Monday, July 28, 2008

Snap beans: first harvest

This afternoon brought the first harvest of snap beans. The three-week dry spell set back their progress, but when I checked them yesterday it was clear that the earliest were ready. In this variety, Provider, the beans come ready over a period of a few weeks, making for several pickings. Some varieties adapted for commercial use are bred with characteristics that favor all ripening at once, for a single machine picking; but for the home gardener, gradual ripening is more convenient--not only are fresh beans available longer, but the gardener is not overwhelmed. I picked and froze about a quart and ate a portion for supper.

Provider is Fedco's best-selling snap bean variety. Its best quality is dependability; next is the earliness and then the gradual ripening. The plants are vigorous and high-yielding. They freeze well. Unfortunately, it is not among the best tasting. For taste, my favorite is Levi Robinson, an heirloom that I have grown for years (but not this year). Compared to Provider, it is more vigorous, but not as high yielding; it ripens later (though not all at once), and the harvest is done sooner.

I checked on the progress of the dry beans. They are doing very well this year, much better than in most years, although, again, because of the dry spell they are a little behind. I used the slicing wheel hoe between the rows to weed once again. That is only twice I've had to do this since the beans were planted in early June, which is some kind of record. Usually by now I've been at them weekly. I'm contemplating planting a cover crop between the rows before the beans leaf out between the rows.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Rain at last

Last Friday began a spell of inclement weather which was very welcome in the gardens and the orchard. The warm, dry spell had lasted almost three weeks, with all the vegetables stressed. The pea yield was down; the early potato plants ceased growing; the beets, chard and peppers were wilted; the broccoli had begun to rice. Only the tomatoes, eggplant and beans were able to withstand it. I watered but after a while the watering had to be done daily, then twice daily, and water was in short supply, the rain barrels empty, the well pump taking twice as long to fill the holding tank. It reminded me of the summers in the 1980s, when the dry spells stressed the wildlife, making it more tempting for deer and other critters to invade the gardens and eat--and, indeed, there were some nibbled-off bean leaves in the garden next to the old store. So I made more cheesecloth hair bags and hung them on the fence, and got the old scarecrow back in action. The deer can easily jump the fence if they want to inconvenience themselves, and if the weather turns dry again they might do so and one morning I will find the beans and tomatoes eaten down to the ground.

Today I cut down the peas and the weeds that had grown up between the rows, and after a couple of weeks I will incorporate the dead matter into the soil, and plant buckwheat there.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Managing the Peas

Yesterday I spent an hour picking a bushel of the podded peas--Progress #9, an old variety--and another hour shelling them, then steamed them for a few minutes and froze about four quarts. Lack of rain caused them to be later than they should have been, but many had filled out and in the interests of efficiency I picked them when most of the pods were full--the very earliest were overripe, and the newest underripe, but the vast majority were just fine. I'll do another final picking in a few days and then cut them down, till them into the soil and after a couple of weeks plant buckwheat in the pea patch, which should smother the weeds and along with the pea plants add to the soil's organic matter.

"Managing" in organic gardening sacrifices maximum yield and profit for the long-term health and sustainability of the soil. I have not used a pesticide in growing vegetables here for more than 25 years, with the exception of rotenone on the potato plants--and that is an organic pesticide. Instead of depleting the soil with constant cropping, cover crops allow the soil to recover while improving tilth. Ashes from the woodstove lime the soil. This kind of management does not seek control, but rather it seeks to enhance the conditions under which nature, always uncertain, can sustain growth. This year's chief problem has been the dry spell for the past few weeks which in poor soil would have wilted the peas and severely cut back the yield. But the good soil was able to compensate, holding the early moisture long enough for the peas to fill out in the pods. So sustainability does not mean efforts to control and subdue nature but rather to observe and learn from nature, and then to work along with nature according to nature's best practices.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

Last of the bean banging

This afternoon after cleaning out a section of the barn I finished up the dry bean harvest from last year. Yes, a little late. These were all light red kidney beans, the pods still attached to the plants, all dry, banged around inside a clean garbage can, so that the beans drop out of the pods into the bottom of the can. Next the few dropped pods and stems are cleaned out, and the beans are transferred into the upside down top of the can, picked over to take out a few small stems and bad beans, and poured from as high as I can reach back into the can itself, the wind taking the chaff while the beans head straight down. Six quarts all told which, along with the four quarts of black beans from a couple of weeks ago, will provide 160 individual meals--soup, chili, baked beans, curried beans, beans and rice, refried beans, etc. Early in the morning I harvested more snap peas and parboiled and froze three pints--not a lot of work there. They're still coming, while the podded peas are slow this year due to lack of rain when the pods should be filling out. I also trimmed the grass around the trunks of the young apple trees, to discourage the apple borers.

Friday, July 4, 2008

The perfect wheel hoe

This morning I felled some trees and bucked up the wood for splitting, eventually to burn this fall in the woodstove in the old store. I'll have to do this again a few more times. Then in the afternoon I hoed the rows of dry beans, nearly 500 feet of row all told. For years I'd used a stirrup hand hoe, which was effective but tedious; and then one year at an auction I got a wheel hoe cultivator for five dollars, and for some years used that. It was a lot faster and easier, but it didn't do as good a job on the weeds. Then a few years ago at another auction I spent ten dollars and bought a wheel hoe with two slicing blades, and this is the tool I wish I'd had all along. It goes fast, it slices off the weeds just below the ground, and it takes almost no effort to push. The fancy garden tool catalogs advertise "collinear" hand hoes and stirrup wheel hoes at high prices. The collinear hand hoe probably gets a little closer to the plant stems but it would take an hour to do what takes me ten minutes now. I will post a photo of this tool on this blog sometime soon. After the hoeing, I shelled out some more dry beans from last year, Black Coco, and filled about four quarts. It's getting a little dry, which is stressing some of the potatoes, as they have reached the blossom stage and need moisture. The days have been very pleasant, mostly sunny and in the 70s.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Into the cider barrel

Each year around this time I take the cider wine out of the carboy(s), where it may still be fermenting a little, and siphon it into an oak barrel to age it for a few months and give it a slightly oaky taste. And so today I did that, with the wine still bubbling to the top a little. When I'm able to keep the carboys down cellar here all year the fermentation is very slow, which is good, stopping in the winter when the temperature drops below about 48 degrees F. In some years I add a bit of sugar when transfering it to the oak barrel, but when I tasted the wine it didn't seem to need any more sugar, either for further fermentation or for taste. I prefer it dry anyway, but not still--and with it still fermenting a bit, it probably won't be still at bottling time either. As with wine from grapes, the quality and taste vary from one year to the next. 2002, 2003, and 2004 were very good; 1997 excellent; 2005 and 2006 not so good. We'll see what 2007 is like when I bottle it in September, but so far I would say it's good, not very good, and not excellent.

Early Harvests

Fresh greens for salad have been coming in since early June--several varieties of lettuce (Red Sails always the most reliable, Plato the tastiest), spinach, beet greens, arugula. Time to replant the arugula and some lettuce--which will have to be shaded as it doesn't do well above 70 degrees F. Broccoli heads have formed and will be ready soon. The snap peas have been wonderful this past week. I put up about four quarts of spinach and three of snap peas thus far. It's time to plant some more snap beans for harvest in late August/early September. The apples are coming along well enough, and I need to trim back the grass and weed growth around the trunks of the young trees, to discourage the borers, which are the most destructive among the pests for these trees. In the fall I may find the time to whitewash the trunks, following the latest advice from Fedco's apple tree expert, John Bunker. This is an old practice; I think you can find it documented in nineteenth century French paintings.