Wow, that is quite a bit of spacing. I feel bad now. I get a TON of okra off of my plants, and I am lucky if they are spaced 5" apart in a row, and the rows themselves are probably 1' spaced. We go through okra like mad here, and even with the crammed spacing we get a ton of it. I am from the north, and never grew this stuff until I moved down here, but it seems to do just fine with the cramped quarters. I am sure there are much more experiences gardeners (*cough* Dawn *cough*) who have more insight.

I goofed up and got all my rows too close together this year. I never really thinned my second row either. It has taken it a long time to produce. I dont know if it is the space or just the year. I dont like it that close either. It rubs all over ya no matter where you pick it from. I have a huge love hate relashionship with okra. It makes me itch like the devil. I have come in and used scratchers to scrub my hands with when I am in too big a hurry to find gloves.

I think that there is a lot of variation in what sort of spacing works with okra. Variables affecting the spacing would include the type of soil you have, how fertile the soil is, how well it drains and how well it holds moisture (you know....the Red Riding Hood Syndrome....you want soil that doesn't hold too much water or too little water but that is just right), the weather in any given year, and the variety of okra you grow.

OSU says to space the okra plants 18" apart in rows 2 to 3' apart. I've done that, it works fine, but it makes the area really crowded and hard to harvest. That sort of spacing wouldn't bother me in an area where snakes, including venomous ones, do not inhabit the garden. In a rural and fairly remote area like mine where venomous snakes are regular garden visitors and I need to be able to see them if they are in the garden, I like to put large varieties 3' apart, or with larger varieties like cowhorn or Stewart's Zeebest, 4' to 5' apart within the row, and I like to have the rows about 4' to 6' apart. I have plenty of space though. If space was an issue, I could plant the plants a lot closer together and then just hope there weren't any snakes in there when I was harvesting.

I have grown okra plants spaced 1' apart, or even 6" apart when growing a dwarf variety like Little Lucy, but the next row was several feet away. The smaller varieties will do alright with that sort of spacing, but the larger ones will get crowded. That doesn't mean they won't produce well, it just means that you have a harder time finding and harvesting the pods in foliage that is really crowded.

I normally grow okra in amended clay in raised beds that drain well and have soil that holds water well, so I feel like I can plant them fairly close together if I want to and they produce fine. They do get watered regularly even when rain isn't falling. Okra is very heat tolerant, but suffers lower productivity in drought situations unless you irrigate enough to make up for the rainfall deficit.

My favorite way to grow okra is to run a single row of plants down the middle of a raised bed that is 4' wide. The raised bed has pathways 2' wide on either side of it. I space the plants 4 or 5' apart and then plant refrigerator watermelons in the ground between the okra plants. The melons grow horizontally and cover the ground like a ground cover, shading the soil, which helps keep the ground cooler and conserve soil moisture. The okra plants are quite tall by the time the watermelons are maturing, and that helps the melons by shading them from sun since sunscald can be a significant issue in our climate in July and August. I don't grow okra this way every year.

Some years, I put a double row of okra plants in one 4' wide raised bed, offsetting the rows so the plants aren't side by side. When I do that, I usually plant the plants 2 to 3' apart depending on the variety. I don't underplant with melons with this spacing because they'd get shaded out.

I think people have to experiment to find what works for them, taking into consideration their growing conditions and the varieties they are growing. Do what works for you in your conditions, with the varieties you're growing, and with the weather you have.

You know, thinking about it, I do not plant okra the same way every year, often changing varieties, row spacing, spacing between rows, etc., but no matter what I do, I get a good harvest 9 years out of 10. Okra is pretty determined to grow and produce, as long as it doesn't get planted when the soil and air are too cold, the soil pH is too low or in nematode-infested soil.

You do have to be careful that you do not give your okra too much nitrogen or it will make endless quantities of huge green leaves, and it won't get in any hurry to flower and set pods. It also can be slow to set pods if you're having cool, rainy summer weather instead of our usual intense heat and sunlight.

I'd say okra is one of the few things we can grow practically any way that we choose, and it still will produce well most of the time.

The only exception might be Stewart's Zeebest. In my garden it does okay in clay soil no matter the spacing, though it produces better with wider spacing. This year in the new garden out back, which has a sandy-silty soil that I haven't yet amended with anything, it has gone completely crazy and is producing so much that I have a hard time staying caught up on harvesting it. I'll never plant it in sandy soil again with spacing of less than 5' between plants and rows. It is a space hog, but it produces so well that it is easy to justify using that wide spacing.

Larry, What was it you didn't like about your spacing this year? Is it that the plants aren't producing pods or just that it is so crowded that the pods are hard to find? Your garden always looks so good in the photos! I cannot imagine that it doesn't produce as good as it looks.

Dawn

Dawn, it is nearly always harvest that get me with okra. It seem that the closer the plants, the taller they grow and the more you have to push the branches out of the way to harvest. Like Sheila, okra really makes me itch, and the shorter the plant the easier the harvest.

I have okra planted in my north garden, south garden, and an area I call my "Okra bed", which seldom gets tilled, amended or watered. The okra in this bed is much better behaved. It is not as productive, but much easier to harvest.

I have used okra as a shade for strawberry plants also, which works pretty well, but the okra grows more because of the extra water needed for the berries.

Larry

I never plant okra in anything but a single row. I like to harvest from both sides of the row. I put it in the middle of a 4 ft bed that has onions planted on one side and lettuce on the other. The lettuce and onions come out and the okra fills the bed. Once the lettuce and onions are out, we mulch with last fall's leaves laid over newspaper. I plant 2 to 2&1/2 feet apart in the bed. I like for my okra plants to branch and giving this space allows them to do it.

I usually plant in single rows. I went with 18-20" spacing for the standard varieties and 36" for Stewart's Zeebest. I only have two varieties that have really bushed out and need more space. They are Edna Slatons and Grandpa Kurtz's. Jay

Excellent advice there from Dawn. I agree that with okra it boils down to personal preference, variety, and soil conditions. Like some here, I prefer putting them in a single row as it is easier for me to harvest. I did try multiple rows before with closer spacing and there was not much difference in yield, although there seems to be an effect on plant height.

Kimball,

Thank you. You're going to make my head swell. : )

I think that the difference in plant height likely occurs because closely-spaced plants cause foliage to be more crowded, and the crowded foliage doesn't conduct as much photosynthesis as foliage with less competition for sunlight. Thus, the plants remain smaller.

Of everything I've grown this year, the okra in the back garden has been the most productive. The grasshoppers from the adjacent pasture hit those okra plants hard every day, but the okra plants somehow overcome having their foliage devoured by grasshoppers---continuing to bloom and set pods daily while producing new leaves to replace the ones devoured by the grasshoppers. I wish everything else I grew could tolerate the heat, drought and grasshopper damage like the okra plants do.

Dawn

my wife just came in from picking okra. she said next year I want all the okra like that over there. I planted 4 kinds of okra this year, but the one my wife pointed to was the heavy hitter.

larry

Heavy Hitter was my favorite this year too, so thanks to George for passing that one on to us.