Growing Okra and Peppers

Growing up, my family of 7 had a large garden and orchard. In the garden, we planted peas, green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, onions, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkin, watermelon, and lots of corn. As an adult, I’ve lived in apartments and have grown some flowers and the occasional squash or tomato, so I was interested to see if I still knew how to garden.

I got advice from some co-workers who garden and from UF IFAS Extension’s vegetable gardening guide. I combined that with what I remembered and what the seed packets said to do. With the heat of summer, I decided on planting okra and sweet peppers, two things I’d never grown. They both like the heat that comes with a Florida summer. Some other veggies good to grow in summer are sweet potatoes, Southern peas, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and pumpkins.

I planted Alabama Red Okra, Clemson Spineless Okra and California Wonder Sweet Peppers in the greenhouse at the Millhopper Branch. In the attached video you’ll see the plants and hear about what I did and why. You’ll also see problems that arose. For more information on gardening check out these websites: Working Food, UF IFAS Extenion Office, and UF IFAS Gardening Solutions.

The library also has books, magazines and eSources with information on planting a garden, helping it grow, harvesting your produce, preserving your food and ways to use what you’ve reaped. 

Flipster eMagazines: Allrecipes, Better Homes & Gardens, Cooking Light, and Southern Living

RBDigital eMagazines: Food & Cooking, Home & Garden

Florida Electronic Library: Okra and Peppers

Overdrive eBooks: Gardening, Preserving, Southern Cookbooks, Vegetable Cookbooks

 

Looking for seeds? One Seed, One Community still has seeds to share. Email OneSeedAlachua@gmail.com with your address and the OSOC volunteers will mail a small packet of Clemson Spineless okra seeds to you.