Spring & Summer Beans for 2011

More Planning .....

(1) bush 60 days  - Phaseolus vulgaris ( Dragon's Tongue ) -parking pad gate tree - spacing 3 - 6" - snap or dry
(2)  pole 75 days - Phaseolus vulgaris ( Trionfo Violetto Pole Bean ) - rose arbor - thin to 6" spacing
(3) pole  70 days - Phaseolus vulgaris ( Purple Podded Pole Bean ) - front rotted oak stump garden up tree - 6" spacing
(4) bush 65 days - Vigna unguiculata ( Fagiolino Dolico di Veneto Cowpea ) - NE front strip & middle strip - spacing 3 - 4" - plant these first*
(5) bush 63 days - Vigna unguiculata ( Pink Eye Purple Hull Cowpea ) - parking pad cucumber fence & front rotted oak stump garden & cucumber pot - can dry - 6" spacing then 30 days later seed to 3" spacing
(6) pole 60 days - Vigna unguiculata (Calico  or Colossus Crowder Cowpea) - NE trees after bush cowpeas are pulled - 6" spacing
(7) pole 90 days -  Vigna unguiculala sesquipedalis ( Red Noodle Yard Long Bean ) - on bent poles in no mans zone of wilderness 
(8) pole 80 days - Phaseolus lunatus ( Black Jungle Lima Bean ) - parking pad fence - 12 - 24" spacing

Goals of this Plan?
Grow good eats, save relatively true seed for another harvest.
GardenWeb bean forum and search forum for isolation distance - lots of good reads
Seed Isolation Distances is a great resource
Common beans, cowpeas, peas, lima beans, soybeans, chick peas, runner beans - these are all different species and very rarely will cross
Within a species I'm aiming for 150' physical isolation, or I'll (*) isolate by time; ie plant the beans I'm most interested in keeping pure first.  Zeedman on GW had this to say: 'I interplant limas, runner beans, common beans, asparagus beans, and gourds (bitter melon) with great success... but I only plant one variety of lima & one runner bean each year.'


Dilly Beans?  For fall 2011 try Striped Bunch from Sandhill Preservation - grown out by DarJones "half runner - 2 to 3 seed per foot "


I picked up some day neutral winged beans; I think I'll try a few of those on a taunt wire along the south side of the front.  I've also got some chickpeas planted that I saved from dry; see if they germinate.  If I come across a low maintenance no supplemental water required but will take heat, humidity and the occasional heavy rains - then this miracle bean would be planted out in the far NW back corner.  Oh, and we'll try soybeans and see how they do.

Interesting Good Eats

In my poking around the superhighway - looking for spinach information - I found a link to this place Flora Exotica  How neato.  They carry a variety/relative of Okinawan Spinach - Dawn Dewa.  Okinawa Spinach is suppose to be the best of the warm weather spinach substitutes.  It's November, and I still can't get spinach to grow.  That's what I miss most when I put our salads together.

Dirty Fingernails had this to say about it:

"So this Okinawan spinach tastes good, looks good and is good for you. You're checking your seed catalogs already, aren't you? But wait, there's more. This unfussy plant is ridiculously easy to grow. It forms a low mat that would be easy to incorporate into an edible landscape and seems to have few pest issues. It will tolerate a moderate amount of drought and even full sun in my garden although it does appreciate regular moisture and a little shade. It strikes readily from tip cuttings in moist soil or in a glass of water on a kitchen countertop.     The plant produces a typical asteraceae type flower during the shorter days of winter but the seeds do not grow true to type, producing all green leaves that lack the characteristic richly pigmented underleaf. "

And, continuing the interesting journey; the feed store finally got in vidalia onion sets.  I got some, even though I caved and got the bonnie sweet a week or so back.  I've got plenty of room for them!  Though, I know they won't get big; and what I remember as a kid taking them home from Georgia to plant in Texas they never tasted anything near a real vidalia.  Think I'll plant them in and around the arugula bed; maybe they will help with the squirrels. The feed store has dozens of gallon glass jars of bean seed.  I keep trying to read all the old hand written labels and see what interesting things they have.  Its a really old feed store; very rustic; uneven hard plank wood floors.  Craptastic stairs to get up.  Hugging the wall on the way down clutching my onions.  It's a fun trip though.

Planning my 2011 bean crop.  We had crock pot beans for dinner; I can't wait until we have enough beans of our own to do an entire batch from the garden.  Reading up on Florida Speckled Pole Lima Bean (which is suppose to be a good bean) I read about a "Madagascar Lima Bean".  It is a perennial.  Hmm, that sounds like something that would fit in nicely around here.  Apparently ECHO had it at some point, called it the 'Seven Year Lima'.

Concluded my first Gardenweb seed exchange today.  I'm kind of excited; like a kid waiting for Santa to bring a package of seeds.  I'm getting two kinds of beans; pole and bush.  The pole are violetta purple pod, and are pictured as a very pretty vine.  And good tasting bean.  They will grow on the rose arbor.  Today I finished amending the soil and it rained tonight.  (what timing) So in the next few days, I'll get the weed block on and get the pine chips on top; plant a few marigolds and let it wait for spring.  Oh, and broadcasted an entire bag of black kow around for fertilizer.  Should be some happy plants tomorrow.

Speaking of onions; the multiplier onions in the parking pad garden area have not yet sprouted  - while the one in the NE garden is growing gang busters.  I think they want more sun.  So I moved the most shaded from the back to the NE garden; it is rooting; but slowly.  I'm keeping a close eye on the 4 growing in a pot.  They should be getting plenty of sun; but I may move them if they don't sprout green growth soon.

The various fingerling type potatoes I have on in my office have started sprouting.  I think I'm going with the black plastic trash bag method to grow them in.  Seems like the easiest for me to handle, and it will keep them away from the moles that I know roam around the back yard.  Though, they've been avoiding the parking pad area so perhaps I'm in luck.