Asparagus

[Bird]

Egon, I suppose since okra is a plant that does well in hot climates, it just never caught on up north. I remember years ago when my mother-in-law came to visit from West Virginia, she said she'd never eaten okra or blackeyed peas until she visited us. She liked both. I once bought a couple of jars of pickled okra in a grocery store in Nebraska, but noticed on the label that it came from San Antonio, TX. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] It's common to see it on salad bars in restaurants around here.

[Chuck52]

The Talk of Texas brand of pickled okra is pretty common in stores around here. We have one place called World Harvest, run by some middle eastern folks, which has all kinds of exotic foods from all over the world. They also carry Talk of Texas pickled okra. I guess it is exotic. Turns out okra is very popular in India. They do all kinds of things with it, including using it in curries. One of the Indian postdoctoral fellows has already asked me if I will be growing okra this year, because I had so much two years ago that I brought bags of it in to work. It disappeared instantly.

Chuck

[Bird]

Chuck, in my pre-teen and early-teen years, in Healdon, OK, okra was one of my "money" crops. I picked it every other day and took it town and sold it to the grocery stores. Early in the season, I'd get as much as 35 cents a pound, and by late summer 5 cents a pound. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Pat]

Bird and Egon, Yea verily... pickled okra on Fri night at the local eatery goes well with fried catfish. We raised okra in northwest Ohio. I don't know how far north you can successfuly grow it. I don't recall seing any G I A N T okra when I went to the Alaskan state fair.

I bet if you started the seed indoors in milk jugs or some such sacrificial container and then transplanted it after the soil warmed up (Egon, the soil does warm up in your area doesn't it?) that you could grown it up in the frozen north in Egon's area. If the pods never "made" properly, at least you could boil the tender young leaves.

I really like asparagus and am amused by the rapidity with which the odiferous compounds exit the body. It really does smell the same leaving as entering.

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Chuck52]

For 100 crowns, I think you'll need the extra space. I put mine about 18 inches apart in trenches. In one bed I have two trenches that are about three feet apart. I guess the plants spread some, but in my five year old bed, the plants still haven't grown together. They have spread out a bit, and now spears come up in perhaps one foot circles about each crown location. Be sure to mulch them good to keep the weeds out. It is much easier to prevent weed encroachment than to try to dig the weeds out from among the plants without getting into the asparagus. I got some used sawdust from a guy with horses. He used it in the stalls, and it was saturated with horse effluent. It worked great to stop the weeds and probably fertilized the asparagus at the same time. You might also find it worthwhile to put in some support lines for the ferns, at least around the outside of your bed, so that you can mow close. The ferns get really tall and then droop over, or blow over in the wind, making it difficult to mow close.

Chuck

[Chuck52]

This year I have four 50 foot rows of okra in the ground....no sprouts yet. I usually just do two rows, but I started a new corn plot and had extra room there, and the seeds, so what the heck. If all that comes up, and there's no guarantee because the corn plot is not going to be irrigated, I'll have so much okra the Indian students may not be able to eat it all.

I make pickled okra but I have trouble getting the jars full of the pickle liquid. I may be trying to get too many spears in each jar. I pack the jars fairly tightly and then fill with the boiling hot pickle liquid. I fill to the correct level, but the spears always have some air in them, and over time that escapes and I get air bubbles over the okra in the jars. The okra is still fine, but the jars won't win any beauty contests. My older son took the last jar a couple of weeks ago.

Chuck

[Bird]

Nope, Pat, I didn't see an okra in Alaska either, but many years ago, my Dad did make the local newspaper for producing a pineapple in Anchorage (indoors in the basement of the house, of course.) [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[GregMVT]

I plan on using the pine shavings from the chicken coop for mulch. The coop is 8x10 and will have 15 birds so it should help fertilize too. The only okra I've had has been the deep fried. There is a store we go to every week that usually has some canned okra, I'll have to pick up a can tomorrow when we go shopping and try it. Is it like spinach??

Greg

[Bird]

Greg, is that canned okra pickled? Fried is the only way my wife eats it, and if you've never eaten any stewed or steamed, you're in for a big surprise.

[egon]

Asparagass is a heavy feeder.

Egon