Showing posts with label okra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label okra. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Growing organic okra

Okra, also known as lady finger or bhindi is officially called Abelmoschus esculentus. The name 'okra' comes from West Africa, as someone told me when I worked in Nigeria, and it's popular for thickening the stew that goes with garri.
Anyway, we planted some and found that they grew easily. In the full sun with not a lot of care or attention needed. The only problem is that each plant does not produce a lot of fruits at a time, and they are relatively large.
The flowers appear at the interstice, with the first one at about 20-40 cm off the ground. The plant keeps growing, so you have to harvest them as it grows, to avoid them becoming too hard. In the end, the plants grew to about 1.5-2m, over a cycle of about three months.

They are very tasty when cooked straight from the plant :p

Information on okra from Purdue University.