Mission Accomplished

Right outside the garden gate, I caught a little creature.  A bug.  A ladybug, to be precise.  It could have been a gentlemanbug, perhaps, as I'm not sure how to tell them apart.  The bug was quickly trying to get away, but I wanted her (or him) back in the garden.  Ladybugs are beneficial insects.  I need all of them that we can handle as the stinkbugs absolutely tear up my tomatoes and right now, I'm having a heck of a time with caterpillars on our beets.

Let's get to the heart of tonight's post, Mission Accomplished.  That phrase is often used when a goal is achieved.  George W. Bush infamously put a banner up, if I recall correctly, that had that phrase on it, and I don't think at that point that the mission was accomplished.  Sometimes the goal is reached; however, and this is one of those times.  What am I speaking of?

Each year as the summer heat beats down, I long for cooler temperatures and a respite from the high heat and humidity.  It is in those dog days of summer that I plant a row or two of green beans.  Snap beans, you might call them.  The goal is this: We want to have mature fresh green beans to harvest and eat as a side dish for Thanksgiving Day.  To this end, I planted two rows of Contender Green Beans that I had saved from seed from the spring crop.  They germinated and grew and here is a photo of them the day before Thanksgiving:

The plants, other than some leaves that insects ate on, look good.  But we need to look beneath the canopy to see if we reached our goal.  Drum roll, please.  Well, how about that?  I see mature green beans, ready to harvest.  I also see some that need another week of growing time, and then I see blooms that promise more beans after that!  Looks like a healthy crop of Thanksgiving green beans.

I picked a bucket full of the ripened ones.  Some were a little over ripe, but we'll eat them.  After Tricia washed them, I snapped off the ends of the beans and stringed them.

It's always a good idea to string them, especially as they are a little larger or the strings are a tough when you're feasting on them.  One thing is for sure, fresh green beans are a real treat.  Tricia sort of stir fried these in butter and added dried cranberries and chopped pecans for a nice, festive, tasty side dish.

Mission Accomplished on this year's crop of fall green beans.  We had a mighty fine mess of them and believe it or not, we just finished up on the leftovers tonight.  The best part is, these Contender green beans will continue producing for us until the frost kills the plant.  We may actually be able to freeze or can some to set aside for the winter months.