Okra 'Stewart's Zeebest'

Stwarts Zeebest is very productive with many stims so you can pick several pods from each plant. It works best to set the plants atleast ...Read More2' - 3' apart to give it room to spread out. I learned this by accident a few years ago. It's a lot like raising cotton. This way you don't have to have as many plants.

I've grown Zeebest okra in the past and have no complaints, except for the odd shaped pods. They are smooth, skinny, and very long. Bec...Read Moreause of this they do not sell well at the local Farmers' Market; as folks are used to the old fashioned, Clemson Spineless, ribbed pods, that are much shorter. People don't trust that the long Zeebest pods will be tender, so they just never give them a try. That's too bad, because it's a good variety... It just looks different than what folks are used to seeing.

The Zeebest okra plants are everything folks claim them to be. It's a good variety that branches heavily, and grows long, tender, smooth pods that are edible up to 8 inches.

Because of Zeebest's inherent branchy popularity, I have developed a heavily branching type of Clemson Spineless okra to compete with it... I call my new strain, "HEAVY HITTER. This new strain has multiple branches (30 or more) and is much more robust than Zeebest, having larger diameter trunks and heavier limbs to bear the weight of heavy production.

Heavy Hitter bears the same type okra pods as the old Clemson Spineless variety, so it's no surprise that it sells well at the Farmers' Market. It also makes excellent pickles at 2" to 4" inches in length, or excellent frying okra at 3" to 5" inches in length. We grill it, bake it, cook it in gumbo, fry it, pickle it, and dehydrate it. To dehydrate; we simply add seasoning right after slicing fresh, then dry it until crisp like potato chips. Dehydrated okra makes a great Winter snack.

To read more about HEAVY HITTER OKRA, search:
Heavy Hitter Okra Tahlequah Daily Press. They wrote a real nice article called, The Story Behind Ron Cook's Special Okra Plants.

Heavy Hitter grows well in a diverse range of places. It was developed in Tahlequah, Oklahoma and is growing in virtually every Southern State. Currently, due to it's capacity to produce heavily in poor growing conditions, it is also being grown during the rainy season in India, Malaysia, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Liberia, Sierra Leon, Australia, and New Zealand. In other words, it's growing from the 40th parallel North, to the 40th parallel South, and everywhere in between. At present (8/20/2015), I have distributed about a quarter million Heavy Hitter seeds around the globe.

To see photo bucket pictures of the young plants I'm growing this season, copy this URL to your search window and click enter: s1381.photobucket.com/user/fourteenmilecreek/library/Heavy%20Hitter%20Okra%2044%20Days%20Old?sort=3&page=1

The plants in these photos are just babies at 44 days after germination. If they are that bushy ten days before they are old enough to bloom, just think what they will look like at full maturity.

I've grown a lot of okra varieties, including five different ones this year. I've been searching for a favorite that I'll want to grow y...Read Moreear after year. I've found it - Stewart's Zeebest is "zeebest" I've ever grown!

The plants are wide and bushy with multiple branches that bear pods, so it's a lot more productive than other okra varieties. The pods are dark green, long, smooth, and skinny - and they grow quickly and stay tender even at 8" long. The flavor is very good.

I've got 10 plants in a 15' row, but in the future I'll allow at least 3' between "Zeebest" plants as they grow so wide. I'll stick with this okra variety from now on, I'm real happy with it.

Grew this alongside Bowling Red okra and it was about 4 times as productive and okra was slow to over-ripen. The okra wasn't terribly pri...Read Moreckly. Overall - very pleased.