Okra or lady’s finger or bhindi is a popular vegetable across the world. It is also a common vegetable in India. It is a super healthy vegetable and it is used to make various delicious dishes. But sometimes it becomes difficult to decide on food when you have grown enough okra/ladies’ fingers/ bhindi in your home garden. How many types of okra based dishes will you prepare? The same situation came when I grew plenty of okra (bhindi) in the garden.
I grow all those okra (bhindi) plants in my rooftop garden. You can easily grow 2-3 plants in a 10-inch size pot. One plant will produce 4-5 fruits per week. So in case you have grown 11 plants then you can easily expect more than 45 okra every week.
Anybody can grow these vegetable plants. But you should use nutrient-rich soil & take proper care so that you can keep your plants disease/insects free.
I use mostly kitchen compost, but in case I do not have enough kitchen compost then I mix vermicompost and handful bone dust & horn dust. I apply this fertilizer to upto almost 40% of the total soil. I also apply mustard cake liquid fertilizer every week and handful compost (or a handful of the mixture of neem cake, bone dust & horn dust) every month. In case still, you can not see growth then you should apply a small amount of mixed chemical fertilizer as a medicine.
Application of any pesticide (chemical-based or homemade natural) every week is essential. I apply fungicide once or twice a month on every plant too. I use homemade neem extracts, garlic extract, ginger extracts, turmeric extracts etc as a natural pesticide. If you are regularly applying these homemade pesticides then you can protect your plants. But in case, your plants are already attacked by insects then apply chemical-based pesticide.
Okay, now coming to the point. When you are harvesting approx 45-50 okra (bhindi) every week since last 3 months for 3 people in a family then you need to make twice or thrice dishes every week. So you are actually forced to try almost every possible okra based dishes like masala bhindi, achari bhindi, bhindi stir fry, mixed veg, boiled bhindi, mashed boiled bhindi with mustard oil & onion etc.
Now I became greedy because it is so easy to grow okra in containers. So sowed another batch of okra (bhindi) plants in the containers. This time approx 14 plants germinated. So from the next month, I can expect more bhindi.
So these are the things happened after growing okra (or bhindi) in the garden
- Eating a lot of okra/bhindi throughout the week in thise summer season
- Trying different types of okra based dishes what I hardly ate
- Ate a lot of boiled okra which is good for health
- Decided to grow these plants in every summer as much as possible
- Growing second batch of okra/bhindi plant in this season
- Made me happiest kitchen gardener
So what about you? What are you growing in this season? Are you growing okra too? What is your favorite okra (bhindi) based dish?
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