Growing Okra | Best Tips

okra is one of my favorite things to grow in the garden today we're going to talk about strategies and tips on why you should be growing okra in your food garden [Music] did you know okra is originally from africa and it grows wild there that only makes sense why it grows so well for us in deep south because we have similar type climates hot and dry okra loves hot weather and it tolerates dry weather and it is in the mallow family which is the same family that roselle is in roselle is an edible hibiscus now with roselle it flowers real similar to what okra does but after it flowers it puts on a seed pod and we harvest that red capsicum that covers the seed pod with okra after it flowers then it puts on a seed pod and that's what we harvest and cook is the seed pod which is what we call okra and cotton is also in the mallet family and can to open look here the leaves are somewhat similar but the blooms on the ocarina the cotton are almost identical and when cotton grows up and puts those blooms on it puts a bowl on and that's where our cotton comes from is inside that bowl so the growing characteristics of okra and cotton are very similar now let's talk about different varieties of okra the one i planted this year is cow corn cow horn's an old heirloom variety that's grown a lot out in louisiana and mississippi i hadn't grown it in a few years but it is a good variety it has some shortcomings for me i grew it this year because i just hadn't grown it a long time i wanted to grow it again cow horn if you're going to grow big okra it's probably the one for you it is more forgiving and it can get bigger and not quite as tough as some of the other varieties the most popular variety out there is clemson spineless now clemson spineless as you guessed was developed by clemson in south carolina in 1939 and if you talk to anybody about growing oakland garden probably they gonna mention clemson spineless it's the most popular variety growing a new variety that's just been out last few years is called jambalaya now jambly is a hybrid as far as i know it's the only hybrid okra on the market and it was developed to be more productive and to be cut at a shorter stage jambalaya is a good one now jambalaya to me seems to be more root not nematode resistant than some of the old heirloom varieties such as cowhorn it's way more productive but if it gets to this stage right here it's not edible so it's not as forgiving with jambalaya you got to cut it on a regular basis to get that choice productive okra out of it you can't let it go long an extra day or so or it's going to get too tough on it so jambalaya's got its place it's probably one of my favorite varieties also it's going to make or produce at least two weeks earlier than any of these other varieties and then we have a lot of the what i call novelty varieties such as red burgundy and jing orange those two are red ochres now i like the red oak crease and i grow them they're very they're very good for me they produce well they do good but i do classify it as a novelty type okra and both of those are red and then we have some of the older heirloom varieties such as emerald and we have starved david's some of those unique varieties there but the jambalaya definitely works into my rotation every year as i love that variety right there it's way more productive and it's one of my favorite ones now you guys don't have a lot of room that want to do container gardening we got a new variety this year that's worked out really good for growing these small spaces green fingers is the variety it's more of a dwarf right here see it doesn't get very big we grew this in a root pouch right here a big root pouch here and let's see one two three four five six seven eight i think there's eight plants in here and believe it or not we harvest decent amount of oak off of this root house got some right here and we'll show you [Music] now one thing i've noticed about it is you need to cut it a little bit on the small side because it will get tough kind of nice and green that part is the three major pests for okra are number one aphids if you see ants on your okra plant trailing up and down more likely you got an aphid problem those ants are guarding the aphids because the ants are feeding on the byproduct of aphids so therefore that's a good sign you got an april problem aphids are going to live underneath the leaf on your okra plants now they're easy to control you want to use an insecticide and you want to spray underneath the leaf where the aphids are any insecticide will pretty much knock out if it's their soft body insect you can use something like neem oil horticulture oil or even dishwashing detergent to uh to kill aphids very easy to control probably not the a major pest but they're definitely a pest of okra number two stink bugs or true bugs now i don't have any damage right now but i'm going to tell you what it looks like stink bugs will actually pierce their mouse part into the okra and you'll see bumps on that okra if you've ever harvested okra and you got those bumps on there that is from stink bug damage stink bugs are harder to control you're going to need to use something a little more powerful because they are not a soft body insect bug buster 2 will do it and that's what i recommend for spraying for stink bugs number three is probably the most troublesome root knot nematodes one of the worst pests on oakridge root not nematodes ochre's notorious for having nematode problems see how pretty this plant is right down the road right here it gets looking bad on me you see how yellow it is right here and these plants are going down yep i've got a nematode problem so my okra plants start yelling going downhill become non-productive and the reason why is root not nematodes you see there they're all over the root system right there so there's not a whole lot you can do about this right here and i'll make a note that i've got this problem in this plot and i'll use some mustard in the winter time there to incorporate it in to help gas up and to help with this right here there's also a product out there that monterey makes it's called nematode control and you apply it where you've got nematodes the problem is it wipes out all nematodes good and bad and then you have to go back and reintroduce the good nematodes that's just a bit much for me so the way i manage my root knot nematodes in okra is with succession plant i will plant me another crop behind this one to come in to keep us in okra producing okra all summer long by using secession plantings well you may be asking yourself was am i still going to have this problem and the answer is yes once the okra gets older then the root knot nematode gets to be such a problem that the plant does not produce and that's where these younger plants are going to produce the okra and as those younger plants get older and get this problem here then we'll have another crop behind it coming along so the younger okra plants don't have as much infestation of the root knot nematodes and produce okra but as they get older this becomes a huge issue and keeps them from producing so the key here is having a plant coming along all along so we have okra all the way to frost let's talk about when to harvest in grades of okra as far as the way you grade okra this right here is considered extra fancy and this normally brings the most money as you can see the okra is smaller and it takes more to fill up a bucket so that's the reason it costs more because it takes more okra to fill up a a bushel so we got extra fancy the next one is fancy and fancy is probably my choice of when i cut okra i love this length right here fancy is the next highest priced ochre cut and then from there we move into choice this is what i call a small choice and this is what we consider choice grade here for the most part these choice grades don't bring near as much as the fancy and extra fancy does the exception of this is out in louisiana and mississippi people that have grown this cow horn variety for years they like them larger but over here on the east coast everything is judged pretty much on fancy and extra fancy and if you're growing for market that's where you want to cut your ochre at and harvest it is in an extra fancy and fancy stage the fancy stage to me is real tender and i get more of it so that's my favorite grade is the fancy now some tips on growing okra okra does not like cool soils and they will not germinate in cool soils so my first planting in the springtime i grew from transplants our 162 tray is ideal for growing okra transplants and we get really good germination if you plant okra seed too early in the spring and cool soils it will not germinate now after we move out of spring by our transplants then we can direct seed into the garden after that after our soil temperature warms up so if you're growing okra already stay on top of your succession planting and if you're not try growing okra for the first time i think you'll like it [Music] hmm [Music]

Channel: HOSS

Views: 222,372

Keywords: hosstools, growyourownfood, vegetable garden, sustainable living, homestead, gardening tools, vegetablegardenseeds, seed companies, beginner gardener, beginner garden, gardening tips, guide to planting, best seed varieties, gardening supplies, simple gardening tips, raisedbedgardening, getdirty, hoss tools

Id: iWmGszMrHjQ

Length: 10min 24sec (624 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 03 2022