By Kimberly Koogler and Yaza Sarieh
Kimberly Koogler is the Farm to School Coordinator at Georgia Organics. Yaza Sarieh is a Farm to School Contractor with Georgia Organics, as well as a Child Health and Wellness Intern with the Georgia Department of Public Health.
For more guidance that will include more visual aids for all the visual learners out there and will also be more entertaining, please save the date for our upcoming virtual Good Food for Thought event, all about getting ready for Livin’ la Vida Okra on Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 3:00 pm. This fun AND practical event will include a presentation on how to plant your okra seeds with students, as well as a special on-site demonstration. So, mark your calendars, and we’ll all plant okra together this Summer, and then we will celebrate a bountiful okra harvest together during October Farm to School Month!
We are celebrating okra this October for National Farm to School Month, but preparations will begin long before October! If you want your school garden to be ready with a bountiful okra harvest, you should plant your okra before you come back for school in the Fall. Okra takes a few months to get to the point where it is producing vigorously, but once there, it will give and give until the first frost. For the most bountiful okra harvest, we recommend planting your okra either before school gets out in May or during the summer break, in June or July.
This means that someone will need to take care of it while school is not in session! School gardens are often neglected during the summer, but with a little help from the school community, they can survive and even thrive. With advance planning, you can ensure your okra crop and any other summer vegetables growing in the garden are flourishing and in abundant supply when school starts back up again.
From Mis Pequenos Angeles, photo credit: Linden Tree Photography
How to recruit and manage help from your school community:
About a month before school gets out for the summer, advertise the need for summer school garden helpers through announcements, newsletters, e-mail communications, and social media.
Clearly communicate your goals for the garden: Let folks know what the goals are--one being thriving okra plants--and shout it from the rooftops that we’ll be Livin’ La Vida Okra this Fall!
Engage students in virtual outreach efforts, encouraging them to share with their families and on social media. This will not only help spread the word but will also increase students’ sense of ownership of the school garden.
Check-in with educators who may be hosting summer school sessions or summer camps at the school to coordinate schedules and/or cross collaborate.
Use Calendly (https://calendly.com/), Sign Up Genius (https://www.signupgenius.com/), Google Calendar, or another online group scheduling tool and ask volunteers to commit to one or two weeks of summer garden maintenance.
Helpful hints: Make sure you understand your school district’s policies regarding volunteers and summer programming to ensure rules and regulations are followed (e.g., filing waivers for volunteers, getting access to school grounds, water, etc.).
Check out this Collective School Garden Network “Building a School Garden Support Network” resource
From My Little Geniuses, photo credit: Linden Tree Photography
Once you have recruited summer garden helpers, you’ll need to provide some guidance and simple instructions:
Outline a plan for weekly maintenance tasks, such as watering, weeding, harvesting, etc.
If you haven’t already done so, add planting okra to the to-do list! Be sure to include clear instructions on where to plant the okra seeds.
Create a simple maintenance calendar that is accessible to all your garden helpers and populate it with tasks to be done on a weekly basis.
Include optional tasks that would be nice to have done but are not critical for garden survival as extra options to keep your garden lovers happy and busy.
Post your maintenance calendar in the garden and online. Use Google Calendar or whatever your school’s preferred shared calendar is. Make sure the sharing settings are open to all garden helpers, and share the calendar with all garden helpers on social media, through newsletters, and email.
Courtesy of Kimberly Koogler
Guidance on Planting and Caring for Okra
When?
Okra thrives in the heat and full sun and should be planted when the days become consistently warm. In Georgia, the ideal time is late April through July.
Which okra varieties should you plant?
Spineless varieties will be kinder to everyone’s skin. Otherwise, okra thrives in our climate, so you can’t go wrong with any variety! Southern Exposure Seed Exchange has 18 different varieties to choose from. You can also wait until the sign-up for Livin’ La Vida Okra goes live in June. The first 300 people who sign up will be mailed a resource packet, which will include two okra seed packets.
How?
Okra can be direct-seeded or transplanted, but its root system prefers to be direct-seeded. Sow seeds ¾ to 1 inch deep, spaced approximately 18 inches apart, in rows 5 to 6 feet apart. If transplanting, start seeds in trays or pots 2-3 weeks before planting outside.
Courtesy of Kimberly Koogler
Then what?
Keep the area around your okra plants free of weeds, especially while the plants are still young. After pulling weeds, you can apply a thick layer of mulch to prevent any more weeds from growing. When the seedlings are a few inches tall, thin them out so that they are at least 18 inches apart. Okra plants can grow to be quite large, so it’s important to give them ample space to branch out and flourish.
Keep your okra plants well-watered, especially while they are flowering and producing pods.
How to Harvest Okra
The sooner you plant your okra this Summer, the sooner you’ll start harvesting it, and once your plants start putting out pods, you need to stay on top of harvesting!
You can use a knife or scissors to cut the okra pods from the plant (students should be careful!), or you can gently snap the stem of the okra pod from the plant. Harvest while the pods are still tender. Generally, this means at 2 to 3 inches; however, if it has been rainy (and warm), the pods will grow faster and can be longer yet still tender. Try to harvest daily, or at least every other day, in order to harvest while pods are still tender and to encourage the plant to keep producing pods.
Okra pods become woody if they’re left on the plant for too many days. Remove the woody pods and save them for another use or toss them into the compost. Leave the tiny pods to grow a little longer and gain more flavor.
Be sure to share the summer garden harvest!
Show appreciation to volunteers by allowing them to take home some of the harvested produce. Sending gratitude and giving due credit to participants can create long-term investment in your gardening projects and generate a greater sense of community.
For more guidance that will include more visual aids for all the visual learners out there and will also be more entertaining, please save the date for our upcoming virtual Good Food for Thought event, all about getting ready for Livin’ la Vida Okra on Wednesday, June 23, 2021 at 3:00 pm. This fun AND practical event will include a presentation on how to plant your okra seeds with students, as well as a special on-site demonstration. So, mark your calendars, and we’ll all plant okra together this Summer, and then we will celebrate a bountiful okra harvest together during October Farm to School Month!