Sunday, May 13, 2012

A Hot Weekend

First I'd like to wish everyone a happy Mother's Day. Tonight my son will be in and tomorrow my daughter is flying in to stay for a couple of months. But Sundays are always Mom's Day here. My two kids, my husband and I all get together for online games together. We play all day. There is never much time for gardening except in the morning. My son doesn't get up until 10am so I've got several hours early on if I need it. And if I can get my butt out the door that early.

Today I did get out. The first chore was to harvest most of the radishes. They were all getting big. I took out all the French Breakfast but left just the White Icicle. I figured I'd plant beans around them. As you can see not many radishes are left. Just a small amount.

A couple of the radishes have been munched by the squirrels I think. The mocking birds haven't been doing a good enough job of chasing them off.

Then I decided to plant the beans, all eight varieties. I filled a whole 4'x16' bed with beans. Most of these are dried beans, but I do have Kentucky Wonder pole and Masai bush for green beans. The Masai is an early bean and I'm hoping will fill the gap before the pole beans start to produce. Then when they are done, I want to plant the same ones again for the fall. The pole beans peter out towards fall after they have produced for months. So I'm looking for a long green bean season.

The northern most side is where the pole beans went along the foot at the back. And the three feet in the front are all the bush beans. Some of the seed was from just buying dried beans at the store. I used Baer's Best Beans since they are a Massachusetts company. I'm just praying they are all bush and not pole beans. But it is hard to imagine even a small farm erecting trellises for pole beans.

Just in case the beans don't make it, I have extra seed of everything except Tiger Eye. If they don't make it I'll plant something else there instead. It is a bit early for the beans. But today it got to 87F so I'm thinking it was a good decision. Though the soil has been getting down to 55F at night which is too cool for beans. But fine in the day at around 60F-65F. With today's brief hot spell, I'm guessing it will get into the 70Fs.

Yesterday was warm too, but not quite as much as today was. This has sent my earliest planted baby choys into bolting. So I harvested all the Shanghai bok choys and much of the tatsoi that I'd thinned earlier in the week. That half of the bed is mostly empty. There is a bit of self seeded dill and lettuce, but not a lot else. I still have the other half of the bed that was planted later (after the abnormal hot weather at the end of March and beginning of April). Those later planted greens have had fabulous greens weather. This is the first bad hot spell they have seen so far. I hope they don't start bolting like the others. As it is I have too many Asian greens in the fridge. I just can't eat them all. Though I do try to eat a lot of them. I had stir fry for lunch (no rice, no meat, just lots of veggies and some cashews) and am thinking about fried rice for dinner. Maybe tomorrow I'll make a slaw.

But the last set of extras was successfully given away. Hopefully this next set will be too. I'm going to give my townhouse mates the first crack at it as I usually do. But if they still have too many greens in their fridge hopefully I'll find someone else that likes them. I've definitely hit over abundance.

12 comments:

  1. Happy Mother's Day!
    I'm growing some dry beans this year for the first time, maybe I'll learn to like them.

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  2. I like how you are growing bean from the store. I will be interested to see how that works out for you. I have grown a lot of things from the store.

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  3. That's how I got my Italian beans, just bringing a bag home. And one were pole, one bush. You never know, I suspect. Fun to find out. I much prefer shelling and dry beans to any green beans, except for once or twice a season.

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  4. Hi Daphne, That is alot of beans it seems to me! Looks like you are feeding an army! Nancy at Cozy Thyme Cottage

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  5. Happy Mother's Day, Daphne. I hope your time with your children is enjoyable.

    Saturday's sun emerged from our last rainy period, but it was pretty windy. I suppose the breeze helped make it tolerable to work out in the garden and I was able to accomplish a lot. Today was much more humid and the black flies made their appearance.

    I hope your beans do well. It will be interesting to see what you will grow from the purchased store beans.

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  6. I do find that gardening makes you realise how much impact climate has over our world - as your bolting veg will atest.

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  7. Last year I had horrible success with dried beans, they took up too much room for the amount of harvest I got. I am only doing green and purple snap beans this year. Maybe I will try dried beans again in the future.

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  8. I hope you had a great Mother's Day! My kids showed up with food and presents this afternoon, and I wasn't even expecting them! We had a great time, they did all the work :-)

    I planted my beans a few weeks ago, and they didn't mind the cool soil at all. I think I had even colder temperatures than you did, and mine have germinated and are looking fine.

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  9. Hi!
    I just love to read your blog! My tatsoy is bolting too, I even had no choice to it them. Could you please remind how you freezing them? Just in the freezer or boil first?

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    1. I've not frozen tatsoi before. Only spinach, chard and kale. But yes you would have to blanch it first. But if you did you would have to blanch for three minutes. Then cool them down immediately in ice water. Lots of ice in there. Then freeze.

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  10. I was thinking of trying some borlotto pole beans this year. Do you eat your shelling beans fresh and how do you eat them? Can they be frozen?

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    1. Most of the time I eat them dried, but I do eat them fresh occasionally. And the last picking before they get pulled out usually has some fresh shelling beans. I do freeze them on occasion. If it is for a short time, I don't even cook them first. I just toss them in the freezer.

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