All About Okra
A gorgeous okra flower! Can you tell that okra is in the same family as hibiscus?!
Okra is a love-it or hate-it crop. Which camp are you in? As a farmer, I think we need to be in the love-it camp or else we just wouldn't grow it!
Okra can be an incredibly productive crop in Virginia, but there are some things you need to know about growing it:
Okra pods follow the gorgeous flowers and take only a day or two to form. The plant blooms, then the blossom falls off as the pod grows. If picked, the plant will quickly bloom more and make more pods. if not picked, the plant will put more energy into its existing pod(s), growing them large and woody for seed maturation. For a proper yield, okra needs to be picked frequently: every 2-3 days at least and some farms pick it daily! It's hard to manage in a garden setting because even if you have 5 plants, you'll likely get just 5 pods every 2 days, when you'd rather have 40 pods all at once.
Okra starts out as a tiny seed in the greenhouse, then a small bushy plant, and then eventually it branches out and is a shoulder-height bush for much of the summer. We grew 7 x 350-foot rows this year. When the okra is short, it has just one leading branch and generally bears one blossom and one pod each day. Picking the okra at this stage is annoying because it takes forever and the yield is low, even on that many plants. It also is at a horrible height for your back and we all get backaches around mid July. Once the plants branch, the harvest is much, much heavier! Some years, we have more than we need once it really starts rolling (mid August) and the harvest can take forever! Eventually, as the days shorten, the plants begin to lose leaves and continue to grow tall and produce pods, but more slowly. The plants become almost tree-like at heights of 7 feet or more!
Okra is itchy!! We grow a variety called "Clemson Spineless," but let me tell you: I'd never want to meet the spiny type!! We wear long sleeves and gloves when we harvest but we still get irritations on our faces and necks. The reaction seems to worsen in heat and sun so we try to harvest okra first thing in the morning. I can always tell when someone has grown okra for themselves for the first time recently. They come up to the okra bin, eyes wide at the bounty before them. They are excited to see it all there, en masse and ready for eating. We can see it on their face: they know the true struggle of okra!
Okra is a crop that you can really only get seasonally and locally in most places, and it's because of all the reasons above and because it doesn't store well. We are proud to offer our organic, local okra. Let us do the work for you and pick yourself up some okra at one of our locations this week!
What to do with okra?
Okra is tender to eat as long as you can snap it easily. We are really good at making sure our okra pods aren't too woody! If you do get a woody stem, say from your garden, you can split it open and enjoy just the seeds: pan-fry them, pickle them, or eat them raw!
There are lots of ways to eat okra. Some ways try to minimize the slime factor and others embrace it:
Dry-fry (without batter) -- cut lengthwise in half and deep fry. Top with cumin and salt or other spice of your choice
Deep fry using a cornmeal or tempura batter
Gumbo!Use okra to thicken a vegetable or any other stew, like I did for this Fall Vegetable Soup! You could turn this into a summer soup by substituting summer crops like summer squash, more potatoes, and more peppers for the winter squash, carrots, and turnips suggested, and then using fresh tomatoes for the canned!
Roast whole in the oven at high temperature (approx 425 or more and give them room on the pan) <this is the easiest and most approachable!
Grill whole okra (similar to the roasted type)
Attempt to re-create Kanak's Bhindi Nayantara