Harvesting Okra Seeds

I have 5 different types of okra this year and would like to save some of the seeds for next year. Can someone please tell me how to collect the seeds and how to store them?

Thanks in advance.

Connie

Ok, okra seeds are easy to harvest...you just let the pods get old and dry...the seeds will be simple to shake out.

But.....okra cross pollinates like crazy. Unless you've taken measures to prevent this...the bugs and the bees have mixed up your gene pool till you'll have an interesting group of seeds to say the least.

The best way to grow a diverse group of okra and get pure seeds is to let only one type bloom at a time. You simply pull all the blooms on the other okra varieties and let 1 bloom.
One week, let okra 'A' bloom...the resulting pods tie with yarn or something to let you know that they are pure. The next week, only let okra 'B' bloom...marking the resulting pods again. Continue this till you have pure pods growing on all of the varieties that you want to save seeds from.

It is important to thoroughly examine all of the plants that you are not letting bloom to make sure nothing is missed. A bee can wreck your 'sterile' environment with just one unwanted open flower.

This isn't an iron clad guarantee of getting pure seeds, as bees may bring in okra pollen from neighbors, but it's pretty unlikely that they will.

Hope this helps.

connie, where did you get your seeds from??? my family is crazy about okra... we just ate some of my first okras last saturday... so good... and this is the first time I plant them!!!

Kassia, I got them all from different dave gardeners and yes it is good.

Melody, when I wrote the first message, it was already to be picked.

I have 3 different green ones and 2 red ones, so I guess I will find out what kind of okra I get next year, ought to be interesting rofl

Did that with corn years ago, wasn't fit to eat, Live and learn lol

Oh, it should be good...you can't mess okra up like you can corn. It just may not look like what you had last year...and then again, it might.

do you have pictures??? I saw a site (Jonhnys seeds???) that has a purple one... I want to try!