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Post by macmex on Sept 6, 2021 14:51:13 GMT -6
Matthew, if you stick around here, you might get some seeds from a member who has them at harvest time. I do know that Ron (Heavyhitterokra) has a huge order for Baker Creek Seeds, so there should be no doubt at all that you should be able to get the seed through them. The seed Ron sells Baker Creek is of the absolute finest quality possible, almost certainly better than whatever one could scrounge up from another grower.
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Post by Mathews on Sept 7, 2021 14:42:39 GMT -6
Thank you. Will try bakers seed.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 7, 2021 17:55:32 GMT -6
Baker Creek is out of stock right now. Everyone has been out of stock since about mid-January. They won't have any more Heavy Hitter Okra Seeds until I sell them some this Autumn. I don't harvest mature pods until mid-October, then it takes about a month to process the mature pods. I usually have seeds ready sometime around Thanksgiving.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 8, 2021 10:55:34 GMT -6
If I had a vehicle, I'd send the kids down to help you with that. It makes me wince just recalling your dedication to it last year.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 8, 2021 17:27:04 GMT -6
I know, last year was only a 60-pound order. This year they want 400. I can never fill that big of an order but I'll do what I can.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 1, 2021 3:52:49 GMT -6
Howdy Ron, I just emailed you about getting some of your HH seed directly from the source. Then I read this thread. I'm now going to keep watching to see when your seed will be ready. I understand what it's like to have ten hours of work to do, but only two hours to accomplish it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 15, 2021 19:18:39 GMT -6
Well it looks like you have Heavy Hitter okra seed available again, that's great. Once I'm growing Heavy Hitter, I plan to help, by sharing any seed I can spare with those not able to easily find it elsewhere. Of course those I grow here will soon start acclimating to our conditions here in the desert Southwest.
I hope everyone looking for it can obtain some. I also hope that more people planning to grow it, will at least read about how you grow yours, so they have a chance to do it justice. I read some of the reviews of Heavy Hitter at Baker Creek. It was obvious that the poorer reviews were from growers that hadn't even attempted to give the plants conditions similar to the ones you've used to develop the variety.
Sorta like developing a drag race car for the typical 1/4 mile track, then trying to get a top performance from it, at the Indy 500 race or vice-versa.
One theme that is fairly common in the reviews, starting them indoors, then transplanting them, or planting them while the nights are still too cold. Both are repeatedly advised against, by the developer, in growing this variety.
They need to be pre-germinated, then planted out, and definitely wait until the nights are no lower than 50F. Many treat it like the family car, but its not, it's a high-octane monster car.
Now, having said all that, I hope my imitation of heavyhitterokra's conditions can do it justice, here in Tucson, AZ.
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Post by Tucson Grower on Nov 16, 2021 12:43:08 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra, Perhaps you could get Baker Creek to post some growing recommendations from the originator of Heavy Hitter okra, then it might give prospective new growers a better chance of success.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 16, 2021 18:02:15 GMT -6
I send instructions and a germination kit with every seed order. Despite that, I'll get negative feedback from people trying to grow it under a tree or too near a privacy fence. No matter how hard you try, there are going to be those folks who expect it to do well under any circumstance. Baker Creek sends neither instructions nor germination kit. All you get from them is a packet of 15 seeds. I read those reviews on their website about seed not germinating and think, "I know those seeds would germinate if they were handled right." I have seeds germinating in the bed of my truck right now, just from hauling the boxes of pods from the garden to the storage building. They germinate in the 90 percentile range when tested each year. The Federal Standard for okra is only 50%, so they germ test way above the national standard.
7 CFR § 201.31 - Minimum germination standards for vegetable seeds in interstate commerce.
Mustard, India 75% Mustard, spinach 75% Okra 50% Onion 70%
There are 65 more rows of vegetable germination standards at the following website: www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/7/201.31
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 16, 2021 19:14:23 GMT -6
What a beautiful day! Highs in the 77-degree range. It felt good to be sitting under a shade tree for most of the day. Hank and I made a big pot of coffee on the campfire and shelled out 9 pounds of okra seed this afternoon. My best record day up until today was around 6 1/2 pounds in one day. It takes between 75 to 80 pods of okra to obtain one pound of okra seeds, so that was a good-sized box of pods when we started at about noon. (A little over 700 pods total). A 5-gallon bucket will hold about 160 pods, so 720 pods would be about 4 1/2 bucket loads.
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Post by macmex on Nov 17, 2021 7:39:02 GMT -6
I bet the 50% germination standard for okra is to accommodate mass production of seed. The only time my germination rates have hit that low figure was 1) when I dipped into seed 2 or more years old or 2) when I harvested pods which only dried down after the first frost. Those pods produce seed but it's much weaker and loses vitality more quickly.
Sounds like a wonderful day, sitting by the campfire, shelling seed and swapping stories!
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 17, 2021 9:58:21 GMT -6
Wouldn’t it be nice for all of us to be sitting under that shade tree swapping stories and shelling out seed?
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 18, 2021 20:01:23 GMT -6
Bon,
Thanks, for the compliments. I'm still grinning about that last line.
I totally understand though. Right now, as I try to type this my fingertips are so sore from pulling okra pods apart that I have tape covering them. Because of that, I've made several mistakes that I have to go back and correct.
Hank and I have been at it for three days running. We average about 9 pounds of seed per session or about 700+ pods per day. We've gone through a little over 2,100 pods in the last 72 hours. This afternoon, we topped the 100-pound mark. Four, 5-gallon buckets full of seed ready to ship and lots more to go. It's kind of to the point that I don't even want to look to see what we have left because it's kind of overwhelming to think about. We'll get to the bottom of the pile someday and I'm sure I'll be sad because it's all gone, but right now, it's coming to an end very slowly.
We've been outside every day up until today. We got so chilled last evening that we moved our operation inside where it's warmer. We usually stop a little before dusk because of fading light conditions, but since we were inside today, we didn't notice it becoming darker outside and ended up working until it was pitch black dark. It was a good day though. We got a lot done. I'm on my 337th mail order since I opened my website in January of 2020. I've had 37 orders come in just this week, so I end up filling seed orders at night, running to the Post Office in the mornings after the Rural Post Office opens at 9:00 am, and shelling seeds from noon 'til dusk each day. My poor back and my neck are killing me from staring into a bowl full of seeds all day, and picking out the culls. I can't imagine what it must be doing to Hank's back and neck, but he never complains. Hank's just a really good guy. Not many guys like that left nowadays.
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Post by hedgeapple on Nov 18, 2021 20:50:31 GMT -6
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 18, 2021 22:08:10 GMT -6
(Would it be worth it to devise some type of seed extractor?)
We were talking about that just today. We were also saying the 50% National Germination Standard is probably due to the fact that machines don't pick out all the bad seeds that we see as we crack one pod at a time in the bottom of a white bowl before culling out the bad ones and tossing the good ones into our final bucket. Automation would no doubt sacrifice a good deal of quality. Quality is kind of our mainstay.
Something akin to an old-time washing machine wringer would probably be a handy thing to have to break down the fibrous pods. Breaking them open is the hardest part, which in itself is not difficult, but it is very time-consuming.
Hedgeapple, thanks for posting those two short video clips. That was interesting.
Did you guys notice the brown colored seeds that went past the camera in the second clip? Those, and the dark black ones, are the kind that we pick out to throw in the trash. Those and all the fuzzy, moldy, looking seeds, and all the oblong, weird looking ones and all the malformed, shrivled ones ... well, just anything that doesn't look right. Plus, we winnow them in front of a fan to blow all the chaff away.
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