By Kimberly Koogler
Kimberly Koogler is the Farm to School Coordinator at Georgia Organics and a former farmer at Cosmos Farm, where this event took place.
Last week the Farm to School team gathered on a hot, sunny day at Cosmos Farm in Carrollton, GA to start livin’ la vida okra.
We began by reviewing how you can participate in Livin’ la Vida Okra and what you get out of it. Then we covered the basics of planting okra on a small scale, and Little Ones Learning Center’s garden educator Farmer Trin and their PreK class showed us how to plant okra in one of their raised bed gardens.
As it turns out, preK students are really good at instructing how to plant okra seeds, and they look very cute while doing so!
Farmer Trin and Georgia PreK planting okra seeds at Little Ones Learning Center in Forest Park, GA
Finally, Farmer John Davis professed his undying love for okra, showed us how they plant okra at Cosmos Farm, using his old, faithful tool, the Earthway seeder. He also shared with us a couple of funny okra harvesting stories, involving a snake and the notorious “okra itch.”
Farmer John demonstrated how they plant okra seeds at Cosmos Farm using a nifty tool, the Earthway seeder.
It was a fun way to kick the summer off and to get some okra seeds planted in anticipation of October Farm to School Month! In case you missed it, here are some key takeaways:
· Okra is easy to grow, low maintenance, highly productive, resilient, and beautiful!
· The sooner you plant it, the more okra you’ll be able to harvest, up until the first frost.
· There are so many ways to enjoy okra, pickled being one of the favorites at Cosmos.
When you sign up to participate in Livin’ la Vida Okra you’ll get access to our robust online resource toolkit, which includes Georgia standards-based lessons for early care through 12th grade, fun, educational activities, fact sheets and growing guidance, and a delicious and diverse array of okra recipes shared by fellow Georgia farm to school stakeholders!
Watch the recording on our YouTube channel here, and sign up to join in on all the Livin’ la Vida Okra fun here!