April 2021 Seed Stories Series
April 2021 Seed Stories
Meet garden designer and permaculturist, Jade of Ellume Inc. from Los Angeles, CA.
I am so excited to share a seed story from my dear friend Jade Luu with Ellume, Inc. She is an amazing permaculture designer and regenerative gardener in Los Angeles with an incredible resume. She recently co-founded the non-profit Gardens for Healing building edible gardens & nature connections for mental health & personal growth for LA’s food desert communities. Please join me in welcoming Jade!
Welcome Jade! It’s such an honor to have you here. I am so excited to hear all about your seed story. Shall we jump right in? Tell us about the seed you picked.
I picked okra because not only is it one of my favorite culinary vegetables to eat, it’s also just a really cool looking plant. So interesting looking.
I have yet to see one in person, but I agree with you. They are these tall, somewhat gangly plants with broad green leaves. Very interesting plants. Do you remember where your seed came from and is there a story behind that?
Yes! Actually the seed came from my permaculture designer's wife & beekeeping teacher, @beekeepingmama. She started a CSA Box from Desert Bloom Farm in Anza, and I wanted to support her so I actually bought a few of her seedlings that she had started from her own seeds.
Where it all started. The CSA Box with two tiny okra starts!
Oh wow! I love that it came from someone you knew who also saved their seeds. Really cool. Okay, so please tell us a little about yourself and why you feel called to share your seed story with everyone today?
I’m sharing my seed-to-table story because it is very important to bring attention to the entire life cycle of a plant and to encourage people to think in terms of lifecycles and systems. I’m very much a system thinker and grower, that’s why I love to share my seed stories with people.
Also, I think it’s super important to talk about the entire process of planting because a lot of times when we are just learning to grow a garden, we don't necessarily see how to grow something from a seed, transplant it, and then what to do with it afterward. I really want to encourage people to learn the whole entire process as a gardener.
I couldn’t agree with you more. It really is the best way to learn and grow as a gardener. So this is my first year growing okra and I am so curious about what is ahead. I would love to hear any helpful tips. Will you bring us through the cultivation of okra? Share with us what lengths you went to care for it or what challenges did you face? Was there a special moment along the way?
When I brought them home from the desert, I knew they would do well in my garden because my climate is a little gentler than the desert area where I got them from but still very hot and dry. I’m in 10b. I planted it in an inground bed which is actually kind of new (my whole entire garden has only gone through a year of growing). The way I look at beds is how long has the soil been in there and how long there have been plants growing in the box. It was a very new bed in that there has not been very much growth, mostly only grasses prior. To ensure the health and strength of the okra seedlings, I scattered some fresh worm castings and mixed in some fresh compost, but not much, making sure I mixed in with the existing soil. I think a plant also needs to adapt to the existing soil as well so I always mix amendments together with the existing soil and mulched it very well. Just kept watching it and watering it.
The biggest threat was the critters that would come nibble on the leaves. I ended up putting a cage of hardware cloth for the first few months until the plant reached 10 inches to ensure the plant would survive. With some care and making sure they would get enough water, the okra took off, and pretty soon I started seeing flowers. The flowers are a beautiful light yellow with red veins in the center. They are absolutely beautiful and they actually grew really well. The flowers turned into pods, the fruit okra, and pretty soon I had pods that were as long as the length of my hand!
The other challenging part for me was to harvest at the right time and catch them before they hardened. That was quite a challenge for me. With okra, you have to harvest them between the time when they are young but not too mature. I found out that there is a window to harvest for only a few days. I thought it was longer than that and I would let them hang out thinking they would get bigger and bigger. By the time they got bigger, they would also be hard and too fibrous to eat. With okra, you really have to feel them & squeeze them - feel them out a bit and then make a decision as to whether or not to harvest.
Okra pods growing vertically in Jade’s front yard garden.
My Okra plant grew to be 3.5’ - 4ft bushes that kept on giving and giving for a long time. The season was very long and it wasn’t until late fall when I decided to take them down. What I did was I let the plant go to seed and then I let the pods get really big and harden on the plant. At a certain point, the pods will open a little bit so you can see the black seeds inside. Then I harvested and shared them in our seed collective. It was so cool to send them in their own seed pods in the mail. I still have not taken the seeds out of the pods and am storing them in the pods they grew in - nature’s own seed package. They are just so beautiful and I want to sketch them. That's my seed story.
That’s incredible. I learned so much from what you described. I can’t wait to grow them and see what happens! I don’t normally ask, but you are also an amazing cook. Do you have a recipe that you could share with everyone?
If I can catch them young when they’re still really tender, I like to make a tempura batter and dip the whole pod in there and fry it up. Then I make a Japanese-inspired light “Tare” dipping sauce, sprinkle some sesame seeds and salt. When they are bigger, I slice them cross-sectioned into thin slices so they look like little stars, and then pour the tempura batter over them and make okra fritters and serve them with the same sauce. On weeknights when I want something quick & delicious, I also drizzle the ringlets with some EVOO and pop them in the oven at 450 for about 10 minutes. I love toasted Okra with a little bit of balsamic vinegar or lemon juice drizzled on top and a sprinkle of a little paprika too.
Oh my gosh. Fried okra is the best, but I love your spin on the star okra fritter! I love this so much. Finally, we are almost to our last question. How did you grow as a gardener from this experience?
I grew as a gardener in that I got better at collecting seeds. I really made a conscious effort to collect the seeds and had to make a tough decision to let some of them go to seed. I love okra so much and I wanted to eat them all. I’m really glad that I did that. Now I have seeds for multiple seasons.
I also better understand the timing of this plant. As a gardener and a permaculturist, I always say that the first rule of permaculture is to observe and I really had to do that with this plant. It taught me to take my time to observe no matter how busy I was so I could catch them at the right time. That was a wonderful growing journey for me. I can now say I really understand how an okra plant grows.
Dried Okra pods dried with seeds stored inside.
I love how you are describing this intensive observation, really taking the time. I think that when you start to observe one plant and how it acts or how it behaves, you always learn something new. When you look at another plant you're like, oh it's doing something totally different or it's doing something similar. Have you had the opportunity to grow okra from seed yet?
I may this year but I haven’t decided. The good thing about saving seeds is that it gives me a chance to save the seed for later and then I can grow something else in that same spot. That’s important not just because I want more variety but also because it builds the soil. I can put other things in there, hold off, and explore planting other things that will put different kinds of nutrients in that soil to build up the organic matter in that bed.
Amazing advice. Thank you so much for sharing your seed story today with everyone! I really hope this encourages others to take some time to observe plants, witness the entire lifecycle, and grow some okra!
Contact Info:
E. Jade Luu, Ed.M.
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ellume.life/
Website: https://www.ellumelife.com/
Jade Luu is a gardener, food and herbals alchemist, & garden-based learning educator based in Los Angeles, California.
Jade holds a B.A. in Journalism/Public Relations from San Jose State University and an Ed.M. in International Education Development/Peace Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is a certified Permaculture Designer, and RYT Yoga Alliance instructor & practitioner with over 25 years of experience in K-12 & higher education teaching, curriculum design, and programming in the U.S., Japan, and China.
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