Pole Bean, Cucumbers, and Luffa Varieties

A squirrel dug out most of pepper/eggplant tray that was on the porch. Seedlings and just germinated seeds were flung about so there's no telling what is what. Ah well. At least most of them survived but I'll take it as a sign, and will get them in the ground as soon as possible.

I got the pole beans, cucumbers, and luffa seeded under their trellises right before some rain hit yesterday. The way the wind picked up and thunder clouds rolled in, made me immediately think tornado. But luckily it was just a fast moving thunderstorm. Ten trellises were seeded which leaves only 2 trellises to be planted with more loofa and bitter melon. The way it works out there'll be 3 trellises devoted to dry pole beans, 3 trellises for cucumbers, 3 for pole green beans, and 3 for luffa.

I was hoping to get more planting done today but it rained buckets and buckets till the whole backyard flooded. Since it'll be awhile before the ground can dry enough to plant the broccoli and Brussels sprout seedlings, I went ahead and potted them up into individual containers so they'll have more room to grow.

Dry pole beans:
Good Mother Stallard
Spagna Bianco
Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco

Cucumbers (using up ancient seeds):
Straight Eight
Japanese Long
Sweet Success
Sweeter Yet
White Wonder
Suhyo Long

Green pole beans:
Meraviglia di Venezia
Smeraldo
Rattlesnake

Loofa:
Chinese Okra angled luffa
Bonanza angled loofa
Extra Long angled loofa
Smooth Boy, smooth luffa
Summer Cross, smooth luffa

Bitter melon:
Green Giant

Bamboo Ridge Trellis for Cucumbers and Pole Beans

I finally finished trellising the 25-30 foot row of pole beans on Thursday, the 25th. It only took a week of lacing brown string between top and bottom bamboo poles and untangling pole bean vines. The yard-long asparagus beans were knee high when I began but by the end of the week they're reaching the almost 6 feet tall posts. They must be loving the heat and humidity.

The other pole beans were so much longer and took forever to untangle. Hours upon hours. Heat upon heat.

In comparison this side of the trellis (which I actually did first) containing melons, cucumbers, loofa, and bitter melon was so much easier to trellis. It only took 2-3 days which included setting up the bamboo structure, zip tying netting to the bamboo posts, detangling vines and trying to get tendrils to attach to the netting.

All in all it took a week and a half of work in ninety-some degree weather. Our yard backs up to a shared alley, so there were lots of witnesses to me sweating up a storm mostly neighbors and passersby. Even a work crew with a big machine scraping weeds growing in the alley and the men later laying down new gravel. Ah well. Life goes on.