what is that boy doing to his okra plants that boy don't know how to grow okra he's
gonna kill them plants ain't gonna make no okra doing that right there that's
what they've been saying when they ride by late in the afternoons and the cars seen
me out here cutting this okra like this so today I'm going to show you how I
like to grow okra now this isn't the only way to grow okra and I'm sure a
bunch of you out there will tell me this is not a good way to grow okra but this
is how I like to grow okra and how I always do it and maybe if you feel the
same way I do about some of the things we're going to talk about you want to
grow your okra this way too you see how wide and bushy these Star of David okra
plants are that means when I come in here and have to harvest this okra I got
to come in here and fight through all this foliage here leaves slapping me in
the face getting stung up by all these little stingers on the bottom side of
these leaves here it just takes a long time to come in here harvest and it's
just aggravating so needless to say I don't care much for bushy okra I like my
okra plants to look like this right here for several different reasons reason
number one and probably the main reason is just it makes it so much easier to
harvest I can see those pods right there I don't have to look for them they're
all right on top I can come in here with my knife or if they're a little wet snap
them off like that and I can just pick these things so much faster and get in
here ain't gotta fight through all those leaves just right there boom boom quick
okra harvest and the second main reason is for some of my weed control and just
keeping everything clean down here at the base of these plants with them big
bushy plants even though I've got a lot of ground cover there I'm still gonna
get some weeds popping up in there like this guy right here or this guy
here when I've got it clean near the bottom here and I can see down there I
could come in here with my single tine or another hoe and I can easily keep
this nice and clean when it's big and bushed out like that I really can't weed
underneath it it's hard to manage and this right here just looks neater looks
better to me and like I said it's easier to keep the weeds under control easier
to pick it so this is how I like to grow my okra now it has rained every
afternoon this week it usually knocks off about 7:30 or 8:00 which still gives
me about an hour to come out here in the garden and pick some stuff for that
afternoon rain has put a hamper on my okra harvesting or my okra
picking schedule you see I don't like to pick wet okra because if I pick wet
okra that means I got to use a towel or some method to dry it off before I
put it in the fridge yeah you can harvest wet okra take it inside cook it
up not a problem but if you're storing it in the fridge for later to eat or
maybe you're gonna sell a little bit you definitely don't want to put it in the
fridge wet so I haven't been able to pick my okra like I wanted to and as we
walk around this okra plot today you'll see some pods that have gotten too big
and we'll just cut those and and let them drop on the ground there so while I
haven't been able to pick this okra in the afternoons this week I have been
able to concentrate on coming out here and cleaning up my okra plants pruning
them getting them nice and cleaned up along the bottom of that stalk just like
I like them now there's eight rows of okra in here and I've already knocked
out six of them this week so I got two more to go and I'll just show you how to
do this and I'm just gonna come in here with my pruning shears and I'm gonna get
off all these bottom limbs and you can see these limbs that I've already made
an okra pod and don't mean they wouldn't make another one if I didn't
leave it here we'll talk about that in a minute but I'm just going to get all
these bottom limbs off here and then that way when I'm coming through here I
can see all my good okra that needs picking
right at the top another kind of reason that necessitated me trimming these
things is because a lot of times I was coming through here and I couldn't find
all the okra and the next time I come in here and harvest it I'd end up with a
bunch of them that were just too big like that Star of David right there that's
hard as a rock you can't eat that ain't fit for eatin for nobody but probably some
chickens so you know I was wasting a lot of okra because I just couldn't see it
in there and so I figured cleaning it up like this like I like to do make it so I
could see it easier I'm gonna actually get to harvest all the pods that are
created from this okra and I don't let any get too big like this guy right here
that okra ain't fittin to eat it's just too big now I know what you're thinking
right now some y'all out there watching are either
about to do one of two things some of you are about to comment and tell me
that I am losing so much okra production by doing things this way
and then the rest of you that are a little bit curious about this technique
are about to ask a question in the comments asking me do I lose any
production doing it this way so let me just be upfront and honest here because
that's what we're all about here we want to show you different ways to grow your
own food but tell you the advantages and disadvantages of every technique you
will lose some production doing this those side branches that I'm trimming
off those things will produce okra and they'll produce a good bit of okra so I
am sacrificing a good bit of production by doing this however in my situation
here I've got eight rows of okra in this plot I've got plenty of okra we're not
gonna starve from this okra plot here we'll have plenty of production so it's
okay for me if you just had a few okra plants you might not want to do this
mine are kind of packed in here so pruning like that just keeps it clean
makes me able to get down the rows get around those plants navigate through
there and harvest it better so yes I'm going to lose some production doing it
this way but in my mind the efficiency of the harvest being able to get in
there not having to fight through all that foliage it's well worth it and I
would just rather do it that way to go through pick it quick as opposed
to spending an hour out here fighting through all those leaves trying to find
okra pods now another thing to address here is whether we will continue pruning
this okra as it grows taller and same thing with just pruning it initially
that's up to you sometimes and I did this last summer I just kind of pruned
it up to a certain height here and then I kind of let it bush out at the top
there and that was pretty you know manageable I kind of like doing it that
way so you can come in here every time you harvest a pod just like this one
right here this Cowhorn okra you can cut that limb and that pod off and kind
of prune it as it grows there or you can do like I tend to do let it bush out a
little bit so you do get some of that side chute production and then come in
here every few weeks or so and then kind of clean it up a little bit so it's
easier to get around those plants either way it's the same now you don't want to
do this come in here and kind of take a bunch of these branches off if you don't
have a decent amount of irrigation or if it's you know the soil is too dry because it
will stress the plant a little bit it won't kill it but it will stress it a
little bit this soil was pretty wet because we've had rain every day this
week so it was a good time for me to do this it's not gonna stress those plants
too much now while I got y'all here I figured I'd go ahead and mention this
technique as well and I know a lot of our viewers and customers use this
technique so as opposed to my strategy which I want kind of narrow plants non
bushy plants I'm trying to reduce the amount of foliage on those plants to
make it easier to get in there and harvest some people want big big bushy
okra plants because they produce a ton of okra and they do so what they'll do
is a complete opposite of what I'm doing
and they'll come in here when this okra gets about oh here four or five foot
tall hiney high like this start David they'll come in here and cut the top out
of it and what that's going to do and it's going to reduce the vertical growth
and create much more horizontal growth there and you'll get okra all over the
place and that's a great idea if you want to maximize your okra production
you want to keep those plants from getting too tall but the downside is
it's probably going to take you a little longer to harvest it because you're
gonna have to fight through there walk around that plant several times look for
all them okra pods and so forth so the takeaway here is that there is no right
or wrong way to grow okra and don't ever let anyone tell you that there is you
see the great thing about okra is is the plants are so resilient they're heat
tolerant they're drought tolerant they're just resilient plants and so
they can take a lot of abuse if you want to prune them up or if you want to let
them grow out that's fine too it doesn't matter either way just do what works
well for your space if you like to stack them in here thick like I do you may
want to clean them up a little bit if you just have a few okra plants you've
got plenty of room to work all around them 360 degrees you might want to just
let them Bush out and make these massive okra plants that are gonna make a ton of
okra so do what works for you and if anybody tries to tell you any
different you tell them listen here in my garden I'll grow my okra how I want
to and in your garden you can grow your okra however you want to this world we
live in would be pretty boring if everybody was the same and everybody did
things the exact same way I'd really like to hear from all you out there how
you like to grow your okra you do it like I do it do you let it bush out make
big bushy plants or maybe somewhere in between or something I didn't even think
of here so tell me your okra growing strategy how you like to do it and what
works for you and why it works for you I'll put a link below to all our okra
varieties so you can check those out still plenty of time to get okra planted
if you haven't already if you enjoyed this video make sure to give me a big
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enjoy this video check out these other two okra videos right here I think
you'll really like those as well we'll see you next time