2012 Garden in Review- Beans

This passed year was a very good year for beans, both pole and bush.

Pole Bean:

Cherokee Trail of Tears- Seed from Granny.  Three plants were grown.  They were planted rather late, at the end of June.  One plant was decapitate early on and started to pod later.  From two plants I was able to harvest 9ozs of dried beans.  From one plant I harvested 7ozs of shell beans.  I consider this a great harvest due to the late planting and the small number of plants grown.  I will be planting again in 2013.

Lazy Wife Greasy- Seed from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.  From 6 plants I Was able to get an enormous harvest of green beans.  the vines are rampant and the pods are small.  The sheer number of them compensates for the small size.  The one caveat is that you have to pick them daily.  skip a day and they from green bean to shell bean.  The fuzz less pod does take some getting used to appearance wise.  I will be planting again in 2013.

Blue Coco- Home saved seed.  Rampant vines that exploded with pods once the temps cooled down.  The pods are a rich purple and average about 7",  A nice texture and good flavor complete the picture.  I will be planting again in 2013.

Cornetto Largo Verde- Home saved seed.  A very hard to find Romano type.  Like Blue Coco, the vines exploded with pods when the temps cooled down.  The pods can grow to 10" and still remain tender.  This is my earliest pole bean, almost rivalling the bush beans.  I will be planting again in 2013.

"Blush Potomac" F2- A natural cross of Potomac and Trionfo Violetto.  It was fascinating to see how the genes shuffled for this generation.  Last year pods were green blushed purple.  This year they sorted out to green, purple, green with purple strops and green blushed purple. Rampant vines and good productivity.  I'll probably be ending this experiment here.  They are just not different enough from their parents.

Cranberry- Seed from Granny.  I only grew one plant.  It was in to much shade and only produced a few pods.  It is worth it to grow for the beauty of the seed alone, buff mottled with cranberry.  in 2013 they will be getting a better location and I will plant a decent number of seed.

Bush Bean:

Greencrop, Cherokee and Velour- All produced well and were of good quality. If I grow bush beans next year, I will plant all of these varieties. While they are earlier, pole beans are much more prolific and are much more versatile.

Black Friday Shopping- Mountain Style

I didn't even have to leave the mountain to do it.

It seems that the seed companies are finally getting into the spirit.

The first order I places was with Thompson and Morgan.  Their seeds were 25% off. With the discount they come down to a somewhat reasonable price.

The order consisted of:

Cosmos bipinnatus 'Cosimo Collarette' [1] $2.99

Cosmos bipinnatus 'Double Click Bicolour Pink' [1] $2.99
Dianthus barbatus 'Kaleidoscope Mixed' [1] $0.97
Leek Nipper [1] $2.24
Petunia hybrida 'Sparklers' [1] $2.47
Runner Bean Tenderstar [1] $2.99
Total: $14.60

Yes, those are the sale prices.  I'm excited about the leek, it is a baby leek for harvesting at green onion size and the runner bean.  The runner bean is a cross between a runner and a regular pole bean.  It has red and white flowers wit pods that are more like a regular pole bean.

Leek "Nipper"

Runner Bean "Tenderstar"

Petunia "Sparkler Mix"

Cosmos "Double Click Bi-Color"

Sweet William "Kaleidoscope Mix"



Cosmos "Cosimo Collarette"



The 'Cosimo' cosmos is supposed to grow to 24", we'll see if that is true.

All photos are from the Thompson and Morgan website.

Happy Thanksgiving

Things have been very busy here on the mountain.

All of us here want to wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving!

Garden Clean Up

Today was the perfect day to get outside and clean up the garden.  

I suffer from Raynaud's syndrome.  When the temps go below 55 deg my fingers start to discolor (turn blue, then white) and go numb.  This really puts a crimp in outdoor work in the spring and summer.  Even wearing stretch gloves underneath gardening gloves dos not help.  If there is a mild, sunny day above 60 deg, I make sure to get outside and make the most of it.

All of the dead bean vines were removed from the potager.  Then I did a quick weeding and took down the three trellis'.  Most of the annuals around the property have already been removed, so it was nice to take my time and enjoy the mild weather.

Tomorrow I plan to remove the remains of the 'Snowberry' tomato that took over half the pad.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with the hundreds of rotting tomatoes that are there too.

I was pleased that daylily seedling that I had posted about during the summer has continued to increase,  It went from two fans early spring, to seven this summer.  cleaning up around it I noticed several more new fans popping up.  It's been along time since I've seen a daylily increase so quickly.

I can't wait to see how it looks next year.

A Gift From Granny

It's always great when you receive a gift from Granny.

When I got home from work on Friday there was a package waiting for me.  Of course, I knew what was in it and who it was from.

Yellow lily bulbs from Granny.

I'm hoping that the sun finally comes out today so I can get them planted.

Thank you, Granny.