NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — On a chilly day in a New Orleans backyard, Jack Sweeney’s got a garden.
With a miracle in Mid-City that just popped up between the peppers and tomatoes.
It’s his okra plant.
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It’s a super-sized, super-structure.
A tall tower of inspiration and all-natural fertilizer.
WGNO Good Morning New Orleans features reporter Bill Wood sees that it’s taller than Jack’s house
It was fifteen feet tall when Bill Wood got a look at it.
Officially breaking the record at 16.4 feet, according to the Guinness World Records folks.
It’s a skyscraper of a stalk.
So tall, Jack had to tie twine to the top to bend it down so he could pick the okra pods from the top.
Bill Wood says, “It’s as if you’re deep-sea fishing for okra.”
Jack Sweeney says, “Yeah, a little bit.”
When he’s not in the garden, Jack is at the office.
He’s a 24-year-old environmentalist at a New Orleans non-profit. He’s got a degree in political science and French and he figures he’s about to add a new line to his resume.
Bill Wood asks, “You believe the world’s tallest stalk of okra?
Jack says, “I do, I do.”
“This is Big Okra, you know, he’s the boss, he’s Big Okra,” Jack says.
Big Okra is a high rise of hope.
And a survivor of a hurricane and a cold winter.
It tells a tale.
It’s the story that once upon a time, there was Jack and the Okra Stalk.
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