Observances on a Thursday

I walked outside to a cool (for us) morning.  Temperatures were in the low 60's and it felt GREAT!  Belle, our Great Pyrenees, seconded that motion.  With her long hair, she's ready for cooler weather.  She was alert and frisky and guarding her charge of cows, goats and chickens.  She doesn't guard the honeybees.  She says, "the heck with that."  They stung her before and whenever we work bees, Belles goes into hiding.  I don't blame her.

The Black Turtle Beans are blooming and putting on pods.  I'll let the beans ripen on the plant and I'll pick the dried pods and shell them for cooking.  We really like black beans.   A favorite simple meal of ours is to cook the black beans and refry them into a paste and then spread the refried black beans on a homemade flour tortilla, add some white cheese, fold in half and eat.  The blooms of the black beans are lavender-colored and pretty, attracting pollinators to the garden.  The black beans are more or less a bush bean, but in this case, they reached out and grabbed the cucumber trellis and they are taking off climbing it.

Here's something cool I saw in the garden.  I chased it and the brightly colored insect was moving fast.  It is a red velvet ant, but don't be deceived.  It is not an ant.  It is actually a wasp.  This one is a female since it doesn't have wings.  The males have wings.  I almost made the mistake of picking it up and boy, am I glad I didn't.  It's nickname is "Cow Killer" because of its painful sting, ranking as one of the worst stings on the sting pain index.  Don't pick these up!

One final insect I saw in the garden was this black bee pollinating the louffa gourd flowers.  The brightly-colored yellow flowers are prevalent in the back part of the garden where the louffa vines proliferate.  This is not a honeybee and it is not a bumblebee.  I was researching to see what it was and if I'm looking at it correctly, it is a black bee - a carpenter bee.

Well, well...  We wage war with the carpenter bees out at the barn.  They like to drill holes in the 2x4s that form up the rafters of the roof.  On both sides of the barn, we keep badminton rackets hanging on a nail - not to play badminton, but we've found that the rackets are great for popping carpenter bees.  We swing and pop them mid flight.  They fall to the ground stunned, and we run and stomp on them.  It's great fun.  We're easily entertained, as you can see.

I'm glad this bee is pollinating, but I don't want him drilling holes in our barn.  If he does and we catch him with the racket, this will be the last flower he sees.

It Doesn't Look Good, But it Tastes Great!

Last night I showed you that we planted some cowpeas in the garden plot in the side yard.  The three rows in our main garden are about to play out and it was time to get some new ones planted to have peas consistently coming in.  It is important in these crazy times to have food in your pantry and food in your garden.

Tonight I'd like to show you another sort of strange crop we have growing:  Black Turtle Beans.  They are, as the name suggests, black.  They are called turtle beans because they have a hard outer shell.  This bean is popular in Latin America and Cuba.  I harvested a bucket of them the other day.  I let these dry on the bush before picking.

I meant to save a photo of the black beans after I shelled them, but Tricia started cooking them before I was able to get a shot.  Suffice it to say, they are black and shiny.  We like to make refried black beans and use them as a dip to eat with chips.  We soak the beans for 7 hours in water and a some Apple Cider Vinegar.  We rinse the beans and cook them like you would any other bean.  When they are done, we pour most of the water off, add some oil and 'fry' them in a skillet until the consistency is like that of bean dip.

Then we dip our Blue Corn chips into our refried Black Beans for a delicious snack!

It may not look pretty, but it tastes great!  I saw the black beans were blooming again in the garden.  Perhaps we'll get another harvest.

Harvesting Black Beans

We planted some Black Beans again this year.  Officially, they are called Black Turtle Beans.  They are very common in Latin American and Caribbean cuisine.  We've eaten refried black beans.  I decided to try growing them again.  Growing them is a little different than growing snap beans, for instance.

What you want to do is to allow the beans to ripen on the bush.  Below, you can see the ripening black beans on the left side of the photo below.  On the right side of the photo you can see sweet potato vines.

Here is an up-close photo of black beans that are ready to pick.  The only thing I can tell you to clue you in that they are ready is that the bean pods will be brown and "crinkly" when you touch them.  You don't want to harvest before they are dried.  On the other hand, if they get close and you get a lot of rain, you run the risk of your beans sprouting in the pod.

I used an old #10 can to walk the rows and pick all the dried pods off the black bean bushes.  Then I brought them inside and spread them out on a platter.

They don't look appetizing at all.  In fact, they look dry, dead, ugly and inedible.

However, when you crack open the pod to expose what's inside, you can see beautiful, shiny black beans.

Normally, I'd sit outside and shell them.  However, this weekend, the humidity was so high, it felt like I was drinking in air instead of breathing it.  I opted to sit in the kitchen and make a big mess while I shelled the black beans.  I turned on some old country music and sang along with Merle Haggard as I shelled them.  I had quite a pile of empty pods when I was done.

I also had a big bowl of black beans, too!

I have a lot of black beans left to pick.  Many of the pods were not quite dried.  Next weekend, weather permitting, I'll go out and pick some more black beans.  I'll be sure to save about 50 of the prettiest beans to use as seed for next year.  Speaking of next year, I plan on doing the same thing with Red Kidney Beans so that we can grow our own Red Beans for Red Beans & Rice & Sausage.