Still Pickin'

There's only a few things still rockin' and rollin' in the garden as we're halfway through August.  It's hot and it's dry and most things are done.  We're waiting to plant or transplant all the fall items in the garden, but I've learned my lesson on that.  If you transplant now, there are lots of bugs and worms that consider your early planting a benevolent offering.  They quickly devour every seedling you transplant.  I'll wait them out for a while more.

One thing that's producing is our Blackeye Butterbeans.  This has become a favorite of mine.  It trellises nicely on the cattle panel and withstands the heat and drought very well.  Just yesterday I noticed that we had quite a few pods that were ready, so I got a basket and went out to pick Blackeye butterbeans.  They are like a blackeyed pea, but are butterbeans.

Here's what the pods look like.  They have three or four butterbeans in each one.  You can also pick them when they're green.  If you wait too long, the dried pods crack open and the butterbeans spill on the ground.  We can't have any of that foolishness.

I didn't take long to fill a basket with freshly harvested butterbeans.  I put the sprinkler on to water the sweet potatoes and peppers.  They are really suffering in the summer heat and dry spell.

It is a satisfying thing to shell peas.  It doesn't matter which kind.  You sit with the basket of butterbeans to be shelled, a bowl to put the butterbeans, and another to hold the pods.  At the end, you have a nice bowl of butterbeans that are ready to soak.  You can put a pot of rice on and then cook the butterbeans with some onions, peppers, and tasso.  A cast iron skillet with homemade cornbread slathered with butter really puts it over the top.

We cook most of what we pick and then save some of the biggest and prettiest for seed for next year.  

I like to pick 'em and I love to eat 'em!