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Post by steev on Jun 4, 2017 22:18:27 GMT -5
So ambitious; my own fallowed areas are only being very laboriously reclaimed; I don't expect all that much this year, but given this Fall's return of normal rain, next Spring will presage a kick-ass year.
Of course, my need to build a house will take precedence, so the garden will suck hind tit; sigh.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jun 22, 2017 14:01:02 GMT -5
In my own garden I have eliminated the wooden barrels. I've gone to clay pots with plastic inserts. Clay pots can stay because they are heavy, and I can slip out the plastic pots. They hold water better than the wood ones. I too was watering pots 2x a day. AND I have ALOT pots. Too many. But every time I empty them new plants arrive to fill the void. Don't ask how. Everyone brings me their plants. Yesterday I received 8 hydrangeas!
Regarding that Oxalis, I got a purple leafed one as a gift. I'm kinda afraid to put it in the ground. I too have scaled back my garden, and as you can fry eggs on the garbage can lid today, I'm glad and don't miss the extra work!
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Post by richardw on Jun 25, 2017 14:27:09 GMT -5
Never seen Nanking bush cherries here, they look like they dont get that tall.
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Post by kazedwards on Jun 25, 2017 22:14:24 GMT -5
Never seen Nanking bush cherries here, they look like they dont get that tall. I don't think they do but if I remember right they make a good wind break. I thinking about putting some in at the new place as a wind break for fruit trees. |
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Post by reed on Oct 1, 2017 4:20:59 GMT -5
Very nice, makes me wonder if I should rethink my decision to abandon bush beans. What is the volume there and from how many row feet to produce it?
I'm working on three similar mixes of pole types, common, lima and runner. I go through and pick out some of each kind to try to make sure every thing gets included in each years planting. Do you do that or is your patch big enough you can just grab some at random?
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Post by steev on Oct 1, 2017 19:31:31 GMT -5
I never mess with stringing trellis; I just use welded fence for climbing things; granted, I have to sink sturdy poles, but only once.
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Post by reed on Oct 2, 2017 7:33:14 GMT -5
I don't know how you get by with a good harvest of dry bush beans. I guess it's understandable for Joseph cause he lives in a dehydrator but here I'm lucky to get enough decent dry seed from bush. By time they dry good they are usually half rotted or molded. Maybe a better job of mulching would help. I'm not really sure what pole beans are as opposed to 1/2 runners. Seems to me most all will get as tall as whatever I give them to grow on. I think some would easily hit 20 feet if they had a support that tall. This year though I found a couple called Refugee and Burgundy Bolita, described as semi-runner that really did only get about 5 feet tall. Both produced good and were dried down by early August. They both also threw some off types so I'm pleased. The fellow I got them from has a website, www.abeancollectorswindow.com/. He has lot of kinds and others described as semi-runner. He gave me the seeds for free in return for doing some grow outs for him. It went well and I was able to return good seed so next year I'm gonna get more. I'v used lots of different kinds of supports but mostly use cattle panels and woven wire. I used to have a 10' x 10' grid of 8' locust posts across my garden with tight wire across the top and it worked good as a permanent support for various things but when I made the garden bigger I took most of it out to make it easier to use the tiller. Parachute cord works good but it does not hold up to UV, after a year or so it starts degrading and covers your fingers with white dust when ever you touch it. I got a giant roll of some kind of orange plastic string at a yard sale, it must be polypropylene cause it lasts for years and although thin it is very strong so I use it sometimes. I have half dozen kinds of pole beans that I keep pure for canning as green beans but also grow them mixed in with all the others for dry. I'm selecting for short season, production and shorter vines. Last year in a failed garden expansion I planted two or three seeds of about fifty kinds. With no care at all and without supports some vines climbed up and formed a bit of a canopy on top of the weeds. I got a good quart of clean dry seeds. Those are gonna be planted next year with the semi-runners mixed in. I didn't do that this year cause we were low on canned green beans and I had to focus on that. I'm finding that random crossing is way, way, more common than I used to think, even between species sometimes. I'm gonna try to take advantage of that by growing small numbers of all my favorites surrounded by the others so the chances of a bee visiting between varieties is greater. |
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Post by reed on Oct 2, 2017 14:27:53 GMT -5
toomanyirons, "I harvest continually as pods dry, the same way as one would harvest snap beans. Very little mold or spoilage that way, the only way I know how to get nice dry beans. Leaving them be until the end of the season and harvesting entire plant's worth of pods would make for a mess of damaged and spoiled beans. This is the way I have always harvested growouts for seed stock as well.
"DAH, guess I never though of that. Probably cause the earlier maturing ones never survive the woman prowling around for the first fresh beans each season. "If a person intermingles half runners in the planting then one could greatly increase the production/efficiency per linear feet of row/trellis. For food production - I would think a person would not want to save seeds from any of those plants because crossing could mess things up in the future regarding mixing short vine traits into a person's standard pole bean varieties, unless that would be something that is desired as in your case."
I would like to introduce the variety of colors, flavors and larger seed size of some of the giant vines into the more manageable sized vines. I'm fine with abandoning the giant vines once that is accomplished. Don't know if it's doable or not but I'm giving it a try. The only thing I don't want to mess up is the ones we use for green beans. I'd be very interested in getting some seed of any bean that has good production in a shorter vine. I would love to eventually have a nice diverse population that grows in the 5 - 7 foot range.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 2, 2017 17:50:01 GMT -5
I don't know how you get by with a good harvest of dry bush beans. I guess it's understandable for Joseph cause he lives in a dehydrator Ha!!! I even irrigate my beans after they are dried down, and still don't get mold problems. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 2, 2017 18:03:25 GMT -5
I'm working on three similar mixes of pole types, common, lima and runner. I go through and pick out some of each kind to try to make sure every thing gets included in each years planting. Do you do that or is your patch big enough you can just grab some at random? This is my general strategy as well. I plant a couple rows of bulk seed. I plant a row of what I call "normalized" seed, which is like 25 seeds of each bean that looks like a different variety. Then I plant a short row of one-of-a-kind beans, which might be new hybrids or might be older varieties that are fading into oblivion. |
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Post by philagardener on Oct 2, 2017 18:57:37 GMT -5
I also have to harvest beans as they dry down on the plant or they go moldy; that said, some varieties have tighter pods than others. Fall beans seem among the better ones in this regard (and interesting heirlooms in their own right).
I find if I don't pick plants constantly they shut down flowering; I'm still working on balancing getting food and seed from the same row.
Russ Crow is a great fellow and a wonderful source of both old and new varieties. He was the originator of Blue Jay (which I grew for the first time this year).
I grew a short pole bean this year called Norwegian Pencil. Don't know much about it but for a 4 ft plant it was really productive (huge pods and pretty beans too)!
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Post by reed on Oct 3, 2017 2:15:31 GMT -5
Those sound great, I'd love to try them out and that is interesting, off type colors without crossing. I just assumed crossing was responsible but was a little confused by the oddly high amount of off type colors in a planting this year of NT 1/2 Runners. They are the woman's favorite green bean and always grown in semi-isolation. This year they threw three different off type colors but no other apparent difference. I got the normal white but also tan, tan with a brown crescent and gray with a black crescent. Only a few of each but most of that planting was eaten or canned as green beans.
My little brown greasy beans were also kinda weird. Probably 1/2 a dozen different colors. All close enough to normal that I didn't even notice till the pan started filing up as I shelled them out. They all look the same as far as markings but laying beside each other they are distinctly different shades of tan to brown and one almost yellow. I assumed here as well that crossing was responsible but again if so, it is an unusually high amount of it.
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Post by steev on Oct 3, 2017 2:35:06 GMT -5
I'd like to try that half-runner, but not until I have assurance of "normal" weather; this year, I'm just going to use up out-dating seed for seed-increase and chow.
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Post by jondear on Oct 3, 2017 22:33:13 GMT -5
That looks familiar... Add a few totes and a wire shelf rack, and it'd look like my living room.
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Post by richardw on Oct 4, 2017 13:56:40 GMT -5
Your mice not to flash at climbing table legs?
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