I was scanning the racks at Native Seeds/SEARCH earlier this year, looking for corn, beans and other seeds for my new monsoon garden.
Why not try growing okra, I thought to myself upon spying a packet of Texas Hill Country Red.
Luckily, I’m one of the few people who really like okra. (If you don’t like the slime, try roasting them in the oven.)
In June, I planted just six seeds at my community garden plot, and only two sprouted. I should have soaked them first — that’s what I get for not reading the packet closely.
That was a good thing, though, as it turned out. Those two plants took off, ultimately reaching 6 or 7 feet high.
This was my first time growing okra, so I was thrilled at their red-streaked beauty and sturdiness. The pretty cream-colored flowers were a plus, too.
People are also reading…
And they were prolific — the pods ripened faster than I could get out there and pick them. Like green beans, okra wants to be picked every day or so. If you wait much past thumb-size, they get tough and woody.
When I went on vacation for a week in October, they went nuts and by the time I came back, the pods were huge and turning into husks — husks just packed with seeds. I continued to pick both the tender and the tough, and those happy plants kept producing until a good frost last month finally killed them off.
And those tough pods? I let four dry out for a month or two inside the house until they got to the rattling stage. Last weekend, I broke them open gently and spooned the seeds — five at a time — into seed envelopes also purchased from NS/S.
Guess how many those four pods produced: over 350 seeds! Now that's my kind of math.
Oh, and there are still 20 or 30 pods to go …
