bean notes

The whippoorwill cowpeas are getting ready to mature - the pods are not quite plump yet, but there are a nice number of them. The black-eyed peas have surprised me. I thought they were almost done with their crop. No... they were just getting started! I see three times as many pods now as what I've already picked - and it will be a week or so before they are ready. The Kentucky wonder and white half-runner beans are starting to produce enough for more plates of green beans. I am enjoying the brown Mississippi silver crowder peas - they taste more like a dried pea than the black-eyed peas and taste like they have a lot of minerals in them.

Other notes: The White half-runner beans were planted intermixed with the Kentucky Wonder beans, but I can tell the difference. The half-runner beans plump out quickly with large shelling beans inside them and the Kentucky Wonder grow longer and skinny before they begin to develop beans inside. That makes a lot of sense as the SSE boards were mentioning half-runner types are more likely to be large beans. The black Shackamaxons are planted at the end of that row and have purple flowers instead of the white/yellow flowers both of the other varieties have. However, they have not yet gotten any beans on them.

Notes: I have seed (three total) for Tongues of Fire beans, and they look VERY pretty. They have red pods with striped beans inside when mature. I should plant those next season, and put them on poles. The files say they are pole beans. In that same box are three Scarlet Runner beans that were not planted and might need a second try.

I am really looking forward to planting Esme's experiment beans and seeing what they become next. An article said that it only takes a few beans of any type to make a 'variety', and then year after year it will become more hardy for the land it is planted in. Most of the bean swappers on the seed saver's exchange are exchanging as little as five beans per variety, and that explains while some of the packets from heirloom sites are ten or fifteen beans each.

With these new beans and cowpeas, I've joined Seed to Seed. The challenge is to grow a new plant or variety from seed, save the seed, and replant it the following year. I'm already planning on doing that ;)

Esme's experiment beans

These are the 'experiment beans'
taste like pinto beans, of course...
look more like cranberry beans for 'ID'

These are what came from the soup bean mix and I let these go to seed and dry in their pods to plant for next year. They are not like their 'parents', and they are all alike to each other. I am amazed and curious. I even joined Seed Saver's Exchange now... I want to learn more!


The originals
I selected these carefully from the whole bag, in hopes of
selecting for the color trait with small speckles.

It is hard to tell which set, the brown or the red, this came from. My memory says it was the red - and the evidence seems correct. My big question is if they crossed with the actual garden pintos I had planted in large number in the middle of the garden. The pintos were already producing beans by the time this set was starting to sprout but also put on a second round of flowers recently.

The varieties in the garden (all legumes included):

Mayflower bean (1 plant survived, produced very late in the season, about 7 pods total, saved 12 seeds or so)
Black Shackamaxon bean (several plants survived, produced very late in the season, 15 to 20 pods total)
White half-runner pole bean (producing nicely)
Kentucky wonder pole bean (producing nicely)
Provider bush bean (overwhelmed me!, got about 15 extra seeds)
Fordhook Lima beans (slight producer, and had a second wind)
Brown whippoorwill cowpeas (putting on pods, produced about 50-80 seeds)
Black eyed peas (from grocery store) (did very well)
Purple Hulled peas (overwhelmed me!)
Mississippi Silver crowder peas (did well early, then died off.. about 30 seeds saved)
Scarlet Runner beans (damaged, never produced)
Purple Hyacinth bean (poisonous, but pretty flower)

Mark said I should count these as separate 'varieties' because they had different sources and I was watching them as separate items.

--Pinto beans (from garden seed packet) (produced well and loved these)
--Pinto beans (from grocery store) (not doing well)
experiment beans from grocery store mix : red (produced, were cranberry beans)
experiment beans from grocery store mix : brown (produced, were regular pinto)
experiment beans from grocery store mix : black (did not come up)
experiment beans from grocery store mix : white (damaged)

The e.b. red, purple hulled peas, black eyed peas and packet pintos have all produced enough to save some for seed.

The fall garden notes

With all the summer squash pulled out, I'm thinking of what goes in next.

All of the websites are reccommending carrots and beets and 'cold' crops like kale and lettuce. The two items I actually bought for the fall garden are lentils and radicchio, of which the latter is on the list and the former probably isn't on ANYONE's list, but it is a cold season item and I am curious to see it grow. Hullless oats is an interesting idea, but would require more planning and obtaining seed a little earlier than now. If we were to add chickens or goats to our 'farm' in the future, that would be a no-brainer to plant as a cover crop AND a useful easy to thresh grain for storage. After having all of those squash bugs in the zucchini I am rethinking what to put there. Pyrethrin daisies would help prohibit those bugs from living there... Articles say that Butternut squash is not affected by these bugs - so planting them in their own place next year (instead of mixed) would help when wanting to know what to pull and what to leave. I see a 'polar coordinate' effect for the squashes next year - with varieties being planted at different o'clocks all around the garden with beans in between them of different varieties. Plains coreopsis and calendulas are seed packets I already have that are good for fall planting in this zone. I think there is enough season left to get another crop of southern field peas - especially the purple hulled peas which require no support and were a heavy producer in this soil. I would like to plant more of the Mississippi Silver crowder peas but they do require more support. The provider green beans are mostly done -- and they have a fence. That would seem a natural place to put another crop. The peas are mostly carefree, which is an added bonus.

thinking a bit further, not so much on the polar coordinate idea.. kind of between what happened this year and trying to separate some of the important things.

an idea of a map, for myself, for next year


corn and black eyed peas in the back, purple zinnias and yellow marigolds scattered about.. hills of a FEW types of squash, keeping the butternut away from the zucchini. A section at the side back for pumpkins - just a few plants because treated well they will do something... and have room to run off to the side out of the garden. In the middle of each squash type area pyrethrin daisies or other bug-hating plants put in the middle of the hills? Maybe zinnias, because they will be tall. The pyrethrin is supposed to be a good organic pest-killer, it makes the bugs shell bodies soft when they get it onto them, and then they are easily hurt and killed by other species wanting to eat them. Spaces for both the bush varieites of beans that need no fence and a place to train up the varieties that do need fencing to keep them from choking the ones that do not. Planned room for the field peas with the same thing, fencing at the sides for the ones that need it and a swath in the middle for the variety that does not (quick pick pink eye). Having the pink eyed peas in the place where the zucchini was this year is supposed to do well at having the wasps kill the bugs when they start to emerge. Tomato varieties separated with their own supports so we are not crawling in an overgrown jungle and wondering where X tomato type is and if it is going to produce. A swath for cucmbers up front and some planned space for radishes and basil. More room for carrots that are out of the way and will be able to be left to their own until the time comes ripe. One site I am reading says to keep planting radish seed all around the squash all season long - even if there are no radishes, it will keep the squash bugs away. That seems correct in a way... I had not a single squash bug to be seen until I stopped planting the radishes because the weather was too hot to actually GET radishes. I should have kept planting and not cared if there were actual radishes or not.

sunrise seeds, this local harvest seller (Indiana) seems to have a few varieties of beans and pumpkins that are interesting to me.

Grandpa Harvey and Grandma Gale visits

Gale with a tortoiseshell kitten...


lounging with coffee and kittens


Balloon animals ala Daddy made a fun round of pretend for everyone


pigtails became 'my long rabbit ears' and she played Grandpa was Elmer Fudd hunting her with a nerf noodle

Esme had a good time these past few days visiting with Grandpa Harvey and Grandma Gale from Iowa. They had a good time 'resting' as much as a toddler would let them, which couldn't have been very much. I had to work a few days but the time I was here they were being run ragged playing 'Looney Tunes Duck Season/Rabbit Season' pretend games and other things such as these balloon animals and dinosaur fights and 'doctor has to save you' etc.. Esme has a large imagination and really showed it to them.

They are on their way home now, but before that they took Esme and I out to a catfish restaurant for Esme's very first time at a restaurant (other than once or twice to McDonald's playcenter with Mama). Mark stayed home because he doesn't like fish OR crowds. Esme was very very good, just requiring some extra encouragement to eat her dinner instead of stare and talk about everything. Afterwards we were going out to the car and it had gotten dark. Esme told Grandpa to come in because she loved him, and the brown bears were going to eat him because it was all dark out there. She said it was not safe, even in the car, because it was dark and we all needed to go back to 'the green house' with her Daddy so we could all be safe. That was very sweet and really told a lot about how her mind works. I told her I would hold her hand and we would go back to the green house and find Daddy and that was 'okay' and she went to sleep until we got home. I know she will be looking for Grandpa and Grandma again tomorrow - and be sad that they are back at their house and will only talk on the phone for a long time again. However, we are all very glad they got a chance to visit and to rest away from the 'city' and busy schedules they keep. Have a safe trip home and enjoy the memories :)

For the record: We also lost the Cookie Rabbit yesterday morning - she was there and then POOOF she was gone! I searched for her and did not find her. Tonight before bed I turned on my spidey sense and a flashlight and found her hiding behind the 'chair' bench Esme eats her dinner at. So, yay - the Cookie Rabbit is found!

Notes: The brown whipporwhill cowpeas are starting to pod, and the black eyed peas and purple hulled peas have produced half their crop now. I pulled all the curcubit vines (pumpkins, zucchini and etc.) as the squash bugs were getting in large numbers out there. I hope this will help keep their number down for next year - and an early planting again with netting over them? //also, Esme's side leg measurement is now just under 21 inches. Pants time, again.

08/17

pen and ink drawing, 08/17/2011

Cleaning Help

Esme insisted on helping me clean up downstairs last night. She definitely has her own sense of style. She said she was a Cinderella and a 'chef' last night, because she was helping to clean. I'm not sure why she thinks she is a chef, maybe that is why the hat? "Look at all this MESS. gotta clean this up. Now where that hand wash go?"

I had her put all of her downstairs toys into the box in the background - which was a lot. She was wearing rollerskates for a while there, and eating pizza and drinking milk while watching Wall-E. She told me I was being awful cleaning the bathtub because I was moving toys, but that the cleaning was a good job. In the end I had to make her get a towel to clean up the large expanses of water she had left on the floor, as it wasn't really dirty at that point - I had already mopped it.