I will also add the red varieties are, besides being a bit of heaven on earth in the culinary sense, extremely ornamental with bright butter yellow blooms and dark green leaves with red viens and stems/ Okra is a member of the Mallow family which includes hibiscus and cotton. I also enjoy the history behind our food especially our southern cuisine. Okra is native to Africa and was brought to America during the slave trade. Laborers were fed foods from the region they were taken from and when the slave ships arrived in America the laborers and the excess stores of food were auctioned off. The plantation owners also bought the food stores which consisted of sweet potatoes, Okra and field peas to feed the slaves and as seed crops for the slaves. Slaves were not worthy of eating the vegetables crops grown for the masters kitchen in Colonia America, only the field crops grown for them could they eat. It wasn't until the 1800's did southerns, namely poor southerners, called Crackers, rednecks and white trash began to humble themselves and eat the nutritious and wholesome crops of the slaves and by the time of the civil war, Peas, cornbread,Okra and sweet potatoes and many other foods could be found on every plate in the south and were an intergal part of southern culture and cooking. The okra seed was ground into a powder and used as a flour and thickening agent, this is why the seed was brought on the slave ships. The leaves of the okra plant were boiled or stir fried like cabbage and the pods eaten fried or boiled. It is hard to comprehend that 200 years ago a white man would'nt even consider eating gumbo, a food of the laborers ,and today I can't imagine life without it.To coin a phrase from Paul Harvey " Now you know the rest of the story." Rodger who is from the Okra capital of the world "Irmo SC" and home of the annual Okra strut festival each fall. Here is a link that might be useful: Okra strut

Farmgardener, Thanks for the kind words. I have to confess that I had released ladybugs for years before I finally figured out what the larvae looked like....and then it was only because I saw these peculiar gray alligator-shaped things and wanted to know what they were. Much 'googling' later, I knew they were ladybug larvae. Okiefamily, You know, the larvae are actually cuter than they appear in that photo. Most of the ones I see are a lighter gray with some pale orange splotches. If I can google and find a photo of some that look like that, I will link it below. They do look really, really odd as they get older and begin to look more like actual lady bugs. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful:

Nancy, I apologize for taking so long to reply, life got in the way! Your watering schedule will depend on your soil, and its organic matter content. Mulch also really helps, although when the ground gets as dry as it has been out here, it can seem like a losing battle no matter what you do. We planted our okra in a new bed this year that we just tilled, so it is very sandy, with lower OM content than we would like, so we have had to water daily when temps were around 100F. Most people will tell you watering daily is bad, and encourages shallow roots. I agree, but with this dry sand, we simply cant keep up with the moisture being pulled away in every direction. We can water heavily for an hour, and if we skip a day after that, the plants will wilt, and the soil will be dry about 4-6" down. Our okra looks great now that we have been watering, and we can hardly keep up with harvesting. I would guess the soil in South TX is probably similar. Good luck, and hopefully you are getting some of this rain that just showed up.

No, she knows it's not oedema. It's a byproduct of simple guttation and the crystallization of the exudates. I don't know what the chemical makeup is of okra exudates.....if it was spinach that we are talking about we'd know that they are calcium oxalate crystals. I don't know what comes from the okra pores, but it's perfectly normal.