Okra

I've never grown okra before, and I've only eaten it once or twice.  But, it seems to be one of the vegetables that does well in the hot Texas sun, so I thought I would try growing some in my garden this year.  


On May 20, I planted some Clemson Spineless okra seeds directly into one of my raised garden beds, spaced to eventually have four plants planted one foot apart.  A few of the seedlings died, or were uprooted by some of the notorious Northern mockingbirds (Texas' state bird) that fill my backyard, but I've ended up with at least one strong plant per square foot, four total plants.  The plants seem to grow very slowly.  I think I might have planted them a little too late in the season.

I got impatient, so I went to the nursery and bought two older seedlings so that I wouldn't have to wait as long for some produce.  The plants were very tall and skinny with only a few leaves.  I think the nursery might have pinched most of the leaves to stimulate the plant growth.

I found a pretty okra flower on one of the older seedlings from the nursery a couple of weeks ago.  It was very cute, but only boomed for a few hours one morning,  I haven't seen any other flowers on the plants yet.  I'm hoping to get more soon so that I get more vegetables.

Right now, I just have one okra on each of the larger plants.  I'm not sure why there aren't more right now.  I will need to do some more research to find what causes this, and how I can stimulate more flowering.  I also will need to learn when the right time will be to harvest these funny veggies, not to mention find some tasty recipes to use them in.