|
Okra
Mar 2, 2015 17:40:48 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 2, 2015 17:40:48 GMT -5
Heavyhitter okra is a variety developed by Mr Ron Cook in Oklahoma. He specially selected this clemson variant over a 9 year period and has come up with a hell of a good variety of new okra. A couple weeks ago Ron send me a sample of his okra seeds. I'm looking forward to trialing it this summer. My climate is very cold and not at all suitable for okra, but I keep trying.
|
|
|
Okra
Mar 2, 2015 20:03:06 GMT -5
Post by philagardener on Mar 2, 2015 20:03:06 GMT -5
Welcome to HG, glen. Okra trees! Nifty to be able to grow plants over multiple years in your tropical climate! (Sounds particularly good with all our snow and ice right now!)
|
|
glen
gopher
Posts: 8
|
Okra
Mar 3, 2015 11:56:54 GMT -5
Post by glen on Mar 3, 2015 11:56:54 GMT -5
Joseph, okra is probably not a very good veggy for you to grow judging by your description of your climate. Worth trying a few plants though. The problema with okra is that it is a continuously producing plant. You need a lot of plants and frequent pickings to get a crop. And, if you don't have a long season you can't produce a lot. I live in the tropics so it is a good idea to grow okra. I can't grow salad tomato's or any of the cool season crops that I love so much. Its all a trade off. It is so hot and the sun is so intense where I live that tomato's won't even turn red. I have to grow only Hardy plum tomato's and cherry tomato's and I had to learn to eat them slightly pink. They will not ripen. Round salad tomato's will not set fruit at all. One of the things I had to learn to do here is to intercrop plants to take advantage of shade. Its been a real learning experience. We plant things in the shade of fruit tres like papaya and banana's for example. I plant okra and sweet potato's together, giving the okra plenty of space and letting the sweet potato's grow in the shade of the okra. I had to get used to eating sweet potato's as a replacement for White potato's since normal spuds don't grow well here. Its not easy to make dietary changes that is for sure. But, after awhile you do not feel deprived. There is a long list of veggy's I cannot grow. And, a long list of new veggy's that I can grow. Yesterday for example I dug up 2 Otoi, or malangay and got 2 monstrous tubers to throw in the soup pot. Thats a hard one to wrap you mind around I know. The taste is not on my list of flavors. But, tolerable to this gringo. Green plantains are the Latin potato of choice in the tropics. Hard to get used to.
|
|
glen
gopher
Posts: 8
|
Post by glen on Mar 3, 2015 12:11:16 GMT -5
Joseph, I have taken the time to read a couple of your blog posts concerning racebreeding plants that will acclimate over the years in the climate you live in. Without knowing it, that is what I intend to do with the new variety's of okra I have now, growing in the garden. I live in an área where they have not grown okra in several generations. The people here are poor, and have very poor diets. My intention is to grow okra, not worrying about them interbreeding with each other, selectively saving the sedes from the branchiest, heaviest yeilding plants. I will then try and share the sedes with anyone interested in growing it. The hope is that the neighbors will try it, see how easy it is to grow and then try growing in their yards. Green veggy's are not on the menú here and it shows. The people here are not healthy and tend to be prone to diabetes and other ailments due to the high carb no veggy diet they eat here. They don't like okra as far as I know, so I have many obstacles in front of me to try and convince anyone to grow it and include it into their diet. The local okra they have here is a very poor producer. They have allowed the plants to regress back to a feral form that grows like hell, but only produces a couple of pods. The only use that I am aware of is that they roast the sedes and make coffee out of it. I don't know how they get enough sedes to do this with the small amount of pods you get from their local variety. I have never seen okra for sale here. The locals call it Nyahoo. So, Yahoo for Nyahoo! I guess. I might be the only one eating it. Happily though.
|
|
glen
gopher
Posts: 8
|
Okra
Mar 7, 2015 13:31:18 GMT -5
Post by glen on Mar 7, 2015 13:31:18 GMT -5
I just came in from the garden. Okra is blooming and I am seeing pods forming. Plants are only 42 days old, from the time the seed was directly sown in the ground. I am using 2 variety's that are both performing well. Temps are hot here year around. Its 130 pm, and 90 degrees inside my house. Hotter outside. Okra is getting big and fat and I am definitely happy. Okra needs this high heat to grow well and thrive. Oh no aborted flowers at all. All are forming pods. I definitely live in okra country. I don't believe I have ever seen okra Bloom and form pods this fast in my life. Oh, all plants are already showing branching and blossom heads on the branches in almost every leaf node. These are going to be big, branchy montrous prolific okra mutants.
|
|
|
Okra
Mar 7, 2015 15:15:52 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 7, 2015 15:15:52 GMT -5
Okra is blooming and I am seeing pods forming. Plants are only 42 days old, from the time the seed was directly sown in the ground. Ha! Congratulations on your heat and your okra... The first time I grew okra I got one seed pod from about 100 plants, and that was about 90 days after planting it. Corn is also a tropical plant. And I am growing it in a cold mountain valley. They are even growing corn in Alaska these days. Perhaps one of these days okra will grow well in my garden, and in Alaska. We certainly have a lot of advantages today over the illiterate farmers that moved corn from 16 degrees North to 50 degrees North.
|
|
glen
gopher
Posts: 8
|
Okra
Mar 8, 2015 9:15:53 GMT -5
Post by glen on Mar 8, 2015 9:15:53 GMT -5
Okra is not as easy to grow as people believe. When you live in just the right conditions it can seem to work like a charm. But, I have planted here and not seen the first okra for 90 days also and got a small harvest. Is it because I planted the wrong variety? I have no idea. Was day length the problema? No idea. Okra is very sensitive, does not like to be transplanted, and needs warmth. Cool night time temps can stunt the plants or set them back. And a multitude of other things can bother them. Ron Cook told me that I might see pod abortion on my plants at first. I am not seeing this problema. Although I have seen the problema on other plants here. This time I am having some good luck. Should be a huge huge harvest coming. Whether I can repeat this is another thing. Good luck with your okra Joseph. Fun to grow when it goes right.
|
|
|
Okra
Mar 8, 2015 12:57:11 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 8, 2015 12:57:11 GMT -5
glen: Saving my own seeds has worked wonders for me with the difficult crops. Things like turnips, chard, and beets do gloriously here. I really have to work at it to have a crop failure. It doesn't matter with these crops if I buy seed or save seed. But the warm weather crops... Sheesh! I'm lucky to be able to grow them at all. This winter I received a gift of many varieties of okra from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. This late into the process it will be interesting to see if any of them can even come close to competing with my locally-adapted strain.
|
|
glen
gopher
Posts: 8
|
Okra
Mar 8, 2015 14:45:21 GMT -5
Post by glen on Mar 8, 2015 14:45:21 GMT -5
From what I have read of your posts you have cool night time temps? You are in a desert environment? If I am correct, you need to plant when you are fairly sure you are thru with night time temps below 50 degrees. Preferably you need temps at night in the 60's. Even if you have to plant later than you want in order to ensure you get these kinds of high nite temps you might be better off. Lower temps at night can set you back cause the plants will be stunted. They will look OK but then they will just sulk and not grow for awhile. You will lose what ever time you thought you might have gained by planting a Little early. Temps in the 40's at night could stunt your plants for example. I am also not in favor of transplanting okra or growing in in seed trays etc. That sets the plants back. Okra is sensitive as hell. Give your branchy heavy hitter okra plenty of space. The other non branchy variety's get by with much less space. I have several staged plantings of okra in the yard. The ones doing the best is where I added some well aged horse manure and rice husks. One área has only rice husks added. One área only has a Little comercial compost added. The first planting is without a doubt the strongest looking planting área. However, I have nite temps in the 70's and day temps in the 90's so my experience is probably not helpful to you. I think you will get it figured out though. You issue is not the variety's you are growing as much as the climate in my opinión.
|
|
glen
gopher
Posts: 8
|
Okra
Mar 8, 2015 15:08:23 GMT -5
Post by glen on Mar 8, 2015 15:08:23 GMT -5
I know you have probably already tried early variety's. I think early variety's might be the best. Of course, planting them at the right time is important also. Branching variety's take longer because the plant will Bloom first on its main trunk, maybe even early. But, the plant doesn't kick into overdrive as far as production goes until branches form. Add another couple of weeks for that to happen. As the plant grows you get more branches. But, it takes even more time. If you have a short season or time frame when temps are just right, I think it would be better to plant non branchy early variety's of okra which allows you to plant them closer together or more densely. You should get more okra this way, faster, over a shorter season. I consider the branching variety's to be long season okra. Like where I live. Heavy hitter and Zeebest can produce 20 to 30 branches or even more in a long season. Which you apparently do not have.
|
|
|
Okra
Mar 8, 2015 15:20:52 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Mar 8, 2015 15:20:52 GMT -5
glen: Yes, I'm growing in a high altitude desert. Night-time temperatures are in the 40s or 50s most of the summer. Add to that about 8 degrees of radiant cooling to the leaves. The last two years my last spring frost was on the summer solstice, about June 20th. An interesting trait that is emerging among my okra is that the leaves face towards the horizon at night instead of towards the sky. Thus they avoid the radiant cooling. They are also differently colored. I am selecting for non-sensitive okra... If it can't take some cold, or some frost, or some transplanting, then it doesn't belong in my garden. If it needs extra fertilizer, or weeding, or coddling then it doesn't belong in my garden. It's gotta grow faster than the bugs can eat it. I'm making great progress. Some of last summer's okra was still producing food for me 8 weeks after the start of our fall frosts... I haven't paid any attention to variety names. I just planted whatever people sent me in swaps. The gift of okra seed from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange is only early maturing varieties. If other crops provide any enlightenment, it is that most of them will fail spectacularly in spite of supposedly being short-season. Cold-tolerance is a more important trait to me than the length of the season. I average about 90 frost free days.
|
|
glen
gopher
Posts: 8
|
Okra
Mar 8, 2015 16:04:36 GMT -5
Post by glen on Mar 8, 2015 16:04:36 GMT -5
I am in the same predicament that you are except that my climate is different. There is so much that I cannot grow. I have to focus on warm weather crops only. Its been years since I have eaten a decent tomato for example. I don't need to focus on any particular variety of okra either since all of them will grow where I live. I focus on sweet potato's and okra. Thats my bread and butter. And I got 365 frost free days with nights in the 70's for every single day of the year. Its real hard to get used to gardening where I live also. The seasons just do not make any sense to us. My diet has really changed since moving here. On the other hand, we do have nice fruits to eat here and they are very cheap. In another month or so, mango's will be in season here and they are so plentiful that they have zero market value. You can't even give them away. We will be deluged with them for 4 months. I just take a walk in the Hood and bring em home by the bagful.
|
|
|
Okra
May 13, 2015 0:30:28 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 13, 2015 0:30:28 GMT -5
The okra is now as tall as the farmer! Today I planted seeds from this okra plant, and from 29 other varieties... Thanks to all those that have contributed seed over the past few years. Special thanks to Ken at Southern Exposure Seed Exchange who made a very significant gift of seed to this project. I planted 16 seeds of each variety in 3.5 inch pots. I'm intending to germinate them at about 90 F. My strategy is to plant out the quickest germinating and growing 6 plants of each variety, and cull the rest. Yikes!!! That's still 180 okra plants. Entire varieties may be culled if they start out growing poorly. Some of what I am calling "varieties" were sibling groups from special plants from last year or sibling groups grown by my neighbors in slightly warmer climates. A couple of them were grexes of plants from last year that didn't do very well. But they met the survival-of-the-fittest test, so they can have another chance this year. Most of the seeds I planted today were some shade of green: From light green to olive green. However, the seeds of this plant looked different. They appeared practically black. I don't know if that is due to environment or genetics, but about the 4 plants that I called the best, which are descended from 3 years of selection in my garden had black seeds. Seeds collected from the general population, which were foreign * plants that had only grown one year in my garden were various shades of green. The new seeds were various shades of green. I'm wondering if the black coloring is linked with better growth under my conditions, or if it's just a lark... Perhaps it's an anti-biotic that helps with germination, or a pesticide that repels nematodes. Also gotta love that my seeds are about twice as heavy as the seeds from the grex that I started out with. I speculate that means that they have more stored energy and can leap out of the ground faster and grow quicker. I'm hoping to post photos in a week or two comparing growth rates. Here's what the seeds from the above plant looked like. Compared with the original seed that I received. * To whom it may concern: Foreign means that they haven't grown in my garden before, not that they crossed an arbitrary border.
|
|
|
Okra
May 13, 2015 1:27:04 GMT -5
Post by steev on May 13, 2015 1:27:04 GMT -5
Guess I should direct-seed my saved seeds ASAP; prolly not this week-end, having too much other to do. Nights are now mid-40'sF, but the soil is clearly quite warm, as shown by how early the vultures are ascending the thermal elevator, <8AM.
|
|
|
Okra
May 20, 2015 23:05:46 GMT -5
Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 20, 2015 23:05:46 GMT -5
The okra has sprouted...
|
|