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#1
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bean season
well, actually it has been bean season for a while
now, but in the scramble of the past few days trying to get all the gardens picked through before the rains came along it seemed extra pointed. three days of picking and about a day and a half of shelling to get them all caught up again. once again we decided that shelly lima beans must be close to our favorites. Mom helped pick through the lima beans so i could spend the time on all the rest that were ready. so in the evening i sat and shelled out the green lima beans and cooked up some right away when i had enough ready to go and then we ate those and i went back to finish the rest of them. had almost two quarts. then last night i finished up shelling all the dried beans. some of the nicest lima beans i've grown so far and not too many defects. they were planted a few weeks later than normal and also in a garden with more sandy soil. also i put down some worms/worm compost for them since that sandy soil is very poor (intentionally so when i created that garden as i thought the tulips would do better - they didn't). this was my 2nd year growing a bean called Purple Dove. last year they were one of my selections to try out and they were only marked as a dry bean. last year i sampled a few young pods and noted that they were an excellent sweet flavor so i planted a lot of them for this year so i could trial them as a fresh bean along with making sure to leave enough for dry bean cooking too. as it turned out my first impression was accurate and they make an excellent fresh bean (steamed for about 8 minutes when picked young). after a few weeks the pods get a more fiberous texture and a bitter hint to them but that is ok as you can just leave them for dry bean production. we ate fresh picked about half the crop. i figure a plant produced about 200 seeds which is way beyond most of the rest of the bush beans grown here. other positive traits are a more upright habit and they finish early (by the first week of September they are mostly done) and i also like that they are purple podded so the beans are easy to see when picking. downsides, yes there are a few, they can be Japanese Beetle magnets and you don't want to shell out the beans too early from the pods. if you are looking to harvest in the face of on-coming rains leave the pods to dry in box tops or flats and then shell them out later. i haven't yet cooked up any dry beans from them but we'll be doing that eventually. since they were given to me as a dry bean i'm pretty sure the flavor and texture will be ok with these. they're not a large bean or a particularly dense bean either so they should cook up on the shorter side. we'll see... i'm going to keep growing these for sure as we both enjoyed eating them fresh and so it will be interesting to see how many cross breeds i can come up with in the future. another bean grown for the 2nd season is called Dappled Grey and is dry bean for sure. the first season it did well here so i planted more to have enough to cook up some to see how they taste. they did pretty well again so i'll keep growing these if they turn out to taste ok (i don't see why they won't i've not yet found a bean i didn't like). the fun thing with these beans is that the first season i ended up getting a bean i called Monster because the plant was huge and it had tons of beans, but they were not true to what was planted. this year i planted a handful of Monster beans to see what they would do and i ended up getting about half a dozen different kinds including the interesting aspects of Dappled Grey. i'm calling it a reversion to parental type but perhaps it was a cross breed that happened which destabilized the rest of the genes so that they are coming out in other selections. in any case, almost all of these other types are productive large plants. so worth keeping them growing here or there too in the mix... in harvesting though, i'm realizing that almost 50 beans is a bit too many because not only do i track of them all, i also try to keep track of which plants are early and make further selections to continue developing seed lines (like which beans are early because i want some beans to finish by early September so not everyhing is coming ripe and ready to pick at one time). for this tiny room i run out of space... next season i'll have to downsize a bit in what i plant... hard to pick what to plant though when i keep finding interesting beans and also have new cross breeds showing up to see what happens next... songbird |
#2
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bean season
On Monday, September 23, 2019 at 9:10:09 AM UTC-4, songbird wrote:
{Snip} in harvesting though, i'm realizing that almost 50 beans is a bit too many because not only do i track of them all, i also try to keep track of which plants are early and make further selections to continue developing seed lines (like which beans are early because i want some beans to finish by early September so not everyhing is coming ripe and ready to pick at one time). for this tiny room i run out of space... next season i'll have to downsize a bit in what i plant... hard to pick what to plant though when i keep finding interesting beans and also have new cross breeds showing up to see what happens next... songbird I planted 12 different pumpkins/winter-squash this year. Like you, I think I'll plant just a few of our favorites next year. It gets kind of confusing, following the vines from the home hills to the fruit to determine which is which. My wife will rate them and we'll plant 4 or 5 next year. So far, the Butter Cup is the favorite for squash a dinner side dish. The Dickenson and Yuxijiang gave a good yield of orthodox pumpkins; my wife will determine which make the best pies over the next couple of months. Paul |
#3
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bean season
Pavel314 wrote:
.... I planted 12 different pumpkins/winter-squash this year. Like you, I think I'll plant just a few of our favorites next year. It gets kind of confusing, following the vines from the home hills to the fruit to determine which is which. My wife will rate them and we'll plant 4 or 5 next year. So far, the Butter Cup is the favorite for squash a dinner side dish. The Dickenson and Yuxijiang gave a good yield of orthodox pumpkins; my wife will determine which make the best pies over the next couple of months. i think buttercup might be used to make pies too. yum! oh, i see, butternut (which i don't really like much at all in comparison to the buttercup or kobochas). https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-actu...lligence-69123 songbird |
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