesss in their seed saving efforts. (not weeding out the off types in the seed saving process) and now when you grow sugar snap pea seed, it produces a decent percentage of off type snow peas. Johnny's selected seeds wrote about this problem in their catalog and are now working to correct the problem with a very tedious hand selection process where all the seeds are inspected to make sure they are true to type.
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Post by macmex on Feb 12, 2020 8:22:32 GMT -6
John, the same thing happened with the Dutch White Half Runner bean. At one point that was the most popular green bean in most of Appalachia. A seed company multiplied the seed and started selling it on a large scale, reproducing the seed on a large scale, somewhere out West. They didn't cull off types, and within a decade or so, the variety was ruined. Folk back in Appalachia had gotten accustomed to purchasing the seed and were gradually accustomed to weeding out the tough pods, when they processed beans. Eventually they just stopped buying the seed, as more than half the beans produced had tough pods. All it would have taken to maintain would have been attention to detail and annual selection.
I'm still learning this lesson. I get so busy that I forget to "stop and smell the roses," while in the garden. It's those moments when one notices things and can stop and make a difference. Ron took what he had received from his grandmother and gave it the attention and work necessary to make it the best. I suspect most anyone willing to dedicate that time and effort could do the same with almost any crop. Imagine if each of us adopted a crop and did that, sharing with others?!
A More Focused Approach to Seed Saving
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 12, 2020 18:54:43 GMT -6
Wow, George! I like that idea ... One specialty crop like that pretty much takes all of one person's time and attention. One individual couldn't grow out and select much more than that by them-self, but a group of people on dedicated, separate farms, could each pick one variety and just go for the stars. Kind of like that Hamby Pole Bean that Jesse sent us.
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Post by john on Feb 14, 2020 16:15:33 GMT -6
That same principle of focusing your efforts on one thing, probably is true in life too. Yet so few of us do it. I know I am totally guilty of spreading myself to thin in many areas. I have too many interests, so none get the attention that they truly deserve.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 14, 2020 17:35:52 GMT -6
That's really easy to do, John. Sometimes, we get in such a hurry that we forget to "stop and smell the roses" as George put it.
Sometimes, we blur right past a great thing and never even notice it was there ... kind of like, "Not seeing the tree for the forest".
Last season, I was so far behind on fresh okra orders, that I was still picking pods at 11:00 pm with a headlamp, for the next morning's 7:00 am Market.
I had already harvested about 100 pounds of pods that day and had gotten to the point of what I call, "Auto-pilot" or "Robot" mode, just cutting and tossing every pod that came into sight. To my dismay, I cut a 'Siamese Twin' okra pod, before my brain could even process what my eyes had seen with the headlamp on that night.
I had never seen a pod like that in my life and now, I had killed it! Sometimes, we just get going too fast and really ruin a great thing. That one pod had the potential to become the beginnings of a brand-new project, but by the time I realized what I had done, I was not even sure which plant it had fallen from?
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Feb 18, 2020 1:16:34 GMT -6
I am currently packaging my 101st Heavy Hitter Okra seed Order, placed in rapid succession within the last 23 days.
To order Heavy Hitter Okra Seeds, just type heavyhitterokra.com in a Google search.
Supplies are limited, so if you need seeds, keep that in mind when planning your order date.
As always, thank you very much for your continued patronage.
Dry Creek Farm.
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Post by ssmith on Feb 21, 2020 0:01:47 GMT -6
I went to your website tonight and had no option to place an order. Are you sold out?
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