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.