Ottawa Cranberry, Trail of Tears, and Kidney
This week I finally got around to shelling my dried beans. I'd been collecting them for weeks and they were sitting on my counter. I decided I needed to reclaim the space. Dried beans take up a lot less room once shelled. Plus they are prettier. The pole beans didn't have any issues with rot, but the kidney beans were dragging their pods on the ground. I found quite a few pods that had to be tossed as they had molded up. I like pole beans better than bush beans, if just for ease of picking, but there are so many varieties that only come in bush. If I grow bush dried beans again, I'll have to remember to pick more frequently.
I picked some Asian greens, but only the ones that had to be picked. The Chinese broccoli (also known as Chinese kale, or Kai lan or Gai lan), was done up in a stirfry. We had a take out dinner at my house with friends. None of us ate the duck sauce that came with our meal so I mixed that with some of my homemade terriyaki sauce and it was quite yummy. But no my friends didn't get to eat my greens as those gatherings are just take out. However I did score some takeout containers. I love the white plastic ones they give out. In the spring they will become flea beetle traps. Flea beetles love the color white (and yellow, but the bees love yellow too so that is bad to use). I fill them with soapy water and place the traps near the tomatoes or the Asian greens and the flea beetles suicide right into them. It doesn't get rid of all of them, but enough to keep them from doing real damage.
I also used up the last of the tomatoes that I had picked green a while back. There weren't many, but the ones that were left got put into the tally. But then I replaced them. There were some frost warnings for Thursday and Friday nights. It turns out we didn't get a frost. I seem to have just as nice of a non-frosting place as my last house. It could be the huge fence surrounding the property. It could keep the cold air from flowing onto our property. And our property has a lot of pavement and bricks which hold in the heat. But because of the frost warnings I picked all the sizable Cherokee Purple tomatoes and any GabrielleAnn that was starting to show a decent amount of color. The Gabrielles were weighed, but the green tomatoes were not. They will once they turn. I also picked all the peppers of any size. Including those two green peppers that wouldn't turn red. If you look at them you might notice that tiny bit of a red blush, but they have been like that forever.
It was a good week for putting up food too. I put up nine pints of applesauce and 2 pints, four cups and one half cup of thicker tomato sauce (good for making into spaghetti sauce later on). Though DH and I can eat a jar of applesauce at a meal, the tomato sauce is sometimes used in smaller quantities so I love to have different sized cans. This time I made sure I had exactly 7 jars so they would fill up my canner, but not go over.
- Alliums 0,14 lbs
- Dried Beans 1.39
- Greens 1.01 lbs
- Pepper 0.59 lbs
- Tomato 2.21 lbs
- Spent this week: $0
- Total harvested this week 5.34 lbs
- Total for the year 319.03 lbs
- 2010 Tally $934.89
Harvest Monday is a day to show off your harvests, how you are saving your harvest, or how you are using your harvest. If you have a harvest you want to show off, add your name and link to Mr Linky below.
The dry beans are so pretty. I am still picking and shelling mine. Your Asian greens are to die for! I only have Kale in the garden this fall...didn't manage to get anything else planted :(
ReplyDeleteThe dried beans are so pretty. I also love how healthy your Asian greens are. I'm going to try them again in the spring, but keep them under a row cover.
ReplyDeleteWe had some frosty mornings cold enough to kill the peppers last week.
I never realized how important micro-climates were in determining whether or not you got frost. My front lawn is much more prone to frost this time of year than my back yard.
ReplyDeleteYou're really making wonderful progress on your new garden Daphne! I can't wait to see how it comes together next year.
Love the asian greens. I want to expand the variety I plant next year. I'm also going to try chinese cabbage again but may wait until fall as it bolted in the spring.
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely harvest you have got there! I agree with you on bush beans compared to pole beans. Next year I will not grow bush beans as the snails ate a lot of them. And the poles are really beautiful in the kitchen garden, I thing.
ReplyDeleteHave a great week,
Charlotta
Cesar's Garden
You are very organized - keeping your beans seperated so well! I ended up comingling my dried beans together. The asian greens are gorgeous. Have they been growing under a row cover?
ReplyDeleteI winder if the flea beetle traps would work around eggplant? Your Asian greens look very clean and nice. I'm getting anxious for ours to be ready!
ReplyDeleteRobin, my kale is having issues. I didn't grow it under the row cover and it got eaten down by some caterpillars. I dispatched them, but it has been having issues recovering. I don't know that it will ever get big enough before winter. I hope at least it recovers enough for some early spring greens.
ReplyDeleteGrafixMuse, I've never been able to grow Asian greens well without a row cover. I think there are just too many insects that like to eat them.
Thomas, I've found microclimates make a huge difference. It might just be a slight difference, but that can mean a difference between frost or not. At my last house we lived near the top of a hill (but not on the top) and the valley just a couple blocks away would get a frost about a week before I would.
Emily, I've always found Asian greens to be easier to grow in the fall. They tend not to bolt as easily. This year was a weird one though so I expect more bolting than in previous falls.
Madame C, I would really love to find some pole pinto beans, but haven't seen any. I'll have to do a good search as I love pintos. Though the cranberry beans can be used in a pinch.
Laura, When I shell them I keep several containers around to sort them as I do it. I don't want to sort them later and I do different things with different beans. And yes by Asian greens have been growing under a row cover. And this has been an extremely dry year so the slugs aren't as bad as usual. Which is good since I can't find the container of sluggo anywhere.
Villager, I've used them around eggplant too. They help a lot. They won't get rid of all of them though.
Daphne - thanks for the tip about using white containers of soapy water to control flee beetles. I wonder if it would work for any other types of beetles, as I had a heck of a time with cucumber/bean beetles this year.
ReplyDeleteI think your camera loves the asian greens, they are so pretty.
ReplyDeleteYou've got me thinking about micro climates now, and the possibility of planting my cherry in the ground... :)
-Mary
I think you moved since the last time I was here! It must be so exciting putting in a new garden, deciding where everything will go, etc. Wishing you many productive years ahead! and I'm very impressed with all of your beans. Do kidney beans need a lot of space? Would love to try growing them sometime.
ReplyDeleteThought you might like to see the harvest in our school courtyard!
I love seeing the dried beans...Question - can any bean be done that way, or is it only certain ones? I'm intrigued, and don't know squat about the whole process...
ReplyDeleteThose dry beans look awesome!
ReplyDeleteMy dry beans were done a few weeks ago. I'm waiting for a nice cold day to start eating them though!
Just 1 crop was harvested this week: Radishes, but they were a great size and tasted delicious!
Just a little left to harvest as I put the garden to bed for the winter over the next few weeks.
The beans and greens are just beautiful!!!!
ReplyDeleteI have some tomatoes on my counter that need to be transformed into sauce or maybe ketchup!!!
I love applesauce too! Got quite a few quarts in my pantry.
Trying to decide what to do with the 40#s of pears that are now ready to process!
PS... You have a 1 1/2 years worth of homemade powder clothes detergent on hand.... wow... Daphne!!!! You are truly amazing! And I mean it!
Hi Daphne, amazing post and harvest as always. Your Asian greens look so good, really healthy. Thank you for the tip about the flee beetle trap.
ReplyDeleteTyra
Daphne, you sure have been a very busy girl this season. My garden is almost bare, just kale, for our rabbit, and some swiss chard left
ReplyDeleteI shelled the last of my dried beans this week also. Your Trail of Tears beans are beautiful, are they similar in flavor and use to other black beans, like turtle beans?
ReplyDeleteMicroclimates are really interesting, I've got one corner of my garden that is near but not under a large oak tree and it is decidedly less frosty than the far corner of the garden which is slightly lower and more open around the sides.
Beautiful harvest! Those peppers that won't turn red, they are so naughty! I have pepper plants that won't grow. So irritating!
ReplyDeletethyme, I doubt it. I don't think I've ever seen a cucumber beetle in one of the traps.
ReplyDeleteMary, I'm thinking of micro climates too. I really want a rosemary to stay alive over the winter in our (supposedly) zone 6 area. My neighbor said that there used to be a rosemary that would over winter here, so I'm thinking I can do it. If I plant it on the southwest side of the house and right near the foundation it will probably work. I can always hope.
JGH, It has been a while then. I moved in June. It is exciting to have a new garden. I just wish I could have had it up earlier for a really big fall garden. I love the fast asian greens, but I want broccoli too. Dried beans in general need a lot of space. The pole beans had about 9-10 square feet for each variety and they each produced about a pound. If you are just going for the best producers, these aren't them. I grow them because I love them and it gives me something over the winter that I can eat from the garden too. They are really easy to take care of too (if you don't have bean beetles). Just plant and forget until late August when they start to ripen (or early August for the bush ones).
EG, yes any bean can be done that way, but some produce better tasting beans than others or have better texture. Typically you plant a dried bean variety. But my green beans are usually Kentucky Wonder and they make a fine white bean if you let them ripen.
Fred, I'm cooking up some as I type. I decided I really needed some bean soup. I keep wondering how long the garden will last this year. Last year it lasted until almost Thanksgiving, but usually the beginning to middle of November is the finish. We haven't even had a frost yet much less a real freeze.
Toni, no just one year, not one and a half. I haven't made it all yet, but I have the ingredients for it, so I will make it. Wow 40lbs of pears ought to take a long time to process. Unless you make pear sauce I suppose. I would probably cut them up and make canned pears. I'm not a fan of fresh pears but loved the canned ones.
ReplyDeleteTyra, this year they look so nice because the slugs have taken a little vacation with all the dry weather we had. They have started to become more active now though as we have had a lot more rain in the fall.
keewee, Swiss chard is good though. Mine seems to be slowing down rather dramatically. It is there, but not growing anymore. So sad.
michelle, they taste close enough to a black bean. I usually make black bean soup out of them. I tried Black Coco this year, but I wasn't impressed with its productivity. So I think I'll just stick with ToT for my black beans. It is longer than thinner than a regular black bean though so it looks a bit different.
Melissa, I swear they knew they would get eaten as soon as they ripened so they started to turn and just sat there.
Those beans look so pretty! I really want to try growing some!
ReplyDeleteI'm hoping to make some applesauce too! Yours looks pretty good!
Your beans are really beautiful. The black container really brings out the colors. And the applesauce leaves me longing for some homemade.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous Asian greens, I dragged my feet and didn't start them in time, I have some sprouting now, I call it an "experiment" just to make myself feel better ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm loving your chinese greens. The only chinese greens I grew this year was Mustard Greens, but the bugs kept eating the leaves, so I didn't harvest much. I should try growing Gai Lan and bok choy since I love them both!! Where do you buy your seeds?
ReplyDeleteGreat Bok Choy! I think that staring at mine are not helping them grow faster, but at least I'm not singing to them or they would die off for sure!
ReplyDeleteLove your photos of your produce. My Trail of Tears beans are almost ready to harvest, a new veggie for me. I can hardly wait to make some bean soup. Hope I have enough beans. I took a lot of photos of my late October garden today, showing ripening oranges, lemons and avocados. Our fall garden season is upon us here in southern California.
ReplyDeleteDwarf beans - Had the same experience as you last year. This year I put up a support (short cane and string)for each plant. They responded with a bumper crop.
ReplyDeleteI agree that pole beans look after themselves better(and are easier to pick).
Are your red kidney beans Canadian Wonder, They look similar to the ones I've grown.
Cool! Thanks for the info!
ReplyDeleteHi Daphne,
ReplyDeleteCould you tell me the name of the two asian greens in the photos above? Is the first one Shuko Pac Choi?
I had spicy yokatta-na for dinner tonight. What a great green! I tranplanted some to my new greenhouse, hope they survive.
Your Asian greens really are looking great this fall!
ReplyDeleteAlmost $1000 - how wonderful!
ReplyDeleteOh those beans are to die for! Yum. Wish I had the room on the balcony for dried beans.
ReplyDeleteShawn Ann, thanks
ReplyDeleteBarbie, I keep thinking I need a little more applesauce, but I don't think I'm going to make more. I'll count up the jars and see how long they last.
Mac, No. And all of the one photographed were from your seed. Too bad I can't send you some. I hope yours get big enough to eat.
meemsnyc, I typically get seed from Pinetree or Fedco, but all the Asian greens that I'm growing this year (except Fun Jen) are from Mac. She sent me a whole lot. I'm sure I'll be growing them next year too.
Nartaya, lol, you could always talk to them, maybe that would get them to grow?
Lou, I envy your fall and winter fruits. I think everything I have now is shivering.
Mal, I thought that the kidney beans needed support. I didn't give them any, but they really seemed to want to climb. I may have to try that next year. They were just called Red Kidney Beans in the Fedco catalog, but they said they were an early maturing variety developed at Cornell.
Elizabeth, The top photo is a white stemmed dwarf bok choy but I don't know the variety as it didn't have any listed. The bottom is Chinese broccoli. I really fell in love with yakatta-na this year as it held up in the heat without bolting better than my other Asian greens. It is a great green.
Dan, thanks
Stevie, I know amazing isn't it? I don't think I'll get to the $1000 mark this year, but that's OK.
prue, I could see you growing them up the wall. lol You would never be able to pick them though.
Wonderful blog! You are a hard worker. It was interesting to see that someone else keeps track of their harvest quantities and value. I track mine in Excel spreadsheets, to the point where some people think I am a fanatic about it. But, if you don't track it, how can you compare it? While home gardeners may not sell the produce, the nutritional value and taste is outstanding compared to that of grocery store produce. I just caught a note about you making your own laundry soap. I would like to read that for myself, as I have been considering making bar soap. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteDaphne, I love your dried beans. Growing up we grew red kidney beans but we never let them dry to harvest them. When the pods starting turning yellow, we would harvest and shell them. One of my favorite meals... fresh red beans, rice, and hot biscuits. Oh, yes, fresh tomatoes on the side!! YUM!!! If any of the beans were dry, they were saved for next year's seeds.
ReplyDeleteI definitely want to try the Trail of Tears next year and who knows maybe I will try drying some red kidney beans, too.