Save it for a Rainy Day

Do you remember a few short years ago when toilet paper was in short supply because everyone was hoarding it due to a respiratory virus?  Then there was a chip shortage and people couldn't buy or repair their cars.  I work for an insurance company and body shops are still having difficulty finding some parts.  Broken vehicles sit unrepaired and status shows "NO ETA."  My wife was in the grocery store last week and they were having a brown-out due to limited electricity.

As I think about these things, if toilet paper is in short supply, there are other (albeit uncomfortable) alternatives.  If we can't get computer chips or car parts, well, there are worse things.  With lack of power, yes, things get uncomfortable.  But what happens if the grocery store shelves are empty?  With the "just-in-time" inventory method in place, stores don't have a big inventory sitting in the back room.  What would you do?  Have you thought about it?

I have.  You might say, "We'll plant a big garden!"  Stellar idea.  But what happens if you can't get seeds!  THIS ARTICLE tells us that during the pandemic, the Michigan governor banned seed sales.  What if there was a run on seeds and there was none to buy?  "Don't eat your seed corn" is a valuable life principle.  Every seed that you have can either be eaten OR saved to plant for next year's crop.  Make sure you always save seed for next year.  

We do that.  First, you must ensure that you are buying non-hybrid seed.  We buy our seeds from www.rareseeds.com and save seeds from our crops every year.  It's just a wise thing to do.  We've just completed saving a few items.  Here are some blackeyed peas:

These are some black turtle beans:

These are some Ozark Razorback peas (I see I have some blackeyed peas that jumped into this bowl):

These are my new favorites - Blackeyed Butterbeans:

Here are some purple hull peas:

And finally, some purple teepee beans:

Here they are.  I'll store these away and date them.  I did an experiment and planted some Ozark Razorback peas that were 11 years old.  The germination was down, but I anticipated this and planted them super close.  They grew and produced!

It's always good to be prepared and save seeds in the event you can't get them.  You can save some money by doing this, too!  Then, if you have too many, you can always eat the remainder that you don't need for next year's seeds.  The fun thing about it is that you can always trade your seeds for other people's seeds that you don't have.  I like to try new things in the garden.  Time to check your seed inventory for the fall crop.  Save those seeds!  

A Review of the Purple Teepee Bean

Most every year we purchase the tried and true varieties we've come to trust as we've planted them over the years.  Some varieties we no longer buy since we try to save the non-hybrid heirloom seeds that we originally purchase from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company.  Their website is Rareseeds.com.  They are an excellent seed company that we support.  Their seed catalog is like a coffee table book - beautiful photographs and very descriptive verbiage about the seeds that are collected from all over the world.  There website is responsive and easy to navigate.  There are also reviews of each variety along with popularity of varieties in terms of sales.

In making my purchase of snap beans, I ordered the normal varieties I normally buy, like Contender, Italian Roma II, and Blue Lake Bush.  However, something caught my eye.  I always like buying things that are strange, different, new and brightly colored.  There was something on the page that was irresistible.  The Purple Teepee Bean.  It is a french bean, a bush bean that has a straight pod, and as the name suggests, it's purple.  it is the row on the left.  It makes a small bush and doesn't spread out quite as much as the Contenders, Bush Blue Lakes, or Romas that you see in the middle and on the right.

It makes a beautiful purple flower that catches your eye.  The honeybees seem to be attracted to them, too.

The Purple Teepee bean is highly productive.  I mean very highly productive.  The beans are high off the ground.  That's a good thing.  Other varieties' pods lay on the ground and are susceptible to bug damage.  

This handful of beans were just the mature beans off of one plant.  I left the young ones for later pickin'.  There were more small ones coming, too.

When I finished the (back breakin') job of harvesting the row of Purple Teepee beans, we had a beautiful basket of purple beans.

Chlorophyll gives these beans their beautiful purple color.  These purple beans, when cooked, turn deep green.  We've yet to cook them, so I can't give a taste test, but from production alone, the Purple Teepee Bean will be in our rotation from now on.  I think I'll harvest the whole row as they mature and leave one plant in which I'll save seeds from.  I give the Purple Teepee beans five stars and a thumbs up.

Quick Update April 12 2023

It's been a busy spring.  We have the garden all put in.  Once the onions are harvested, I'll likely plant some additional sweet corn and snap beans as well as cowpeas.  We have caught two swarms of honeybees and have two boxes set up.  We have been inspecting them every other week.  In hive one (the one with the brick on top), we have a laying queen.  A week ago we saw eggs.  The queen can lay 2,000 eggs per day.  On Monday of this week, we saw larvae!  Hive 1 appears to be good.  In Hive 2, we still don't see eggs, but we caught that swarm a week and a half later.  We'll inspect next week and hopefully we'll see eggs.  Regardless, we're going to put out another swarm trap or two this weekend.

The snap beans are blooming like crazy and are tall and healthy.  Two varieties of sweet corn flank the snap beans.  I can see the tassels about to come out.  It's all progressing nicely.

This bean variety is a new one for us on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  It's called the purple teepee bean.  It's blooming beautiful purple flowers and setting small pods.

This is a photo of what the harvested beans will look like from the seed catalog photo that I ordered them from: Rareseeds.com.

Image Credit: Rareseeds.com

I'm anxious to check this out and see if they taste as good as they are pretty.  Lot's going on in the garden and in the chicken tractor.  I'll have more updates later to share.

Fall Garden (Part 2)

Earlier this week we looked at the 'Salad Rows' in the garden.  Let's look in at the rest.  In this photo below, in the top right corner, you can barely make out the potatoes in bucket experiment we're working on.  The rest of the photo makes up a bunch of the cole crops along with some others.

Starting left to right:  The first two rows are cabbage (brunswick and Jersey wakefield varieties).  The next row is cauliflower (amazing and purple varieties).  The next row is Romanesco broccoli.  The next row is 'regular' broccoli.  The next row has baby bok choy, kohlrabi, and kale.

Here are some sugar snap peas that are beginning to trellis on a hog panel I have fastened to some t-posts.

Here is a big section of sweet potatoes that I haven't harvested yet.  To the right where you can see the dirt, that's where I have harvested some of the sweet potatoes to make room for planting three rows of carrots.

Below is a row of some French breakfast radishes.  These grow really fast.

Here is one row of Cosmic purple carrots I have planted that are coming up.  I have three additional rows of carrots (Atomic Red, Danvers half long, Uzbek Golden varieties).

I have a couple of rows of snap beans that are really producing, both Contender Green Beans and Italian Roma II beans which you see below.

Every couple days I pick a large bucket of beans.  We eat them with new potatoes and butter and they are delicious.  We'll begin blanching a bunch to freeze.

One thing I didn't show you is the beets and rainbow swiss chard.  We had poor germination on the Bull's Blood beets.  We had to get some Detroit Dark Red beets to fill in the holes in the row.  Probably this weekend I'll be planting turnips, spinach and mustard greens.

There's Good Beans and Then There's Poisonous Beans

Without any rainfall in over a month now, I've been irrigating with my new sprinkler each and every day.  The snap beans are blooming and if we want them to produce in meaningful quantities that we can enjoy now as well as blanch and freeze some for later, well, they need some water.  So far, they are holding up and looking very healthy.  Good news is that the long range forecast shows a decent chance of rain next Wednesday and Thursday.  These are a row of Italian Roma II beans.  They are a flat bean that have a delicious taste.  I highly recommend them.

We have another row planted that are of the Contender and Blue Lake varieties.  These are pretty healthy, too, but didn't get quite the germination percentage as the Romas and they're experiencing some bug pressure.  Cooler weather on the way will help that problem out, I'm sure.  Hopefully, we'll be producing a good bean crop that'll take us through Thanksgiving.  I love fresh snap beans for Thanksgiving.

I want to show you another bean we grow.  These are hyacinth beans.  They are quite beautiful.  I got them at a seed swap one time.  They have a purplish vine with big leaves and beautiful blooms.  One problem with them is that the matured or dried beans are poisonous.  I guess this is a dangerous thing to have in the garden, but they're strictly ornamental.

I have them growing at the back gate of the garden that leads to the barn.  I made an arbor of sorts by leaning over a livestock panel for the hyacinth beans to grow on.  They make a nice canopy of leaves and blooms.  Tricia is not fond of the arbor.  She's worried that snakes might get in there and drop down or her head.

You'll notice the goats around the hyacinth bean arbor.  Those dudes and dudettes like to crane their necks over and eat the foliage off of the arbor.  That's why the hyacinth beans look more full on the side away from the pasture.  We don't have to worry about them getting poisoned because they eat everything they can prior to the beans getting mature or dried.

The flowers turn to purple pods.  I'll have plenty of seed to give away if anyone is looking to plant a pretty NON-EDIBLE bean.

I'm all about mainly growing things you can eat, but with our hyacinth bean arbor, I'll make an exception (as long as the snakes don't fall on Tricia's head.)  That event would result in me having to take it down.

Have a nice weekend everyone!  I'll be back Sunday night to post.

Planting Snap Beans and Growing Your own Fertility

This week on my to do list was a note to plant snap beans for the fall crop.  One thing I always look forward to for our Thanksgiving feast is fresh green beans wrapped in bacon and cooked in the oven.  It is a tasty side dish.  Of course, anything wrapped in bacon makes  a tasty side dish.  Fresh picked snap beans from the garden are so delicious.  There's no comparison to canned beans.

I planted two varieties for the fall garden this year: Italian Roma II and Contenders.  I pulled back the 3 inch layer of wood chip mulch to expose the soil and worked up a thin line to mark a 25 foot row for each variety.  Then, using a piece of PVC pipe, I drug it across the worked up seedbed to make a 1 inch trench in which to plant the beans.

Both of these varieties are bush beans, meaning they bush out and don't vine up a pole.  I plant them about four inches apart.  I don't measure.  I simply eye-ball it.  

One thing that I forgot to mention is that I had two rows of green beans growing in the same general location for the spring crop.  I moved the row over about 6 inches from where the spring crop rows were for the fall crop.  Generally, I like to plant different crops in different areas in order to rotate the crops since different crops use different minerals.

In this case, I wanted to see if these green beans would benefit from growing near where the spring crop was.  Why is this?  Well, beans are legumes and legumes fix nitrogen in the soil.  How?  Well, I wasn't very good at all at chemistry, but I can repeat what I've learned.  80% of our atmosphere is made up of nitrogen (N2).  Beans have a bacteria called rhizobia that lives on or near the roots of the plant.  The bacteria live in nodules on the roots and convert N2 nitrogen into NH3 (ammonia form of nitrogen) that the plant can use to grow.  What a beneficial partnership!  Most of that is used by the plant but some leaches into the soil and can be used for fertility for other crops as long as the plants and nodules are incorporated into the soil.

As I was preparing the seed bed, I unearthed three good examples of nitrogen fixing nodules from the spring crop I wanted to show you.

Here's one:

And another.  Can you see the little nodules on the roots?:

And here's another with relatively large nodules:

I quickly buried them in the soil and went ahead and covered the two rows of newly planted green beans with homegrown nitrogen.  We'll see how they do.

We got a one inch rain and BOOM!  The beans are popping up out of the ground like popcorn.

Once we get some sunshine, they will grow quickly.  They'll feed us and the nitrogen fixing nodules will feed the plant and next year's crop to boot.

Spring is Officially Here

Spring is a very, very short window around here.  It moves quickly into summer.  We're already seeing afternoon temps in the mid-80's.  We will enjoy the mornings in the 60's while we still have them, cherish them and relish them.  They will soon be a distant memory as the humidity rolls in.  Enough of that melancholy talk!

The plants are all sporting new growth and the very last tree in our area that puts on leaves are the pecan trees.  Some folks say that is how you can tell that spring has officially arrived.  Well, it is here.  The warmer weather has provoked the pecans to come out of dormancy.  They have quickly put out fresh, green growth and they'll soon be providing shade.  The cows, goats and chickens like to sit underneath them and nap.

The garden is quickly growing as well.  Everything is coming up aside from some Ozark Razorback Peas that I planted.  They were old.  I had saved them in 2012 and planted them this year to rotate my old saved seed inventory.  Well, due to their age, I only achieved about a 50% germination rate.  I'll likely fill in the gaps with a bunch more planted closely to use the old seed up and get a better stand.

The other peas and beans are popping up in every row.  I love to see seedlings popping up in an otherwise barren landscape.

From the cotyledons come fresh first true leaves that soon open in the sunlight.  Spring is an optimistic, hopeful time.  Each new day brings noticeable growth in the garden.

Along with the coming of the new, there is the finishing up of the old.  The fall crop is about gone.  The last of the dinosaur kale will be chopped and fed to the cows.  At this time of year, they get little bugs all over them.  The swiss chard is still producing well.  We have two more kohlrabi plants to harvest.

The last of the fall crop is the bull's blood beets.  You can spot them by their leaves that look like bulls bled all over them.  They are quite colorful in the garden contrasted with the green leaves of the beans growing nearby.

We have started harvesting them and Tricia cuts them up and roasts them in the oven.  A very tasty side dish, that's for sure.  We had pickled beets in a salad today and they were delicious!

Perhaps Sunday I'll post an update on the garden and show you what's growing and give a progress report on the spring garden.

The Garden in Early Spring

Here in South Louisiana spring doesn't last for too long.  We get out and enjoy it, because before long, it will be 80 degrees by 8 AM, and I'm not exaggerating.  Right now the weather is perfect, absolutely gorgeous.  If I had one complaint it's that it is a little dry.  I hardly ever water the garden, but that's what I've been doing when I can is keeping the soil moist so that the crops will germinate and continue growing.  

I don't have a fancy irrigation system.  I use the old thumb over the end of the water hose trick, and it allows me to get a number of different sprays depending on how I depress my thumb.  This is some modern, high-tech stuff right here.  Of the three rows under irrigation you see here, (right to left) is Italian Roma Snap Beans, Contender Green Beans, and Henderson's Bush Lima Beans.

Just 10 feet north you can see that the cilantro has bolted and is flowering to "beat the band."  That is an idiom that my maternal grandmother used to say.  It means "to the greatest possible degree."  It probably developed by someone commenting that they were making so much noise, they drowned out the band.  I don't hear many people saying that anymore.

It is past time to pull these up and plant something else on the real estate they're occupying.  I don't do that for two reasons.  First, they attract a multitude of pollinators.  That's a good thing.

Secondly, the cilantro plants will soon make seeds (called coriander) which will fall and next winter, I'll have a gazillion cilantro plants popping up in this place.  It saves me from having to plant cilantro.

Now, here are our four rows of onions.  They are really looking good and are starting to bulb.  I pulled back the soil around them, and give them a good spraying of water every afternoon to encourage good, strong bulbing.

One of the really healthy plants still hanging on from the fall crop is the Rainbow Chard.  We had some chard cooked down and served over cornbread tonight.  It is essentially a beet that doesn't bulb.  You eat the greens.  Delicious.  Not only to they taste great, but the color they add to the garden - and you plate, is simply beautiful.  See why they call them rainbow chard?

Here is yet another fall crop staple that is hanging on and producing with reckless abandon - Dinosaur Kale.  It goes by several different names like lacinato kale, nero di toscana kale, or black kale.  Whatever you call it, it produces well and tastes good.

It's dark green/bluish leaves are strange in texture.  We eat them in soups, greens and in stir fried rice.

I've some more to show you, but we'll wait until later!  Have a great day

The People Are Hungry

Now it happened, when David had come to Mahanaim, that Shobi the son of Nahash from Rabbah of the people of Ammon, Machir the son of Ammiel from Lo Debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim, brought beds and basins, earthen vessels and wheat, barley and flour, parched grain and beans, lentils and parched seeds, honey and curds, sheep and cheese of the herd, for David and the people who were with him to eat. For they said, “The people are hungry and weary and thirsty in the wilderness.”  

2 Samuel 17:27-29

I'm going to dovetail with yesterday's post for tonight's journal entry.  I strongly feel that the Bible contains infinite riches in terms of spiritual wisdom.  It also is chockablock full of practical information.   With all the talk of increased food pricing, it is wise to plant more and store more.  If you'll remember in the story of Joseph, there was going to be a famine in the land.  Joseph prepared in advance and was able to provide for their needs and those of others.  So we should PREPARE, PROVIDE and SHARE of the excess.

In the Scripture above from Samuel, we learn that the people were hungry.  Beans was one of the things that was grown to satiate their hunger.  Well, that settles it.  We'll plant more beans.  The first variety of bean I'll plant this year is a row of Italian Roma II beans.  These are flat beans that, to me at least, has the best flavor of all snap beans.

Tricia and I pulled back the mulch from an area in the garden right up next to where the broccoli is currently planted.  The broccoli is about finished.  We'll be cutting it down and feeding the greens to some cows and goats that come begging by the fence shortly.

The seed bed is perfect.  The soil is rich and loose, moist and full of organic matter and earthworms.  Healthy soil, good seed, and good weather is a good start for the spring crop.  The germination may be a little slow since we're still getting some cool weather. 

After this weekend when it warms up, we'll be planting Contender snap beans and then Blue Lake bush beans.  When I plant green beans, I recall being just a kid in elementary school and we'd have a class project in which we'd grow green beans in Dixie Cups.  Good memories!