10/1/26 Harvest Notes -Endless Rain

Grateful for the rain this week! Almost 2 inches at our Eleanor garden, though we hope pickup wasn’t too soggy for you. We busted our butts to get a good chunk of the autumn planting done before the rains came (when possible it’s always best to plant right before a decent rain shower). Peas, carrots, leeks and more are on the way! This week’s farmer’s choice bundles are below:

Farmer’s Pick Half Share: salad turnips, salad mix, sweet potato greens, chives

Farmer’s Pick Full Share: Salad mix, okra, cucumbers, calabacita squash, eggplants OR peppers, squash blossoms, chives

**Sometimes one or two farmers pick shares may have an item substituted if we don’t have it right at the moment we pack, so if your share doesn’t exactly match the above that’s why. Usually it does match though!

This week’s seasonal star is: o-k-r-a! It is the quintessential Southern summer vegetable, but it is also fairly mysterious and poorly understood by the general public. It originated in East Africa, but unlike many cultivated crops, there is not a clearly identifiable wild ancestor. Though on this continent okra is strongly associated with the South, most okra production globally occurs in Africa and South Asia, where it is a staple food. There are thousands of varieties of okra grown worldwide, but most sold in the US are the small to medium sized green ribbed variety, usually Clemson Spineless or a related variety. We also grow a small number of two heirloom varieties from Texas, Beck’s Big Buck (from San Antonio!) and Hill Country Reds, which make big fat pods with a relatively low amount of the signature slime. Okra is about as heat tolerant as they come, though irrigation is required to get large harvests of high quality pods. In the garden it’s pretty much the perfect plant, not many pests or diseases, and the stunning flowers (called okra roses, though the plant is in fact a mallow) brighten up every day of the summer. The pods go woody and inedible with age, so okra picking is a daily task in the garden from May through October. Okra picking is a bit of an art, if you were picking for a grocery store or wholesaler then there would be standards for length since that’s an easy metric. But long pods can be tender and short pods can be woody, it’s about days since pollination and not length per se. My best advice is that if you’re not sure if a pod is woody or not, give the tip of the pod a little flick, a woody pod will have a stiff tip. And wear gloves! Even modern spineless varieties are irritating to most people’s skin.

In the kitchen, the sky is really the limit. I usually tell okra novices to go with a high heat method like broiling (or grilling!). Also fabulous sauteed, in stews, part of a succotash… the list goes on. To us okra is at its best when you get a bit of char on that skin… yum!! People often list fried okra as their favorite way to eat it, though if you’re not a fan of the slime this would maybe not be the best choice as the breading tends to trap the slime inside. But keep an open mind to the slime too! It’s reported to be good for the digestion, is plenty nutritious and adds just the right texture and viscosity to dishes like gumbo.