I am by no means any kind of expert, but my okra has germinated 100%. I sowed in the ground last week and both the Clemson and Burgundy are up. My biggest issue now will be the bunnies :)

When I tried to sow indoors, I had little to no success as well.

I have better luck with fresh seed. Germination really drops with older seed. If I am planting in the ground I will place about 3 or 4 seeds about 4" apart, skip about 16" or 18" and do the same thing. When I start in a pan I use a pan that heats up well in the sun (I have two heavy aluminum roast pans). I roll news paper tubes to plant in, but I only cover about 1/2 of the bottom of the pan, the rest I leave to collect heat from the sun. The news paper makes it much easier to pick up the young plant, I plant as soon as possible. The warm seeds will sprout fast, but they must be watched very closely because the heat and news paper will suck the moisture out of the soil.

I dont ever remember starting it inside, I expect it would work very well in a warm area or on a heat mat.

Larry

Well, I'm using three varieties.

Clemson Spineless - I've yet to start and will do so this weekend.

Texas Hill Country Red - AWFUL germination rate.

Burgundy - Poor germination.

I will go to town this afternoon and purchase whatever seed they have in a small town, which most likely will be Clemson spineless.

I expect I will have to start this in a pan, the area where I plan to plant is still under heavy mulch and I expect the soil is still cool. This is one of the areas where I am trying to go no-till. I may have to rake the mulch back and let the ground warm up some.

Larry

Like Larry said, okra seed has to be fresh to germinate. I had a chart once that told how long garden seeds remain viable and okra was at the top of the list with only a one year reliable germination rate. I keep my seed in the freezer and it will keep for 2-3 years, maybe longer.

I wait to plant okra until the temps are getting hot and summery (mid-80s and 90s). Germination is slower than most seed. If you soak the seeds for 24 hrs before you plant, that will speed up the process.

I used to plant okra seed 6" apart, thin plants to 1' apart. My germination rate is nearly 100% so having gaps wasn't a problem. One foot apart wasn't far enough - 18" is better.

Based on farmerdill's advice, I planted Emerald last year - it's much better than Clemson Spineless.

This year, based on Dawn's grow lists, I ordered seed for Stewart's Zeebest. Will plant it and Emerald, see if I have a clear favorite. Stewart's Zeebest is reportedly a huge monster plant - if you don't top it, you'll need a ladder to pick it - I haven't decided how I'll space it yet. Maybe 2' apart, keep my fingers crossed.

Love okra! (It's wonderful grilled) Good luck with your okra crop!

Pam

I went to Greenwood, Ar. this afternoon. Walmart had no okra seeds at all. The small Co-op store there was sold out of 2 or 3 kinds. I came back with Emerald, it and Cowhorn were the only kinds they had that I had grown before. When I grew Cowhorn in the past it got too tall and was harder to pick, that might not be a problem now because I have to pay for the water I put on it.

Larry

Larry - You may like Emerald. It's considered a velvet okra, had smooth round pods. I grew it for the first time last year and I liked it a lot.

Farmerdill recommends planting okra 12" apart in rows and recommends a 20' row, at a minimum, and gives this advice about growing and harvesting okra:

"If grown well, okra can produce between 3 and 5 pods per plant per week and it will remain productive right up to frost. I typically pick okra for 10 to 12 weeks. So with your 20-foot row of okra, you would expect to harvest about 40 pounds total ...

"Okra should be grown just on the verge of permanent drought. If the leaves wilt a little during the heat of the day, so much the better. Water heavily once or twice a week to stop the wilting."

He also grows a cowhorn called "Stewart's Zeebest." He said to cut the leaves back to stimulate new pods. Heat and sun make cowhorns into small trees, and that pods of Stewarts Zeebest stay tender up to 9" or more.

He recommends that you eliminate leaves on stems below the picked okra to minimize contact with the leaves. Says removing the leaves may also keep the plants from falling over in heavy rain and wind. Since we get tropical storms in late summer and early fall, that is a big problem where I live.

I can see the headline: "Local woman killed during freak storm by falling okra!"

Yikes!

Pam, I grew a Cowhorn okra at my old house where the soil was much better and I had an artesian well. The tallest plant when I pulled them up in the fall was 14'5". They were just to hard to pick, I would pull the stalk over to pick it and would itch like crazy after picking it. I also grew a couple of kinds that were much like the Stewarts Zeebest that I have grown the past years, in the way as having many limbs. The Emerald I have grown was just a good all-a-round okra, it produced well and did not get too tall to pick. As I think back, I expect the problem I had with the Cowhorn was caused by me giving it too much water. Just for the cost of running a 1/2 HP pump I could run 3 sprinklers all the time.

Larry

Reed,

Um, you don't think you've seen all the weather that OK has to offer yet, do you? I'm pretty sure Mother Nature still has a few tricks up her sleeve, but we won't ruin the surprise by telling you what she'll do to you and your family's garden for the rest of 2013. : )

Assuming your seed is not old, I assume that your soil temperatures were too low for quick germination when you sowed the seed directly in the soil.

Every vegetable has an ideal temperature at which the highest percentage of seeds will germinate in the quickest time. With okra, the magic number is a soil temperature of 86 degrees. When the soil is 86 degrees at planting depth, you can expect 88% of the seed to germinate within 7 days.

Let's say you sowed okra seed into the ground 2 weeks ago and let's pretend your soil temperature at that time was 68 degrees, and we'll blame the cold soil temperature on the recurring cold fronts that repeatedly cooled down the soil after it already had reached some nice temperatures. At a soil temperature of 68 degrees, 89% of your okra seed will germinate, but you should expect to wait 17 days for that to occur. Most people don't wait that 17 days....they assume the seed is bad and sow more seed.

When you sowed the seed in the garage on a heat mat, you had decent results but, unless you have a thermostat on the heat mat and set it at 85-90 degrees, you don't know if the 60% germination rate occurred because the heat mat wasn't warm enough or if the seed was getting old and had decreased viability. Actually, although we gardeners expect 100% of the seed to germinate, I believe the Federal Minimum Germation Standard for okra is 50%, so at 60% your seed was germinating above the minimum standard.

I've linked Tom Clothier's seed germination database for you below. If you look at it, you can see the optimal temperature for the germination of the various vegetable seeds he tested at different temperatures.

Although I like to aim for the best soil temperature, sometimes I get impatient and start the seeds in flats. When I do, I don't even drag out the heat mat. I just put the flat on top of the upright deep freeze which seems to stay pretty warm. I sowed okra seed (Mammoth Spineless) using 3 year old seed last Saturday and about 90% of the seed already has emerged. I didn't even use the top of the deep freeze this time. I just put the flat in the greenhouse, where the daytime high has been topping out at about 95 degrees every day (with doors and vents open and shade cloth on the GH). Tomorrow I will transplant those small seedings into the garden, where they will be growing beside some seedlings that began sprouting on their own about 10 days ago, right after we had a 91-degree day. Our soil temperatures that afternoon were outrageously high in the unmulched bed where the okra volunteers popped up. Due to the color of the volunteers, I know this much about them: they will be either Little Lucy, Jing Orange, Burgundy or Hill Country Red because those are the red varieties I've grown in recent years.

I usually wait and sow my okra seed after a volunteer okra plant has popped up because, of course, if the ground is warm enough for the volunteers, it is warm enough for the actual variety I am going to grow on purpose.

Some years I soak my okra seed in warm water for 24 hours before sowing. When I do that, it often germinates in 2 or 3 days as long as the soil temps are half-decent.

Pam, Okra is one of the few veggies that will produce so much that I just get tired of dealing with it and will stop picking it and let the pods go to seed. (This certainly explains all the volunteer okra plants in the garden this year.) Once we have plenty in the freezer and are getting tired of eating it fresh, I just ignore it. It won't hardly die, and you cannot kill it no matter what you do. I don't yank it out, though, since I often grow watermelons in the same bed and let the okra shade them a little. This helps prevent the fruit from sunburning, which is a common issue here in July and August some years.

I have removed the lower leaves beneath the okra pods on the plants for years, but not because I had any great insight into why this might be a good idea....I did it to allow the melons growing like a ground cover underneath the okra to get more light.

Larry, I like Cowhorn okra and it produces extremely well, but my garden slopes so I stopped growing it. I don't like having to stand on a ladder to harvest anything.

The first time I saw Cowhorn okra growing in someone's yard in Texas a couple of decades ago, I was astonished at how tall it grew....and they had crappy, rocky caliche clay soil (and I use the word 'soil' loosely because what they actually had was rock, rock, rock, rock and gravel).

I rarely water okra because is generally doesn't need it, and I go out of my way to put it in my worst soil because it doesn't mind that either. That allows me to save the good soil and the irrigation water for other plants that need them more. I did water the okra in 2011 but almost waited too late in the summer to start watering it. When it started dropping all its leaves and looked as though it was dying, I watered it. It immediately put out new growth. I also have had okra drop all the leaves and appear to die, and then, after rainfall returns in autumn, the dormant okra resumed growing and put out new leaves and produced okra pods just fine.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: TC's Vegetable Seed Germination Database

Boy, we have fun! Normal people don't have a clue about what we gardeners have to deal with. Just today ...

We discover okra that grows to the height of trees (in one season), during drought and out of crappy, rocky caliche clay (rock).

We battle snakes that lurk in our gardens, disguised as harmless sticks, as they wait to strike and ruin our day - big time. We can't forget about the skunks, coons, deer, bears, cougars, coyotes, armadillos ... the list goes on, and on.

What new, exciting experiences are we anticipating tomorrow? Tune in ... Oklahoma has it all!

What Dawn said....I have always soaked it for 24 hours. Dad did this and so did my granddad. Whether or not it made a huge difference or not, I don't know. I've always had excellent germination as long as the soil was warm enough.

I planted out my transplants today and then planted my Clemson Spineless seed, which had soaked all night.

Due to space, I was limited to 5 Texas Hill Country Red, 5 Burgundy and 10 Clemson Spineless plants. I've never grown okra before although my grandmother has. Should I get enough for two people from 20 plants?

I had less than 20 Stewarts Zeebest last year and gave okra away, but didnot freeze a lot. ( I think I had around 10 plants)

If you keep okra seeds in the freezer they will keep a long time. My dwarf green pod okra from 2004 all came up..my clemson spineless from 2009 all came up and my emerald from last year (2012) all came up. What I'm having trouble with is Louisiana green velvet and they are from this year (2013). I treated all the seeds the same so maybe they are just bad seeds.

I've been growing Stewarts Zeebest regularly since 2003. I think I first grew it in Mexico, in 1997. It's never gotten too tall for me. But if given space, it will branch out quite a bit. I like this, since each branch gets to where it's producing pods too. So one plant will produce a lot.

A fellow near me, named Ron Cook, has selected a multi branching form of Clemson Spineless. I have a little seed if anyone would like to try it and reimburse me the postage. Ron produced something like 10 lb of seed last year and has been sharing with EVERYONE he can!

George
Tahlequah, OK

George, I would like to try a few seeds.

Larry

I planted clemson spineless and didnt soak just direct in the ground and got 100% Germination. They are about 6 in tall and have been that way about two weeks I hope they start coming up now.

Can i put 5-8 okra plants right down the middle of my raised bed with my tomatos? Bad idea? Id like to have something other than toms and herbs this year. Next year will be the real garden...

Thanks

How wide is the raised bed? I ask because some okra varieties produce monster-sized plants.

5 feet maybe. Its probably a 5x8 bed. How many plants do i need to get polination?

I don't know that I would put okra too close to tomato plants in a 5' x 8' bed unless the tomatoes were about 5' away from each other. If that were the case you likely could get away with putting an okra plant in between each two tomato plants

Okra plants have perfect flowers that are self-pollinating, so you will get pods even if you have only one plant.

It is hard to picture how you are going to squeeze okra plants into a bed with tomato plants without knowing how big your tomato plants are and how widely they are spaced. Okra plants tend to spread out really wide, or at least many varieties do. There are a few dwarf okra varieties that might work in this situation. One problem is that the tomatoes have been in the ground a while and presumably have achieved some height and young okra plants might struggle to become established in the shade of the tomato plants.

I often sneak okra plants into flower beds because they are so beautiful and ornamental. If you have any flower or shrub beds with space available, you might consider doing that....unless you have deer that walk through the yard. Okra is the favorite plant of the deer we have here in our neighborhood, and sunflowers and hollyhocks are high on their list as well.

I'm with Dawn on growing okra and tomatoes in the same bed - when okra branches out, it gets very wide. I don't think this would be a happy marriage.

I usually plant okra seed 6" apart, then thin so plants grow 1' - 1.5' apart. That's cutting it close because the plants grow wide and tall.

Like Dawn, I plant okra in flower beds - it has pretty tropical looking blooms (is in the hibiscus family).

Here is a link that might be useful:

One of my favorite ornamentals also is from the okra family. Technically, it is okra, but it is the leaves and flowers that are eaten, not the seed pods. I didn't plant it this year but kinda wish I had. Just writing about it makes me wonder why I didn't plant it. One year I planted this one with a red okra and Swiss chard in several colors and the three combined made that corner of the garden look tropical. It is called Abelmoschus manihot and usually is called Sunset hibiscus.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunset Hibisicus