Well, I planted okra this year for the first time. Bought this little packet of Burpee “Baby Bubba Hybrid” containing only about 15 seeds. Sprouted 11 okra plants. Plants only grew about 1.5’. Produced all the okra that I needed though.
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When I grew my okra in the chicago region I just ignored it the whole summer
Actually didn’t see okra that was good for eating until I went to New Orleans pretty pods
all mine got hard, and went to seed when I looked at them,
but didn’t know any better It was over 10 years ago.
Now I want to see again and see if these seeds grow (got online so do not know what it is)
I was feasting on the spicy brown mustard greens they send for me to grow love that stuff.
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how many pods does a normal harvest consist of.
or how many quarts per plant .
This is variety dependent. Most varieties produce between 30 and 50 pods per plant. A few such as Heavy Hitter and Cowhorn can produce between 200 and 300. Considered by volume, you could average it at 60 pods make a gallon when cut up. I usually get 2.5 gallons of cut up okra from a 5 gallon bucket full as cut from the garden.
I usually recommend 30 hills of okra for a steady supply for cooking. Hills should be spaced 2 to 3 feet apart. (Heavy Hitter is productive spaced 5 feet apart) Prepare the soil by tilling, then mark a row and drop 6 to 8 seed in one hill so that the seed are touching. Step on the seed to firm them into the soil, then cover with 1/2 inch of soil. The reason for planting this way is that okra is a notoriously weak germinator that can get trapped beneath a soil crust. Planting the seed in a tight group means that there are a bunch germinating at the same time which will pop the soil crust off and allow the plants to emerge. After they have grown to about 8 inches tall, thin to 2 plants in each hill.
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@jcguarneri - a coworker got me hooked on okra chips. I assumed we could produce something similar by dehydrating, but seems like freeze drying is the better way to go for this type of snack…?
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I am very curious about okra chips! I need to try this. I love growing okra, but I only make gumbo once a year and I haven’t found any other way to use it that I like.
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Freeze dried okra is fantastic as a snack. Regular dried, not so much. It would be like chewing on wood chips!
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I grow Jambalaya and Clemson spineless… and both work well for me.
They are quite different… both delicious and good producers…
Jambalaya is somewhat like Gerardi dwarf mulberry… the leaf nodes on it are very close… it produces much more fruit per ft of stalk than clemson.
6ft of jambalya stalk… probably produces close to 2x the fruit of clemson stalk. Jambalaya has to be picked like every other day (min)… where clemson you could get by with picking every 3 days.
Once Jambalaya pod goes past 4 inch… they can get a little tuf. Clemson spineless at 5 or 6 inch are often still good and tender.
I can get clemson seeds reliably at local walmart… but i have to order Jambalaya… and i get mine from hoss tools.
That is Jambalaya… late in the season and still less than 6 ft tall (easily reachable)… where some okra varieties can easily get too tall to reach.
Jambalya starts producing pods early too and very low on the stalk… you may get first fruit at 12" up the stalk.
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Cowhorn with 22 pods of visible okra. The bottom 5 or 6 pods were no longer tender. You can’t tell from perspective, but I was holding my camera as far up as I could reach to take this picture. I’m 6’2" so the camera was nearly 9 feet in the air. The plant was at least 12 feet tall when I took the picture and it reached 15 feet before the end of the season. I kept seed from this plant.
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It is amazing how fast okra grows… you wait 3 days to pick it and many will be too big/tuf.
Every other day works good for most varieties… picking 3-4 inch pods.
Cant wait to try dehydrating some this year.
Okra chips ?
Some people cut off the okra pod tips… not me… i like them. I will try just cutting off the stem end and then splitting them in half length wise… season with some 5 spice and dehydrate.
Seasoning should stick good to the cut.
5 spice… salt pepper onion powder garlic powder paprika.
The only thing I would add to your 5 spice is a pinch of turmeric.
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In my experience your right about the heat if it’s not 90 - 100 F my okra does not do well. It originated in Africa.
Okra was about the only that I could grow in the garden when we were in Texas. After June you can pretty much forget about tomatoes as they wouldn’t pollinate in the high temps.
We grew it here one year, it did pretty well. It was some purple okra we got from a friend of my Mom’s. We still have some of the pickled okra we canned that year.
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