First Lima Harvest

I was tickled to be able to harvest my first lima beans today. I've never had success with them before. I think that the farm is too cool for successful lima bean growing. Oh the plants grow just fine, but they don't produce much in the way of lima beans. It was frustrating.

Today I picked enough limas in the green shell stage for a taste test. Green shell is when the pods were still turgid but had changed to a lighter color. They were mature. If I left them on the vine, the next step would have been for the pods to dry down. I'll try cooking the beans tonight and see how they are. 

Three beans in each pod. Some pods have more. 

These beans are very pretty. So I might continue to grow them simply because they are beautiful. A crazy reason I know, but what the heck. 

I plan to allow enough beans to mature for seed saving, perhaps a pound. Then we will eat the rest. A pound of lima beans is more seed than I need, but I plan to share some with a friend living in a hotter area. I'm curious if she would be more successful than I in growing them outdoors. 

Oh, I forgot to mention. These are Succotash Limas that I got from Baker Creek seed company. 

Local Lima Bean

Another lima I'm trying in the greenhouse is a local black & white, large beaned lima. I have no idea if this a landrace or if it is an imported lima. I've been given a couple of local names for it, but I can't verify any of them yet. But I'm still looking for a lead on identifying this variety. For now I just refer to it an Hawaian Landrace.

I have been able to get this variety to grow on my farm but not produce well. It's a pole type and grows vigorously. But the temperature tends to be too cool on my farm for most hot weather crops. So in the past I've only gotten a handful of seed off a dozen or so plants. Surely not enough for eating. 

I'm trying one more time, but in the greenhouse this time. I'm curious to see if this variety can produce decently or not. 

Oh by the way, if you have suggestions on what this bean might be, it's not Christmas or Calico lima. I've already checked those out and they don't compare. 

Succotash Pole Bean

I'm trying a new lima bean this year. Succotash. It's a pole bean that I bought from Baker Creek. Other than knowing it's a black or dark purple bean, I know virtually nothing about it. So this will be a fun learning experience.

I've sown the seeds in one of the greenhouses in order to provide added warmth. In the past I haven't had much success harvesting lima beans although the plants grew well enough. Possibly the problem is not enough heat units....thus the greenhouse. We shall see if the heat makes a difference. 

I got good germination from the seeds (only 2 failed) and the seedlings grew well, what I'd term "as expected". 31 days after sowing the seeds I saw the first blossoms.

Photo is a bit bleary but the flower is still a lovely color. 

Bean Damage

After quite a long period of little sun, lots of rain, and cool temperatures, I went to harvest my Golden Gate yellow beans. Very unhappy to see the amount of damage in the beans themselves. The plants look fine, in fact, robust. But the beans are showing signs of slug damage plus something else. 

The curling of the pods was to be expected. This is a pole variety that I accidentally planted in the bush bean bed. So it didn't get trellised. If grown on a trellis, the pods would have been straighter. But it's the brown marks that concern me. 

And I've never seen the brown discoloration along the top "seam" of the pods before. 

So what's the problem? Wrong variety for the weather conditions? Too wet? Too cold? Not enough sun? Some sort of disease? Just not a good variety for this farm? 

I'm ending up with 80% loss. That's right. Only 20% of the beans are sellable. 

I still have about a pound of seed for sowing. I think I'll wait until late spring to plant it .......and along a trellis this time! (oops) So I'll see how this bean performs in warmer, sunnier, and hopefully drier conditions before I give up on it. By the way, I cooked up the damaged beans for the chickens and they smelled delicious. At least this one has good flavor going for it. Plus the pods are very low fiber, thus they are quite tender when cooked. 

Made a Mistake - Oops

Making mistakes is my middle name. Sometimes I actually learn something from them........like in, read the label! I planted several short rows of a bean called Golden Gate. I assumed it was a bush bean. Wrong! I completely forgot that I had purchased this variety to plant along the fence. 

Today I noticed the bean plants sending up runners. It's not uncommon for some of the heirloom types to send up short ones, but this looked serious. Come to discover that I planted a pole type bean in the open beds that have no trellises. Sheesh. 

The runners are lighter green and lacking in leaves. So they are easy to spot. 

By the time I took a closer look, the vines have tangled themselves up pretty well, making it beyond hope to train them to a quick makeshift trellis. 

But all's not lost. The first flush of flowers will be low on the plant, giving me half of the anticipated harvest. The rest of the harvest would be from the climbing vines. I'm not going to bother trying to capture the second part of the harvest. Once I pick the first flush, I'll just yank out the plants and sow something else. Chalk it up to not paying attention. 

Purple Romano Beans

I'm a sucker for the unusual. Guess that's why I started growing purple beans in the first place. So a few months ago I spied a purple romano bean in one of the seed catalogs. Most of the romano types don't do well for me --- they seem to be overly attractive to the slugs here. And most have their pods rather low slung on the plant, well within easy slug reach. But I hadn't tried this one yet, and it kept saying, "Buy me, buy me."

Romano Purpiat. A bush bean, deep purple pods. 

I found the plants to be generally sturdy enough not to flop over, which is another problem I've had with romano beans. 

And the flowers are beautiful! 

When the small pods first form, they start out green. At first I was disappointed. They didn't seem very colorful. 

But within a day or two a dark purple streak showed up running down the spine of the pod. 

By the time the pods were ready for picking, they were deep purple. How cool! Yes, they are gorgeous. But for me, the best benefit is that they are easy to see and locate when picking them. With green pods, I'm apt to miss several. 

Since I only started with a small seed packet, I decided to harvest these plants for seeds. I actually got quite a lot of seeds from one small seed pack. 

Now I'll be able to grow a good crop of these beans. But it's now fall and not the greatest time for planting beans. So my plan is to sow 1/3 of the seed now to determine if this is a variety that can sown late in the fall around here. If it does poorly, then I'll wait until early spring before sowing the rest. 

Yes, some bean varieties can be grown year around here and they do well. Others are more sensitive to winter. 

Beans in an Old Cooler

"S" sent me an email that I thought would be great to pass along. 

|

-------------->

"Isn't this lovely?  One Old-dead-cooler full of purple green beans, about eight plants, plenty enough for a household of one.  Have another container going with the same beans about three/four weeks younger....I have noticed that reliably continuous production in the home garden quickly leads to culinary burn-out, so I'm trying to space things out a bit further..."

______________________________________________________

I agree with "S" that familiarity breeds boredom. A continuous supply of a particular food item tends to result in the ho-hum syndrome. No matter how cute and tasty they were the first couple of weeks, by the fourth week they don't seem so appealing anymore. Culinary burnout is a nice way of saying it. 

By the way, "S" grows things in coolers because she lives on lava where it's impossible to dig a hole. The beauty of using coolers are two fold -- they keep the plant roots cooler so that they don't sun bake, plus they can be easily moved to a different location to follow either the sun or the shade, whichever the plant prefers. Great idea and solution! 

Purple Greenbeans

I've fielded plenty of questions about green beans....green, yellow, purple, and striped ones. Just about everybody knows about the green ones. I guess that's why people call them greenbeans, right? And most people who grow them are familiar with their white flowers. But if you're growing purple ones, the flowers won't be white. Guess what color...... purple, of course! 

The above photo is from a variety called Royal Burgundy. I also grow Purple Teepee, Velour, plus others. Actually I like growing colors other than green simply because they are easier to see for harvesting. The green ones tend to blend in and often get missed. But the purples, yellows, and striped ones are fairly obvious. And besides, they are pretty. Perhaps they are more nutritious because they are colorful, who knows. 

I grow beans year around. And I often have an abundance of fresh beans available. We prefer the French filet types, the ones with the thin pods. Picked young, they're really good. But I've found some standard types that are really more flavorful, like Black Valentine. I guess I consistently grow about 30 different varieties. I do that because some will do well under different conditions -- dry, wet, cool, hot. Since island weather can be really variable, I cover all the bases. That way I get to eat snap beans year around. 

Adding a New Variety of Bean

I'm growing a new variety of bean, new that is to me. I've never tried this variety before. The name is "Trofeo". It's a green filet bean. Obviously it's a bush type, as you can see in the photo below. 

This bean has been growing robustly. And it has stood up well despite all the rain I've been getting recently. No signs of mold or mildew yet. And I'm impressed about how heavily it is flowering. 

The bushes are putting out lots of flowers. Looks like I'll get getting lots of beans from this one. 

As a side note, this garden bean is where I experienced a heavy infestation of flea beetles last year. The bean plants last year were severely stunted and damaged, as were the beets and potatoes in this same bed. So for almost a year I planted items that flea beetles wouldn't attack. Now I tried beans once again. Happily, no flea beetles yet in sight. Not that the farm is devoid of the little buggers. I have them on a patch of sweet potatoes in a different section of the farm. Thus I have future attacks of flea beetles to look forward to. Dang. But at least by giving this garden bed a rest from flea beetle "food" for a year, I was able to get rid of them long enough to produce a new crop of beans. 

Mildew on the Beans

Just recently I'm seeing the first serious mildew problem of the year. Surprisingly, it isn't on the crops I'd expect it. My most susceptible crops, pumpkins & gourds, are clear of mildew. But some of the green beans are being clobbered. 

One bean variety only has small whitish spots on its leaves. But other varieties are faring far worse. 

A few varieties have the most mildew on the oldest leaves and blotches showing up on their younger leaves. 

And one particular variety is totally devastated....one called Tobacco Patch.....seen above. 

These bean plants are among my seed production garden beds. I wasn't paying much attention to these plants, waiting for them to produce mature seed. While checking for maturing pods, I discovered the mildew problem. 

This problem is actually a big benefit. Really. I am learning which varieties are susceptible to mildew, thus not welcome on my homestead. I am attempting to choose varieties that thrive in my particular location. Therefore I am ruthlessly pulling out all plants that show mildew problems. No sense of saving seed from a plant that is susceptible to a local disease, especially one as common as mildew. By saving seed from the healthier plants, I'm hoping to incorporate some degree of mildew resistance in my strain. 

Bean Varieties That I Grow

"DJC" asked me to list the varieties of beans that I grow. Well, I've grown quite a few. Over the years I've found some that do especially well at my locations, and others that I personally like for one reason or another. Every year I try new ones for the fun of it, sometimes discovering another one to add to my "grow it again and again" list. 

Here it goes, my grow-it-again list......

Rocdor

Black Valentine 

Maxibel

Savannah

Soleil

Velour

Purple Teepee

Red Swan

Jumbo

Rio Zappe

Painted Pony

Spanish Tolosna

Christmas Lima

Black Turtle

This year I plant to grow all of the above, but also a bit of these-----

Blue Lake FM1

Amerhyst

Carson

Tongue of Fire

Amarillo

Tavera

Nickel

Royal Burgundy

Good Mother Stallard

And most likely a few others that I haven't bought yet. 

I'm a sucker for a pretty bean. If it's got nice color, splashes, dots, or swirls, then it's caught my attention. 

String Beans

A few days ago I was chatting with a new gardener, congratulating her on her successes. While her tomato crop was disappointing (so was mine this year) she had great crops of kale, chard, and spinach. Now she was ready to try growing other veggies. She wanted to try summer squash (an extremely difficult crop for my area) and sweet corn (another challenging crop). I suggested a few easier veggies, like beans, peas, and onions. We were soon deep in a discussion about all the various different kinds of beans. 

I learned something from my conversation, something new. New gardeners don't know why stringbeans are called STRINGbeans. My gardening friend though it was because they were grown on string trellises. Ya know.....pole beans that need support, thus growing them on a string trellis....thus "stringbeans". Ha! That's a good one! 

So what's your idea on why they are called stringbeans? Older gardeners and cooks most likely know the answer, but I wonder how many younger people do. Hint: it's not the trellis. 

Older original varieties of beans had "strings" along the seams of the pods that the cook had to remove  while preparing the beans for cooking. The more mature the pod, the more developed the string was. It was an easy task to pinch off the stem end and peel down the string, but it was time consuming. 

Because of the string problem, green beans were often picked as young as possible, hopefully before the string developed. Plant breeders noticed that some bean varieties were slower to make strings than others, and before long new varieties were developed that had reduced strings.......and soon, no strings. The gardener could wait to pick the beans until the pod was long and thick and still avoid strings. Cooks (and moms) loved them. 

I tend to refer to stringless pod beans as "snap beans". I used to say "green beans" but nowadays I grow plenty that are yellow, purple, or rosey red-- not green. So snap bean seems to be a better connotation to me. 

Recycle Bean Plants

So many people automatically assume that all my crop residue goes to making compost. Not so! Since I have a multitude of other sources for "waste" plant material, I channel edible plants to the livestock. As I see it, it is far more valuable as a substitute for store bought feed. Feed cost money....plenty of it here in Hawaii considering it all gets shipped in from the mainland. Trash vegetation for composting only cost me my time to gather it.

Today I checked the garden and saw that I had four spent beds of bean plants. All the beans had been picked, the variety (Maxibel) is not a rebloomer, so bean production is pau. Time to remove the plants and re-sow. 

Most gardeners I know do one of three things with old bean plants.....1) throw them into the compost bin, 2) stuff them into a trash bag, 3) throw them into the woods out of sight. #1 I might do, but 2 & 3-- never. Actually I opt for #4.....feed them to the livestock. In this case, it's the rabbits. My rabbits will eat the entire plant that is cut off at ground level. 

Ground level, did I say? Yup. I leave the root system of beans and peas in the ground. These plants form nitrogen fixing nodules on their roots. While the science behind nitrogen fixation is incomplete, the general option is that once the plant and roots die, the root nodules decompose thus making that nitrogen available for the next crop. 

Planting Peas in a Bed

Today I managed a bit of time to get one things planted in the garden -- taro, cowpeas, beans, and peas. With the gigantic windstorm clean-up project, I haven't had much time to get to much else. But if I wanted to keep a food supply flowing, I needed to start getting caught up on the garden schedule. I'm not really all that good yet at keeping to a planting schedule, and now I'm way behind. 

I had harvested two taro plants last week and still hadn't replanted the ohas and huli. So that got done.  With the job completed, I asked myself why I had put it off. It only took 15 minutes. Sigh. That's what happened when I get overwhelmed. Even small jobs get put off. Sigh again. 

The beans, peas, and cowpeas were more involved. These three went into the garden beds, so I had a bit of prep to do. 

1- Chop or pull out the major weeds. 

2- Test the soil pH. I knew from past testing that the soil was in pretty good shape, but with the volcano spewing out tons of SO2, the pH has been bouncing all over the place. I've been adding calcium carbonate between each crop, which slowly helps control pH. But sometimes I need wood ashes to align the pH quicker. So today's tests showed the soil too acidic, thus a dressing of wood ash was called for. I have no special formula for how much ash to use. I just dust it on like adding powdered sugar over a cake. Since I test the soil between each crop, I don't worry about it. Plus the amount of vog I get is unpredictable, making pH control far from being a precise science project. I also added a light dusting of coral sand (calcium carbonate source), some crushed heat treated bone, and a bit of biochar though I didn't have very much today.

3- Top dress with a light layer of manure and/compost. Which do I pick? Easy -- whichever I happen to have. Today's choice was horse manure. I seldom have an excess of either manures or compost, so it's whatever I'm lucky to have that's ready. Maybe some day I'll be fortunate enough to put more science behind this step. 

4- Flip the soil. If the soil is rather firm, I'll use the rototiller, the beds I planted today were all in good shape so it was faster just to use a garden fork and flip the soil. This step not only mixes the amendments in a bit, but also assures that the soil is light and airy, thus ready for young seedlings to grow. 

5- sow the seeds. 

No, I'm not being paid by Stokes to advertise their seeds. I just happened to use a bag of Stokes seeds and forgot to move the packet for the photo shoot. 

With the beans, cowpeas, and peas I lay out the seeds on top of the soil. Peas are spaced about every 2-3 inches, beans about every 3-4 inches, and cowpeas about every 6 inches. Today's varieties were all bush types, so no trellising had to be taken into account. Once the seed is spaced, then I go back and push each one I to the soil, about an inch down. 

Now it's time to set the seed. By this I mean that I pat the soil down, making sure the seed is firmly surrounded by soil. Soil contact with the seed is important. Next I water the seed in. Any seed that floats to the surface by the watering process just gets poked back down.

With my night time temperatures being below 60 degrees, I'm using a plastic cover to increase soil temperature. This results in far better and faster germination. Plus it keeps the soil moist. The wind here dries out the soil surface every day. 

I use whatever I happen to have to hold the plastic sheeting down. Today was some pieces from a wood pallet and some rocks. Since the plastic is only going to be in place for a few days, I don't get too fancy or complicated with it.