| Mister Cason's Vegetable Garden |
| Professional tips for outstanding okra (among other crops) |
From "Fresh from the Garden"
episode DFFG-307 |
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Joe Lamp'l tours Mister Cason's Vegetable Garden, a seven-acre model garden within Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, that has a full-time staff of six. Here are some of their growing tips.
Among their tricks is planting okra in extra-wide rows and with spread-out spacing to yield more pods per plant and make harvesting a snap. Backyard gardeners can adapt this technique to a small site by interplanting with a tall crop like corn. Joe also makes a simple wire-and-twine trellis system, which produces bigger, showier tomatoes that ripen faster and are easier to harvest. Elsewhere in the garden, he gets up close and personal with caterpillars and butterflies, showing how both are beneficial helpers to any vegetable garden. He shows how to attract them to your site by deadheading flowers, planting flowers and host plants en masse and providing a source of water.Tips from Mister Cason's Vegetable Garden 1. Spacing okra plants 3' apart with 8' between rows allows more sunlight to reach the plants. The plants grow out like a bush instead of upright (figure A). 2. Larger leaves at the bottom third of the plant can be removed to avoid shading the okra pods (figure B). This will result in larger okra pods (figure C).
These techniques result in more okra pods per plant.3. Where space is more limited, okra rows can be interplanted with rows of corn (figure D) to achieve similar results. 4. Traditional wire tomato cages encourage bushy plants (figure E) and can make harvesting a challenge.
Here's an alternative method of supporting tomato plants:- Run a wire over the tomato row, 6' high.
- Tie two lengths of twine loosely around the base of each plant (figure F).
- Connect to the guide wire in a V pattern off of each plant (figure G).
- Manually train the vines up the twine, rewrapping every two weeks (figure H).
The plants will get more sun, producing bigger, quicker, showier fruit that ripens sooner and is easier to harvest.5. Deadheading, or pinching off spent flower blooms, encourages flowering plants to produce new blooms, which will attract more pollinators. Lantana and zinnia are especially effective when planted en masse since their large flower clusters are easier for butterflies to see. 6. Butterflies, hummingbirds and caterpillars can be extremely beneficial in pollinating a vegetable garden. - Butterflies can be guaranteed by introducing them to the garden as caterpillars. They need a sunny location and a host plant such as fennel, dill or parsley.
- Butterflies also need a moisture source. A birdbath filled with wet mud or sand allows them to take in the moisture they need.
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