We didn’t have a lot of okra this year though I sure do love it! Anyone else growing okra?
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Wow! What timing! Tonight is the start of our town’s annual Okra Strut, a weekend each year devoted to celebrating this oddball veggie.
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That’s great Muddy! The Okra Strut sounds fun!
I’ve been growing Jing Orange Okra this year, but I haven’t found a recipe I like yet. Any suggestions?
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When all else fails, pickle 'em! Other than that, or frying them or putting them in gumbo, I don’t know what else they’re good for. Those are unique looking okra, for sure; don’t know if I’ve seen an orange variety.
Are you still harvesting tomatoes? Ours pretty much played out for good a month ago. Our plants have been pretty much taken over by weeds.
Okra was about all we could grow back in Texas, all of our other veggies just fried in that heat. But okra would just keep on chugging. We tried growing them here a couple years ago, but they did poorly, partly because it’s just not that hot here, but mostly because of lack of fertilizing.
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could eat okra everyday, that kind of feel sorry for people who find them gross(though totally understand their stance). The lazy farmer that i have become after all these years, okra is one of the few ‘annuals’ go out of my way to plant on a yearly basis… it does much better in the desert than toms, eggplants, and most other vegies, that feel i can’t afford NOT to be planting them!
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close to midnight where am at, but seeing those pics-- i feel like want to steam a bowlful of the oddball vegie as midnight snack!
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I love okra, but it doesn’t love my soil for some reason. I get this anthracnose type issue with lower leaves dying and plants losing vigor as soon as they come into bearing- I get some crop but not enough to make them worth the effort, even though I put high value on every fruit.
My eggplant suffers similar symptoms but gives more crop before succumbing to the “disease”. Copper doesn’t seem to help. At other sites, sometimes with less organic matter in the soil. I’ve seen much better success with both species around here- but I’ve also seen healthy plants growing in compost and sand mixes with very high rates of OM.
Maybe it is fusarium wilt but I haven’t been able to solve the problem by moving plants around every season. .
Alan,
Okra loves the heat. Does it get fairly hot there? It really starts to thrive in 90 degree Fahrenheit + temperatures for us. This is what I picked this morning which is about a quart once it’s cooked. This okra came off of a 10’ row. We pick those crops like that consistently through the summer but it’s never a lot at one time. Part of that is I pick most of my okra really small 3" or less. When I pick I don’t go by size necessarily rather I squeeze them and see how soft they are. I twist my okra off but I know most people cut them. Larger okra gets tough really fast here and we can’t eat it. I leave a few pods of my longhorn and Clemson spineless for seeds every year.
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The issue of heat is just the same at sites growing same varieties successfully nearby- but you make a good point that has me thinking of using black plastic at base of plants next year. I’ve do this with eggplant, but I can’t remember if I’ve tried it with okra- I probably have, unfortunately.
It may be that my site is well protected from wind which doesn’t allow the dew to evaporate early.
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Alan,
Never considered using black plastic that’s a great idea! I’m going to try to speed up my yields like that. If anyone has not grown these yet these are the flowers early in the morning before the sun makes them close. Every flower in my experience produces an okra pod.
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Yes, I used to mix them with ornamental plants because the flowers are so pretty- but the plants get ugly when they start to die.
They are an hibiscus species and the flowers prove it.
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happens quite often in the rainy, humid tropics as well. Used to just plant them in great numbers, and just isolate the healthiest ones. When plants reach 3 or 4 inches tall, they seem to prefer drying out in between waterings, so had to grow them potted, and placed in the sunniest spots to hasten maturity.
and could almost conclude the dryish conditions also considerably prevent moldy/fungal/bacterial infections
not sure if you’re doing this already, but when am busy or out of town, i notice that okra loses vigor when one or a few of its pods reach maturity(even though plant is still young), so i harvest at least every other day.
besides, the pods are so much sweeter and less fibrous when picked young, and will only let some pods mature at the end of the growing season, if intend to secure seeds.
could be that mature seeds, being typically the most nutritionally-dense of plant products, exhaust the plants too soon, or make it ‘feel’ like it has served its biological end-goal of producing viable seeds.
Yes, I keep up with the harvest- my wife scolds me when I bring her big pods, even when they are still tender. I have also had good luck growing them in pots placed with good eastern exposure- but only figs are worth going to that trouble to get a harvest for me.
she definitely likes her okra sweet. The tiniest, youngest ones are candy!
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These are my okra plants this year. I planted differently and placed my plants 3-4 feet apart. They have become tree-like with multiple branches. I have eaten and frozen and yesterday I took my friend over thirty pounds for her freezer and I’m cutting again today. It has surpassed what I have ever harvested. I have 15 plants and some of the trunks have a 4 inch diameter.
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if there are regions where okra may do well-- it is always worth the effort to grow them.
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Impressive yield. What variety of okra is it?
It’s just the same old Clemson spineless that all the people on other forums say is no good but I’ve always had good luck with it and good yields. Yes, I have to cut it daily but I get good sized okra without it being woody. If it grows fast it will obtain good size and keep a good texture. The small ones make excellent pickles. 
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