O is for Okra

Okra, a vegetable that is found mainly in southern dishes is being grown in the Old Six Mile Community Garden.  This little sucker is pretty crafty.  Just when you think you have picked all that is on the plant, boom, there is a huge one hiding next to the stem.  And when it comes to okra, bigger is not better.  Which goes against everything I believe in in terms of gardening.

Okra can be fried, steamed, baked, grilled, or pickled, but the most common way is fried.  In the South okra is a main ingredient in gumbo. The okra plant can grown between 2-8 feet so if you stop by the garden and see a ladder in the middle of the plants, you will know why. Luckily for us okra does well in drought conditions and since we haven't seen rain in almost 3 months it is doing pretty good.  It is best to harvest the pods when they are between 2-4 inches long.  If they get any longer than that they become tough and no longer any good.  Again this goes against my grain but my mom makes sure that they get harvested on time.

These okra are to large.  You may be asking yourself why I let them get so big.  My answer is, because I don't see them until one day I look down and BAM there they are.  Then I get a look from my mom or a smart aleck comment from my nephew that emphasizes that I just wasted an okra pod.

 The okra pod on the right is about the size you want them to be when harvested.  A word of caution about harvesting okra that my mom told me, and that I learned when I didn't listen to her.  Wear gloves!!  If you don't there is a very good chance that you will get the "okra itchies".  There is also a very good chance that I made that phrase up, but you get the idea.  I scratched and scratched and heard "see, I told you" many times before I learned never to pick the okra plant without gloves on.

 As you can hopefully tell from these pictures, okra are very good at the art of disguise.  The bigger they get the more they look like plant stems.  I consider it a game of hide and seek that I will not be losing!

If anybody knows any great okra recipes let me know, I would love to try some out.  I do know that Cracker Barrel and Lambert's serve fried okra.  And before you ask, that was not a paid endorsement, I am just passing on information  : )

HAPPY FRYING!!!!!