[long winded ramblings follow. you've
been warned... ]

still blooming and putting on fruit.
as long as we get enough sunny days and
no hard freezes i think they'll keep on
going...

some strawberry plants are on their fourth
round of flowering/fruiting. last year there
were berries on the plants when the hard
freezes came along and shut them down for the
season.

today i picked half a dozen berries and
they were good flavored. we've not had much
warm or sunny weather lately so that surprised
me.

the okra plants had a fair number of pods
on them. a few were dried and starting to
split so i made sure to bring those in along
with a dozen other pods. the others were
green or just turning yellowish. some of
the green ones were fairly small and still
tender and easily cut. those went into the
pot. the green ones that were hard and
woody i peeled open and took the seeds out
and put the seeds in the pot too. i figured
they'd soften as they cooked. along with
the okra in the pot i added a bunch of
chopped swiss chard and then cooked that
until everything was done, but not overdone.
then i made a peanut/chili/soy sauce because
this was dinner and i wanted a bit more than
just greens.

dried mature okra seeds edible? i chewed
one and it was rather tough from the seed
coating, but perhaps when cooked it would
soften up. or if it were ground? anyone
here cook with okra seed? the taste was ok
to me. a very mild peppery sort of flavor
just like the okra itself (to me as i'm sure
tastes and varieties of okra are different).
we had the Clemson Spineless variety and it
grew in soil that was compacted and heavy.
i did water it once in a while so i'm sure
that did help it out. next year i'll put a
few plants in better soil. right now the
pods are being attacked by aphids. the
lady beetles were on the plants too so the
natural order of things is just fine there.
that's the first aphid attack i've seen on
any of the veggie plants this year.

the tomatoes and peppers are done. the
gardens they were in are already cleaned up
and the plants are chopped up and buried.
only three tomatoes left to eat. no green
tomatoes to use up this year. we made a lot
of salsa from the tomatoes, peppers, onions
and garlic. few of the tomatoes made it
past orange stage, so that was a good use
of them. the flash flood kicked off a
round of fungal disease in the tomato
plants and they ended up dropping 95% of
the leaves before they finally recovered
and started growing again. by that time
we'd harvested 2/3s of what was there and
the rest kept getting a little better as
time went on, but then we needed to do
something with a bunch of peppers and
onions so they went in the pot too. the
salsa has excellent flavor so this wasn't
as bad as it could have been. this is
the first time we had that kind of problem.
i'm fairly sure it was the flood that did
it.

the beans were also badly affected by the
flash flood. as i'm picking and shelling i'm
finding many pods empty or full of deformed
beans. some of the deformed beans may be
edible so i'm not putting those in the worm
bins yet until i cook some up as a test. the
mummies are worm food. there's just not
enough there to do anything with. there
are still some bean plants flowering and i
can pick a few fresh beans still, but the
flavor is not that great, but here or there
is still an excellent bean and that is good
enough for me. the edamame soybeans are
all turning yellow and dropping leaves so
it won't be long before those can also be
picked and shelled. the lima and azuki beans
are also finishing off.

if i'd not have planted three times as many
beans as last year, and also added many new
varieties we'd be short this year. a normal
cranberry plant last year produced 50-200 beans.
this season i'm seeing about 10 per plant if
any. this kind of difference is similar for
all the larger later season beans. only the
edamame soybeans seem to have bloomed enough
times after the flash flood to recover and
put on more pods. and the vining types of
beans that didn't finish early did recover
enough later to come close to a normal crop.

so those beans that finished early did ok.
the black turtle beans and the red beans.

then there were the beans that were in the
low spot of the north bean patch (bean patch
number 11 this year). the flash flood pretty
much shut them down and only a few recovered
well enough to bloom later. the rest just
gave up and died. the azuki and soybeans
that were also in that low spot at the edge
nearest the chives did survive. the edamame
dropped a lot of pods that didn't fill out
and then went on to bloom a few more times
and those pods stuck and filled nicely. the
azuki beans only flowered late and as they
seem to be from the same family as the black-
eyed peas i don't expect those to do well
here. i suspect i will have to get them
planted in early may for them to finish any
type of crop. i'll try them again next year
to see what does happen with an earlier
planting. i do like the taste of these
enough to give them a few more attempts.
perhaps i will have to look into a shorter
season variety if they are available...

on the really fun and cool side of things
the great discoveries in the bean patches are
new varieties. some perhaps have snuck in
and weren't noticed at first when planting.
only later when they grow out and you are
shelling you notice them and as i don't shell
as i pick i don't get to figure out which
plant produced the seeds to tag them. only
later i set them aside when sorting and
cleaning into their own compartment so they
can be grown out again next year in their own
areas. i have a brown bean that used to be
a red bean. i have three new types of pinto
beans (in addition to what i planted). one
of these new types i only have three beans
as a result so it will be a challenge to make
sure i get a crop next year from them.

i have cross breeding experiments that
came through. one is a type of green bean
that i crossed with pinto beans. i'll keep
working on it next year to improve it. the
first step was to get a green bean that
tasted ok and was as productive as a pinto
bean, but the real bonus and why i noticed
the cross as being good to begin with was
that the shelling was so much easier instead
of having to pry the seeds out of the pods
they'd fall out of the pods like most of the
pinto beans...

the new varieties were mostly bush type
beans of the larger and longer season types.
only a few were shorter season and smaller
beans (black turtle beans and red beans). i
already had two other black turtle bean
varieties so i ordered these as a comparison
and as added genetic variation to the pool.

the turtle bean varieties all look to have
grown well. i will combine them in a patch of
their own next year to mix things up and also
keep a few smaller plantings in isolation to
have the lines pure for a bit longer. no need
to confuse things entirely.

the red bean variety Red Ryder performed well
enough that i'd be tempted to let the other red
bean variety i grow go by the wayside, but again
i'll keep growing the other variety too in a
different patch for a few more seasons just to
make sure the Red Ryder performs as well or
better in the different types of soils and
weather. no need to decrease the gene pool yet
as i still have space to work with as we renovate
old gardens.

a few varieties had trouble with germination.
the yellow eye beans and a variety called Money
both had trouble in spots. the yellow eyed
beans i suspect were old. i did get enough to
grow that i now have a good source for replanting
next year and that will tell me if these are a
difficult variety to grow or if it was indeed
the seeds being old. the Money variety it was
soil type that made the most difference. too
sandy and they didn't do well. i didn't have
any of them planted in heavy clay so i can't
say how well they did in clay. in the bean patch
that had slightly heavier soil they did ok and
the one patch that was well above flood stage
i had a decent crop so i will have enough to
replant.

as i finally picked up a scale and can weigh
things out as soon as i get the last of the beans
picked and sorted i'll have a very good idea of
what the production was like for each variety in
each of the eleven patches planted. i didn't plant
each variety in all patches, but as it goes i'll
have a better idea each season which do better
where.

so far the grand champion of production is the
pinto bean. in all types of soil they do ok and
through all the weather. as a vining bean they
could ignore temporary setbacks and go on and
bloom again a week or two later. only in the
lowest spot did they completely give up, but then
so too did almost any other bean. already that
lowest spot is filled in and raised up another six
to eight inches and waiting for the last two rows
of beans to finish before i can get that whole
patch done and leveled off.

the Red Ryder gets honorable mention for a short
season bean as it is smaller and finishes up. it
too seems to be a little more of a vining bean and i
think that was part of its strength this season.

still it isn't a full harvest yet, there's still
beans to pick and shelling and sorting to do. perhaps
i'll be surprised by how well one of the other new
varieties finishes.

i'm quite happy with how the turnips and multi-
colored swiss chard turned out. next year i'll
space the turnips a little more evenly and move
some of the swiss chard off into another area. it
is very decorative plant and for fall color in a
garden i like how it is coming along. that it
is also edible is very nice. too bad Ma won't
eat it...

garlic is up and growing well. about a foot
high already. i planted peas and beans over them
as a cover crop for the fall and those are growing
fast. also it's in an area where i turned under
some birdsfoot trefoil (a legume) and so between
having nice topsoil and a bit of a nitrogen boost
from the beans and legumes growing they also get
the decaying legume boost later when the soil warms
up again next spring. perfect timing. i like how
some of this stuff actually works together for
timing and i don't have to actually do anything
more than what's already done other than a little
weeding and perhaps water if we have too dry of
a spring.

ok, i guess that's enough rambles for now. hope
everyone else is having a good fall/spring wherever
you are?


songbird