Okra is great for your garden because it grows extremely well practically anywhere, very fast, produces lots of food per square foot, and can easily be preserved. It also attracts beneficial insects to your garden, pollinating the nearby plants. Okra’s leaves are edible too. What other vegetable can give you that?
Many different varieties of okra plants grow differently – some have long skinny pods while others have short fat pods. Some produce little round green fruit instead of pods (called “ladyfingers”). There are early and late maturing types; some grow taller than others (over 6 feet in height), and there are even purple and orange varieties. However, okras belong in the same family as cotton, hibiscus, and hollyhocks, so they can cross-breed easily. So far, hybrid varieties have not been developed that cause the formation of sterile crosses.
Okra is also known as “lady’s fingers” because of its phallic appearance. How about them apples?
Okra is a warm-season vegetable, but it can be grown in some places all year round under certain conditions. It likes lots of water and warmth: it grows best at night temperatures between 70°F and 85°F (21°C – 29°C), but tolerates down to 40°F (5°C) at night. The okra plant goes through three stages: 1) seedling, 2) creeper stage, 3) producing fruit. They sometimes go by the name “tomato plant” because once set in the ground, they rarely need to be transplanted.
Okra germinates quickly (in about five days) and grows very fast (average 1-2 feet per week). The seeds are small enough to conserve space when planting but large enough to have a hard time losing them. This is why it makes a good crop for beginners growing organically, without much supervision.
If planted during early spring, okra can produce ripe fruit within 50 days. Late summer/fall plantings should yield mature pods two months later. It takes even less time if you have more than one plant (called a “hill”), and if you choose to grow the short varieties, their fruit will mature sooner.
Okra is very drought-resistant and can take lots of heat without wilting. Some people say it even thrives in extreme temperatures because it comes from Africa, where there’s lots of sun and grit.
Okra contains compounds that keep bugs away, such as its pesticide called “cardenolides,” which discourages beetles, cucumber beetles, leafhoppers, etc. When damaged, the leaves emit a chemical signal that repels nearby insects, and the roots exude substances that suppress certain nematodes and pathogens. So many beneficial insects love, no wonder okra!
And its flowers are nectar sources for bees.
Okra is rich in vitamins A, C, D, E, and K; dietary fiber; beta-carotene; essential amino acids (the building blocks of protein) like tryptophan, methionine, lysine, leucine, phenylalanine, threonine, valine, alpha-aminobutyric acid, cysteine; minerals like calcium, magnesium, manganese, zinc, iron. It’s also a great source of omega-three fatty acids if you eat the leaves. What other vegetable can give you all that?
When cooked or pureed into soups/stews/etc., okra acts as an excellent thickener. It’s a great ingredient for traditional dishes like gumbo, a feisty stew hailing from the southern states, often served over rice.
Oh yeah, and it grows on a plant that you can eat!
In short: okra is an extremely hard worker that will give your garden lots of food. When planted with crops like tomatoes or corn, they form a great symbiotic relationship because they attract beneficial insects to those plants while repelling harmful pests away from them at the same time. That makes them perfect allies in the fight against bug infestations.
But more practically speaking, having a couple of okra plants means never going to the grocery store again! How cool is that!