The Okra is still producing

Okra is one of those crops that is hardy.  It will produce in sunshine, storm, rain, or drought and will continue producing until the frost kills it.  We've found that we only need a small row because it produces so much that 10 - 12 plants give us all we can eat and more.  In fact we have to harvest every single day.  We normally eat okra prepared as a side dish, stewed with tomato and onions with some lemon juice added to cut down on the 'slime factor.' We also have enjoyed a curried okra dish: Click Here for recipe

We also love to pickle okra.  Those things are addictive.  If you open one jar of them, you cannot resist until they are all gone.  I'll have to do a post on how we pickle them.  They are delicious!  We add cut okra to gumbo, we will also drizzle whole okra with olive oil and add sea salt and cracked black pepper and grill them on skewers - yum!  Often when I'm picking them in the garden, I'll grab some small ones and just eat them raw.  They are crisp and tasty.

One thing that we haven't tried yet, but I want to, is eating the okra flower.  Up to this point, we just let the flower go on and make okra.  But I learned that okra is a member of the hibiscus family and the flowers are edible.  People add the flowers to salads or the thing we want to try is this: You can stuff the okra flower with herbs, batter and deep fry.  Now that sounds interesting!

Edible Okra Flower (Who Knew?)

Yesterday afternoon late I walked to the garden to harvest the daily okra bounty. Usually I won't even bring a bucket - I'll just pick ripe ones off the stalk with one hand and fill up my up-turned shirt with the pods.  At this point in the season the okra stalks are tall and one must bend them over to harvest the pods.  You have to look closely as the okra sends up shoots off the side that bloom and make okra. Since the okra grows tall, they are susceptible to blowing over in the thunderstorms we get.  I have to use a shovel to pile dirt around the base of the plant to hold them up sometimes.

The row of okra

Here is a ripe one shown below.  Ideally, I try to pick them when they are less than five inches in length as I find that when allowed to grow longer, they get "woody" and are inedible.  No worries, though, if that happens.  We'll let them dry on the stalk and then harvest them at the end of the growing season for seed.

The only things you have to watch out for when harvesting is that it is best to pick them while wearing a long sleeved shirt.  Okra can make you itch!  Also, fire ants seem to like the sweet baby okra and they'll climb up from the base of the plant all the way out to the young pods.  Many days I've been stung by fire ants that have hitch-hiked on the pod and into my shirt.  Not a pleasant experience.

Ready for picking

Each day we'll get a colander like this:

Washing up the okra

We'll wash them and eat them.  I forgot to mention that okra freezes well.  We blanch and freeze them for use in gumbos.  I did a post about how we do that earlier and you can see how we do it by clicking HERE.

Okra Shining Brightly

Okra will always be allotted a row in our garden, if not for its many uses in our kitchen, for its ease in growing and resistance to adverse weather, crop failure, and most pests (besides fire ants).