Okra

Okra is not hardy and dies after the first frost. Raise it again on the windowsill from February/March and plant out after the Ice Saints. If you want to keep a plant, pot it into a container before frost, bring it indoors in a bright, frost-free spot (at least 10 °C) and water very sparingly in winter.

In the home garden you propagate okra exclusively from seed; vegetative methods such as cuttings or division are not practical, because the plant is an annual and hardly forms adventitious roots. Soak the seeds in lukewarm water for 12 to 24 hours before sowing; this softens the hard seed coat and noticeably speeds up germination. Start raising young plants from mid to late March on a warm windowsill or in a small greenhouse: sow 1 to 2 seeds about 1 cm deep in small individual pots (peat or seedling pots work well, as okra tolerates pricking out poorly). The germination temperature should stay constant between 22 and 28 °C; then the seeds germinate within 7 to 14 days. If it cools permanently below about 18 °C, germination stalls or fails altogether. In Central Europe, young plants go outdoors only after the Ice Saints in mid-May, preferably into a greenhouse or under film, because even fully grown okra reacts sensitively to temperatures below 15 °C. Allow at least 40 to 50 cm between plants. You collect your own seed by letting individual pods ripen fully (they turn brown and hard on the plant), then drying the seeds further at room temperature and storing them cool, dry and dark; germination ability drops markedly after 1 to 2 years. Note: with F1 hybrid varieties, seed you collect yourself does not come true to type; collect from open-pollinated varieties instead.