Wanted: One Okra Pod

We have a garden. Tomatoes, cucumbers, dill, jalapeños and okra. Just the basics for pickling and enjoying BLTs and fried okra. And, we have a kitten, Freckles.

Freckles has, as previously noted, been hard at work training her humans to know the meaning of each look and mew. She has a high, squeaky voice and she’s hard to ignore. She also likes to explore things and touch them and make them disappear. Until recently house shoes and socks have been her specialty.

Which brings us to the subject at hand: We’re having to pick the tomatoes when they’re orange because otherwise the birds are sampling them for us. If they’d just eat a whole tomato that would be fine, but pecking here and there is playing havoc with the crop. They share this bad habit with the squirrels, who, in the fall, taste test the pecans and then discard them even if they look very good to us. What do we know? 

So the orangey tomatoes are on the counter ripening. The cucumbers usually get pickled the day they’re picked. The okra… ah, the okra. No matter that I pre-germinated the seeds and carefully planted them. A large number refused to break the soil and those that have have been slow to set the pods. So there aren’t enough to make a “mess” at any one time. I’ve left a few on the counter. 

I picked five pods Saturday. After we were gone a while on Sunday for Father’s Day, I came home to find a tomato on the kitchen floor and the okra scattered. At least four okra pods were. I have yet to find the fifth. 

I hope this doesn’t turn out like the time I hid real Easter eggs in the house and we didn’t find the one under the ottoman until we could follow our noses to it. Okra doesn’t rot, does it?