Okra

I cut the leaves in my lentil soup for thickening and great flavor Okra flavor. Sweet potato leaves are edible too!

Zanna,
Do you use the young leaves? How many minutes do you cook the okra leaves? I know that the sweet potato leaves are edible and I plant the variety that i buy from the Oriental market. How do you prepare your sweet potato leaves? Do you ever sprout sweet potato?. Thanks, Belle

Hi Bellieg!
I use mature and young leaves sometimes, I mostly cooked them in my lentils, they cook as fast as the lentils. As for the sweet potato leaves, I saute them, or cook them in lentils and grain soup too, or when I cook my free-range chicken thighs on the stove in a skillet, I saute them first with onion, garlic a little salt, cumin and some oil, and I add sweet potato stems and leave, because they are sweet, they glaze the chicken wit a nice brown color, and when the chicken is done, it has a sweet taste to it.yumm! I sprout sweet potato all the time. All I need is a sweet potato that I put one end in a large cup with some water, and when it sprout all over I eat some, and plant the others in a large container in my garden. I had 2 harvests las year and a lot of sweet potato leaves! I love sweet potatoes mmmm. And Okra too!

I had some pretty unproductive okra last year. I was picking every other day, and it seemed like I'd get ONE pod off each 4th or 5th plant. Not right.

While working in the garden today, I had a new thought about what might have caused that. Last year I picked okra by snipping it off with clippers, not by breaking the entire stem off the stalk. I was leaving about half of each stem attached to the plants, and I don't think I did it that way in previous years.

Maybe, by leaving part of the stems on the plants, the plants "think" they're still loaded with okra and have successfully produced lots of seeds? Maybe that shuts down production?

What do you think about that? I won't use clippers this year, just in case.

I planted my okra seeds today after soaking them for 24 hours. I planted 20 seeds each of Perkin's Long Pod, Hill Country Red, Betty's White, Stewart's Zeebest, and Cowhorn. That ought to give me an interesting variety, and lots of okra.

I'm thinking that's not the reason why. We use clippers and leave about 1/2" or so of the stem and our okra goes like crazy. It doesn't like a lot of water and it loves FULL sun and HEAT.

Zanna,
I rooted and sprouted an organic sweet potato in a large planter. Never grew sweeties before. Please tell me what to do with the vine as it fills the container. Do I let it spill over and out? Do I cover it with soil. And just wind it around and around in the tub?

I could Use some guidance, please.

Thanks!

Linda

This had been a very lengthy thread and my question was never answered. I had seen okra at the farm and were very bushy and tons of fruits. They must have 20 branches and all with fruits. They are also short plants. What do they do? Do they pinch them to branch? Steph mailed me some seeds and I want it to produce like hers. thanks. Belle

There are many different varieties of okra, so it's possible that what you saw was a different variety that grows short. I never pinch branches, I just cut off the ones at the bottom when the leaves start touching the ground to allow for better air circulation.

NEW THREAD HAS BEEN STARTED.

SEE LINK BELOW TO "OKRA, Part II". http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1182566/

Please do not post past this message. Go to the new thread to continue the discussion. ^^_^^



This message was edited May 18, 2011 10:15 AM

Okra has extremely thin leaves, top 2 foot of plant, I don't know the type, anyone tell me if this needs attention. Only large leaves on bottom 3 foot of plant. In my zone ( 9 a ) very hot now, 90's to 100's. Thanks for any info.

CERTIFIED ORGANIC OKRA seeds:

Our project gardens are geared toward research and development of new strains of high production, open pollenated, Certified Organic, crop food plants. To accomplish our goal, we need a few items that are relative to our research here; a very large compost tumbler, a small greenhouse or hoop house to start seeds, accurate thermometers, hygrometers, and row covers to protect our young Certified Organic plant crops.

Our main, quarter acre research garden is Certified Organic and has never been plowed by a tractor. We employ a team of mules and a local farmer/ wagon enthusiast, each Spring to break our ground in exchange for labor as needed on his farm.

We trade for chicken feed, fire wood, farming impliments, post hole digging, mowing, picking up rocks, you name it... This is our full time job. We make our living as Farmers, Researchers, Developers, Innovators, Field Trial Consultants, Public Speakers at Farming Conventions, Schools, Organic Seminars, and University Level Classrooms. We have also conducted on-farm research and field trials for Marrone Bio-Innovations in the pursuit of better and more effective Certified Organic Herbicides.

Our accomplishments through certified organic, on-farm, research will be featured on February 11th, 2012 at the Moore Norman Technology Center , 13301 S Pennsylvania Ave. in Oklahoma City. Registration starts at 8:30 a.m., followed by workshops from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Oklahoma Secretary of Agriculture Jim Reese, will be present.

Also, you can see us on Rockethub, under Science. Our project is called: Developing a New Strain of Crop-Food Plants. go to www.rockethub.com and press the red EXPLORE button, enter the name of our project in the search box to see photos of the huge okra success we had in 2011 during the drought and extreme high temperatures that caused other crops to fail.

Currently, we are working with OSU, and the ODAFF on seed increase of a newly developed strain of okra that is the result of seven years of research by selective breeding on our farm. If successful we will be able to release this new seed in 2013. . To make this seed available to others, we need to expand.

Using the closed system, selective breeding method, we have developed a new strain of okra that has consistantly produced plants with 30 to 60 branches, bearing over 40 pods of okra simultaneously. Our most successful specimen bore upwards of 300 pods of okra on 60 branches in one season! This would be a great asset to the okra loving gardener with only limited space, as okra, like corn, normally requires a huge amount of space.

The number of pods produced by this new, single plant strain is extraordinary in comparison to common okra plant production that varies from one to three branches, bearing only 20 to 30 pods per season.

It is our hope to put our new strain of okra into the hands of the public through seed increase by the end of 2012, making it available to other farmers, researchers, Universities, and back yard enthusiasts alike.

In years past, we have mixed all our own compost by hand with a pitch fork and wheel barrow, grown all of our own transplants in a makeshift cold frame, and rigged hundreds of feet of makeshift row covers from whatever plastic we could find... Last year, we had to enlist the help of a local school cafeteria to provide enough one gallon steel cans to cover 150 plants in anticipation of a coming hail storm. (By those efforts alone, the crop was saved, but who wants a hundred and fifty, rusty, steel cans laying around all season, just in case you need them again next year).

Due to our growing success (no pun intended) our operation has become too large to handle without implimenting additional equipment. That is why we need the very large compost tumbler; we are needing to organically supliment over 1,500 experimental okra plants this Summer... That will be ten rows of okra, 150' feet long.

(We plant a quarter acre garden each season). It is too big to suppliment organically by hand mixing alone, and is suffering from nutrient loss. We need to expand our compost production. With our current method of black tarped leaf piles, we can't break down enough grasses, leaves, and manures, fast enough to meet the needs of our growing plant space.

In addition to this, we need a small greenhouse to start 500 seeds of our newly developed strain of okra, 200 heirloom, open pollenated tomato plants, 2,000 onions, 100 cabbage, and 300 cucumber plants. In years past we have accomplished this task inside our house and inside our garage, but the plants are running us out of house and home!!! We need accurate thermometers and hygrometers to place under mulch to monitor conditions conducive to healthy seed germination, and delicate brushes used for hand pollenation.

We also need to buy real row covers that can be readily employed ahead of hail storms and unexpected freezing temperatures. One unexpected weather disaster can wipe out ten years of research efforts.

I have had more okra than I have storage for, but can always find takers, but at about the beginning of September the fruit started growing fat, hard and long 6" in a couple to three days. It made beautiful looking fruit, but it was was 5 to 6 inches long and almost uncut-able, and useless at the table. ( actually never tried to bring it that far)

This is my first year with okra, I'm wondering if okra goes through a stage to make seed that is large, I don't know what is going on. I have two beds and both have done the same. At this point even the little 2" ones are hard. I have been cutting them off and saving them in bags in case this is the planting stock. Off and on through the year I have had the same happen to a handful, I left a few to dry out and they look like pictures of seed shells I've seen.

thewindwalker, That matches my experience - in the fall okra plants are really wanting to make seeds in the short time they've got left, and the pods get hard and inedible much quicker than they do earlier in the season. When they're doing that, I pick every day even though the pods may be only 1 1/2" to 2" long.

It also helps to be picky about the variety of okra you grow. I've settled on Stewart's Zeebest, which stays more tender than many other kinds even when the pods get a little too big.

I agree with both of you about the okra pods getting harder and faster ... but this year I did experience something else, probably because it has been still so hot .
The okra plants started to develop bottom suckers, at least 5-6 each plant. Each new branch started to develop nice and tender pods. So that was a surprise.
I just did remove all my okra plants after harvesting soooo much okra !!. It is time for the fall/winter garden now.

thank you both.
OZARK, use to drive a truck nation wide, picked up and delivered in Ozark a number of times, that was where PTL trucking, the company I was with at the time, always had a load home, beauiful country

The part that I don't understand is the seed that came from the seed packet is a lot smaller than the ones I've dried in their pods, I can't wait to next year to see what I get,

This will be my first veggie seed harvest, hopefully it will be good, I've harvest catnip every year from 2009, and that years harvest was great, so I tried seeds from 2009 because they were so tall and bushy, they came up and were about a foot larger than last years seed. I wasn't even sure they would come up.

Thanks, at lease there isn't a problem with the plants, a yellow blight took and killed all my tomatoes after about two months of harvest, should have known there was a problem when all I planted was large size varieties of big boy, better boy and beef stake tomatoes, none harvested were over 2 1/2". Had plenty for that two months and all taste great.

DRTHOR what is the red looking okra you show?.

the red okra in the picture is JING ORANGE from Baker Creek, here:http://www.rareseeds.com/jing-orange-okra/

Hi all! Well, I'm trying the haircut for my Clemson spineless today. I seem to be only getting around seven pounds a day from them and I have 1100! Yes, 1100. I have no idea what the problem is. They are gorgeous plants. How much water do they need? I'm in Oklahoma City with temps at 99-100. Any help?