Okra

Check the soil temperature at 4 inches deep before you sow. Below 65F, wait. Sow about 3/4 inch deep in rows 3 to 6 feet apart, with 9 to 12 inches between seeds in the row. Sow several seeds per hole to insure the stand, then thin back to one plant per hole. Germination is best between 70F and 95F. Okra is a tropical mallow, and root-decay diseases that kill young seedlings are its single most serious problem in cold, wet soil. Seed sown into a chilly seedbed sits there and rots instead of germinating, so sowing early buys you nothing and often costs you the stand.

If your frost-free window is tight, start seed indoors 4 to 5 weeks before you plan to set plants out, and transplant only after soil temperatures reach about 75F. Choose a compact early hybrid such as Annie Oakley II, which does well in cool, short-season gardens. Okra needs roughly 90 days to mature, which is more warm weather than a northern garden hands out for free. Starting indoors moves the clock forward without asking cold soil to germinate the seed.

In cooler gardens, lay black plastic mulch over the bed before planting and set or sow through it. It suppresses weeds and raises soil temperature. Okra's whole season is governed by soil warmth, and black plastic buys back several degrees at root level, which is often the difference between a crop and a shrug in a short-summer zone.

When plants have grown too tall to pick and production is falling off, mow or prune the stems to 6 to 12 inches above the soil line and fertilize with a 1:2 nitrogen-to-potassium fertilizer (4-0-8, 5-0-10, or 10-0-20) at 2 to 3 pounds per 100 feet of row. Expect renewed pod production in about 4 to 6 weeks, continuing until first frost. Count back from YOUR first frost date before you cut: if there is not comfortably more than 6 weeks of frost-free weather left, the regrowth will never bear and you have thrown the crop away. Cutting back forces new branches from the base, and those young shoots flower far more freely than the exhausted top of a leggy plant. The 4 to 6 week regrowth lag is the whole gamble, which is why your first fall frost date, not the calendar month, decides whether it is worth doing.

Once you have picked the first pods, scatter about 1 cup of garden fertilizer per 10 feet of row evenly between the rows, mix it lightly into the soil, and water it in. Okra fruits continuously until frost, and every pod is a fresh draw on the plant's nitrogen. Waiting until pods are actually coming off matters, because heavy nitrogen on young plants pushes leaf growth and reduces pod set.

While you pick, look for pods that are twisted, kinked, or warty rather than straight, and check leaf undersides and growing tips for aphids. Stink bugs and leaffooted bugs are the culprits behind distorted pods. Hand-pick the bugs, keep weedy borders down, and protect the natural enemies already working the planting. Stink bugs and leaffooted bugs pierce the developing pod wall and their feeding sites deform the pod as it elongates, so by the time you see the twist the insect has usually moved on. Distortion is the symptom that tells you they are present at all.

If corn earworm or armyworms are chewing leaves or boring into pods, spray a Bacillus thuringiensis product such as DiPel DF or Xentari DF. Treat while the larvae are still young and cover the plant thoroughly, including the growing tips where eggs are laid. Bt has to be eaten to work, so it only reaches larvae that are still actively feeding on treated tissue. Large caterpillars shrug it off and an earworm that has already bored into a pod is beyond reach of any spray, which is why the size of the larva decides whether this works.

Pods are ready about 4 to 6 days after the flower opens. Cut them at the base with a knife or clippers while they are 2 to 3 inches long and still tender; 4 inches is the outside limit on the larger-podded varieties. Harvest at least every other day. Cut off and discard any pod that got away from you -- it is woody and inedible, but leaving it on costs you the rest of the season. A pod left to mature is a seed the plant reads as mission accomplished, and it throttles back flowering and further pod set. Removing the overgrown pods is what keeps the plant blooming into fall, and the oversized ones are woody anyway.