Summerfelt Beans

While I was in Idaho visiting my parents, I helped shell Summerfelt beans. They area a dry bean and are great used in place of navy beans in soup. The Summerfelt bean is from Germany, going back to 1800. Summerfelt is also the last name of one of my ancestor lines, who are also from Germany. There is no connection between the beans and my family that I know of, but it is fun to grow them just the same.

I brought some of the beans home and poured them into a container. I was amazed to see how the beans lined up! It almost looks like a row of corn on the cob--I have never seen such a thing!

Harvesting

Today we shelled Summerfelt Beans. They are a dry bean and really good in soups and chili. My Dad has his own unique way of growing these beans--in the spring he sows the beans, and when they don't come up in a reasonable amount of time, he plants them again. When they don't come up a second time, he plants them a third time. Then, in about 2 weeks, they ALL come up! He does get anxious to get them in the ground, he just needs to be more patient! He has done this for years and it works every time!

We picked an acorn squash that we will have for dinner. We also picked apples from his tree and will have apple pie for dessert tonight!

The third picture is of his cucumbers that were touched by the frost. The plants are still growing and the cucumbers are really good!

My Garden

In just the past couple of weeks my garden box has exploded with growth. The top picture is looking from west to east, and the other picture is the opposite. The tall trellis holds my Painted Lady Pole Beans. I planted 5, but only 2 came up. It has an interesting flower, which I will show in the next post. I have a lot of Roma Tomatoes in this raised bed, with beans across the front, and my squash in the middle.

In The Garden

Here are three plants that are growing quite close together: spinach, zucchini, and chard. The spinach was planted a few months ago. I planted the zucchini near the spinach thinking that the spinach would soon be setting seed and be gone before the zucchini was spreading out. Wrong! The chard was from some that I direct-sowed when I planted the spinach. Most of the chard came up, I harvested some of it and then it bolted (went to seed) when the early hot weather hit. This chard plant was a surprise when it came up a couple of weeks ago. The zucchini and chard will be fighting it out, because the spinach is finally on it's way to set seed. At least they all look healthy and happy!



This is a picture of one of my Contender Bush Beans. I believe this damage is from leaf hoppers. There are only two of the bean plants that shows damage, so I won't do anything about it. Normally I don't think twice when I see something like this because the plants still look healthy and continue to grow, but I looked into it for your benefit. Yea, I know, what kind of Master Gardener am I?!? I don't think this is a serious problem and let nature take it's course.

This picture shows what happens when your mulch is too thin. To discourage weeds you need at least a couple of inches of mulch, covering the soil well (which I obviously didn't do!). Most of this bed is still weed-free.

OK, I found my weeding knife. I found it put away. I guess I was so tired from weeding the other night that I forgot that I put it away, and thought I had lost it!

Carrots and Beans

I picked these carrots this morning and I will snack on them later today. They were planted a couple of months ago, but are still chugging along. As you can see, they are small. These are some that I thinned, so the others could grow larger. I planted the Orange Ball Carrots in a bag of topsoil. Their roots aren't very long so they can grow just fine in the bag. [See post 5/6/09]. The other carrots are my Cosmic Purple Carrots. I planted them in a self-watering grow box. They are growing nicely and I will keep thinning/harvesting as I go along.


I am making progress in my raised bed garden. Saturday evening I planted Contender Bush Beans and Bountiful Esther Dry Beans along the front of my garden. I then laid down thick pieces of wet newspaper and on top of that a flake of straw. Lastly, I put some unfinished compost that I have over the planting of beans, down the center of the straw. That will keep the beans moist and keep their paths to the sun easy to get through. You can see a plant right in the middle of the bean row---it's a Bright Lights Swiss Chard that I planted in the early spring that never came up, well at least not until now. I will leave it there and add it to the menu when it gets big enough!

I am working on this garden bed piece-by-piece until it gets done; and I will use the newspaper and straw method over the whole bed. It is difficult for me to cover the weeds now, because the praying mantis' have hatched. They are about 1/3" long and tend to like the crabgrass, where they feel protected and can find a good bug meal! I will pull out the grass and leave it in a pile near the garden for a few days, that way the spiders and mantis' can find a new home, instead of being covered up with no way out. Later I will put the weeds under wet newspaper in my new raised garden bed. With so much to do to tidy up the yard, I will have to divide my time over several projects---but it will get done!