I luv gardening especially vegetables and exotic plants. One of my favourite vegi ( actually cos it is soo easy to grow ) is lady finger or okra ( my 10 yrs old kid corrected my spelling, which i thought was ocra ). To really enjoy its taste, just steamed or boiled it and dipped into a delicious home made sAmBal BeLacaN. Otherwise, just throw it inside Fish Head curry or fry it with dried prawn and chillies.
Just like orchids or bourgounvilla, lady finger also comes with varieties of sizes, colour, texture and origin e.g. Taiwan, Korea...
Some are dark green while others are light . Some are small while others are really long and big. I've seen and planted an okra of about 9 inches long.
According to Wikipedia, the scientific name for Okra is Abelmoschus esculentus, commonly known as okra or lady's finger, is a
flowering plant valued for its edible green fruits. The name okra is of
West African origin and is cognate with "ókùrù" in
Igbo, a language spoken in what is now known as
Nigeria. Wow !, these lady finger of mine has actually travelled all the way from africa. Long live 'Africa", actually what i meant was a favourite song of mine from group named "ToTo".
It is called 'bendi" in Malay, "Bhindi" in Hindi, "Bamiyah" in Arabic , "Okura" in Japanese and "vendaikaai " in Tamil.
The species is an
annual or
perennial, growing to 2 m tall. The
leaves are 10–20 cm long and broad, palmately lobed with 5–7 lobes. The
flowers are 4–8 cm diameter, with five white to yellow petals, often with a red or purple spot at the base of each petal. The
fruit is a capsule, 5–20 cm long, containing numerous
seeds. It was introduced to the
United States via the
African slave trade route, and is an annual crop in the southern states.
