Beans

I have never had great success with beans.  I don't know why.  I have tried but what I have gotten from my efforts wouldn't even serve my family of 4 one meal. 
Stupid.
I hate putting major effort into something (not to mention money and water) and not get something out of it.

 

 

So this year I decided to over kill on the beans.

 I started back in April and put beans in my garden window to get an early start. I used last years empty containers from my annuals, a simple planting mix and

Kentucky Pole Beans seeds, um, beans, um, seeds, you get the idea.

Anyway they came up so fast that I was concerned that it wouldn't be warm enough in the garden for them before they out grew the containers. You can see next to them by comparison my heirloom tomatoes that were barely up.

 

 

On to garden prep. I am a 'square footer'. Maybe there is a club for people like me or an institution :) But because I am a 'square footer' my prep is easier that it has been for years. I used to be dragging out the rototiller at this point. But this year I started with putting new compost over the entire bed and working it in. Added a couple of extra squares (planting potatoes in those) and an old garden swing to use for my stringing up the beans.

I love recycling stuff.

 And yup, that's me in the picture

(shades of peter pan, just wish I could lose my shadow for the pictures).

 

 

More of me in the picture - Also cleaned up the planting bed and put in the beans. I planted them with a mix of bone meal/Epsom salts/crushed aspirin/egg shells to give them a boost right off the bat. This was their first day out in the garden by themselves.

'Sleep well little beans'  

See in the back my lettuce/spinach/chard box still going strong.

Just a note here that the box that the beans are going in is one of my part shade boxes. I have a huge apricot tree in the middle of my garden (poor planning but really no where else I could put the planting boxes). So this area of the garden gets only 4 - 5 hours of sun per day. The corner box where the lettuce/spinach/chard is gets maybe 3 hours which is great for them.

They are totally not sun worshipers.

 

 

 

 

Okay so not so good of a shot but you can see the progress. I ran the string around the back bar of the swing and then over the top and then looped it under the grid work for the square foot garden. That's Pippa butt in the picture. My Lab-Hound mix. She's barking at Taco, the chi-weiner, next door.

Are you allowed to say butt on a blog? Butt.

 

 

 More beans. And yes I did put more bean seeds in the front about 2 weeks ago once the one's in the back got rolling. Some 'purple beans' and a breed called 'rattlesnakes'. I'm experimenting.

If I don't get beans this year then I'm going to shoot myself.

Maybe.

The old swing works pretty darn good.  See in the upper left hand corner that blue bottle hanging there.  That's bug spray.  When the little buggers are eating my beans I have recourse at hand. 

'Die you bugs'.

So far I haven't had any bug problems but I am prepared :)

 

I've been fertilizing every two weeks with fish emulsion.

Makes everything stink but doesn't burn my plants.  They seem to be loving it. 

Biggest challenge is Pippa thinks it smells wonderful and tries to eat my dirt or roll in the plants. 

She is now exiled from the garden.

 

 

Just a couple of shots of my potato box hiding in the back.

 

 

Happy Gardening

 

It's the winter slump :)

You probably think I have dropped off the earth.  Nope.  Just the Winter slump.  Every winter the garden and I go into hibernation . . . sort of.  My garden has winter produce growing and other than watching it grow (totally boring) I am simply waiting out the season.  Winter is different here in the central valley of California so you can grown a completely active winter garden. I have Broccoli that is beginning to 'flower'.  Not with real flowers (that comes later) but with the green flower that we all eat.  I have cauliflower too plus beets (golden and red), potatoes, onion, mint, lettuce, spinach, kale and Swiss chard.  All up and going. 

 

 

Do we do anything during this season at all other than just watch and wait?  Gosh yes.  There is clean up from the summer still going on.  Leaves to be raked and composted.  Pulled out my Bell Pepper plants just last week and believe it or not I still have jalapenos and tomatoes on the vine.  Really.  In December.  I'm trimming back the runners on the strawberries too.  All ready for next years bursting forth :)  Spraying for leaf curl has commenced with the first spraying of copper.  You're supposed to do it right after the leaves fall off.  Still waiting on the Almond tree to give up its leaves.  The Elberta peach did it in one night.  Went to bed one night with full leaves and got up the next morning to a bare tree.  Shades of Harry Potter's whomping willow.  

 

 

 

We do get freezes here too - but they are so rare that you need to daily keep track of the weather.  Missing an alert will totally mess up your sensitive trees and plants for a long time.   Missed one last year and it took my hibiscus till the end of summer before it started looking happy again.  Cover everything with old sheets or special landscaping cloth.  Old sheets are cheaper (try 2nd hand stores for cheap ones).  Make sure you go out first thing in the AM and remove them.  You don't want them to damage the plants.   Helps if you have a way to hold them away from the plant too.  Where the sheet touches the plant will often times freeze but if that is the worst of your damage then hooray for you.  You can also use my Dad's trick and put a light bulb (lit, of course) under the sheet to create just enough heat to keep the plant from freezing. 

 

 

 

 

And you still need to be fertilizing - December is mostly Citrus and shade plants (like Azaleas and Camillas) use a 0-10-10 fertilizer and Flowers need 5-10-5 and your veggies still need stuff too 5-10-10. 

 

Of course next month the real work begins with roses that need to be pruned.  Grapes and berry plants to get hacked too.  Then all the trees need to be opened up for the light and air to get in.  Gonna be a busy January.