It's in the low 30's now and cool weather always means, "It's Gumbo Season!" We had a delicious seafood gumbo at Mom & Dad's house the other day that was loaded with shrimp and crab meat. Tricia made a shrimp and okra gumbo just a few days later. You can't get tired of gumbo. While I was eating it, I remembered! I hadn't saved any okra seed yet!
Well, it's not too late. The okra in the garden generally lasts up until the first frost. We usually plant Clemson Spineless as those are the perfect size for pickled okra. I can finish off a whole jar in one sitting. We also plant Beck's Big Okra and Burgundy Okra. However, you get the biggest bang for your buck planting Louisiana Long Pod Okra. The okra stays edible up until it reaches about 10 inches long. Clemson spineless would be "woody" and inedible long before that. I had a long pod of okra that was drying on the plant so that I could save the seeds. Before it shattered and I lost the seed, I went out and got it.
This is a non-hybrid old heirloom variety that has been passed down for a long, long time. You can save the seeds and store them and keep passing them down.
From just one pod, would you look at all the seeds I was able to save. They are plump and dry and in good condition. I'm sure this spring, I'll soak these, plant them and get good germination.
Just for grins I decided I would count the seeds as I put them in the supplement container that I store seeds in. I re-labeled the container and put the number of seeds. 119 seeds from that one pod! That's a lot of okra plants. I think I'll only plant 25 or so this spring. The rest I'll save for future planting.
We generally freeze quart bags of cut up, cooked okra for making gumbos in the winter, AKA "Gumbo Season." I hope we have enough to get us through...
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