Best Okra and Broccoli Varieties

[Mike]

Last year we just used whatever they had in the greenhouse and actually got the broccoli from Walmart. This year, though, we're wanting to try growing everything from seed. My question is, what do y'all say are the best varieties of okra and broccoli to plant? In case it matters, I'm in north Texas, in zone 8a.

I'm thinking on the okra there's a purplish variety that gets to be pretty big, but stays tender. I think those would be good, but I don't know what they are, or if they'd work.

On the broccoli, we currently have a package of sun king hybrid seeds but, again, I don't know anything about them and if there's something better I'd rather just switch to that. I can always plant the ones I have now in the fall as an extra harvest.

 

[Mike]

Don't some reading today on different varieties of okra and I've pretty much settled on a few different varieties for this year, just to see which is best. Heck, we may even decide, going forward, to plant both varieties every year and use them each for different things. Or, who knows, we may not be using either of these past this season!

By the way, during my reading and research today, I learned that you can actually eat the okra blooms!? I'd never heard of that before but I'll definitely have to fry one up when we're frying up some okra and see what it tastes like!

The first: Jambalaya 2.0 Okra

This is a favorite variety amongst southern gardeners, and is good for us Texans, and this very well could be what we grew last year though we bought our plants from a greenhouse so I really have no way of knowing, now, what they were. Anyways, the Jambalaya 2.0 is a hybrid variety that needs a soil temp of at least 70 degrees to plant seeds. The plants mature in 50 days and the okra should be harvested at 3-4 inches long, which I feel like is about as perfect a size as any. Good for about anything at that size, including pickling, which is something we're wanting to do a lot of this year. We made so many pickles last year that we still have enough to last another year so pickled okra is on the list! Having okra that produce a lot of volume, at 3-4 inches, sounds like a winner to me! So, we'll give this one a try.

Bonus: Burgundy Okra

I'm thinking this might be the one I was talking about in my first post, but I can't know for sure. Oh, and I guess the okra is "red", not purple, It can get a little longer than the Jambalaya variety, at up to 7 inches and still be tender, so this one might be perfect for frying, especially if the volume is nearly the same as the Jambalaya okra variety. This one needs a soil temp of 75-90, and matures in 55 days. So, assuming we plant both varieties at the same time, we could be pulling a ton of okra every day from two different rows in the garden.

If any of y'all have any experience with either of these, feel free to share. I'll certainly be posting my experiences, including photos, of these this summer (assuming all goes to plan). With any luck we'll be over-run with okra again this year and be giving some away to friends and family, which will forever be my goal! The more folks we can feed, the better!

 

[Meadowlark]

The Jambalaya okra is my personal favorite and go to okra. It has the best production of all the varieties and is edible longer than most that get tough with growth. A secondary variety I plant is the Beck's Big Buck Okra. My friend Chuck gave me some seeds one year and told me the story behind it. He apparently got seeds originally from the Beck's in person. The story behind the okra follows:

". When Malcolm and Delphine Beck bought their farm in 1968 in Comal County, Texas, they found in the abandoned garden giant okra stalks with the fattest pods they’d ever seen. They saved and replanted the seed, and it grew big fluted remarkably tender delicious green pods in abundance on sturdy plants. They called it the snapping okra because it snaps so easily off the plants when it is ready to harvest."

 

[Meadowlark]

For broccoli. I like the Green Magic and the Lieutenant broccoli. Only varieties I don't like much are the ‘Aspabroc’ broccolini, broccoli raab, and sprouting broc.

I just prefer the big heads of Green Magic and Lieutenant broccoli. I have several heads growing right now...and in fact had some yesterday. Fresh garden broccoli is nothing like that ugly stuff you get in stores. I never liked broc until I started growing it and now it is one of my favorite veggies.

 

[Mike]

For broccoli. I like the Green Magic and the Lieutenant broccoli. Only varieties I don't like much are the ‘Aspabroc’ broccolini, broccoli raab, and sprouting broc.

I just prefer the big heads of Green Magic and Lieutenant broccoli. I have several heads growing right now...and in fact had some yesterday. Fresh garden broccoli is nothing like that ugly stuff you get in stores. I never liked broc until I started growing it and now it is one of my favorite veggies.

Thanks for the info! I'll give those a look. I'm not sure what we grew last year because, again, we just picked up some plants from the greenhouse. I'm sure they were labeled but we didn't really pay attention. We just said "let's try broccoli".

As for garden fresh broccoli being better than store bought, I couldn't agree more! I've said it before, it's the biggest difference in taste that we've encountered so far. Like you, I wasn't a huge fan. This garden fresh, though, is a game changer!