bonanza

My daughter is the co-manager of the local grocery, and last night she stopped by with two enormous boxes full of this season’s unsold seeds, which the store gets rid of after they don’t sell.  They were all from Burpee, and there were hundreds, if not thousands of packages.  I got to sift through them before they went to the local food bank where my wife serves as secretary.  What a rush.  (I wasn’t greedy, I promise, and I’ll donate some of the results).

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Meanwhile, I decided to harvest the rest of the kohlrabi crop for freezing.
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Later in the day I also decided that it might be safe to remove the fencing that I had put around the beans. My experience has been that the critters only chew the tops off the young, tender plants. I hope that holds true this year.
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The variety in the middle of the picture (Maxibel) tends to get too tall to stay upright. It grows taller than most bush beans but it’s not really tall enough to be a vine. I’m trying rope between stakes for support. It’s a real pain digging around in flopped-over bean plants for the reward. But the beans themselves are so good; long and thin and tender.

And the carrots are finally getting to the point where they’ll start shading out their own weeds. I like that.

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21 thoughts on “bonanza

  1. Thanks for the pic of the carrots. As a first-timer, I’ve been wondering how big they should get before harvesting. Mine have a long way to go. When will you harvest yours?

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    • April, I didn’t harvest mine last year until mid-August. I know that some people even store their carrots underground with a huge amount of mulch on top to keep the ground thawed.

      You should be able to get a good idea of what’s going on underground with your carrots by checking where the green tops meet the roots. As they mature you should see the orange tops of the carrots peeking through the soil, and they’ll give you a good indication of size. You might have to pull a few early to get a feel for it, but that’s ok. Mini-carrots taste just as good. 🙂

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  2. Wow, what a treasure trove of seeds! Interesting to know that you find critters don’t eat your tall beans as much. You have me wondering if we should take the risk and uncage our soybeans, which we’ll start harvesting soon. If they start to get munched, we can throw the cage back up.

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    • Soybeans…very cool! Yeah, that’s been my experience. Same with sweet corn. Whatever it is (in my case I suspect woodchucks) stop ruining my garden after the seedlings get 4 or 5″ tall. Good luck!

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  3. I love your garden Dan. So ordered and neat. I nearly feel over when I saw the wire support next to the beans. Oh so good! And stop showing pics of those kholrabi … damn they look good! LOL Nice to share those seeds … Your carrot are looking grand 😀

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  4. Pingback: Supporting Bush Beans | Hillbillies in Training

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