Okra

Okra is a very strange vege to kiddo. In fact it’s not wrong to say that she has a love hate relationship to it. She doesn’t like the ‘sliminess’ within but likes the texture on the outside. For me, it’s more of a comfort food, especially when it is stir fried with chilli shrimp paste / belachan and served on piping hot rice. It’s also funny for her because in Mandarin it is called Antlers Bean 羊角豆, and I had to explain to her that it bears some resemblance to, well, antlers.

We bought a punnet of 7 seedlings from Bunnings and planted next to the snow peas. So that when they grow taller, they will be strong enough to support the climbing beans.

3 weeks after sowing

They seem to be hassle free so far though they did get some aphids appearing during the 12th week post planting. After placing some ant bait and manually crushing the aphids the situation seems to be under control. There had been help from a few ladybugs too, though it could also very well be that the aphids had hopped on to other plants. Arggghhhhh.

Okra bud
Maybe will flower soon. 10 weeks after transplanting

They seemed to be growing quite fast recently, considering that they had only been planted for about 12 weeks.

And by 15 weeks they are past the height of the strawberry cage.

The leaves are poking through the trellis and we are finally seeing the okra flowers blooming. Perhaps we don’t have to wait too long for the okras to come through.