Not sure what is going on with my okra...
Plants with problems. Please pardon the weeds!
The first year I planted okra in my central PA garden, it did great! 5-6' tall plants, lots of pods, healthy green leaves. Every single year since, I've not been able to get anything taller than 3-4' and only get a handful of pods. Older leaves brown from the margins in and die, falling off the plant and then the whole plant just stops growing and dies when it's about 3 or 4 feet tall. I've tried moving the plantings to different parts of the garden, lime, fertilizer, watering, not watering, mulching, not mulching - I've still never had anything like the crop I had the first year. I've never seen any bugs on the leaves or roots - no nematode infestations that I have noted - the roots always look just fine.
Healthier plants growing adjacent to the lawn - I've never fertilized this lawn
My gut feeling is it's a soil issue - micronutrients, possibly. This year, I planted okra in a section of the garden that's been fallow for a long time and half of the garden, the part closest to the untilled yard, is doing better than the section that's further to the middle of the garden. I've had the soil tested and, other than being a bit clayey, it's fine, but apparently there is something missing from it that okra needs desperately.
If you have any ideas or know something that okra specifically likes that a PA soil might be missing, please let me know! I love okra and enjoy growing it, but it's disheartening when it does so poorly. :( Please help!
Very stunted growth in some plants