The red podded yardlongs have a firm texture, and somewhat of a nutty flavor. They mature later than some of the green-podded types (especially those with black seeds), and seem to prefer more heat than many of the green-podded varieties. The yield is good, but slightly less than the black-seeded varieties below. I enjoy them in part because they keep their burgundy color when cooked. There is wide variation in green-podded varieties. The black-seeded ones I've tried are generally earlier, more tolerant of cool weather, bear heavily, and have tender (even delicate) pods. One of the black-seeded varieties (with dark green pods & purple tips) has the strongest flavor of those that I've tasted; it goes by several names, including Asparagus Bean and Liana. Green-podded / red-seeded varieties seem to benefit from longer seasons, be firmer & often sweeter as a rule, have very long pods, and yields ranging from medium to somewhat heavy. Pods can be anywhere from very light green to deep green. There are many more discussions of yardlong beans on both the Bean Forum, and the Asian Vegetable Forum.

Paula, I think if you follow Jay's recommendations, you'll be okay but there is no guarantee unless you bag your blossoms before they open. It is easy to do. Here's how: Buy a package of those little organza bags sold to hold rice or wedding favors. I get them on the wedding supply aisle at Wal-Mart, and I'm sure craft stores would have them as well. They come in a package of maybe 10 or 12 and you want to buy bags large enough that it will have room for the opened flower inside it. You also could make your own bags from spun polyester row cover type material or even use the foot of a nylon stocking. In the late afternoon or early evening, go outside to your okra plants and select a flower that looks like it will open the next morning. Flowers that are ready to open are a little 'fat' compared to younger flowers, and perhaps a little lighter in color. Gently pull the bag down over the blossom. Secure the bag pretty tightly around the stem so smaller insects cannot wiggle through and cause cross pollination. You can use twist ties, rubber bands, a pipe cleaner, etc. Okra flowers are perfect, so they are self-pollinating, but because they are large and showy, bees and other pollinators like to visit them and that is what causes the cross-pollination. By excluding them from the flower by use of the bag, the okra you've bagged should give you pure seed. Leave the bag on for two days....the day the flower opens and the entire next day. After that, you can reuse the bag, but wait 2 days before reusing the bag on any okra plant to avoid spreading viable pollen that may be inside the bag. (Okra pollen can remain viable up to 24 hours, so waiting 2 days should be safe.) Be sure that at the exact time you remove the bag, you 'tag' or 'mark' the formerly bagged pod so you'll remember to save it for seed and not eat it. You can tag it with anything that will help you remember...I like to use a brightly colored surveyor's tape. The other surefire barrier method is to put a screened box, made of wood framing and window screening or spun polyester row cover, over the okra plant you want to save seed from. If you do this, make sure there's no place at the ground where a pollinator can creep, crawl or slide under the cage. Isolation by distance wouldn't work as a sure-fire method because the different kinds of okra would have to be at least 1 mile from one another. I know you have acreage...but not quite that much. Okra, by the way is related to roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa), cotton and hibiscus, but the pollen of those various plants will not cross with the okra. To harvest your 'bagged' pods for seed saving, let them mature fully on the plant and then pick them, and lay them in a single layer on something out of the sun so they can continue to dry out. When they are dry enough, they'll split open on their own and you can then remove and dry the seed. Dawn

It's hard to make generalities about over 1 billion people, lol. But I have found that there are many, many Chinese families who don't stir-fry at all, or do it very seldom. Not every American family eats burgers and hot dogs, either, for a local analogy. I guess if others judged American culture by TV ads and billboards, they would think we all lived on a daily diet of McDonald's Big Macs! But in general, many Asian cuisines do have a "triple path". There is home cooking; there is restaurant cooking; and there is banquet, or feast, food. I was talking to my Hong Kong-born Chinese-Portugese DH a few weeks ago, and he (finally) remembered to tell me a story about one of his uncles who died over 15 yrs ago. This uncle was famous in the family for making the Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, or ho yau gai lan as it used to be spelled (I'm terrible with the new spellings, sorry). I've done this dish, and it seems very simple. Blanch the gai lan, stir-fry it quickly, drizzle it with oyster sauce. What's so hard about it? DH told me his uncle was so meticulous and painstaking about doing this dish, it was intimidating even to just watch him. Every cut had to be a precise size, the water had to be just the right temperature, the timing was down to the second. The wok had to be heated for XX number of minutes with just enough oil but not too much; the tossing and last-minute steaming done always the same way. In six decades of eating, DH says his uncle's gai lan remains the best. And every time, because he was so exacting about it, it was always perfect. But it was a lot of work, done to ensure that nothing was left to chance. He very seldom made it, in fact. Just the news that there was going to be a party and that Uncle had promised to make his gai lan, was enough to make everybody, even reluctant-to-socialize teenagers, show up for dinner! Oh, and outside of the gai lan, hardly anyone in DH's family, all 200+ members in Vancouver BC, stir-fries. Most of them don't even own a wok, which is interesting because otherwise they've kept their HK culture intact very assiduously. Unlike the American relatives, all of whom by the second generation barely remember their Cantonese, all the Canadian relatives speak Cantonese at home, so that even the fourth generation little kids are bi-lingual.

I got my package yesterday but I was out until late and didn't really get a chance to look too much. Thanks Tammy for a great swap and big thank you to everyone that participated! Hopefully I'll have time tonight to really take a look and drool over all my new seeds!