Harvest Monday Labor Day Edition

This has been an excessively rainy this summer. From July 1st to August 18 (when my rain gauge broke) I recorded 23.5 inches of rain in my own backyard. This has not been positive for the garden. Almost everything rotted and/or molded.

I had planted okra and Mississippi Cream peas for summer crops. Both of these plantings hung in there through the excessive rainfall. But neither one produced much.

I tried 3 types of okra this year. From left to right: Eagle Pass,
Stewart's Zeebest and Stelley.

Now that the rain has returned to a more reasonable level, I am getting some okra and a little Mississippi Cream peas.

I wanted to taste several different types of okra. My family really likes okra. Last year I grew Clemson Spineless, but I wanted an okra that would taste good at a larger size than finger length. I was also looking for something that would bear more prolifically than the Clemson Spineless did. (And, let's be honest, everybody grows Clemson Spineless. I wanted something a little different.)

All three have a good flavor. My middle daughter just loves the shape and size of Eagle Pass. When they are cut crosswise, they look like little stars. The Stelley (at the right) has not been very productive in the deluge of rain. In fact several of the Stelley plants died. 

The Stewart's Zeebest plants all lived through the summer. They produced a little and kept going. None of the plants were as happy as they would have been with less rain, but the Stewart's Zeebest was the star performer in my garden. The pods in the middle were the size I always picked the Stewart's Zeebest, and without fail they were tender and tasty. They were also much more productive than either of the other plants, and much more able to withstand the testings the weather gave us.

I will definitely grow Stewart's Zeebest again. I want to thank Dave from Our Happy Acres. He grew them last year and reported it to Harvest Monday's.  I am very grateful that he reported his experiences with this plant. It is just what I wanted for my own garden, and I would never have thought to plant it if he had not had such glowing things to say about it.

I am linking with Harvest Mondays, hosted by Daphne from Daphne's Dandelions. Hop on over and see what others are harvesting. 

Learning to Cook and Eat Dried Beans

Yellow Eye Beans purchased from North Bay Trading

Let's suppose that for reasons of health or economy or some other reason you have decided that you need to include more dried beans in your diet.

Here are some things for you to consider.

There is a learning curve to getting dried beans done. They are not done if they still taste "crunchy." If at first you don't succeed, try try again.

There are several ways to cook dried beans. You can cook them in a pressure cooker. You can cook them in a crock pot. You can boil them on a stove top. If it is your goal to incorporate dried beans into your diet, don't give up until you have tried all the methods, and found the one that works best for you.  (Do Google searches to find instructions for each method of cooking.)

Don't think that all dried beans taste alike. They don't. If you don't like the taste of black beans (for instance) that doesn't mean that you won't like red beans or pinto beans or black eye peas. If this bean doesn't suite your fancy, try a different bean.

Constantly be on the lookout for good bean recipes. I have an entire section of my homemade cookbook devoted to beans.

my homemade cookbook

what it looks like when you open the cover

the bean section

these are all bean recipes

Another suggestion is to make notes on your recipes the day you try them. That way, you can modify things you don't like, or serve that dish again, if it was wildly successful with your family.

Don't give up if your kids don't like the beans the first time. Keep trying. My kids all eat their beans now, but it was a process. I gave incentives (we call them "sticker meals") for a long time to get to that point. The idea was that for every time the kids would eat a meal I wanted to have rather than some sort of kid-friendly meal, they would get a sticker. When they got 10 stickers, I would buy them something worth $5.

You can branch out from regular beans even more if you purchase heirloom beans online. They have wildly varied tastes and unusual broths (my Grandma called it "the bean likker" --said in an extremely southern voice).

Some of my favorite flavors of heirloom dried beans are Good Mother Stallard beans, and Tiger Eye beans. I just recently purchased cranberry beans, Yellow Eye beans, Dapple Grey beans, and Pink beans from North Bay Trading. I haven't tasted any of them except for the Yellow Eye beans.

I have found North Bay Trading to be the cheapest option I have been able to find. (If you know of a cheaper one, please leave a comment for me.)

Another suggestion is to read The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Grower's Guide: Steve Sando's 50 Favorite Varieties. I found it really loaded with helpful information and it made me want to try a bunch of new types of beans.

My favorite bean cookbook is Growing and Cooking Beans By John Withee.

My family has been eating and enjoying dried beans for 10 years now, but it was definitely a process. I hope this makes your process toward eating these wonderful beans easier.

****The views expressed here are entirely my own. I have not received any compensation from any of the links for this information. However, if you click through the Rancho Gordo link, I will receive a small (really small) compensation from Amazon.***

The Garden Right Now

I don't post as much as I used to.

I thought it would be nice to post a few pictures of the garden right now, though.

This is my front yard garden by the garage. This is also my favorite
garden. Currently, it has some red flowered fava beans, milkweed,
cardinal's cap, celosia, and nasturtiums in it. Along the trellis are
green beans, vining nasturtiums and passion vines. 

This is the Twenty Foot Garden. In front of the box, is Swiss Chard.
In the garden box itself, I have Ruth Bible beans and Lousiana
Purple Podded Pole beans, regular and cherry tomatoes, a
Tromboncino zucchini, 6 cucumbers, 24 okra in 3 varieties and
Mississippi Cream peas. 

This is the bed by the front door. I have Easter lilies coming up
everywhere, but they haven't bloomed yet this year. There is lemon
balm and thyme in the bed and the purple things are ornamental
cabbages. The bird bath on the ground is for butterflies. They use
wet sand to get their drinks and salt intake. 

Much Delayed List of Garden Books I Read in 2012

Beth asked me to post a list of the gardening books I read in 2012.

 Slow Gardening: A No-Stress Philosophy for All Senses and All Seasons


The Quarter-Acre Farm: How I Kept the Patio, Lost the Lawn, and Fed My Family for a Year  (This is a funny book about one woman’s attempt to eat solely off her ¼ acre piece of property for a year. And how she drags her children and husband along, kicking and screaming.)

I liked this one, too. It is also the story of one woman and her garden.

The Heirloom Life Gardener: The Baker Creek Way of Growing Your Own Food Easily and Naturally   [HEIRLOOM LIFE GARDENER] [Hardcover] ( I loved this book and keep it by my bedside.)

Notes from an Italian Garden

Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World (Not all of this book is gardening, but he tackles it in an attempt to live a more simple life.)

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder (More of a nature book than a gardening book, it is very deep. It took me a long time to get through it. I know that what he has to say is valuable.)

Heirloom Vegetable Gardening: A Master Gardener's Guide to Planting, Seed Saving, and Cultural History Great quote from the book: “Heirlooms seeds, saved from year to year, worked into our gardens and eaten at our tables make a much stronger statement for their survival. The foods produced from heirloom seeds must also be part of our daily lives if we are to actually preserve them for the future.” Page35

The Beginner's Guide to Growing Heirloom Vegetables: The 100 Easiest-to-Grow, Tastiest-to-Eat Vegetables for Your Garden Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables for a New Generation

Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables for a New Generation

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone (Actually short stories of different people’s food obsessions, which for the most part, they only really practiced when alone.)

Wildly Affordable Organic: Eat Fabulous Food, Get Healthy, and Save the Planet--All on $5 a Day or Less

Edible Gardens (BBG Guides for a Greener Planet)

The All You Can Eat Gardening Handbook: Easy Organic Vegetables and More Money in Your Pocket  (Loved this one!)

Newspaper, Pennies, Cardboard, and Eggs--For Growing a Better Garden: More than 400 New, Fun, and Ingenious Ideas to Keep Your Garden Growing Great All Season Long



Your Farm in the City: An Urban-Dweller's Guide to Growing Food and Raising Animals

Moosewood Restaurant Kitchen Garden: Creative Gardening for the Adventurous Cook

 Vertical Gardening: Grow Up, Not Out, for More Vegetables and Flowers in Much Less Space (This book helped me a lot. I have only a really small space, and this book gave great ideas for using the area above the ground in order to pack in more food in the space.)

 My Empire of Dirt: How One Man Turned His Big-City Backyard into a Farm (Another tale of one man’s attempt to live off the land. He didn’t want to live this way. It was an assignment. And he really does not provide a good view of the simple life.)

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer

The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Grower's Guide: Steve Sando's 50 Favorite Varieties

(Very funny back to the land book.)

 Growing at the Speed of Life: A Year in the Life of My First Kitchen Garden (I really liked this one, too.)

In the French Kitchen Garden: The Joys of Cultivating a Potager

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (This was a great and challenging book in the line of No Impact Man. I am not sure I could follow in her steps, because it was too radical. I like what she had to say, though.)

Local Flavors: Cooking and Eating from America's Farmers' Markets

Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals

The City Homesteader: Self-Sufficiency on Any Square Footage

  (This is the book that gave me the idea to plant a sunflower garden for the kids. We have started it. It is their project, so when they get finished digging they can plant the seeds.)

Nature-Friendly Garden, The: Creating a Backyard Haven for Animals, Plants, and People

The Naturescaping Workbook: A Step-by-Step Guide for Bringing Nature to Your Backyard

Flowering Shrubs and Small Trees for the South

Great Natives for Tough Places (Brooklyn Botanic Garden All-Region Guide)

Proven Plants Southern Gardens

(This was a good book, in which the author speaks to different long-time members of Seed Savers’ Exchange and explores their reasons for seed saving and seed sharing.)

Planting Seeds

Last year, I planted as many seeds as I could fit under my lights. When they got just a little bigger, I couldn't fit all my seedlings under the lights. This year, I decided to limit my seed planting to 20 seed pots. That way, when they grow there will still be room for them under the lights.

I find it easiest and cheapest to use toilet paper rolls with cupcake wrappers at the bottom.

My children wanted to help, so I waited until Saturday. We planted 8 banana peppers, 1 Riesentraube tomato, 5 yellow round tomatoes from a friend, 6 Mamie Brown's Pink tomatoes ordered from Seed Savers Exchange catalog.

Here's hoping that everything grows beautifully! 

End of the Year Wrap Up 2012

Last year's garden wrap up was on my other website.  In February, I decided to separate the two blogs so that this one only contains gardening information.

1. Liz from Suburban Tomato taught me how to do a space value rating for the plants I grow in my garden. Eventually, I will post what I learned from doing my own space value rating. For now, I will just say that learning to evaluate my plantings this way was very beneficial, since I have such a small garden to work with.

2. Last year, I mixed heirlooms and hybrids all together in my garden. This year, I decided to only use heirlooms. I was very happy with my heirloom plants. 

3. I learned last year that I need to plant pole beans if I expect to have enough for my family. This year I evaluated several types of pole beans (and here). I was looking for productivity. I found the one I will use for productivity: Ruth Bible beans. I also found one that had a wonderful history in my husband's family: Mississippi Cream peas. I found one that was stunningly beautiful to grow, and therefore good for my front yard garden: Louisiana Purple Podded Pole beans.  

Louisiana Purple Podded Pole Bean available from Seed Savers
Exchange.

4. This year, I started gardening in my front yard. I have enjoyed the experience and the challenge of growing edible things that are also beautiful. It took me all year, but I have found the bean that I feel comfortable growing in the front yard. It is the above pictured Louisiana Purple Podded Pole bean. 

5. I planted only 4 tomato plants this year. I got almost enough for daily eating, but decided that if I can grow 8 of them, I will do better. I have picked out the tomatoes I plan to grow next year, but it depends on whether or not I have the time and ability to plant from seed whether I will grow one kind or whether I will just buy transplants from Seed Savers Exchange. 

6. I didn't enjoy squash or zucchini in my garden this year at all. I don't plan to plant either next year. (Except for one or two Tromboncino Zucchini, which I was intrigued by in another blogger's site.) 

7. Since my garden is so small, it would be better use of my time and energy to plant enough of a few things that we can substantially reduce our purchases of just those things rather than trying to plant one plant of many different types of things. 

8. I saved seed from several different beans this year and plan to grow them next year. I am going to work on separating them enough to keep the seed pure.

9. I want a sunflower room for my kids next year. I looked into green bean tee pees, but felt that with the number of children that play at our home it would be better to make a 6 by 6 foot "room" out of sunflowers. Once the sunflowers get established well, I will interplant beans so that the kids will be perfectly hidden in this little "room." (Yet there will be space for all their friends, too.) 

10. It is very important to me to share my gardening experience with my children. Anything I can do to include them, or interest them in the garden is worth trying. (see above) (See also this post.)

11. Even though I am working on vegetable gardening, I realized this year how very much I missed my traditional flower garden, so I began a butterfly garden. My kids and I have all learned a great deal, and it satisfies my desire for flowers in the front yard. It works pretty well with the edibles mixed in. 

Comparison of the Heirloom Beans I Grew 2012 Part 2

As I said in my previous post, this year I decided to grow several different types of heirloom beans. What I wanted was to find at least one bean that I loved enough to plant every year and save my own seeds.

I grew Scarlet Runner beans, Mississippi Cream peas, Pink Eye Purple Hull peas, Lazy Wife beans, Good Mother Stallard beans, Ruth Bible beans, Louisiana Purple Pod Pole beans and Trail of Tears beans.  I reviewed the Scarlet Runner beans, the Mississippi Cream peas, the Pink Eye Purple Hull peas, the Lazy Wife beans and the Ruth Bible beans in the previous post. 

Good Mother Stallard Beans for seed

Good Mother Stallard beans: These are common beans. They will cross with other common beans, but not with cowpeas or scarlet runner beans. By the time I got around to planting these beans I had grown weary of counting beans, so I only counted the number of seeds I saved. The harvest was not very large for the amount of beans I planted, but I did get enough beans for seed. for spring. I saved 187 beans for seed in spring.

With these beans I like the flavor so much that I threw out the productivity component. I plan to plant them in spring even though production was very low compared to the other varieties I tried. The leaf rollers and the bugs that eat the seeds did attack this planting much more heavily than any of the other beans I planted all year long. That may play into the low number.

According to a post on the Seed Savers Exchange forum, one should expect 120 beans per bean planted. I got substantially less than that. I planted 40 beans, and about 28 of them grew. If the expected harvest worked, I should have gotten something on the line of 3360 beans. I got 187.

I am going to plant them again in the spring in another location. I really like these beans and want to use them for dried beans. They have a rich, meaty flavor that is so good that I served my family beans and cornbread and that is all for supper when I was taste testing the beans. (I ordered several varieties from Rancho Gordo, because I wanted to taste beans to see if there was anything outstanding enough that I should plant it.)

I hope for a better return if I plant them in another location. I have to have about 800 seeds to make a pound of Good Mother Stallard beans. I don't know if I will be able to get what I need to have meals of these beans or not. I guess if worst comes to worst, I can order them from Rancho Gordo.  I hope to work it out so that I can grow my own.

Lousiana Purple Podded Pole beans

Louisiana Purple Podded Pole bean flowers-- a stunning two-
tone purple 

Louisiana Purple Podded Pole Beans: These are common beans. They won't cross with cowpeas, or  runner beans, but they will cross with any other common bean. These were the last beans I planted this year. I planted them on a whim, because I had just purchased the seed and was excited to see how they grow. I planted them so late that I am sure I didn't get a good reading on productivity.

I didn't bother to count the beans of this variety, either. I did get to taste them. They are wonderful. They are also exceptionally beautiful. The stems are a deep, stunning purple. The leaves are bright green. The flowers are a gorgeous two-tone purple. Surprisingly, the flowers have a scent, a wonderful flowery aroma. They would be a great addition to a front yard garden, where they would work great as edible landscaping. They are vining plants, so you would need a trellis, but that can be done tastefully.

I planted 40 of them and about 20 grew. I was able to save a little bit of seed from my own garden and have some seed left over from that I purchased from Seed Savers Exchange. I definitely plan to have these in my garden next year. I love the color. I love the taste. I love the flowers, and the form of the plants. I love that the flowers have a scent. They are rather rare, so it will be a pleasure to help maintain a variety that is threatened. I hope to have a bigger planting next year.

Summary: I learned what type of beans my family likes and what types produce the best for us. The best producer was by far the Ruth Bible beans. The best tasting green bean for our family was the Louisiana Purple Podded Pole beans. The whole family agreed that their flavor was superior to the others. The best story definitely came from the Mississippi Cream peas. The most unique flavor was the taste of the Good Mother Stallard beans. 

So, next spring's bean choices are made. I will plant Ruth Bible beans, Louisiana Purple Podded Pole beans, Mississippi Cream peas and Good Mother Stallard beans. Now to organize my garden so that each bean is isolated enough to give me pure seed.