Okra prefers full sun, and it is best to wait until it is warm to transplant or plant Okra into your garden.
Okra requires fairly warm weather, it is best if night time temperatures remain in the 60s and Okra prefers a daytime temperature of 85 or above.
In colder areas, you might wait until late June to plant.
Okra grows best in soil with a pH of 6.
5 and 7.
0, but it will do well in a pH as high as 7.
6.
Okra benefit from a generous amount of compost or rich organic additive, which should be thoroughly blended into the soil.
If your soil is not rich, you can work fertilizer or even slow-release fertilizer such as 4-6-6 or 19-19-19 into the soil.
Okra seedlings have fragile taproots and they must be transplanted carefully.
Thoroughly water your Okra seedlings before you transplant them.
Gently loosen the sides and bottoms of their root stocks, and set them in their terminal location in the garden.
Water them if the soil drys out, but wait a few days before mulching to give the soil a chance to absorb the sun's heat.
Okra does better in warm soil and is known for its ability to withstand drought compared to other vegetables; for good growth and production, you'll need to water regularly, just like other vegetables.
At first okra growth is slow, but the plants grow much faster once summer temperatures set in.
Okra's leaves grow bigger rapidly and begin producing yellow blossoms followed by sets of tender pods.
Plants have a main trunk, making them look a some what tree-like in the garden.
Warm weather makes pods grow quickly, so be sure to check plants every day once they start producing pods.
A pod can grow from almost nothing to harvestable size in 2 or 3 days.
Pods will first appear at the base of the plant up so that by the end of the season they are much higher up on the plant.
Pods are ideal when between 2 to 4 inches long; they get very tough and stringy if allowed to grow larger.
Always remove any that are too large to consume because they keep the plant from producing more pods.
In hotter climates where summers are long, Okra can get 6 to 8 feet tall.
In these cases, many people prune vigorous varieties later summer by cutting back the plants' tops.
Buds along the main stem then grow and produce a later crop.
You can use similar techniques to rejuvenate dwarf okra varieties.