Hey there,
Where is this summer going, planting out many of the fall and winter storage crops. Last rounds of carrots, beets, beans, and many of the winter storage radishes and turnips going in. The summer veggies are starting to come on strong, loads of green tomatoes, zucchini forever and the beginning of the bean dumps.
We grow quite a few different beans, and do multiple plantings of them as well. We grow a few different varieties of pole beans, the flat European types, as well as the typical long round kinds. The flat beans are my personal favourite. When they are cooked they are quite buttery and tender. But that doesn't mean I don't also appreciate the regular ol' bush beans.
For bush beans we grow green, yellow, and purple beans, though the purple beans are best enjoyed raw, as they turn green when cooked or fermented. These bush beans, like other notorious summer fruiting veggies (zukes and cukes), left for a few days without picking, the plants explode with beans and they can grow too big and a bit tougher. So because of the short time frame of the perfect bean, especially when it is hot and sunny, we will pick these back breakers multiple times a week. Also similar to those other veggies, we will plant multiple successions. They produce fast and hard, but the duration of the fruiting is fairly short, we have about 3 plantings spread out over the months to get the most of these plants and the season.
Another thing to know about beans, is that it is never a good idea to pick or walk through them when the plants are wet. Whether it is from rain or dew, brushing the plants when wet can help spread any disease or problems through the beans.
And last but not least, we also grow a few different dry beans as well, black turtle, taylor horticultural, and dutch brown. These are planted once, and we won't touch them until they are brown and dried up ready to be shaken and stirred to release their little jewels.
