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reedmac

okra?

Hi all. I've searched through the forums a bit and it seems that people have certainly planted okra in their SFG - but I'm wondering if it will be too tall for my setup.

I have two 4'x4' beds - with tomatoes, pole beans and cucumbers already growing in the back row on trellises. I've got a couple of peppers in front of those, with smaller things going in the front rows. But I still have some empty squares in the middle...

I went and got my okra seeds today but now am hesitating - will they get too tall for my beds if I already have tall plants in the back row?

I bought the Clemson spineless variety...and I'm in Southern California...
(My family's from the south and fresh fried okra from the garden is one of my favorite things....)
thanks for any advice!!!

Comments (11)

  • Roadcapn
    9 years ago

    You could always make another bed to put the okra in on the back side of the square and plant shorter plants in the front. If you have the space that is. Should only take an hour or so if you have someone helping. Okra is yummy.

  • planterjeff
    9 years ago

    I planted okra last year and had a lot of luck. I placed three plants next to each other one per square foot. They were in the front squares so they did somewhat shade other plants, but this was beneficial in the heat of the summer. The amount of shade the provided was never an issue for the other plants though, it was very limited. Its all about how you harvest them. Mine did grow to about 7 feet last year, but I never let them get bushy. basically as I harvested the okra pods, I would trim that leaf they grew above. This put all the energy of the plant to growing veggies and vertically like a bamboo shoot. I only leave enough leaves to keep it healthy and these are typically the leaves at the top of the plant. Once they get about 4 feet tall, I begin to grow green beans and other lower veggies at their base. Green beans pair great with them because of the nitrogen benefit
    .

  • slowjane CA/ Sunset 21
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    i wish i could put another bed behind - unfortunately, that's my garage! we are operating with very limited space around here. ;) perhaps it's time for veggies in the front yard.

    planter jeff did you stake them? maybe if i plant them a few rows in front of my cucumbers - since they will also get tall, and don't need (as much?) sun as tomatoes? hmmm....

  • minkies
    9 years ago

    Oddly Okra was one of the few things that refused to grow in my garden last year. Keep us updated in your progress with it

  • slowjane CA/ Sunset 21
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    this is the bed i'm thinking it would go in - this is looking northwest - the back row essentially faces east - so in the lower right corner (i.e. north east) i'm thinking it wouldn't shade other things out much?

    i keep looking at pictures and they really get big! but heck, you know it's all a big experiment right? ;)

  • lazy_gardens
    9 years ago

    Clemson spineless, in my yard, is usually 3x3x3.

    It's way too big for a square foot garden.

  • planterjeff
    9 years ago

    I have always grown the Clemson spineless variety (exclusively) and I do on per square foot. I attached a early season (may) and a very late season (mid October) picture from a couple years ago. I did not have the grids installed yet, but this box is 4X2. You can see that early on the plant can be a bit dense, but once the harvesting starts you can start pruning it a bit more. My window frame is 8 feet above the garden box. I had a jalapeno plant, egg plant and, tomato plant on the back side and they all did well. Green beans were directly under the okra by mid season.

  • planterjeff
    9 years ago

    Picture 2. Late season when the Okra hit over 7 feet. The broccoli plants in the back left row were decoys for worms. I can't stop them here in GA so I have to plant some sacrificial plants throughout my beds and by this time of the season I kind of just let them have at it because im pretty much done with the war by this point. But you can see. I do not stake them because they grow very thick stems that are almost woody like at this point. In this picture ,you can still see the eggplant, carrots, green beans, pepper, and where the tomato was ( i had already removed it for the season). I had just harvested after this picture and was leaving the last pods on to form seed.

    This post was edited by PlanterJeff on Tue, Apr 15, 14 at 15:06

  • slowjane CA/ Sunset 21
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    wow! very nice illustrations jeff! thanks for posting these. makes it much clearer....

    what kind of yield did you get with three plants? we are a household of two (and i'm really the one who likes okra)... I was thinking two might be good?

    I think that lower right corner could be an interesting experiment! i might also put a couple in the front yard and camouflage them as ornamental plants since their flowers are pretty....

    lazygardens - does it seem like if you had pruned as you went along it might look like jeff's? your climate is probably closer to mine....

  • planterjeff
    9 years ago

    Once the blooms came into full swing I was able to harvest about 3-10 pods every two to three days and sometimes even more. Three healthy plants will provide enough for two-three people in my opinion. I let the pods get to be a little bigger than suggested,about 5 inches so sometimes I would let them sit an extra day. They are still tender at this point in my garden. This makes for at least one family size serving a week. I actually chop it up and freeze and have enough for my wife and I through the entire year. Consider a 4 inch Okra would make at least 8 bite size pieces at half an inch or 16 pieces at a quarter inch, so honestly 2 4 inch pieces could be enough for one serving if you like smaller portions. This is a picture my average harvest. Its funny, I actually had these pictures because my brother asked for some pictures for the exact same reason that year. This was also late season, so the okra were a little more crooked by this point because the bugs were getting bad down here that year.

  • slowjane CA/ Sunset 21
    Original Author
    9 years ago

    Wow great - thanks for the info! And very pretty okra!! I can't wait.... and good tip about cutting them and freezing them. I will try to post back here with my progress.

    Planting the seeds today....

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