Seed saving story#3 : Ladies finger

Last time when I posted about Ladies finger harvest,I so wanted to post a picture of the okra flowers but somehow it got missed. Ladies finger flowers are so pretty that it felt such a disgrace not to have posted any. So here is a sample before I move on..

Overall we had a reasonable harvest from the five plants that were grown in the containers. The problem here is most of the ladies finger plants produce one pod per day so it is only when you accumulate at least 15-20 you can make use of it in the kitchen. This sort of scenario poses a question on the freshness of the home grown vegetables. So it is always ideal to plan your number of plants to be sown based on your home requirements.

What I actually wanted to register in this post is our Ladies finger seed saving efforts.When we sowed the seeds for this season we used all of our stock. The seeds we had were of a good quality and the plants went on to produce really long and firm pods. So we decided to leave one pod on the plant to produce seeds for the next season.Ladies finger pods are known to 'blast' open once mature. So it is really wise to tie them up when they are mature and green like here..

Slowly the mature pods turn yellow and then brown and slowly rips open across the edges. The technique is to let it be on the plant till the stack is completely dry and then cut the pod off.

We are planning to dry the pod in sunlight for some more days before opening it and for now it is happily resting near the seed cabinet.