No, you do not need an okra tomato cage for your plants. Okra grows one thick central stem that holds itself upright without any help. Save your tomato cages for the tomatoes that need them.
Do okra plants need support at all? The short answer is no for most varieties. The stems become woody and strong as plants grow taller through the summer. Even six-foot plants can stand on their own in calm weather.
I tried using tomato cages on my okra one year just to see what would happen. The cages got in my way every time I tried to harvest pods. Okra needs picking every other day and fighting through a cage made that job twice as hard.
Okra grows different from tomatoes in a key way. Tomatoes send out many stems that flop everywhere. Okra puts all its energy into one dominant stalk that stands straight up like a small tree.
Dwarf varieties stay between 3-4 feet (0.9-1.2 m) tall and never need any support at all. Standard okra reaches 4-6 feet (1.2-1.8 m) and handles most conditions just fine. Tall heirlooms can hit 6-8 feet (1.8-2.4 m) and might lean in strong wind.
Supporting okra plants only makes sense in a few cases. Windy garden spots can rock tall plants back and forth until the roots loosen. Very tall varieties loaded with pods sometimes lean toward the sun as they grow.
Skip the okra cage support and use a simple bamboo stake instead. Push a five-foot stake into the ground next to any plant that starts to lean. Tie the stem to the stake with soft twine and leave room for the stem to grow thicker.
I staked maybe two plants last summer out of twenty in my patch. Both of those were tall red burgundy okra in a spot that caught afternoon wind. The rest stood on their own with no problems at all through the whole season.
Your money goes further when you buy supplies for crops that need them. Tomato cages cost more than stakes and take up storage space in winter. Let your okra stand free and put those cages to work where they belong.
Watch your okra patch for any plants that start to tip over after heavy rain or wind storms. Most will straighten back up on their own within a day or two. Only stake the ones that keep leaning after the soil dries out.
Read the full article: Growing Okra: Complete Step-by-Step Plan
