Fine young cannabulls

When I lived in Kolkata I met a vegetable delicacy that I grew particularly fond of... ladies fingers or okra. I used to fry them up with ground cumin.


Okra and I became a source of entertainment to both me and my Indian friends who while not seeming to share my enthusiasm for the little honeys, were amused by my okra adventures. For example once I was so glad to discover a man selling okra on the side of the road on the way home, I accidentally bought a kilo of them.  I did not realise how light okra were and how many you got for a kilo. It took several kilos of commitment to chew my way through that lot before they went off.


In NZ I discovered I could buy okra in Auckland but south of Auckland sourcing them was very tricky. Until that is I discovered I could grow my own in the tunnel house with moderate success. 


When I moved souther I gave up, thinking it was too cold. However, imagine my joy when I experiemented and discovered last year they grew very well in a bucket on the window sill at work. And if I was lucky I could get four producing at once for a decent feed.

The only challenge with growing okra at work is you have to take them home with you for a month over the Christmas holiday period. That can get tricky if your holiday destination is six hours away. It can also get awkward if the plants grow too big to bring back to work or if you were stopped by a friendly police officer who wanted to check out the vegetation being transported. Lucky I escaped both awkwardnesses.

This year the plants are only producing one fruit at a time. To fruit well they seem to need warm temperatures and sunlight which they do not always get in the southern region. 

The plants start producing flower buds when they are not very tall and then keep growing taller and producing new leaves and buds from the top growing tip. The bud grows between the stem and the leaf. As the plant grows more the leaf and flower bud end up perched on the side of the stem. Eventually the flower, a beautiful butter yellow colour with a deep red centre, opens up and blooms for one day. It would be worth growing okra just for the flower alone.

An okra flower. Okra are a member of the hibiscus family.

A week or so depending on growing conditions the fruit has grown to edible size looking suspiciously like well a ladies finger.


I am not sure why I like okra so much. I like their subtle flavour and the seeds. Maybe it has something to do with the fact they remind me of Kolkata and my dear friends there.