Soil pH for okra

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When I started growing edibles just over a year ago, I was content to germinate the seeds and watch the plants grow out in the garden. I even remembered to fertilize the plants with various fertilizers such as bonemeal, fish emulsion, etc. To me, that was considered doing a good job … until someone began to talk to me about high brix and how it helps plants. It made my head hurt thinking about it, and I put off learning more about it in favour of enjoying watching my plants grow.

Okra plant growing in mix of black peat and white peat - an acidic soil pH that it apparently loves. Just look at the size of those leaves! Then compare them to the "normal" leaves at mid level that grew before the transplant to the new soil mix.

Since then, I’ve gained experience about my edible plants and have become more open to finding out how else I can help them. I still haven’t reached the brix level (LOL) but I’ve become intrigued about different potting mixes. One in particular kept popping up on the GCS Forum – Tref, which is the brand name for a mix of black and white peats. In appearance and texture, it resembled the product commonly marketed as a pre-mixed plant potting mix, except it lacked the white vermiculite pellets. I used the Tref initially as part of a potting mix, experimenting with different percentages of garden soil to see what suited what plant.

One day, however, I finally decided to use 100% Tref for a potted okra plant. I had initially grown the juvenile plant in normal soil and decided I would experiment growing it in Tref. About a week after the transplant, the okra plant underwent an amazing growth spurt. The stems seemed suddenly thicker and stronger, and the new leaves that grew were so much bigger than any okra plant I’ve ever grown, including those planted out in the garden and fertilized regularly!

Ever the slowpoke, I looked up the correct soil pH for okra and found it to be between 6 to 8. The pH of Tref is apparently around 5 to 6 – acidic on the pH scale.

Next, I checked the manufacturer’s specifications for my compost, and found that the pH value is “not more than” 8. So, I created a small plot where I mixed in about 30% compost to the garden soil, then added an additional layer of the compost to act as mulch. Into this plot went my other juvenile okra plant that had sprouted later than the first. Over the following weeks, I’ll be observing the two plants to see how each grows in its respective environment. However, I’m already swung to the idea that yes, soil pH matters, and that fertilizer isn’t necessarily the only factor that helps plants.

© 2011 curiousgardener.com All rights reserved.


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Waiting on the winged bean

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My winged bean vines taking over the entire trellis

You know what they say about being careful what you asked for – you’ve got to be specific.

Just over 2 months ago, I was complaining about the lack of flowers on our winged bean vines. A month and a half after that, flowers finally appeared. Now, almost a month after the flowers started blooming, we’re still waiting for the appearance of beans. We keep seeing flower buds and occasional flowers, but they keep aborting. It makes me wonder what’s wrong – is the soil not suitable, is there insufficient sunlight, is the trellis not big enough, am I using the wrong fertilizers… what? People say that the winged bean vine produces prolifically, so either the vines still need time to mature, or there’s something wrong somewhere. The base of the vines are definitely matured, though, having thickened and hardened. I suppose all I can do is wait…

I should have asked for flowers to be followed immediately by beans. :(

Winged bean flower buds - now you see 'em, later you won't...

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The downside of growing Peacock trees

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I normally like surprises when it comes to the garden, but then sometimes I don’t. All I did was go out for a few hours one afternoon, and when I came back, I found this:

Branch from the peacock tree that became too heavy for the tree to hold upright

A branch from my previously fallen peacock tree finally got too top-heavy, causing the branch to split off from the trunk. Yes, it’s my experimental tree mentioned in an earlier post. Because the main trunk is almost horizontal, the new stems grew straight upwards. I’ve never seen such perpendicular branches before. Anyway, from what I’ve observed, peacock trees grow nicely up to about 3 or 4 metres. After that, if you don’t prune them, you can expect the tree to take action on its own – uproot itself or have branches break off. This particular branch is 5 or 6 metres long, and cutting it to size to dispose of it is not going to be fun. Here’s why:

Big, sharp thorns liberally adorn the stems of peacock trees, and as the stems mature and become woody, so do the thorns...

Thorns. Lots and lots of sharp thorns. They’re bad enough on the green stems:

The needle-sharp thorn on a young stem of the peacock tree

Getting poked by these thorns is like being pricked by a needle. They’re incredibly sharp, and it’s pretty painful when they nab you. I’ve got thick latex-coated gloves – the type that durian sellers use – but they don’t protect you perfectly from the vicious peacock thorns. This is the perfect plant to put around the perimeter of your garden if you want to deter intruders – it looks so pretty, but get up close and personal, and oh boy are you going to get it! I’m definitely not looking forward to disposing of this branch… :(

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Red Lady papaya trees – 11 months old

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Finally, the tree is in full fruiting momentum! The number of developing papayas keeps growing by the week...

It’s quite astounding to look at the Red Lady papaya trees and see how they’ve each grown at such different rates although they were all planted at the same time, 11 months ago.

The “firstborn” was not the fastest to grow, but it ended up being the first to bear fruits. Looking at the tree now, with several fruits at various stages of development, as well as flowers that promise more fruits in the near future, I wonder why I was such an anxious “parent”. It should be a matter of weeks before we finally harvest the first fruit, and if the seed supplier is right, we should get the equivalent of a daily supply of papayas for a month. That’s my convoluted way of saying about 30 fruits from a single tree.

The tree that initially showed the most promise was unfortunately over-run by mealybugs, and I made the heartbreaking decision to remove the tree when the pests proved too difficult to get rid of. Comparing the flowers on that tree to the ones we have now, I think it would have been another hermaphrodite. :(

Thankfully, I planted several seeds, and now have another hermaphrodite tree that has begun fruiting as well. Unlike the “firstborn”, it didn’t abort a lot of flowers before the fruits appeared. I can’t say for sure, but perhaps the compost that I’d laid beneath the tree had something to do with that. As I’ve mentioned before, I suspect that the soil in our garden needed a replenishment of nutrients, which is why I got that big order of compost last month. Since I couldn’t till it into the earth around existing plants without damaging their roots, I used it as a layer of mulch under the treeline. I trust it’s doing good things to the soil composition beneath.

I'm just assuming this is a male flower as it doesn't have a swollen base containing an ovary

One tree appears to be male, judging by the long, narrow flowers that don’t have any nice, fattening ovaries. It’s just an educated guess on my part. I’m keeping it for now, in case any of the other developing trees turn out to be female.

At one point, I also experimented with transplanting a couple of the plants. I’d read that papaya trees don’t like being moved – and of course, since I had several young plants then, I had to experiment! Well, it was more because I didn’t want to cull any trees prematurely. You see, I had planted seeds in pairs, working on the principle of keeping the stronger of the two plants and removing the other. Rather than toss out a healthy looking plant, I transplanted two of the “extra” plants. I can’t say that I have conclusive results, because one is growing very well – and is in fact the second hermaphrodite tree that is beginning to fruit now – and the other is not looking very robust and is going to disappear soon. :(

Overall, though, the Red Lady papaya trees have a nice big check mark in my books! As tropical plants, they grow well here. They don’t need coddling apart from at least twice weekly visual checks for mealy bugs. When I see those now, I remove them by hand and later spray a couple of puffs of white oil on a few of the leaves, with the idea that the scent will deter more pests for a while. Since papaya trees don’t like being over-watered, I also don’t have to water them because it rains from time to time, and I know that papaya roots are deep and invasive, so will get moisture from deeper underground. And now that I’ve added the compost mulch under the trees, I also don’t worry about fertilizing the trees, either. My next worry will be protecting ripening fruits from birds, but that should be a few weeks away.

Until then, the Red Lady papaya saga continues!

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