OKRA, Part ll

This is my first year to try okra. I only had three seeds sprout (long story) so that's all I'm growing. The leaves must really taste good, 'cause something comes out at night and has a feast!

Sometimes I get a little carried away. My wife won't let me grow zucchini any more - since the year I was going around WalMart's parking lot leaving bags of zucchini in cars that had windows down. Friends were pretending not to be home when they saw me coming, really.

Two years ago I grew 8 heads of cabbage and we enjoyed eating it and I made sauerkraut. The kraut turned out REAL good, but we didn't have near enough of it.

So last year I doubled that and grew 16 heads of cabbage. We enjoyed it fresh, gave some heads away to friends and family, and canned sauerkraut. That kraut is GREAT, but we ran out of it again in mid-winter.

This year I doubled the amount again and I'm growing 32 heads of cabbage. I mail-ordered seeds for Danish Ballhead Cabbage which grows a dense head that's good for kraut-making. Somehow I was under the impression that variety makes SMALL heads. Nope, I just read in a seed catalog that Danish Ballhead makes 10-lb. cabbage heads and these things are getting enormous in my garden. If they all make (and they're lookin' good) my wife and I will have about 320 lbs. of cabbage to deal with!

See what I mean? LOL

Ozark! Seriously on the open car windows at Wal-Mart? LOL

Mindy

I've would have been.. "Look! The zucchini fairy came!!! Score!"

I've wondered, when there's a famine in Ethiopia or somewhere, why don't we just send each of those people a pack of Zucchini seeds? Two months later they'd all be annoying each other, trying to give the surplus away. Just sayin'.

Here's my 15' row of Stewart's Zeebest okra today. I have four similar rows of other okra varieties.

Some of these plants are as little as 8" apart and they probably ought to be thinned. I've transplanted all the okra I can into gaps in the rows and I don't have any more room for it. After all the trouble I had getting it to come up during our cold spell in May, and after having to replant, I hate to kill any plants.

I've fertilized and mulched these rows, and there's a soaker hose under the mulch in each row. My okra will have real good growing conditions from here on, and I'm hoping it'll do OK even if the plants are a bit crowded. We'll see.

You can thin them out and throw them to me. LOLO!!! Bellie

Uh-oh, I think I just figured out where I've been messing up. I've always planted okra in rows and I've tried for spacing of a foot or so between plants - but that often works out to 8" or so, like this year.

Bushy plants? I've never had any bushy plants or any side branches at all to speak of. My okra generally grows in a single stalk with blooms and pods at the very top of the stalk only. Lower leaves drop off during the season, so later on these stalks are almost bare.

I just read this on a gardening website:
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"Direct sow seed 1" deep and 4-8" apart. Space rows 3' apart. Okra plants can get large and branched. Thin to 18-24", when seedlings are 4-6" tall, to give the plants room to branch. Crowding will result in thin plants with few fruits."
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"Thin plants with few fruits" - that's just what I've had! Last year I planted FORTY FEET of okra, and at the height of the season I'd pick it every other day. I'd get only one pod off each third or fourth plant, and that's once every two days - very unproductive, I thought.

Okra experts, chime in here please. I think I'd better thin my okra rows to one plant every 18"-24". What do you think?

We plant ours with about 18"-2' between them to allow for full spread of the plants.

stephanietx - Last year, I figure my crowded okra was giving me maybe ONE 2"-3" long pod, per week, per plant. I know that's not right.

With your okra plants spaced 18 to 24 inches apart and branched out - can you give me an idea of how much okra you get from a plant when you pick it? I've been growing okra in crowded rows so long, I'm trying to figure out what's normal.

Pretty sure I'm going to be thinning some okra today. Thanks.

Ozark, when I was actively selling okra at the mkt there always came a point I was overloaded with it and also tired of picking it every day. At some point (early '90's when I got a weed-eater that operated a blade) I went down the row and cut all the plants back by half, leaving a 3 ft or so tall plant. This gave me several weeks of NOT picking okra. (Yay! A break!)

When the plants started showing new growth again they were branch and I had plenty of okra to pick all the way up till a hard freeze. (Bear in mind, as the days shorten and nights cool off okra production will wane.)

So, some something to consider if you want to experiment...maybe thin some, maybe let some be and trim the tops, encouraging branching, eh?

Shoe (Off to cage peppers, so fully loaded the branches are breaking)

We got TONS!! I still have okra frozen in my freezer from last year's harvest! LOL I think we ended up with 4-6 plants and we'd get several pods a day from each. This was taken July 7, 2010. You can see several okra pods in the basket.

Well, I thinned my okra plants today. I hated to pull some up after having a hard time getting them sprouted, but I think they needed to be thinned.

Now I've got 40 plants, and they look good spaced out properly. I bet I'll have more okra on 40 plants spaced 18"-24" apart than I would have had on 67 more crowded plants. We'll see.

I haven't done any topping of okra plants, but I bet that'll come later - especially with Cowhorn okra, which I understand I'll have to either top or pick from a stepladder later in the season. That stepladder thing ain't happening! lol

I always thin my okra to about 3 feet a part. I have a good friend that that thins his the length of his hoe handle. He makes more okra that anyone I know. He raises his to sale and usually has about a half acre of it. It is something to see.

Yep, I know I've done the right thing by thinning my okra plants - though they're probably still too close at 18"-24" apart. That's OK, I'll go with that this year as it's a big improvement over how I've crowded them in previous years.

My plants are only a couple of feet tall now, but they're already showing a big improvement from what I've always had before. They're two feet WIDE as well as tall, growing blossoms, and have leaves as big as a dinner plate. Healthy looking!

I'm growing five varieties, and at this point Texas Hill Country Red is thriving even more than the others. Maybe it's well-suited for my area, or at least for the conditions in this area this year. I'm looking for a "favorite" variety to plant year after year, and we'll see how that turns out.

I gave my okra a severe "haircut" this morning. The okra PLANTS were thriving - 3 feet tall and 3 feet across, with leaves as large as 2' in diameter. But, no production. We haven't had any okra to pick off them yet.

Last night I looked back on the original Okra thread where this thread came from. Last year, Jim41 in LA, Horseshoe, and others were talking about pruning the leaves off okra to get production started - so that's what I did.

I only cut leaves off, especially the older growth big leaves. I didn't cut any branches with growth centers at the end. I'm trying to encourage branching and blooming and discourage excess leaves. Something had to be done - out of 60+ plants I found only two pods of edible size, two blooms open this morning, and four overgrown, woody pods that must have set on early. Those overgrown pods won't happen again - I can see 'em now!

This is my row of Stewart's Zeebest okra - I've got four other rows with four other okra varieties. I pruned them all and I figure I trimmed 2/3 to 3/4 of the foliage off my okra plants - pretty severe. It looks right to me, though. What do you think?

Looks beautiful to me!

You have a very nice garden with nice looking okras. I hope you have plenty to share wit me!! bellie

"You have a very nice garden with nice looking okras."
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Thanks. Here's another of my okra rows after the "haircut". The red stems of Texas Hill Country Red in the middle of that row really show up now.

Some Cowhorn plants are nearest the camera, and Betty's White (no kidding) at the far end of the row. Another row of okra (barely seen) and pole beans are on the left, cabbages on the right, and sweet peppers and tomatoes in the distance.

I'm gonna leave all those okra leaves I trimmed on the ground, they add to the mulch.

What do you do with all your produce? Bellie

We eat it, can it, freeze it, and give some away. We usually don't have big surpluses, but it takes a lot of figuring to grow the right amounts to last us all year.

You must be retired to take care of a big garden and do all the freezing and canning!!! Anyway gardening keeps me young!! LOL!!!!

Bellie

Yep, I'm retired. Taking care of our six-acre place, gardening, fishing, hunting, running the grandkids around, restoring antique tractors, woodworking, etc., somehow keeps me a lot busier than I was when I was working. It's a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it. LOL

6 ACRES!!! We only have almost 1/2 acre and it is plenty for us. Your garden is nice though!!!

Can someone explain or link me to how I save Clemson Spineless seeds? Sorry, this has probably been addressed a million times here but this is my first time to grow okra. Fried some up last night and now I know I want to keep growing it. haha I did see that I'm supposed to let seed pods dry on the plants but is the seed pod the same thing as what one eats? Do I just choose some to leave alone til they're brown?

Thanks,
Mindy (learning learning learning!)

"Can someone explain or link me to how I save Clemson Spineless seeds?"
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Saving okra seeds is easy. I just pick one plant toward the end of the season and quit harvesting from it. Let a bunch of seed pods (yes, the ones we eat) get overgrown on that one plant. I let them turn brown and die on the plant, but not to the point they split open and drop seeds out.

When they're good and dry, but before they split, cut those pods off and keep them indoors at room temperature for the winter. In the spring, break them open, shell the seeds out, and plant them.

You could also shell the seeds out and put them in an envelope in the fall, but I like to keep them in the pods all winter to make sure they've dried out completely. I usually put the pods in a tinfoil pie pan on the workbench in my shop.

Wear gloves when you go to get the seeds out of the pods! Also, you might need something like a pair of pliers to get the pods open.

Hooray! Thank you, Ozark and Stephanie.

Mindy

That severe haircut I gave my okra plants six days ago didn't work. They grew giant leaves again and came back even bushier than before - and I've got NO okra production.

I trimmed them again this evening - and this time I removed all but new-growth leaves about 3" or less in diameter. I really whacked 'em back.

These plants aren't growing tall, they're growing wide. They're only about 2' tall, and I expected them (especially the Cowhorn) to be 4' or 5' tall by now. On every plant of every variety I found blossom buds that have turned brown and dried up instead of blooming - what's up with that?

I THINK I've made life too easy for them. They're the healthiest looking okra plants I've ever seen with main stems almost 2" in diameter, and they can grow leaves 18" across in nothing flat.

Our weather has been hot for weeks, the way okra likes it. I've mulched the rows with grass clippings so their roots are cooler and moist, and they have abundant water from soaker hoses. My farm supply store was out of the 10-20-10 fertilizer I usually use, so I side-dressed these with 12-12-12 about three weeks ago before I put the mulch around them. Maybe that was too much nitrogen and not enough phosphorus?

I think maybe I've made 'em so happy they have no reason to grow tall or produce seeds at this point. I'm thinking about mixing a little Superphosphate in the mulch around each plant and letting the rain soak it in. Maybe that would get some blooms and pods going?

Hey, I've sure got some pretty, healthy okra plants. Am I just getting impatient? Surely production will kick in later in the summer? Okra growers, what are your thoughts on this?

Too much fertilizing. You have wonderful, ROBUST okra plants, which are making gorgeous, lush LEAVES.

If it were me, I'd hold off on any more ferts (especially NITROGEN), and start flushing my soil, so some of that excess nitrogen can dissipate.

Linda

Welp, I've been watching this thread, mostly biting my tongue (ouch!) *grin

I'm not a believer that trimming leaves makes okra produce pods. After all, the better photosynthesis the better plants growth and production. You need those leaves, especially until you get a good balance of root growth and top growth. I'll knock off the lower leaves of the stalks as the plants get into production and get so bushy I can't walk between the rows though and by doing so there is no let up of pod production. And I really mean "knock" them off, right where the leaf petioles meet the trunk; it is useless to trip the leaves and leave half a stem.

Ozark, I'd nix the superphosphate, you have plenty of phosphorus from your manures/compost (was it you that amended with that?) and/or the 12-12-12. If you want to add anything I'd go with a magnesium foliar spray. Also, keep in mind most okra varieties take anywhere from an average of 55 to 65 days to produce and from quickly checking back on your sowing dates you are just now getting within that range. I remember reading you had to resow once. As for me, I start guesstimating production from the date of declaration, not date of sowing seed. If you are within that area of production I bet you'll see more pods coming on in the next week or two by doing nothing more.

And no, I don't recommend flushing your soil either. With your soaker hoses you have a slower-release set up going on, especially with the root systems still expanding. Besides, knowing you I imagine you were right on the mark as far as how much to use. Lastly, just think where the flushed N would go...down to the ground water? to the rows next to your okra? out into the grass, etc?

Shoe (who's okra is just now beginning to produce)

Shoe says "patience, Sam!". LOL

Well now, less than two months ago I was replanting and trying to get these things up in a cold, rainy late May.

And yup, I've got some RICH garden soil. I ought to - I've been adding compost from three 10' x 10' bins with a tractor bucket for years. I've got 12" nightcrawlers that shoot out of the dirt like snakes - they're almost scary.

And no, the side-dressing fertilizer wouldn't have changed much of anything. That was just a single handful of 12-12-12 strung along each 10' of row.

And yup, I didn't break all those leaves off. I trimmed them off with clippers so I guess with the leaf stubs it's like they're still attached.

Bottom line, I guess I'll quit expecting to harvest okra at around 50 days and give these humongous strong plants time to make me some. LOL Thanks!

Heheheh, You're one of the most likeable gardeners I've ever met! I'm just trying to keep you calm...like you said, "patience, Sam". *grin

Back out to pick tomatoes for mkt.

Happy Gardening to All!

Shoe

Yep, Shoe - I feel the same way and wish we lived closer. I've got an idea that our common interests would extend beyond gardening into fishing and maybe into sampling an occasional bottle of my homebrew!

I'm gonna pick your brain before next season. Your introducing me to those great Romano beans has me wondering what other great varieties of veggies you grow that I don't know about.

I hope you have a big bunch of 'maters to pick. It's nasty hot here already this morning, but I'm headed out to the garden again to fiddle with stuff and see what's changed since the last time I looked. I garden the same way I worked - I worry about stuff and micromanage, but I usually end up with a good job on it. I recently had to tear down something I built about 15 years ago. Good golly, you don't want to have to do that - when I build something I over-engineer and it AIN'T gonna fall down. That's just the way I am. LOL

Uh, Ozark,

WHAT UBERSHOE SAID.....please forgive my misguided, but well-meaning advice.

I yield to the MASTER!

Hugs, Ubie! ^^_^^

Linda

Gymgirl - Your thinking and advice was a lot clearer than mine. There I was figuring out all that complicated stuff when all I had to do was look at a calendar to see that these plants have been up less than 50 days!

It's a good thing we've got Shoe to keep us focused, huh?

And, most of the other gardener's who cut their lower leaves are reporting a pickup in the okra production. I guess they've been up more than the 50-55 day mark!

Who knew? UBIE Wahn KuhShooie knew!

".please forgive my misguided, but well-meaning advice. "

Linda, I wouldn't say it was misguided. It is a first thing thought to think 'too much N'...and that's important, too. We just have to remember to consider as many aspects as possible, not assume the first thing that comes to mind; taking in as much info as possible sure helps!

The pickup in okra production others may be reporting could be akin to people doing home remedies for BER and saying such and such really works to "cure it" when in reality had they done nothing the plants would've outgrown BER anyway. See how things could be easily swayed.

Sam, "I've got an idea that our common interests would extend beyond gardening into fishing and maybe into sampling an occasional bottle of my homebrew!"

Yep! Right there w/ya! And hopefully the next time I get to leave here I'll try to head to MO again. Five years ago I made it to Hannibal, Mo, visiting Mark Twain's haunts! Loved it! Rode back roads along the Mississippi River, cruised on a paddlewheel (topdeck and sipped a Heiniken), crawled the caves that Tom, Huck, and Becky got lost in, hung out in the museum and Twain's house, etc. Maybe next time (crossing fingers) I'll leave there and head our way, leaving footprints in the aisles between your garden rows.

And now, off to clean up some Candy onions for mkt then I get to sit and stare at the boob tube, watching reruns of Dick Van Dyke and Bob Newhart...I'm easily amused, ain't I!? :>)

Shoe

No okra yet!!! not even a flower. Belle