Ben and a few other members stayed with the farm tour after the sauce party on Sunday to check out the Okra. Liz, being a Texan Girl, wanted us to plant the crop. She choose three varieties and we can now start picking. Unfortunately none of us had time to thin or weed the crop by hand so we cannot see its full potential but we definitely know it will grow well here. The ones Ben is holding are too big for frying but probably ok for Gumbo, so I am told.
One downside of the crop is that it attracts cucumber beetle. I have not seen this bug on the farm for several years. When we started here in the late 90’s it was on everything from sunflowers to summer squash. There are summer squash next to the Okra and I could not find one bug on them. I like to think that we now have a good population of predators who keep the bad bug population under control. Even so I am not sure that I want to invite the cucumber beetles back on the farm with a crop that they seem to love so much. We will not have enough to put the Okra in your box but if you can make it to a farm event over the next month you are welcome to pick as much as you want.