[Homestead] beans on steroids.... :-)

Leslie cayadopi at yahoo.com
Thu Jun 18 17:35:46 EDT 2009


I suppose for everyone, the first year planting a garden and actually harvesting things is the best memory.
 
I had to do a lot of this as a kid,,,,, picking the veggies & berries & fruits grown, and then helping with the slicing/dicing or whatever was needed and help with the pressure canning and freezing.  But it was my grandfather who always planted the garden and nutured it until harvest time.  The growing part is the new to me.  I've started a few small gardens before but something always happened and wiped out the garden.
 
And of course, it tastes so much better homegrown....
 
Beans are my favorite, dried, fresh, canned, frozen doesn't matter.  So I'm glad that so far they seem very easy to grow.  Even the beans in one area that I am purposely "abusing" are growing and putting fresh beans on the table.  The plants look puny, and have sunburned leaves, but they still produce,,,, unreal.  
 
I thought the worst I would have to deal with was bugs and other diseases,,, but so far it is a battle against birds and ground squirrels, and I've figured out ways to sort of win that battle.
 
Oh !  and the sunflowers!!! OMG - the are so beautiful.  Some have the flowers open now, and this morning as usual the bees were visiting them.  I decided to see if they have a purfume scent,,,,,,,wow ---- they actually smell beautiful.  I sure hope all those centers turn into edible seeds.
 
Today I took the last batch of onions harvested and cut off the tops and trimmed the roots and brushed off as much dirt as possible - so they are ready to store now.  I don't know if I did everything right, but if I see any signs that they dont' want to last long, I can cut and freeze them if I didn't quite harvest at the right point.  Ditto with garlic, cut tops and trimmed roots after hanging to dry for a couple weeks.
 
I discovered I can finely mince garlic and dry it on a window screen, and then jar it... and it retains the flavor real well, as an alternative if needed.  A few harvested so far aren't as big as I expected, but I think I know where I messed up already and batch #2 will prove or disprove my idea on my error I suspect.
 
WHAT JOY !  This is so much fun !  
City living is horrible compared to this !
 
 
 


--- On Tue, 6/16/09, Robert Walton <waltonrp at gmail.com> wrote:



>
> I don't know what is going on with all the different beans this week, but
> they about doubled in plant size from last week.
>


I just did my first picking on string beans and they did the same. I know it
is the rain that did it, but they were kind of puny looking, but starting to
bloom last week and now they are real bushy. I'm glad it's nice to have good
beans.


I like hearing about your gardening, sounds like you're having some good
successes!

Rob - Va
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