Harvest Monday, 7/2/18

June 25th was the first picking from the bush bean beds. The earliest and most prolific bean so far is Triomphe de Farcy beans, too bad it's the stringiest bean ever. The strings are so tough and difficult to get off they actually make my fingers sore. Thank goodness Landreth's Stringless is making up for it.

Dark Brandywine is the first large tomato I picked. (Berkley Tie-Dye would've been the first ripe but a critter ate half of it.) On the left are three Jaune Flamme tomatoes, they produce large trusses of fruit.

On June 27th I only got half the bush bean bed picked before it threatened to rain again. A mixture of Triomphe de Farcy, Contender, and Tendergreen.

I started picking the tomatoes early just to keep them from splitting too badly with all the rain we'd been getting.

The other half of the bush bean bed got picked on the June 28th. Mostly Landreth's Stringless and Derby.

In the back is a Berkley Tie-Dye tomato and a small Green Zebra.

Out of the 4 cucumber varieties I'm growing, only Salad Slicer and Heike have produced. The other two have yet to make female blooms.

On Sunday, July 1st, I harvested more green beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.

I mad a chicken, onion, and green bean dish yesterday using Aldi's Harissa Simmer Sauce and it was fabulous. Spicy and delicious over a bed of rice with fresh herbs and a dollop of homemade cucumber yogurt sauce. Yum.

A plate of homegrown Mrs. Burn's Lemon basil, Siam Queen basil, Gigante d'Italia parsley, and cucumbers with some store bought cilantro. This was served with the chicken and green bean harissa sauce dish.

We got 8 days in a row of heavy rainfall. The wind was so bad on June 28th it made me worry about a tornado. Lots of tree damage in the neighborhood and power went out for a little bit. But it looks like that stormy weather pattern has finally broken. All this rain means disease is running rampant in the tomato beds, and half the onions were lost. I've decided I'm done growing onions, it's a lot of work starting them so early in February only to have most of them die or not do well because of the amount of water we tend to get.

The bush bean bed will probably be done in another week or two, Gilfeather turnips will be directly sown in that bed. Broccoli and Brussels sprouts will get planted in the early Buhl sweet corn once it's done in few weeks. It'll probably be late before the Morado corn is finished so fava beans/broad beans probably won't be planted until October or November in those beds.

I might try a planting of peas along the fence in the Buhl corn bed. The only reason I've been able to keep up with the weeding this year is because the kiddo is vacationing with the grandparents. They've been going to the beach and out cherry picking, so lots of fun stuff.

Join us for Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. A place where garden drama unfolds as gardeners share their trials and triumphs, as well as their weekly harvests.

Bush Bean Pickings

The first picking from the bush snap bean bed gave us 4.57 pounds of beans (2.07 kg). Not much for a 25-30 foot long bed but there was sparse germination in a couple of rows with just 10 plants or less germinating, and only one full row of beans.

Tendergreen Improved bush beans produced 2.142 pounds of beans (0.97 kg). They had the most plants germinate by far, Pinetree seed company is very generous with their bean seed packets.

Roma II bush beans produced 1.444 pounds of snap beans (0.66 kg). Baker Creek seed company only includes 40-60 seeds in their packet, they germinated really well but our very wet spring caused some of their stems to collapse at soil level and those plants died. This bucket is actually much bigger than the others, so there's more beans than it looks.

I planted one of those 20 cent packets of yellow Cherokee Wax beans that had maybe 10 seeds in them. Those very few plants produced a good number of beans. I've grown this variety before in the desert with sandy soil and the bean pods were dry and tiny. These beans look much bigger and seemed juicy when I was picking them. The green bean pods in this bucket are a mixture of Strike and Jade bush beans which were in rows that I planted much too deep for clay soil and there was sparse germination. Strike and Jade seem to be later producing plants or maybe they just produce much more slender beans, the plants were loaded but it felt like a lot of work for fewer weight-wise beans. I left a lot of the beans on these bushes to see if they would fill out more. We got 0.984 pounds from these 3 varieties.

I like to grow bush beans because they produce about a month ahead of pole beans. But they are a lot of work to pick. It took an hour of furious picking while stooping down to get 4.57 pounds of beans.

Chinese Yard Long Beans Germinated in Just 3 Days

I noticed the other day the Chinese yard long pole beans have germinated in just 3 days. Amazing.

Usually I pick regular snap beans when the seeds bulge a bit because I like the added texture, but the Mosaic long bean variety needs to be picked before the beans start filling out the pods, otherwise the pods get spongy. And since the seeds are very small they wouldn't make good shelling beans. I am also trying Chinese Green Noodle asparagus beans this year to see if there's a difference in longevity. Maybe long beans just require more water than regular snap beans to stay juicy.

The reseeded Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans have germinated in the nice warm weather we have been having. The first time I planted them, a cold front came in and only one bean sprouted. Which goes to show, beans need hot temperatures to germinate otherwise they rot in the ground.

Hmmm. The future holds cucumbers for stir fries, baked stuffed cucumbers, and marinated cucumbers. Yum.

The cucumbers have all germinated as well. I planted Sweet Success (F1), Sweeter Yet (F1), and Japanese Long cucumbers around a bamboo teepee support. I am thinking about planting cucumbers all along the tomato rows and letting them climb the fencing, which will increase the chances of getting a good cucumber harvest. It's so difficult growing cucumbers here, they grow few fruits and the vines die early due to mildew and beetles, so I'm trialling a couple F1 hybrid varieties to see if they perform better.

The bush bean bed is filling nicely. Normally I plant the bush beans in a single block with 2 to 4 inches between plants, but this year I wanted to keep track of production between varieties. Plus, it will be nice to see if giving the beans more room will actually increase yields.

The mulch really seems to be helping with the weeding. Instead of hoeing, it's just me and my trusty hand trowel digging up the few weeds that manage to make it through the thick layer of mulch. The mulch does make it harder to plant because layers of mulch has to be pushed away before digging a hole, but it is so worth the decreased number of weeds. Yay, I am finally winning the war against weeds.

The sweet potatoes have yet to start vining, but when they do they will create a dense living mulch ground cover that doesn't seem to compete with taller plants like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. Unlike winter squash vines which seem to bulldoze their way through the garden smothering all others in their path.

The First Okra of the Season

Philippine Lady Finger okra

Bush green bean flowers blooming

Bed of 4 varieties of bush green beans

First hill of summer squash or zucchini

Second hill of summer or zucchini

Third hill of summer squash or zucchini

The first okra of the season has already formed which is amazing since it's only early June. The okra plants are still itty bitty less than a foot tall but about half of them are blooming and forming okra. Since the plants are so small it takes a few days for the okra to grow big enough to harvest, but once the plants get bigger they will be cranking out pods on a daily basis. This year I am growing smooth podded varieties which I have never grown before, Philippine Lady Finger and Stewart's Zeebest.

The okra are the first of the summer vegetables to produce, even before the bush green beans which have just started flowering. Soon the blooming blossoms will give way to fresh green beans. The first of the bush beans were planted just a month ago in the first week of May.

The summer squash and zucchini are coming along nicely, little male fruitless blossoms are starting to form which soon will give way to female blossoms and fruit. Six hills were planted of all different varieties with 4 plants per hill but one hill was accidently planted twice so has 8 plants. The hill with 8 plants were planted with two different varieties so I don't know which ones to thin out. Six hills of summer squash and zucchini would be considered an overzealous amount usually but this area of the US tends to have major problems growing this kind of vegetable because of the squash vine borers, Japanese beetles, cucumber beetles, wilt and mildew. Last year not a single summer squash or zucchini was harvested because the plants were so devastated by the squash vine borers.

Growing Bush Beans

The quiet, the tame, the ever fruitful bush bean.

The growing time, a bush bean story.

Silky and lustrous free range Swiss chard.

The quietly exultant chard.

The first planting of bush beans are filling in quickly with their first true leaves. I've been trying to space plantings every two weeks apart to extend the harvest since bush beans tend to bear in heavy flushes that last about two weeks, after which they need time to recover before bearing again. The beds are starting to fill up so bean seeds are going here and there in any bare space that is not filling in quickly. Summer is promising to shape up to be a dry one this year, so there's less fear of mildew and mold in regards to spacing plants in such close proximity. The bed that is purposed solely for the bush beans is twenty feet long with 6 rows of beans with half planted two weeks later than the other half.

Derby, Contender, Romano, Masai, and Blue Lake 156 were the bean varieties that were originally planted in the bean bed but a few rows didn't come up. It was probably Masai and Blue Lake 156 that didn't germinate because they were the oldest seed, so those rows were replanted with Kentucky Wonder which managed to come up beautifully.

The Swiss chard or silverbeet are ranging free, meaning they had grown back on their own in odd little spots. The chard in the top photo has been stepped on a few times because it's right dab in the middle of a walkway. It's still pretty and fun seeing it grow.

Sprouting Bush Green Beans

The bush green beans are popping out of the ground after only being planted for a couple of days, 4 out of six rows have come up with the last two rows being planted with the oldest seeds. The heat must really be stimulating the germination of the beans. It is so much easier to directly sow bean seeds into the soil rather than starting them indoors since the plants grow so quickly.

I really need to get the corn seed into the ground but the rain over the last couple days keeps thwarting me. Once the corn starts growing then the pole beans can be planted around the corn stalks.

Planting Eggplant & Replanting Okra Seeds

The weather here has been hot hot. Up around 88˚ F (31˚ Celsius) and humid to boot. I've been out in the vegetable garden braving the heat to plant 28 eggplants and six rows of bush green bean seeds. The eggplants are from all sorts of fun varieties from the Middle East, Asia, and Italy that were all started indoors from seed. The bush green bean varieties that were planted include Derby, Contender, Masai, Blue Lake 156, and Romano. After laying down one and a half packages of Dragon Tongue beans I happened to look down at the package and realized I was planting a pole bean variety amongst the bush beans. Luckily, the seeds were all still laying on top of the soil as a way to keep track of spacing and were easy enough to pick up.

None of my zucchini, summer squash, and okra seeds have sprouted after being 3 weeks in the ground, so I dug around and found some empty squash seeds in the soil. Ugh! The birds probably pulled up and ate the little sprouted seedlings as soon as they popped out of the soil, since they were planted before the bird netting was set up. I went ahead and soaked some more okra seeds in water for a couple days before planting because their seed coats are so very hard, in just two days little white roots could be seen poking out of all the Phillipino Lady Finger okra seeds whereas the Stewart's Zeebest didn't even look like they had swelled at all. Either way, into the ground the okra seeds went today.

The tomato plants are still very short from the birds eating the leaves and growing tips but oddly enough they are still managing to flower even under such duress. How exciting.