From commentor Mazareth:
My garden is doing pretty well in spite of the sometime neglect. The 4 o’clock blossom is simply cool IMO. I have several growing by the chimney. It creates a micro zone 5 in my yard which allows the 4 o’clocks to over winter. They’re an annual in Central Wisconsin.
I’ve been picking beans about every other day. I generally get about a half to three quarters of a pound, which is just about right for single person. This year I have the various bean varieties, tomatoes and cukes. I’m lucky in that we have a 6 day a week Farmer’s market. I also have a share in a local CSA. My garden is more about needing to get my hands in dirt, than need. The beans photo shows a pile of Kentucky Wonder pods with Yard Longs in the foreground. I put a Kentucky Wonder in with the Yard Longs to show their respective lengths.
The bean trellis photo is an object lesson in poor design. It’s about 7-8′ in height, but as you can see, the vines have overtopped the trellis. From left to right I’m growing Scarlet Runner, Yard Long and Kentucky Wonder. The Scarlet Runner is actually a very flat bean, somewhat like a romano. This year I’m just growing them for seed. The hummingbirds love them. Yard Long is as Asian variety that I’m growing from saved seed. FWIW, I have to harvest the Yard Longs at 18″ to 20″ or they’re no good to eat. Kentucky Wonder is a great tasting, productive green bean. The pods can easily growth to 7-8″ and still be tender.
The tomatoes. From left to right: Moskvica, Rose de Berne, and Black Krim. They all good for fresh eating or cooking. I’m making fresh salsa what you see in the photo.
Finally, the crab spider in the Oriental lily. Like me she’s mostly a lurker…
So… what’s it look like in your gardens, this fine summer Sunday?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
Looks beautiful! Two summers ago myself and a couple of pals rode harleys all over Central Wisconsin. More than once we got behind huge trucks full of green beans!
Off to the triathalon!
Orygunian
As a rare poster but addicted lurker at BJ I wanted to put this out there. A post on FB I have seen several times in the last few weeks:
“Doesn’t make sense, does it? Homeless in the US go without eating. Elderly in the US go without needed medicines. Mentally ill in the US go without treatment. American troops go without proper equipment. American veterans go without benefits that were promised. Yet we donate billions to other countries before helping our own first.”
I agree with every word of the screed. And yet, and yet, it is a dog whistle isn’t it? The last sentence. If I substitute just four words it works for me. Yet I get this from my conservative, so called friends. It’s brilliant really. And so f*ckig disgusting.
Arclite
Fuck you you house living fuckers. I used to have a community garden up in Manoa, but it was too much trouble to get to. Living in an apartment sucks balls, but you deal when you live in Hawaii. Lottery, make me rich so I can buy a half mil house with a yard and have my own garden. k,thx,bye.
Sam Houston
Thank for reminding me about 4O’C. We need to plant some.
Scuffletuffle
What beautiful produce…I’m green with envy. Well, except for my thumbs, which remain deep black.
JPL
Your produce looks yummy. Projects and the heat kept me inside most of the summer and my garden looks awful. There is next year though.
I hope we hear from OldDan and LittleAnn soon. I want to know how their new addition is doing. The first night with a rescue pup is sooooo much fun.
Steeplejack
Apropos of the recent Netflix streaming thread, I see that Zero Effect is on the Encore Suspense channel at 2:45 and 10:00 p.m. EDT today. It’s a quirky little mystery with Bill Pullman, Ben Stiller and Kim Dickens. Worth checking out if you don’t have Netflix. (It will be available for streaming this Friday.)
Violet
Garden is lovely! I’m just trying to keep mine alive. It’s so incredibly hot and dry. The long beans make me envious. I have some going this year, but they seem just to be dying at this point. Probably lack of water. And perhaps the insane heat. Earlier I was harvesting like that every day. Now I’m lucky if they grow to that length without getting that puffiness that makes them inedible.
OzarkHillbilly
Tomatoes, eggplants,melons and some peppers are what I am down to. Everything else burned up in the July heat. Tomatoes are the only thing doing really well. At least the heat has broke here (upper 80’s mostly). I don’t know how you Texans can survive that heat.
I got to start on the fall garden this week.
Anyway Mazereth, beautiful.
Poopyman
Our garden still sucks, but we’re still getting tomatoes and *may* get beans in a few weeks. It’s the first year of a relearning process though, and I don’t have the soil right. Still too sandy, and it’s been brutally dry and I didn’t get a good irrigation system in. All part of the learning curve. I hope.
jeffreyw
@Steeplejack:
DVR set, thank you sir.
Pococurante
Several weeks ago Egypt lifts the embargo on Hamas. Who could have predicted what is happening this week.
“It’s war, she cried, It’s war, she cried, this is war”
jeffreyw
The only thing aside from the herbs that is producing reliably for me is the grape tomato in its container on the patio. I love, love, love the little roasted tomatoes I’ve been turning its bounty into. Out in the big garden, a lone pepper bush is coming out of a season long funk to begin producing green peppers. They are not the bells, I forget the variety now, like an elongated bell, starts with an “M”, Maricopa maybe?
Violet
@jeffreyw:
Those look lovely! What’s lining the bottom of your baking tray?
polyorchnid octopunch
I dunno… this has me very nervous:
theintelhub.com/2011/08/18/radioactive-rain-in-toronto-canada-as-large-scale-government-cover-up-of-…
OTOH, we have to eat.
Omnes Omnibus
Central Wisconsin represent! Go Wausau East Lumberjacks! Okay, I’ll shut up now.
mazareth
Thanks to Anne for posting my photos and remarks. And thanks to all of you for the compliments.
@Raven Del Monte has a green bean canning plant in Plover, WI. That’s where the beans are going. I did 5 summers as a relief janitor at the adjoining can manufacturing plant.
@jeffreyw I will have to try making the roasted tomatoes. I bet the kitchen smells amazing when they’re cooking!
Going off to make breakfast, pack up food for work tonight and then a training ride on the bike.
Thanks again Anne. I’ll take some pictures of the Farmers’ Market next week…
jeffreyw
@Violet: That’s a Silpat silicone baking mat.
jeffreyw
@mazareth:
You betcha!
Constance
Mazareth I love the beautiful little spider in the lily. Years ago I would take my coffee into the yard just as the sun was rising and often I would see small bees on the sunflower centers. As the sun touched them they would start to slowly move and groom and after about 15 minutes fly off to do their work.
I counted bees yesterday for the Great Sunflower Project and actually counted 22 in 15 minutes. Overall bees are scarce here in comparison even with five years ago.
If anyone is interested check out http://www.greatsunflower.org . It’s fun and may help scientists answer some important questions.
jnfr
@Orygunian:
Foreign aid is less than one percent of the budget. It’s certainly not the reason why we don’t fund social services the way we should. You can squarely blame Republicans for that, because it’s not that we don’t have the money.
Anyway, my tomatoes just won’t ripen for some reason. It’s very discouraging. Except the Sweet 100s. I get a handful of them every day.
Joel
My beans did horribly this year in Seattle, but my peas did awesome.
Tomatoes are still ripening.
Violet
@jeffreyw:
Cool, thanks! When do you use those? For everything? I’ve got some really old pans that I end up lining with foil, but it’s so wasteful. Something like that would be great.
jeffreyw
@Violet: I use them for a lot of things, great for cookies and other baking, to keep the mess easily cleaned for anything that makes a mess, from roasted veggies to chickens. The mats wash off in a snap. They really are nonstick. Burnt cheese from an oozing twice baked potato? Silpat laffs at it.
parsimon
I was tickled to see that photo: our beans here look exactly the same. Kentucky Wonder, 7-8 feet high, overtopping the trellis by about a foot, just as you say. I cannot reach the upper ones without dragging around a step-stool, which can be a little precarious.
Any idea how to avoid this? This is our first year growing pole beans rather than bush beans. Is the trick not to build the dang trellis 6 feet high in the first place? Perhaps a 4 foot trellis will result in 5-6′ plants?