Garden Report 2021, Part 5

Some of the dry beans bunched and hanging in the loft; see the previous entry in this blog.

Every year I make some notes about the progress of the vegetable garden and how the varieties turn out. I thought I'd share my notes (abridged for readability) here, in case they're of interest. There are also some notes on the apple tree crop. Many blog posts from earlier years were about the apples and the cider wine that I made from them, but it's been several years since I've done that.

Garden and orchard notes, 2021. 

            Spring and early summer thru July had many days with significant amounts of rain. Late July/early August was the wettest period here on record. As a result, vegetables grew well till the end of July when some of the plants started to show mold and mildew. August continued very wet, and as a result yields on everything were below average. Every year I save some bean seeds for the following year.

            Sugar Ann peas—a fair emergence and yield, some mildew, overall not worth the trouble. Snak Hero peas—a new variety, very tasty, but poor emergence.

            Natascha potatoes—good emergence, good taste, fair yield, some scab. Red Maria potatoes—good emergence, fairly good taste, good yield, a lot of scab. Carola potatoes—good emergence, good taste, good yield, little scab.

            Lettuce did very well, including the New Fire red.

            Space spinach grew slowly, fair yield.

            Beet greens grew fast, became tough after a couple of weeks; best to plant in 2-week successions.

            Snap beans:

            Provider beans – good emergence, but very susceptible to mold, poor to fair yield. Good fresh or frozen.

            Big Kahuna beans-- good emergence, but very susceptible to mold, poor yield, best taste.

            Top Crop beans—good emergence, in season with Provider, mold resistant, very good yield, decent taste.

            Tendercrop beans—good emergence, later than the others by a week or so, mold resistant, good yield, decent taste.

            Accelerate beans—good emergence, moderate resistance to mold, fair yield, good taste.

            Dry beans:

            Dry beans did fine thru July. The rain plumped them up. Japanese beetles ate some leaves though. Kenearly seems to be the earliest, drying on the vine ahead of the others now. But continued rain diminished yield and made them moldy. Overall a poor to fair year. Light Red Kidney beans were most susceptible to mold, Kenearly next, Black Coco least susceptible. Flash shell beans even less susceptible.

            Better Boy bush tomatoes smaller and later than the indeterminate varieties. But the one indeterminate Better Boy didn’t do even as well this year. Lower leaves yellowed. Sungold did all right, but staking them cuts down on yield. Best to put them in cages.

            Kale did well so far (i.e., by late September), though bottom leaves are yellowing and dying.

            Cabbage is not doing well. Only three out of six will make decent heads. One succumbed to rot, the other never headed up properly.

            Summer squash: the Delta variety is a shy bearer, compared with Gentry which is about 1/3 to ½ again more productive, although compared with last year not as productive. General Lee cucumbers the same, and they don’t like so much water as the leaves start to yellow out. Altogether they stood up better to the rains than I thought they would, although yields were down some.

            Apples: in the orchard the browntail moth caterpillars ate the emerging leaves from many trees, but they put out a second batch of leaves. Liberty had a good stand of apples but the porcupines are eating them now. Planted three new varieties: Zestar, Williams Pride, and Pristine. Had to get the browntail moth caterpillars off them and keep them off till they turned to butterflies in July. Most of the leaves dropped early in October. Trees by and large are not healthy. Did not get any apples to speak of in the orchard, but I did get some from the trees down the road to the neighbors; in fact, the third and last of the planted trees (Summer Scarlet) was the most productive it’s ever been, while the Shiawassee or Fameuse (not sure which of the two varieties this is) that I grafted in the blueberry/now sweet fern field across from the house was also productive. Apples are very tasty, skin is tart in that Shiawassee/Fameuse tree. Must do more trunk painting with diluted latex white paint for the new young trees in orchard in the fall if possible, and in the spring if not; and shore up the fences and stakes around them.

Garden Report for 2021, part 4

 August was, again unusually, a very wet month, with the result that some of the vegetables became moldy, especially the dry beans which had grown so close to each other, despite thinning in July, from the continuing rain. Yet in early September some of the vegetables were still doing pretty well. 

Above is a cluster of bush (determinate) Better Boy, with a couple nearly read for picking. 

The red onions (Red Wing Variety) also grew large on account of the excess rains. You can see the tops of the onions drying in the soil. The small rocks don't seem to bother them.

 Kale also did well. This year the moths left it alone, and it continued throughout the fall. Kale over-winters with protection (sometimes also without), but the following year it will flower and go to seed in the summertime.

Here, on the other hand, is summer squash (variety is Gentry) that didn't like the excess rain. You can see the mildew on the leaves.

The dry bean plants must be pulled and the pods dried further, hung upside down on twine outdoors, for a week or so in early September before being gathered up in bunches and the bunches tied and hung upside down to dry completely in the barn loft. This year on account of the rain yields were less than normal. In the spring I thresh them, using a simple technique that I learned from a Johnny's Selected Seeds catalog in the 1980s, before the company grew so large and when the catalog was filled with suggestions such as this. Here's a very pleasant way to thresh and winnow your dry beans. Wait for a day with a decent but not strong wind. Than gather up the bunches of bean plants from where you hung them to dry, and go outdoors and take a clean, standard sized garbage can and, clutching a few bean plants by the base near the roots and holding them upside down, you knock them against the insides of the can. The bean seeds will fall out into the bottom of the can, and afterwards you can toss the plants aside. Repeat for as many plants as you have. After you get the hang of it, you can thresh a lot of dry beans in a fairly short time this way. There is one more step, though. There will be some soil, and fragments of dried leaves (chaff), at the bottom of the can along with the seeds, so you'll need the separate them from the seeds. The way to do this is to winnow them by pouring the seeds and the soil and leaf fragments into the turned-up top of the garbage can, and then wait for a bit of wind and, holding the top of the can above the can, gradually pour the seeds and the chaff back into the can. The chaff and soil will float away on the wind, and if you do winnow this way about three or four times your beans will be clean. Then you can pick them out of the upside down top of the can and put them into jars to store for whenever you want to soak them for chili, baked beans, soups, or other recipes. 

I usually fill about 8 one-quart jars, more than enough for a year. The three bush dry bean varieties that I grow these days are the light red kidney beans, black coco beans, and kenearly. Some years I've also grown Jacob's cattle and king of the early, which also do very well for me but the others seem to taste a little better. I've also been keeping a rare heirloom variety of shell bean going for about 30 years, named flash.

Garden Report for 2021, part 3

   It is well past time that I updated this blog! So, I continue with the vegetable garden report. July was an unusually wet month, and so the plants grew more than usual. Here are some photos from July 25.

  The above photo shows the edges of the bean rows at the bottom; above can be seen cabbage at right, tomatoes at left, and kale in the center. Behind the cabbage are onions, and behind them are broccoli. At the top of the photo are potatoes. 

  Here we have at the right a row of cucumbers at the bottom, and summer squash above that. You can see some blossoms. Just to the left is a row tomatoes, while further to the left are cabbages (top) and kale (below). The next row to the left has onions, while to the left of them at the top is broccoli. Usually I grow a half dozen Sungold tomatoes, a superb tasting variety, and then a slicing tomato. Unfortunately late blight usually takes the slicers out by the end of August, and in nearly 40 years of gardening I've not settled on a single slicing variety. One year when I was a lot younger I grew about 20 different varieties, sourced from seed swaps via the Seed Saver Exchange, after I scoured old Maine agricultural books and catalogs to see what varieties were grown 100 and 150 years ago. I came up with several dozen, but most of them had been lost. The results, I'm sorry to say, were disappointing and I didn't continue with any of those varieties the following year.

  Above, we have two rows of potatoes, with the tops (especially the variety at lower right) beginning to yellow and die off. These are Red Gold and quite delicious. If you've not tasted a fresh dug and then freshly cooked Red Gold potato, you don't know what you're missing. They don't store very well, though. The row at the right contains mainly storage potatoes, but by early September they should also be ready for digging.