Okra

It is? Thanks so much! Guess I'm going to have to do some readidng and figure out what to do with okra.

It is good boiled or stewed, but It is....well .. slimy.
You may like the fried okra better.
You cut it into 1/2 inch links, toss in floor or 50%-50% corn mill- flour. then fry it golden brown.
I could eat it like popcorn.

Here is a link that might be useful: okra

Thank you very much for the info. I'm not too encouraged by what I've read about okra but, I'll give it a try. If I don't like it I can always just pull the plant.

If you like Indian food, try an Indian recipe for okra. Yummy, and very different from American recipes.

It's also a major ingredient in many gumbo recipes.

Okra is one of the most tasty veggies out there, second only to artichokes. Don't let cultural hangups or others' opinions ("okra is slimy") influence your perception of it.
It is also good cooked with corn and tomatoes.

Pick the pods when young.

If I were you, I would pull out the cucumbers and plant more okra :)

You are lucky. It's so difficult to grow okra north of the 49th.

Pickled okra is glorious, and doesn't have the slime.

I'm in the rarefied minority that LIKE the slime!
Say "mucilaginous"...

One other thing - if you don't like to eat okra - let it grow large and dry - the dried pods make the most interesting dried plants for vases... and the seeds rattle around in the pod - very cool for kids!

I prefer to eat it, but...

Cindy

Cut when about 2 inches long and still real tender. Your knife should slide right thru. If least bit tough, toss. Slice into little bigger than quarter inch but not half inch. Roll in mixture of cornmeal salt and pepper. Fry quickly.
Also used in gumbo. Real good in shrimp gumbo.

Wow! Where are you? I wanted to plant okra from seed last year, was told it wouldn't do well in CT. I should have bought the seeds and started them in the greenhouse with tomatoes this year. Where did you buy the plant?

DH is from TX and hasn't had pickled okra since his mom went into the nursing home.

Aj,
Who told you you cant grow Okra in Ct.? I dont think that im that far from you and i have been growing Okra successfully for years. Its a butiful plant and I have never had a problem with it. I have some Burgandy Okra growing this year along with my old standby Clemson Spineless.

Guy at the HW store where I found the seed told me - though I don't know why they carried it then. Maybe he'd tried it and didn't work out - he said our season was too short. Could be, as late as I am planting this year. But this year I had access to a greenhouse so I could have started seed, didn't think of it.

Did you start seed (prolly, since you know names)? I was wondering if I could find a plant if I might have time to grow this year.

Okra likes heat, but it is a relatively a short season plant. It matures in 65-75 days from seed. Fedco Seeds (in Maine) carries a couple of different varieties, and they make a point of only selling things that northern gardeners can grow (or at least warning gardeners when the varieties is difficult to grow to maturity in the north.)

If your weather is still warm at the end of August, you still have time to grow from seed this year.

Has anyone ever tried baking breaded okra instead of frying it to make it a little less fattening? I was thinking if you can make oven baked potato "fries", maybe it could be done to okra too?

To make it less fattening fry in without batter. It tastes great! I have also sprayed it with Pam and put it on parchment paper and baked it it is good too.

AJ,
I direct seeded it, its about 6" tall. Once the warm weather hits it should take off like gangbusters. No special treatment either. The only thing i found discouraging is that even 1 year old seed has a poor germination rate, so if you are using old seed, plant many. I grow Clemson Spineless so I can save the seed year to year. Good Luck, let me know how it go's for you.

Well, gardenman, I thought I might try a plant or 2 but I still haven't gotten all my tomatoes in the ground with all this rain, behind on seeding the 50-day squash (I bought Raven from Fedco, never even looked at the okra this year!), I have 13 cukes (I don't know how I ended up with 3 seeds in 1 cell) in flats that will probably have to go in 4" pots while I transplant maters during the few days of dry weather this week. I can't believe we've already hit our average for this month and it's just over halfway through, with more rain in the forecast!

So not likely to start okra, though I might try it instead of edamame if I have time/room, since it's a shorter season. Have to see what Ace carries for seed, I'll look at Fedco next year.

AJ,
What zone are you in? You could do okra in pots (min of 3gal) I have done that as well with good results. My tomatos are allready to the top of thier 5' cages with little green maters. Well i hope you do try okra this year, i think its worth it esp. with all the new recipies I found in the harvest forum. Good luck

Slice and dust with corn meal. Cook in a hot pan with a bit of olive oil until crispy.
Pickled is wonderful. I will use at least 3/4 of my okra for pickles. Add just a bit of pickle crisp to each jar to keep them nice and crunchy.

FWIw, I just started two year old okra seed. I soaked it overnight to help germination, but couldn't get around to planting that day so I stuck them in a baggie with wet paper towels. When I went to plant (about 36 hours after putting them in water to soak) they all had radicles emerging from the seed coat. Anyway, in my case there was no problem with old seed germinating. I planted those pre-sprouted seeds and 100% are up and growing a week later.

Gardenman - I'm just south of you, across the CT border. Just got the last of my tomatoes in the ground today! The tallest (in 3-gal pots) were about 30" high - before I planted them deep. But I do have green tomatoes of the 4th of July.

Tomorrow - cukes! I started them 10 days ago in the house, they need to be transplanted, 1 is so tall it's falling over! But only 2 leaves (not true) yet!

AJ,
Hopefully we will both be picking by the 4th. I started my cukes indoors and planted in large containers and made a bamboo and net trellis for them. Some i had to replant cus of groundhog problem, but i do have baby cukes. I have to get out there with the camera so i can post on GW. Well again i hope you do manage to get the okra in.