Plant · P-314

Okra

Abelmoschus esculentus

Okra is a plant that thrives on exactly the punishing summer heat that stalls every other vegetable, growing best above 77F - the pods are picked young and cooked as a thickener for soup and stew, but the leaves and flowers are also edible cooked greens, and the roasted seed makes one of the best coffee substitutes around. It is killed outright by the first frost everywhere in the continental US, so it is sown fresh every year despite technically being capable of surviving as a perennial further south. Its seed also doubles as a genuine high-protein poultry feed supplement, though it contains gossypol - the same compound that limits cottonseed - so it should stay a supplement rather than a staple, and pig rations need a carefully established rate.