The smooth ones are named for the Choppee Indians
https://www.smartgardener.com/plants/4522-okra-choppee/overview
Thanks, I see it was originally from South Carolina as well. Iâll have to try some.
While you are at it if you want to bread and fry get Burmese as well. Itâs almost the same performance as Choppee but has ridges for holding more batter. Choppee is great in salads, raw off the plant or pickled etc. but the only thing I donât do with it is bread it and fry it.
The three days of intense heat didnât stop. It became endless string of hot days. Here is what is still to come with the pattern.
I may have photos to add if I get time. Iâve been clearing the Zinnias and Marigolds out of the front garden since its so hot without rain the plants have given up after giving their best flowering over the spring and early summer. We have two main growing seasons here, this time is when everything goes brown so the upcoming fall garden is what folks are planning for locally.
GTS Corn has decided it doesnât like the extended heat and has started to brown off.
GTS Reckless Pepo is still growing, there are a lot of visible signs of squash bug larvae even with the weekly spinosad bacteria application.
Watermelon has various smaller melons in different stages of aborts. I thought I had one of the infamous curved neck carrying watermelons until the tip started to turn the purplish-brown sign of rotting. I still have about 7-8 personal sized melons and one gigantic melon on the vines just hanging out. The ones I pick even with dry stems are on the sweet but not overly sweet brix level but once refrigerated provide a welcome cold snack in the heat for the kids when they get home from school.
1965 USDA Accession Year Long Beans are still growing. A high speed wind and rain storm hit last night when I was sleeping and the trellis was blown down. I stood it back up this morning when I discovered it on top of the one GTS Reckless Pepo vining plant. Snail Bean still shows sign of no growth and light green coloration to the leaves. 2 of the bush type GTS Reckless Pepo look to be on the decline, they also have squash bug larvae signs. All plants have daily visits of Squash Vine Borer moths.
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Todayâs indoor project in the air conditioning as its too hot outside to do much in the garden is seed saving. I have never grown peppers, I am starting with an ornamental. I have tried for two years to buy the plant from my local master gardener plant sale to be thwarted by sold out or nursery didnât ship it in time to make the sale.
I visited the research gardens near my house and found them growing a lot of this ornamental pepper so I collected a few red and wrinkling peppers scattered mostly within the centers of the plant.
Dissecting seeds I made note of dark centers in some seeds with about 5 or so seeds per pepper having dark centers. The rest of the pepper seeds did not have dark centers. I watched a few pepper seed saving videos and none of them mentioned dark versus non dark centers. I am going to segregate the seeds into dark centers and non dark centers to see if there is any noticeable impact on germination rates when it comes time to start growing out some ornamental peppers for use in the front flower garden.
And a note to myself if I ever get into tomato growing, its usually too hot here to have a long tomato growing season but while watching pepper seed saving videos YouTubeâs algorithm tried to get me to watch a tomato seed saving video. This one was different, supposedly attributed to the Amish and their method of tomato seed saving.
It is basically slice tomatoes in your kitchen as you normally would for putting them inside of sandwiches but instead put the slices on top of growing medium (dirt in the language of the video) in a pot. Place the pots in a dark cool place and forget about them until the next spring. Remove the pots and start watering, you will have hundreds of tomato seedlings that when an inch and a half to two inches tall can be pricked out and transplanted.
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Adding in my watermelon notes. I had watermelons so far that stay white underneath, no signs of yellow. When I do see yellow and harvest, so far I have had putrid watermelons when cut open. Looking up many watermelon videos and reading many comments, one interesting method I came across mentioned that in hot weather, which is here, the tendrils brown prematurely and the spoon leaf might not turn brown for up to 10 days later. The field spot might hardly turn colors. Weightiness helps, but one method that has been working reliably in the video is vine snapping or separation from the melon with just slight finger pressure. A lot of the commercial sellers donât seem to know when a melon is ripe and use the maturity dates listed for a given variety. They donât have time to go to each melon individually and test them each day for wanting to separate from the vines. Bending over a large watermelon patch each day can be hard on the back so some folks roll them with their foot and if they come loose from the vine they bag them. This is based on the experience most melon farmers have (cantaloupe, musk, or watermelon) of some of their varieties when ripe the stem attachment begins to form cracks around its circumference and the melons tend to separate easily when rolled over in one turn on the ground.
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Thatâs stout. Itâs slightly worse than the heat we are getting. I may have to delay planting some seeds.
Knowing when watermelons are ripe is definitely one of the trickier things to learn in the garden, especially landrace watermelons. Iâve been growing watermelons in southern Missouri for fifteen years, the last five or so Iâve been saving seeds and landracing them. They are one of my favorite things to grow and eat, but it does take time to get a feel for when theyâre ready, and Iâve found I canât use any one characteristic on itâs own. Even before landracing, I grew a number of different varieties, but once I got used to a particular variety it became easier to judge ripeness. Crimson sweet, for instance, stays white underneath and never turns yellow. The tendrils on Hamby watermelons tend to stay green-ish even when the fruit is ripe. Different varieties have their own idiosyncrasies, although there will be some variation year to year due to conditions.
With landracing watermelons, they each are genetically distinct so that complicates the picture. I have to judge them based on a mix of a number of charactistics, and a lot of it comes down to building up experience. Here are a few things that Iâve learned, this is from my particular site and conditions so itâs possible yours will be different.
Not all watermelons turn yellow underneath, but if they do itâs 95% of the time a reliable indicator or ripeness if there is even a small bit of deep yellow color underneath. I did just cut into a small watermelon that was very yellow underneath and not fully ripe though, mixing genetics up can sometimes lead to weird things happening. Some genetics never have the yellow at all. Contact with soil makes it more likely. Typically a modest amount of mulch wonât interfere, but I used to sometimes use cardboard as mulch between watermelon rows and the melons resting on the cardboard often wouldnât get the yellow. Some occasionally grow on top of several vines, they also get less yellow. If I lift a melon to check but end up not harvesting it, I always put it back down on the same side in the same place.
Sometimes the top of the fruit facing the sun starts to get bleached a bit. That typically indicates ripeness if it happens, but many fruit never do that . Larger fruits are more likely to. Occasionally I have a fruit thatâs more sensitive and starts to get a brown spot on top. I pick it right away in that case and itâs usually still quite good inside.
Immature fruits tend to be more smooth and glossy. By the time theyâre ripe, theyâre more likely to be a bit rougher to the touch and have lost some of their shine.
A vibrantly green tendril and spoon leaf is a sure sign itâs young and unripe, but with the mixed genetics of landrace plants and variable weather conditions, sometimes they both dry fully while the melon is still underripe, and sometimes theyâre still green just not the sort of vibrant green associated with younger growth.
Thumping is useful especially on larger melons. It takes a bit to get used to, but the sound and vibration does change. I notice the most difference with larger, rounder melons and less difference with smaller melons, slender oblong melons, and melons with genetics that remain more firm.
I havenât experienced watermelons that snap easily from the stem when ripe. This happens with most cantaloupe varieties but I havenât seen it in my watermelons. I normally use hand pruners to cut the stems as if I donât they can sometimes tear into the vine or create a small hole in the end of the fruit which can limit storage life.
My main watermelon crop tends to come in late July through mid August, but the plants tend to put on another round of smaller melons later in the season, September and sometimes even into October, if I care for them well enough. These ones are even harder to reliably judge ripeness. Some are quite tasty, while others just donât seem to ripen fully at all. Iâm not sure how much of this is the cooler weather and shorter days vs how much if older plants that donât have as much vitality left. I could probably get better late melons if I planted a portion of the crop later, but that would be extra time and energy, and I really want the watermelons the most during the heat of the summer and consider any fall watermelons to be an added bonus.
I still occasionally pick a watermelon either too early or too late. While landracing at first makes judging ripeness more difficult with the mixed genetics, Iâm hoping that over time it will actually make it easier. I donât save seed from the ones that arenât ripe when I pick them, so over time I hope I should be selecting for ones that are easier for me to judge correctly.
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A lot of good advice in there, Iâll make not of them. I do have Crimson Sweet in the mix so thatâs probably whats giving me the run around on picking timing. I looked up Crimson Sweet specifically as a search parameter and the results stated that âunfortunately for Crimson Sweet watermelon growers, thumping is an unreliable indicator of when to harvest and provides inconsistent insight. A more reliable way to determine when to harvest a ripe Crimson Sweet watermelon is to look at the color and form of the stem. When the stem connecting the melon to the vine is green and plump, the plant is still moving water and sugars into the fruit flesh and developing the seeds. Once the stem begins to naturally shrivel and turn beige to brown, the melonâs seeds are mature and the flesh surrounding them is fully colored and sweet. The curly tendrils on the vine closest to the melon also shrivel and turn brown.â
To date I have used the dull, bumpy rind, brown tendril and spoon leaf. These get me close, but not in the zone for peak sweetness. In the heat here you can still get melons with white and pink insides with red closer to the stem side using the above.
Mixing the genetics should make it even more fun to determine ripeness so I will just have to keep trying all the methods over time with each grow and see if I can dial in something consistent in the heat here.
Couple photos.
What the weather is like.
GTS Sweet Corn
You would think its the heat, but the GTS Sweet corn that failed to grow early and grew late is not showing anything but stunted growth from the temperatures, still remaining green and healthy looking. Having set seed, the early corn seems to have decided to go straight to drying and dying off.
Snail bean from the USDA Accession never thrived, now looks like its dying back.
Late 1965 USDA Accession Year Long Bean still looking healthy, just slow to develop.
Bottoms of the second row of 1965 USDA Accession Year Long Bean shows one plant with some yellowing leaves near the surface level. And some more invasion of GTS Reckless Pepo vining type squash.
But the other 1965 Accession Year Long Bean shows no sign of yellowing.
Climbing the trellis
All the way to the top and beyond. I wish I had a tall trellis but this bean I believe can grow 4 or 5 times the height of my trellis.
Letâs look at GTS Reckless Pepo
Bush type 1 and 2, the 1st is looking like its on its way out. Even with weekly bacterial sprays the squash bugs and nymphs are everywhere and squash vine borers visit daily. The 2nd in back looks in better shape, there is even signs of a fruit. I donât know if you would call it blossom end rot or just heat stress but the tip has some browning.
The 3 bush types in the second planting spot look much better although they have the same squash bug and squash vine borer loads. To be honest Iâm pretty surprised at how well theyâve stuck around for now under the pressure. Iâve cut all the leaves off the okra that was in this area as the three have grown into its space so Iâll let the remaining pods develop seeds then remove it and leave it to any squash that wants to still survive and stick around when that day comes.
The vining GTS Reckless Pepo is sprawling all over in all directions. It even has some signs of small fruit but nothing has seemed to set and grow at this point. If it sticks around to halloween it will have colder temperatures that may help pollination of flowers as heat hinders the development of pollen.
So far they seem to be doing well under intense heat pressures and no supplemental irrigation. If anyone wants to see how a given set of seeds performs under heat tolerance stress, Iâm your man.
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You should see huge leap in heat tolerance and resiliency next season. This year my landrace cantaloupe plants are still alive and still producing cantaloupe even though they should be finished and have produced far beyond expectations.
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Picked some more watermelon. It seems the exploding rind gene runs strong in the big box store seeds.
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Picked another watermelon. This time I picked the large watermelon. Actually the only large watermelon from this grow out.
It is big enough to cover the scales, so I had to move the camera to the scale display.
35.6 pounds or just about 16.2 kilograms. Pretty amazing actually if you consider I never watered it once or did anything to take care of it other than planting seed and letting the strongest in the survival of fittest game grow.
It was very hot, being a 109 F day today. I left it on the kitchen counter to slowly bleed off the heat in the air conditioning. I still have a quarter of an explosive rind personal size watermelon in the refrigerator so I donât expect to cut into this until at earliest tomorrow.
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Nice size. I bet the root went deep to get that water.
I stopped spraying the pepo and in two weeks the bugs have almost taken them out.
I havenât yet discovered a predator of the stink bug and leaf footer. Those are the primary villains over here. I did an experiment this year throwing bird seed around the garden, hoping to attract omnivore birds. The rationale was the birds would stick around and eat the bugs. I never witnessed a bird eating those bugs so I donât think it worked.
Same here, those two are the most prevalent in the garden and then throw in the SVB moths for good measure as well. They donât stick to squash either, the true bugs like to go on other plants, melon family, even had them laying their eggs on Okra pods of all things.
I think Iâve read somewhere that birds donât like to eat stink bugs or squash bugs (which look and smell similar) for the same reason that we dislike the experience of squishing them: they stink!
So squash bugs and stink bugs are really tough to find natural predators for. Moreâs the pity.
Speaking of which, if you ever find anything that likes to eat them, and you figure out how to attract those predators to your garden, please let every gardener in the world know! 
The pepo is done for, but it is not a loss.
The corn is done, but I donât see it as a loss. I will collect seed from the most heat resistant pollen and tassels and replant it out to see if it has indeed weeded out genetics that cannot cope with the heat.
The USDA 1965 Accession Year Long beans are just going and going.
No fear of heat.
And a happy surprise, I planted canna first year implementing the wood chip garden even though you are supposed to wait at least a year for it to develop before planting. I thought I had lost all of this variety but one has grown out of the chips. My seed stock produces only regular pure green canna so I can not wait to start collecting from this plant!
There are still a heap of gray squash bag larvae around the vining pepo but I am done spraying as I set out originally not to at the start of this grow and I donât particularity like doing it.
Watermelon is done, Kajari Melon is done, Tobacco is done (I donât harvest it, it feeds the hummingbirds who are in the neighbors tree nesting every yearâI also have four feeders up I keep filling regularly to supplement their nectar to help them raise their babies).
Okra isnât done, but I am not actively trying to harvest from it. I have plenty of seed and was originally not planning on growing this year but will start setting out entire lines of okra next year for some serious harvesting.
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The vining form of the pepo has now succumbed and is on the way out. The ripe fruits which are slowly drying out have now become the focus point for the squash bugs. It seems they are trying to get the last of the juices out of these plants that they can.
Edit: While the vining form created a large mass of vines and leaves there is no signs of any fruit development.