# Heavy Hitter Okra



## SouthCentralUS (Nov 11, 2012)

I planted about 60 okra seeds April 28. We have had okra for dinner 3 times now. I have never had okra this early before. If you like okra, check out the heavy hitter okra. It was developed by a former science teacher who is in Talequah OK.


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## bacpacker (Jul 15, 2011)

Plants look nice. We have picked one mess so far. I always plant Red Burgundy. But your plants look much better. Where did you get your seed?


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## SouthCentralUS (Nov 11, 2012)

I ordered them from Ron Cook at Heavy Hitter Okra @ g mail.com

You can save seeds for next year. I am very pleased.


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## bacpacker (Jul 15, 2011)

Yeah I've had the same line of seed for probably 10 years. Now you have me chain another kind. 

Course I'm always tryin new stuff to see how they do here.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

What do y'all do with your okra? The only way we like it is battered & fried so we're in desperate need of some ways of making that stuff edible. It grows well here & produces long after everything else has succumbed to the heat, so we want to like it! Recipes, tips, & tricks please!


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## SouthCentralUS (Nov 11, 2012)

The only way I like it is battered and fried, but my husband likes it boiled with tomatoes and onions. I canned some for him last year.

This year I plan to dehydrate some.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

They might be good to dehydrate & add some sort of seasoning to & eat dry? They are really good freeze dried but until we win the lottery or those machines go down in price 95%, I'll have to settle with buying them in the store.


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## phideaux (Nov 7, 2015)

I had them once, from Amish country I think, that were dehydrated , sliced the long way and glazed in some kind of sugar glazing.

They were awesome.

They also had dill pickles that same way.



Jim


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## SouthCentralUS (Nov 11, 2012)

Update - this is the same okra as in the first photo. I have picked about 100 pods from these 2 plants. Over run with okra. See how they branch out from the bottom? All the branches bear fruit. This okra doesn't grow straight up like a cane pole.

And the dehydrated okra is awesome.


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## bacpacker (Jul 15, 2011)

A little late getting back to this thread. We always just bread and fry ours. I've never had it dehydrated, but I will be trying that soon. We have put 4-5 gallons cut up in the freezer and ate several meals worth. Also gave away several meals worth. We are still picking about a half gallon or so every couple of days. We've even started letting 4-5 go so we'll have plenty of seed at the end of the season for next year. I'll end up leaving 20-30 for seed.

One trick my wife has found that has made a nice difference. When she cuts a pod, she also cuts the leaf below the pod. This stimulates the plant to grow taller. Our plants were really short, when she started cutting the leaf off on half the plants they started growing much better. They are now twice the size after about a month.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

bacpacker said:


> A little late getting back to this thread. We always just bread and fry ours. I've never had it dehydrated, but I will be trying that soon. We have put 4-5 gallons cut up in the freezer and ate several meals worth. Also gave away several meals worth. We are still picking about a half gallon or so every couple of days. We've even started letting 4-5 go so we'll have plenty of seed at the end of the season for next year. I'll end up leaving 20-30 for seed.
> 
> One trick my wife has found that has made a nice difference. When she cuts a pod, she also cuts the leaf below the pod. This stimulates the plant to grow taller. Our plants were really short, when she started cutting the leaf off on half the plants they started growing much better. They are now twice the size after about a month.


 Good idea also works good on fig trees. I just snapped off lots of leaves yesterday from figs. Will sure use this on my okra. Thanks.


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## bacpacker (Jul 15, 2011)

With the figs, are you taking the leaves off after picking figs? I have a small fig tree and it has not yet begin to bear fruit.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

bacpacker said:


> We are still picking about a half gallon or so every couple of days. We've even started letting 4-5 go so we'll have plenty of seed at the end of the season for next year. I'll end up leaving 20-30 for seed.
> 
> One trick my wife has found that has made a nice difference. When she cuts a pod, she also cuts the leaf below the pod. This stimulates the plant to grow taller. Our plants were really short, when she started cutting the leaf off on half the plants they started growing much better. They are now twice the size after about a month.


We never cut the leaves & the okra stalks got over 6 feet.
When the freezer was full my father let the last pods fill out & dry on the stalks.
We saved about 2 pounds of seeds & planted them over the next five years.
The rest of the 1/2 an acre, we plowed under, years later, I learned I could have sold them as dried arrangements.
But the reason for this post is we went out to dinner tonight & Had pickled okra, that had been breaded & deep fried like the fried pickles.That was a first for me.


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## heavyhitterokra (Oct 12, 2016)

This is Ron Cook. I'm the guy who developed Heavy Hitter Okra on our certified organic farm in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I am also currently working with Glen Hamner of Panama, as we continue to develop other varieties, by crossing Heavy Hitter Okra with feral okra plants found growing wild in the tropics.

We are also hosting a 2016 HEAVY HITTER OKRA PLANT PHOTO CONTEST. Send photos of your plants with sample pods displayed at the base of the plant to: [email protected]

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

Deadline is October 31st, 2016
Who knows? You might be the 2016 Heavy Hitter Okra, Photo Contest winner?

Thank you for sharing your thoughts about gardening and growing okra
Ron Cook 
DRY CREEK FARM


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

I tried a new to me recipe I found in Hobby Farm magazine for okra. You slice it in half longways, shake it in a bag with olive oil, salt, & pepper, put cut end down on a cookie sheet then bake at 425 30 minutes. It was so good I ate them all!


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## SouthCentralUS (Nov 11, 2012)

tsrwivey said:


> I tried a new to me recipe I found in Hobby Farm magazine for okra. You slice it in half longways, shake it in a bag with olive oil, salt, & pepper, put cut end down on a cookie sheet then bake at 425 30 minutes. It was so good I ate them all!


That sounds really good.


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## SouthCentralUS (Nov 11, 2012)

heavyhitterokra said:


> This is Ron Cook. I'm the guy who developed Heavy Hitter Okra on our certified organic farm in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I am also currently working with Glen Hamner of Panama, as we continue to develop other varieties, by crossing Heavy Hitter Okra with feral okra plants found growing wild in the tropics.
> 
> We are also hosting a 2016 HEAVY HITTER OKRA PLANT PHOTO CONTEST. Send photos of your plants with sample pods displayed at the base of the plant to: [email protected]
> 
> ...


Hi Ron. Thanks for dropping by. I tried to follow up over at Seed Savers but apparently hit the wrong button because my post disappeared. I am over whelmed with okra.


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## heavyhitterokra (Oct 12, 2016)

SouthCentralUS said:


> I planted about 60 okra seeds April 28. We have had okra for dinner 3 times now. I have never had okra this early before. If you like okra, check out the heavy hitter okra. It was developed by a former science teacher who is in Tahlequah OK.


In late April of 2010, I double planted 4 rows of Heavy Hitter Okra seeds on raised beds, 24" inches wide. I planted the seeds in a zig-zag pattern, one seed on each side of my center drip line, about 12" inches between each seed diagonally. Each row was about 150' feet long.

By mid-July, I was harvesting as much as 100 pounds of okra per week for the Farmers' Market. That was my best okra year ever, but as things like that often go, by mid-August, "OKRA" had become a four-letter word.

We were absolutely burned out on okra for a few seasons after that. We had given okra away to everyone we knew, plus we had frozen, dehydrated, and pickled so much of it that it took several years to eat it all.

Last year (2017) my quarter acre garden was flooded out twice and I lost my entire crop to mildew and 8 days of standing water, so this Winter was spent pining away at the thought of having another really big okra crop.

It was my goal initially, to double plant four long rows the way I had done back in 2010. But in real life, in my zealousness to get back to gardening, I actually double planted six rows of Heavy Hitter okra.

Though four of the six rows are 150' feet long, one row is 180' feet long, and one row is 200' feet long. I may have to solicit help from my neighbors, come harvest time.

It's my goal to have an old-fashioned, fill the freezer, family day, come August.

This is the year of our family's huge family reunion. It would be great to turn them all loose in my garden with a paring knife and an empty grocery sack. It's been a lot of years since we've done anything like that.

My poor Aunt Cindy went with me one Autumn, to harvest a seed increase on 5 acres of okra that a friend had planted for me. We were not expecting the rows to be 600' feet long when we arrived that frosty October morning.

By the end of the day, her SUV was filled to the brim with paper grocery bags full of dried okra pods. There was barely room for the two of us to fit inside on the ride back home.

A few days later, we shelled out 26 pounds of premium okra seed from those hundred or so grocery sacks. If you figure there are from 5,000 to 8,000 okra seeds per pound, then we harvested somewhere between 130,000 to 208,000 okra seeds that day. (It makes my hands itch, just thinking about it now, but we had a great time shelling out those seeds).

Those were my promotional days, back when I was still trying to get the name, "Heavy Hitter Okra" into the public's collective consciousness. As a result, I gave away heavy hitter okra seeds at every farm show, County Fair, and Ag. conference I could find in the tri-state area.

I gave away close to a quarter million seeds over the course of the next year, in hopes of getting a few people to try my newly developed strain of heavily branching okra.

Apparently, that strategy is slowly beginning to pay off. I can see that over 46,000 people have read my okra thread on the Green Country Seed Savers website. When I type in a Google search for Heavy Hitter okra seeds, I see pages of links now. Only a few years ago, no one had even heard of that name.

It took a lot of years to get to where we are today. I never dreamed so many people enjoyed growing okra.

It brings back great memories for me, when I'm out there in my okra patch. I can almost see my Grandma Fannie again, with my mama, as all my Aunts, Uncles, and cousins, harvest okra for the long Winter.

Sharing with friends and family. . . In my mind, that's what gardening is all about.

Today, I think I'll start planting cucumbers and squash.


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## heavyhitterokra (Oct 12, 2016)

heavyhitterokra said:


> This is Ron Cook. I'm the guy who developed Heavy Hitter Okra on our certified organic farm in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. I am also currently working with Glen Hamner of Panama, as we continue to develop other varieties, by crossing Heavy Hitter Okra with feral okra plants found growing wild in the tropics.
> 
> We are also hosting a 2016 HEAVY HITTER OKRA PLANT PHOTO CONTEST. Send photos of your plants with sample pods displayed at the base of the plant to: [email protected]
> 
> ...


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## heavyhitterokra (Oct 12, 2016)

I apologize for the late Follow-up. (I am not very Tech. savvy). And I am sure it shows. I will attempt to paste a photo of the Winning Specimen grown in the Heavy Hitter Okra Growing Contest, held nationwide in the Autumn of 2016. This spectacular, Heavy Hitter Okra specimen was grown by the Monks at Clear Creek Monastery, near Hulbert, Oklahoma. This photo was taken on site in the Clear Creek Monastery gardens on November 9, 2016. This plant bore fruit right up until frost, as can be seen by a small sample of fresh okra pods picked the day that the winning check was presented to the Monks at the Monestary. This plant was approximately 8' feet tall, by 8' feet wide, at full maturity, having produced well over 100 pods throughout the season. It is a great example of what can be achieved by selecting only the best plant for seed harvest each year for a succession of years... Heavy Hitter Okra was carefully selected from samples of Clemson Spineless okra grown on my certified organic farm over the course of several decades of research and development.


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

Thanks for the update!!


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## heavyhitterokra (Oct 12, 2016)

Thank you, to my fellow preppers and to everyone else, who has been so diligent in getting Heavy Hitter Okra established over the years. It is currently growing in 26 of our 50 States. It is also being grown in 12 other Countries.

Back in the Spring of 2018, I donated several Heavy Hitter Okra seeds to Oklahoma State University, (at their request), to be used in a variety of raised bed, garden mulch trials. They planted several different vegetable types in a garden mulch trial to determine which method worked best. There were three methods used:

(a). Plasticulture Mulch
(b). Paper Mulch
(c). Bare Soil

I couldn't copy their report, so I'm posting a link to it here:

www.hortla.okstate.edu/research-extension-youth/vegetables/pdfs/18vegreport.pdf

If you'll scroll to page 34 of the report you'll see the Okra trial results listed there.

According to this OSU Gardening Report, Heavy Hitter Okra grew significantly better using black plastic mulch than it did while using paper mulch or while using bare soil.

According to the OSU report, while using black Plasticulture Mulch, Heavy Hitter Okra produced 529 bushels of marketable okra per acre, or 581 bushels of edible okra per acre, (including culls). At 30 pounds of okra per bushel, that was roughly 15,870 pounds of Marketable okra per acre and roughly 17,430 pounds of edible okra per acre, (including culls). Culls are misshapen, crooked pods, usually due to damage caused by insects.

According to a 1972 Victoria Seed Company trial, the old, original Clemson Spineless Okra had a potential of producing 5,000 kg per acre or about 11,000 pounds per acre. At 30 pounds per bushel that was about 367 bushels of okra per acre. At 2.2 pounds per kg, that is roughly 11,000 pounds of okra per acre. According to their claims, Clemson Spineless Okra had a potential of producing 10 pods per plant on average.

Due to improvements in branching capability, and heavier production, Heavy Hitter Okra plants now produce an average of 10 pods per branch. (The Heavy Hitter standard is to save no seeds from any plant producing less than 100 pods).

That means the Heavy Hitter Okra Strain developed from the old Clemson Spineless variety has a potential of producing about 200 bushels per acre more than the original Clemson Spineless Okra.

All I did was select seeds from my very best plant each year (Much the same as you would select only your best calves for breeding a better herd of cattle). Actually, I did very little. God did all of the developing. All I did was notice which plants were better and chose only those plants for seed saving.

I am forwarding this information to you, in hope that you will take heart in the fact that one person, working alone, with the Lord's guidance can make a real difference, even while using a previously improved variety, such as 'Clemson Spineless' as their 'starter' seed stock.

We'll never be able to recreate what God provided for Adam, but I do believe all those traits mentioned above, were there in the original 'Garden of Eden Seed Stock' or else how would we, as ordinary gardeners, be able to draw those traits out in our supposedly, "improved" varieties?

The development of this Heavy Hitter Okra strain now makes it possible for home gardeners and homesteaders alike to grow more produce per plant than if they were using Clemson Spineless. This improvement allows gardeners to make the very best use of their valuable garden space.

Below, is a copy of Victoria Seed Company's Field Report on the original Clemson Spineless Okra that they sold from their seed catalog back in 1972.

Okra Clemson Spineless
The Best of the Best

Vegetable Seed Clemson Spineless

Planting Guide
Spacing: 25cm x 60 cm(1seed per hole) or 60 cm x 90 cm(2 seeds per hole)
Seed rate: 3,000 grams per acre direct seeding or 1600 grams per acre transplant

Maturity: 60 days
Yield potential: 5,000 kg/acre or 11,000 lbs/acre.

Key attributes
 Pods are tapered, ridged and spineless (without hairs).
 Rich green in color.
 Angular in shape.
 Pods are about 10 cm long.
 Produces on average *10 pods* per plant.

Read more: http://seedsavingnetwork.proboards.com/thread/15/heavy-hitter-okra#ixzz5dMVq7zFs


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## FrankW (Mar 10, 2012)

How cool is that!!!


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## heavyhitterokra (Oct 12, 2016)

Sorry, it has been so long since I've posted ... Thanks to my tech-savvy youngest son, you can now purchase Heavy Hitter Okra seeds at the new website he just finished setting up at https://www.drycreekfarmstore.com/ We've been out in the garden all weekend breaking over old, winter-killed, okra stalks and trying to get somewhat ready for Spring. We still have over 100 tomato cages and tomato vines to take out and stack over the fence. I did have 50 pounds of Austrian Winter Peas planted as a winter cover crop, but since deer completely destroyed all the seedlings, my garden is still just bare soil. If it ever dries up a bit, We'll try spreading a ton of chicken litter across the entire quarter-acre garden spot to see it the smell of it will deter the deer from killing my second attempt at growing a cover crop this winter. Best of luck to all of you. Happy gardening in 2020.


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## heavyhitterokra (Oct 12, 2016)

Heavy Hitter Okra seeds can be purchased at https://www.drycreekfarmstore.com/ This new website just opened yesterday morning.


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## kappydell (Nov 27, 2011)

OVEN FRIED OKRA 
Easy and healthy. Now you can have your “fried” okra and eat it too! 
16 ounces, weight Bag Frozen Sliced Okra, Thawed
1 teaspoon Cajun Or Creole Seasoning
½ teaspoons Garlic Salt
1 cup Yellow Cornmeal
Canola Oil Spray
1 Gallon-size Zip Lock Bag
This makes 7 1/2-cup sized servings.
Preheat oven to 425 F. Turn the Ziplock bag inside out and spray it with canola oil spray, then turn the bag right-side out again. Pour the okra into the bag along with the Cajun seasoning and garlic salt. Seal bag and shake vigorously. Let it rest for 10 minutes so the juices extract from the okra.
Add the cornmeal to the bag and shake it up again. Let it rest 10 more minutes. Give the bag one more good shake. Pour okra into a strainer or colander (place the colander over the sink or over a bowl) so the extra cornmeal will fall off. Spread the okra over a foil covered baking sheet and spread it out evenly. Spray okra with canola oil spray.
Bake for 20 minutes, remove from oven, flip okra over, lightly spray again and return to oven for 20 more minutes. And that’s it! Serve warm.
Adapted from a recipe by The American Heart Association posted on family.com.


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## kappydell (Nov 27, 2011)

I like okra and am always experimenting with ways to use it. Lately I have just been roasting it in the oven along with whatever I have there for dinner, usually chicken. I grease it (I use canola oil in a big zip lock bag and toss it around in there until glistening). Then season to taste ( seasoning salt is nice, but Mrs Dash garlic & herb seasoning is also very good). Lay on a nonstick pan (or on some of that nonstick aluminum foil, then bake it whole until soft. I just cut off the stem end and a teensy part of the tip. I eat them whole, which takes care of the texture some object to. I like them soft like green snap beans, but some bake them several hours longer, at 170 degrees for 2-3 hours which makes them crispy.

The other thing that I really like is a crispy okra pod, made in the dehydrator. Here is the recipe I used from HGTV
*Spicy Dried Okra*

2 pounds okra
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
Scrub okra, rinse with cold water and pat dry with a towel.
Halve okra lengthwise, cut into disks or leave whole and place okra in a large bowl.
Drizzle olive oil over okra and toss..
Add salt and cayenne pepper and toss to coat.
Transfer okra to dehydrator.*
Dry until crisp and breakable (about 12-18 hours, depending on dehydrator and okra size).
Store in an airtight container.

_*For those without a dehydrator, no need to make the investment just yet. To dry okra in the oven, spread half of the batch of okra at a time in a single layer on a wire rack nestled in a baking sheet. Place in a 150 degree oven and turn okra every 3 hours for 12 hours or until desired crunchiness is achieved. _

These buggers are as addictive as Chex Mix! A great way to introduct people to okra.without the sliminess that some object to. 

Mostly I slice and dehydrate my extra okra and toss it into my morning "skillet scrambles" when the urge strikes, or add to soups. Yes, the so-called "slimy" texture returns when they are re-hydrated, so if you are looking to use them for that thickening texture, dried works just fine. I keep them with an oxygen absorber in quart jars.

Just a couple of ways to cook okra without the breading for those of us who want a change of pace, or are doing keto or low carb dieting. Okra is a good veggie for that, high in fiber & texture. 

Enjoy.


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