Tag: green beans

Beans, kale

It’s been coolish, but Soil temps are over 60, and we have some warm weather coming up. Planted green beans, wax beans, and some marigolds in west e. I put seeds I saved from last year on the corner nearest the neighbors house to see if they grow as well as the purchased ones.

Planted runner beans and Romano beans and nasturtium in south d- where the broad bean favas failed to over winter. I guess I’ll try them again next year? The “cover crop” favas look great, so maybe I’ll have some small beans again. All new beans went under robin baskets.

Added a few more peas to the pea bed, and put kale seeds around the outside.

Transplanted the last couple of late planted peppers, and up potted two tomato sprouts and moved them to the greenhouse, where everything is looking good on a seed mat on the ground.

Also harvested some mojito!

Favas

I obviously did not pay enough attention, and it looks like a lot of my favas started drying. That’s great, but since I had so much spoilage last year I assumed that the black pods were diseased and cut down the plants that had them. Fortunately I caught myself and consulted the trusty internet. I’m going to peel what I pulled and see what I got.

I pulled some more garlic today. The “silver and white” variety is smallish, and the size of the music is all over the place- but they look healthy. It’s very warm outside so I hope they (and your onions) cure in the shade spot I built for them.

Other things are looking up in the garden. I increased watering to 80 minutes to offset the heat. Had a few more sungolds.

Beans and flowers

Planted beans and nasturtium and marigold. I’ll pop probably put the remaining tomatoes and peppers out on Monday or Tuesday. Also transplanted little zucchini starts in the squash bed, and direct seeded a few delicata next to the starts that don’t look great. (Note for next year- don’t keep them in the greenhouse so long!) I put marigold in the fava bed to hopefully fight the black flies, and nasturtium in the bean beds. Also planted a few more peas (peas are FINALLY blossoming).

It’s been a dreary and cold spring. They say 10degrees cooler than normal. I think the kale and beets and carrots like it, though.

Am. So. Tired.

Started the day by turning over South A and B for beans. Planted green and yellow beans in A, and realized I only had 3 saved runner beans for b (put yellow in there, too, and replanted the tiny onions and leeks out of curiosity. I also threw in some nasturtium and marigolds on the ends.

We put a gate in the squash box for the winters to run on.

P moved the box from upper c down to become a new bed for thornless blackberries (donated plant). He also planted elderberries (Upper is Nova and York below) up by the neighbor’s door and gooseberries down where upper c box used to live.

I planted some gifted flowers – bearded iris, crocosmia, and something in the lily family along the driveway, and rescued a little japanese maple for the back slope.

There is more to do but I’m shaky now. Will see if I get out of bed tomorrow. (;

Mixed bag.

It’s mid-september and I haven’t updated this blog since August 30. Things have definitely been happening– good things sometimes… I have even found joy in it sometimes… but not the abundant joy that causes me to sit and admire my work while updating the blog.

The garden is good, for the most part, as you’ll see in the handful of photos below. I had a little bit of a watering issue with both the drip system (it was set for too short a cycle for the hot days) and with my hand watering. The hand watering suffered from the malaise of 2020… all parties have decided that I can’t be trusted to water regularly when the heat gives me migraines, the world is on fire, and there’s a global pandemic.

The patty pan and delicata on the driveway slope are doing just fine despite my lack of watering. The purple rhody does NOT like all that sun. Maybe we should move it someday, or give it some more shade somehow. There will be lots of delicata this year, which is a bright spot.

For P’s birthday I made a flourless chocolate cake, and we ate it up with the berries I could rustle up each day (blue, black, and the occasional late strawberry.) That was awesome.

We have gotten a pretty good harvest off most of the plants. The tomatillos are crazy, the tomatoes and peppers are tiny. The runner definitely suffered from the short water cycle, but the green beans are still producing well– and coming back from the deer damage SO quickly.

Other people didn’t have my tomato issues- B gave me a bunch of slicing tomatoes she has grown (and grown sick of) and I cut the top off and roasted them for soup. I used the peels to make paste and turned one of the soups into a sauce, then dried out the peels in the over to make “tomato flakes” for future use (refrigerated cause I’m not confident of their dryness). There was a lot of extra tomato juice in the pan after roasting, so I added that to the growing collection of broths in the freezer.

I’m not sure why… but I got a late harvest of peas this year. I’m glad I didn’t turn the watering off in their bed. The lower plant all looked dead, but up at the top there was a dense forest with lots of little peas. They were delicious. Right after that they gave up the ghost. (I ate the last peas out of the fridge 9/17)

And then came the smoke…. it’s been REALLY bad. Worst air quality in years, maybe ever, for almost two weeks now. I can’t go out without a N95 mask, and the air inside is stagnant and we have sore throats and coughs. We finally got an air filter rigged up, and were able to buy a couple more.  We’re supposed to see some clearing by Saturday…. It’s not great for the mind. (They say being outside for a day is the lung equivalent to 9 cigarettes. It feels worse.)

It’s such a weird place to be to have to consider every activity… going outside? Grab the respirator… going to the grocery? you’ll have to change out of the respirator into a cloth mask to protect against the coronavirus. Have hand sanitizer, a bottle of water, antihistamines.

I think the smoke is another hard reminder that we’ve thus survived the emotional toll of the pandemic because at least we could go outside. But the endless rainy misery is coming, and you’ll still not be able to see your friends or family.

Where the green beans recovered from the deer after P put up the nifty deer fence, the tomatoes he snacked on are still struggling. Carrot beet tomato combo is a win though— at least for the root veggies.

The green beans are coming back with new growth and flowers. I may get a longer season from them, even?

Here’s the handy deer fence P put up. It only covered the part we’ve cleared blackberry from. When we were installing the neighbor came over and we got to talk to him for the first time. It was really nice. He grew up on the property (70+ years) and his mother used to have her garden where we’re planted ours. The house was built for his sister, and he even planed a lot of the beams and wood.

My big success this year would have to be tomatillos. We’ve done two full batches of salsa (I’ve been freezing the fruit I pick in their papers for later use. ~1 big ziplock is a single batch from the canning book.) Mixed in that bed and hard to seee- the peppers are doing alright as well. Better than the ones in the bags. There was also a volunteer runner bean that I left.

Might have a couple of slicing tomatoes sometime this month, but mostly the tomatoes have come slowly (see watering issues.) We’ll see if I have enough to can.

The new soil for the cilantro and basil is doing well inside.