It is a new variety not yet available to the public at learge and is only available from the developer - Dry Creek Farms. This based on a post from them in February on another message board. They included the contact email in their post so you can email them at fourteenmilecreek@yahoo.com

Dave

I have emailed them twice in the last week and had no response. They must be very busy.

Sent you an email Lloyd.

Muscadineman45,
Visit green country seed savers website to see photos and read more articles about Heavy Hitter okra. The seeds are only available by contacting the developer at fourteenmilecreek@yahoo.com Fall and Winter are best times, as Spring and Summer, they are in the fields all day.

Here is another photo of Heavy Hitter okra. Notice the heavy branching traits, each branch will fork out to form a crown of blooms, bearing several pods of fresh, crisp, Clemson Spineless okra pods.

You can read more about Heavy Hitter okra at the green country seed savers website.

Growing okra in 2015: To see more photos of Heavy Hitter Okra just 44 days after seed germination, go to: s1381.photobucket.com/user/fourteenmilecreek/library/Heavy%20Hitter%20Okra%2044%20Days%20Old?sort=3&page=1

This is a photo of one of my 2015 Heavy Hitter Okra plants; it's only 44 days old, so it won't be old enough to bloom for another 10 days or so. Right now it's just a baby, but it will be very productive in just a few more weeks. A plant like this will put on several crowns of fresh, tender okra pods, simultaneously.

Didn't perform well at all here in north Georgia zone 7.

Here is a URL to a Tahlequah Daily Press newspaper article with some really good photos of the Heavy Hitter okra that I'm growing Summer of 2015. I'm 6' foot tall, in the photo you can see my Heavy hitter plants are up to my eye level tall. Some behind me are even taller. They do great here in Oklahoma. Maybe the soil pH? The URL: http://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/news/the-story-behind-ron-cook-s-special-okra-plants/article_87b1e784-4042-11e5-a796-fbf623b65fa5.html

Following: is the URL to a photo bucket account of my Heavy Hitter Okra plants at only 44 days old. If you compare them to the Tahlequah Daily Press photos taken at 67 days of age in the post above , you will be able to see that they have grown exponentially during that 23 day period, and have begun to bear heavily, as can be seen by the abundance of blooms in the photo where I am standing in my garden during the news interview. s1381.photobucket.com/user/fourteenmilecreek/library/Heavy%20Hitter%20Okra%2044%20Days%20Old?sort=3&page=1

Hi Ron,

I would be interested in some seeds of your okra if you have any to share. Let me know how I could go about doing that. Thanks.

I won't have any seeds available until about Thanksgiving. I don't harvest until killing frost, then, I air dry in the loft for 30 days before I crack the seeds out of the pods for Winter storage. Email is the best way to contact me: fourteenmilecreek@yahoo.com

Sent you an e-mail. Thanks.

Starting August 23, 2015 -- send seed request to: heavyhitterokra@gmail

I've changed providers, the fourteenmilecreek@yahoo account has too many advertisements and takes forever to open with dail-up service... thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience. Ron

I had no success with HH last year but planted a few seeds this year and the plants have branches all over them. I have no idea what changed.

irfourteenmilecreek, The seeds that you sent to me didn't do any branching? Maybe the weather or soil? But nothing did well in my garden this year. The weather didn't cooperate at all, too dry and hot. Plus I had some bad back problems from a work injury so the weeds took over early. Thanks for the seed though, they gave me enough to eat and store for soup!

Anyone else think the majority of this thread reads as an advertorial?

Rodney

Rodney, I thought the same thing in the beginning. But after a few conversations back and forth with fourteen mile creek, I changed my mind. Now I think he is OK, and a really nice guy.

He sent me some seed that didn't meet his standards for free. Although I didn't get the branching, which he told me that I probably wouldn't, I plan to buy some that meets his standards and give it a try.

I think he is just wanting to get the seed out without spending a lot of money to spread the seed around. And he did develop them! I know that it can get expensive if you offer free seed. I ran into that a while back when I offered my spare and rare Hercules peas to the folks here instead of selling them on E-bay. I ended up spending over $100 in postage and shipping costs!

The pictures say it all.

I've grown these heavily producing okra plants year in, year out, for about a decade now. I gave away 26 pounds of these seeds for free in 2012, (about 200,000 seeds) just to establish the name. Wertach is right, postage will eat you alive! It cost me $50.00 postage for just one package to send two kilos of free seed to Africa.

Do the HH pods stay tender at larger sizes? I grow varieties that are still edible at 4-6" and am unsure I would want to trade out for more pods.

vamtngranny,

Heavy Hitter is a Clemson Spineless variety of heavily branching, high production okra. It starts producing tender pods within 60 days after germination, so it's popular with market growers, being one of the first varieties to be ready for sale at the Farmers' Market.

The pods are the same as Clemson Spineless in quality. They are tender up to 4 days old. Tenderness has more to do with pod age than with pod size. With lots of rain, a 6" inch pod will be tender at 4 days of age... With little rain, a 2" inch pod might be tough at 4 days old.

I pick the majority of my pods at 4" inches. Any longer, and no one at the Farmers Market will buy them, tender or otherwise, folks just don't trust long pods.

With okra, a lot depends on weather conditions, but if you are familiar with Clemson Spineless pods, then you already know Heavy Hitter. Just picture a much higher production rate, due to several fruiting

branches.

Another example of what wertach zone 7-B SC mentioned about the high cost of shipping seeds... I shipped 500 Heavy Hitter Okra seeds to RASI Seeds, in Bangalore, India last week, through the carrier DHL, at a cost of $77.80 for a one pound package.

Shipping rates are astronomical.

This year I planted new to me jing's orange okra from Baker's seeds. To my surprise it branched like crazy. Two plants that I had grew very big. The pods are red in color and have very good quality.

Wow! Nice! Hope you keep some for seeds.

You guys who are getting good branching on your okra plants; what spacing are you using? I pre-germinate my Heavy Hitter seeds, then plant them a minimum of 30" inches apart. I've been getting 4' to 5' foot spreads on my branches, with some branches having a 2" inch diameter. my pod production has been averaging over 100 pods per plant. My okra has 8 to 9 seed chambers, making them very meaty with good weight at market.

To: antmary_Omaha_NE_5b

Do all the branches produce pods, on your Jing Orange Okra?

Yes, they all did. I had experience before only with Clemson spineless. It never branched like this. And again the pods grew big and still stayed tender, unlike Clemson spineless, the red color of the pods was beautiful. I planted only two plants thinking that I'll get just a few pods once in a while, since we do not eat okra that much. But with all those branches I had way too many of them.

Sounds like Jing Orange is a keeper. Not many varieties fruit on every branch. Those are some great looking pictures you posted. I liked the red color too; it added a nice contrast to the yellow blooms. Those are some beautiful plants, I keep looking back over the photos. It's always good to hear about varieties that do well in a backyard garden, makes you feel good, just looking at them.

I saw some Jing Orange Okra seeds for sale in the Baker Creek Seed catalog this Spring for 27.5 cents per seed, 10 seeds for $2.75, plus shipping. It's nice to know they perform well. I enjoy trying unique varieties.

My H.H. plants fruit on all the branches, adding several picking points. It's nice to gather more than one pod per plant on picking day. Especially, when your picking for friends and family. I picked 200 pounds of okra this Summer, before I ever got to pick any for myself. It seemed like every time some one drove up, they wanted 20 pounds at a whack. It was August, before I fried any just for me.

Every year, I dehydrate some H.H. okra for our family reunion, by slicing them about 1/2" to 3/4" inch thick, then salt and pepper the slices, like I would if I were going to frying them. After seasoning them, I place them in the dehydrator until crisp, like potato chips, and vacuum seal them in wide mouth glass jars.

I'll bet Jing Orange would make some great looking, red, dehydrated okra slices!

If they hold their color after dying, that would be a great mix for Christmas party snaking.

Thanks for posting the Jing Orange photos, branching varieties are interesting.

Ordered Heavy Hitter from Ron during the holidays. Received his shipment in a timely manner with no problems, was shipping to SC...He was kind enough to send some extra seed. Appreciate his professionalism, integrity and honesty.

After last year's cold Spring, I decided to lay some black plasticulture this year for my raised okra beds, instead of using white again. Looks like that was a good choice so far. It got down to 49 degrees this morning and my okra is only about 3" inches tall. I have 8 rows of Heavy Hitter planted so far. Each row is 180' feet long. That's only about half of what I'm planning to plant though, but cool weather and heavy rains have held me up. Last year, I planted all the way up until July 4th, but of all the plantings, the June 2nd, 2015 date performed the best. Hopefully, next week will warm up a bit and be better sowing weather.

I read on the green country seed savers okra thread, that Skip in Northern Florida already has okra two feet tall. I'm ready for warmer weather!

In answer to muscadineman45's question: Heavy Hitter Okra Seeds can be found at the drycreekfarmstore.com website. It just opened January 20th, 2020.

Those HH plants are impressive. However, if HH is derived from Clemson Spineless, chances are it will not do well here in the North. I tried growing CS several times here; and like most okra varieties I tried, it would succumb to wilt just after flowering (most eggplant here has similar issues). HH might do better here if grown under black plastic (as in the grower's photos), but I don't use that method.

Pentagreen has proven to be reliable here with no protection. It was first referred to me by its mention in Cornucopia II, A Source Book of Edible Plants, as being cold tolerant... which proved to be accurate. It is only moderately branched, though, even given wide spacing.

I used 30-36" spacing between plants when I lived in SoCal (where I grew CS) but find that in my short Wisconsin summers, it is more effective to plant okra in clusters of 4-5 plants, with the clusters 18-24" apart. This promotes a single-stalk growth habit, a heavy crop early, and consistent yields throughout the (short) growing season. It also makes the use of transplants more efficient, since each pot holds several plants... a single tray last year provided 96 plants. Last year was my best ever for okra since moving here, the first time the plants grew taller than me. ;-)

Zeedman,

Thanks, for the lead on the Pentagreen okra, for cooler climates. Heavy Hitter okra doesn't do well up North, where summers are too short. It gets stunted any time temperatures fall below 45-degrees. Northern Missouri is about its upper limit so far, but who knows, with climate change? 15-years-ago, I couldn't grow Muscadine grapes this far North, because our winters were too cold. We got a 20" inch snowstorm as recently as 2011 with temperatures of 15 below zero, but for the past 4 years, we've not had any snow, and the temperatures have stayed above zero. Things are changing fast. https://www.drycreekfarmstore.com/

We bought heavy hitter to plant this spring and the plant start producing but no branches. It is only single branch and not heavy producing as well. What am i doing wrong? Growth is same as the other ordinary variety of okra. Do i need to pinch the heavy hitter plant to make more office?

How close are the plants? The farther apart they are, the more they branch out.

Hmm. They are not farther apart. Each plant was feet away.

I haven't visited the forum in quite a while, but I'm still growing and distributing the original Heavy Hitter Okra that I developed here on our certified organic farm so many years ago. I'm in my mid-sixties now, so I don't get around quite as well as I used to, but I'm still gardening.

2022 has been a busy season here. A few of my friends and I just finished shelling out a little over 180 pounds of Heavy Hitter Okra seeds. I only had 11 rows of it planted this year (gearing down). My rows were about 120' feet long, but we still harvested about 19,000 okra pods this season.

Oklahoma State University did a second study on Heavy Hitter Okra in the summer of 2021 with even better results than the study they did back in the Spring of 2018. To read the results of the 2021 report, refer to pages 39-41 of the 2021 Vegetable Trial Report, courtesy of OSU. According to their report, overall yields were highest for plastic mulch at 652 bushels of Heavy Hitter Okra per acre (Table 3). Published January 2022.

To keep current on what we are doing here on the farm, visit the Green Country Seed Savers Network. I have about 108 pages of replies there on my Heavy Hitter Okra thread. Staying current there takes up most of my time nowadays, hence the lack of posting here in recent years. All the best. Ron Cook, Dry Creek Farm, Tahlequah, Oklahoma. heavyhitterokra .com