Okra

Wait for warm soil. Okra sulks below 18 degrees and will sit and do nothing until the nights lift, so November is early enough in Melton.

Soak the seed in water overnight. The coat is hard and dry seed is slow to strike.

Sow 2cm deep and 40cm apart, straight into the bed. Give it the sunniest spot you have.

The plants grow tall, to well over a metre. Put them where they will not shade everything else.

One deep soak a week is better than a daily sprinkle.

Pick the pods young, at about finger length. Left longer they turn woody and no amount of cooking fixes it.

Check the plants every day or two in warm weather. Pods swell faster than you expect.

Cut them off with secateurs rather than pulling. The stems are tough and pulling tears the plant.

Some varieties have prickly hairs. Wear long sleeves if yours does.

The more you pick, the more the plant sets.

Fry hard and fast in a hot pan to keep the pods firm.

Or cook them slow in a stew, where the softness is the point and thickens the pot.

Acid helps. A squeeze of lemon or a spoon of tamarind at the end lifts the whole dish.

Leave the pods whole and uncut if you want to avoid the stickiness altogether.

Leave three or four of the best pods on the plant and stop picking them.

Wait until they are brown, dry and rattle when you shake them.

Split the pods over a bowl and tip the round seeds out.

Store somewhere cool and dark. Okra seed sows well for two seasons.