Central South
Has anyone ever tried to grow Okra in south central Wisconsin?
Has anyone ever tried to grow Okra in south central Wisconsin? If so what variety did you grow?
Having been a farm boy from that great state of curdish ambitions, I am well familiar with your issue. Unless you can cover the beds as they do tobacco with muslin or tobacco canvas, you might not get the yield you would like since many things can't get planted till late May/early June due to potential late frost.
Take a trip to the areas around Stoughton, McFarland, Cottage Grove, Deerfield or Cambridge and see how they got their seed beds set up. You don't want to steam the beds cause that will encourage slugs. As you aren't raising a acre of the stuff you might try a frame setup like this to get a jump start (as in beginning of May) and have an extended season for this and other fruits and veggies come fall. You can also reuse the canvas and boards for additional years if you store it right and borrowing a page from the Norwegian farmers in the area, get other stuff started in there first before transplanting.
I also remember a junior high school biology teacher (HEY MR. DAHLKE!) who got his tomato plants started in peat capsules and then transplanted them into coffee cans on the widow sills. By schools year end he had some really good sized fruit where people were just putting their 4-7 inch babies in the ground outside.
Last but not least, check with the State Department of Agriculture. Even though you won't see alot of farms in the collar county areas of Chicago, They have a governmental office that still deals with that by Wheaton and as the County Fair still involves plants or animals, they still have many purposes for their paycheck. So pick up that 50 lb phone and call them before the calender gets lost!
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