Chaman,

Wow absolutely lovely! Your plants looking very lush and green. I'm envious. You must have a large harvest daily. Thanks for the pics.

Hi Chaman,

All the plants look so green and healthy. Bitter melon, tindora and okra are few of my very favorite veggies. Wish I can grow tindora and okra here ! But our bay area weather is a bit on the cooler side for both these vegetables I think.

-saila

Excellent pictures Chaman. I wish I have big yard like yours.

Hi Saila,
You can grow Tindora and Okra at your place.Select Okra seeds with shortest maturity date like 50 day maturity or shorteter.Shop around you will find some.Tindora will have shorter productive period but you will get enough fruits.
I have seen nice pictures of your vegetables on GW website elsewhere.If those veggies. can be grown there then all these veggies. should not have any problem.

One more pic. of Shelly Bean from India.

{{gwi:388714}}

Hi Chaman,

I tried growing Okra previously but not much success. Our summers are not short, however, temperatures in the bay area peninsula hardly reach high 80s during summer. Maybe I will try growing okra next summer.

I could not tell from the picture if those shelly beans from India are bush or vine ? Are they tasty ? They look good. Can they be eaten when they are green instead of shelling them ? Can you tell me where I can get the seeds ?

Thanks,
-saila

Beautiful pictures Chaman. Wish I had such a big garden. The plants look so healthy.
Saila: This year I tried growing okra in pots. I live in Bay Area too. It did much better than growing in the ground. For the past few weeks squirrels have left it alone and they have grown about 4' tall and produce about 15-20 okras a week amongst the 3 plants in pots. I am pretty sure they will grow fine. I am guessing they cannot be put in ground/pot before June in Bay Area.

Lolly_garsener

Hi Lolly_garsener,

I am encouraged from your success growing okra in pots. Will definitely try growing it next year. What part of the bay area are you from ?

Thanks,
-saila

Thanks to all of you winane,saila,waltmalt and lolly for appreciating my work.
saila, this shelling beans are good to eat when pods get filled with seeds just before ripening process starts and the pods are still green in color.Otherwise let them fully ripen till pods become brown and use the dry seeds for cooking.I do not like to eat tender pods of this plant.
Plant is more like bushy than viney.It will grow up to 6 feet over here if supported by trellies if not it remains bushy.
You can buy the seeds at Indian grocery store if you have one near by. Ask for valor or papadi seeds.There are three kind of seeds in this group of beens are available.The smaller of three and light brown in color are these shelly kind.

Hi Saila,
I live in Cupertino. How about you? I was impressed with your yard long beans and bitter gourd. I had tried growing yard long some time ago and gave up after the small stunted plants I got. I thought it was not hot enough here.

Lolly_gardener.

Hi Lolly_gardener,

I live in Los Altos. I believe Cupertino is 4 to 5 degrees warmer than Los Altos. You should be able to grow yardlong beans. Not sure why your plants became stunted. I sowed my yardlong seeds indoors end of March, and transplated the seedslings end of April. They were slow to grow initially but then took off after a few weeks.

-saila

Lolly_gardener,

About 20 Okra from 3 plant is very impressive.
Do you remember what kind/verity of Okra did you plant?

-Waltmalt

Hi saila,
One of the reasons for yard long beans get stunted is lack of enough water and moisture around the plants.Feeding enough water and keeping soil wet around the plants will help stunted plants.It may take one or two weeks to see the change if this was the reason.

Lolly, how big the pots are 5,10 gallon?

Chaman your plants look very good.

Grrrrrrrrrrr I wished I had growing weather like Sail and Lolly. I'm over here in Alameda. Brrrrrrrrr as my BF calls it...Artic Alameda. We get the winds from the bay. Hahahahha. He's so funny.

Chaman how is the harvest coming along?

Okay here I am begging for next year. Anybody have some Indian veggie seeds to share? I've been going to the Indian grocery too too often these days. I would like to grow methi, drumstick tree, gongura, and anything else interesting. I wonder if drumstick tree can fruit if it is stunted?? I've been buying the frozen ones. I wanted to grow chole but now TJ's carry's frozen green ones! I will attempt okra once more. I grew them 2 years ago but I was traveling alot then and often they go without water for a bunch of days. I would love to have a curry tree but I find the leaves often at 99 Ranch. I just pop them in the freezer.

I have SharkFin Melon seeds if anybody is interested. The Chinese have used it for it's hypoglycemic properties for a long time.

winane,

You can get methi in packets in inidan store and it sprouts very well. My mom bought a big packet ten years back and it had 100% germination every year for me. This year I thought it might be very old but it did sprout.

jasmine

jasmine...were they sold for garden use or were they sold for cooking use? i wonder if the seeds i bought for cooking might work??

let me know
thanks
win

Thanks jasmine.
win, crops are good enough eventhough there is mis-match between heat and rain like many above average hot days and fewer rainy days.
jasmine is right.You can buy methi and many tropical veggie. seeds from Indian grocery stores as well online from seedsofindia.com,evergreenseeds.com and echonet.org.Echonet.org sells drumstick plant seeds. Buy the dwarf kind. It may take 3 to 4 years for the fruits.
Try to grow Methi seeds you have (atleast few ).

Hi:
I planted "Clemson" okra seedlings. I have three pots with about 2 plants per pot. Plants in only two of the pots which are 10 gallon pots are doing good. The other one is 5 gallon pot and the plants in it have just started taking off. So I guess I was getting 20 okras a week from 4 plants.
Lolly_gardener.

chaman thanks for your advice. i put a few methi seeds in soil with a heat pad under it. we'll see what happens. hmmm is it too late to grow okra now? yesterday i pulled out a bunch of seeds, mostly herbs...better late then never eh. there are also bunch of asian greens and cool weather greens like kale. we'll see how ambitious i get.

chaman you spurred me on hehehhe...thanks :)

win

Win,
the methi seeds which I had was for cooking use.

Lolly thanks.

Jasmine