For the Love of Beans

Every year I like to grow new types of vegetables in my garden.  While it's fun to try out new varieties, I get very excited when a variety tastes so good that it makes the prized list of 'Veggies I Will Grow Every Year'.  Already on the list were Purple Podded Pole Beans, Hakurei Turnips, Ground Cherries, Black Krim Tomatoes, and salad green Claytonia.  This winter, after finally shelling the bean pods I harvested in fall, I am pleased to announce a new addition: Good Mother Stallard Beans.

Good Mother Stallard Bean pod

The maroon and white beans are beautiful, but they taste even better.  They are a nice meaty bean, and they make an amazing bean broth that adds incredible flavor to soup.  

I started these heirloom pole beans rather late in the season, planting them after I harvested my garlic, and I only planted a couple rows.  Despite this, I ended up with a decent amount of beans, almost a quart.  From now on they will be getting more time and real estate in the garden!

This summer I also planted Jacob's Cattle Bean, an heirloom bush bean that is thought to have been grown by the Passamaquoddy Indians in Maine.  Legend has it that they gifted this bean to Joseph Clark, the first white child born in Lubec, Maine.  Sadly my crop was a failure.  I also planted these beans later in the season, and I think they were shaded too much by neighboring plants.  I ended up with only a few dry beans before frost hit.  These beans were also very tasty, though I preferred the creamier texture and shape of the Good Mother Stallards.

Jacob's Cattle Beans

It is very likely that we owe the preservation and distribution of both of these heirloom beans to bean collector John Withee.  Born in Maine in 1910, John Earl Withee, Jr. was one of six children, and beans were a staple for the family, as times were tough.  Every Friday afternoon John would be in charge of cleaning out and starting a fire in the bean hole, a hole in the ground lined with bricks that worked as an oven.  A Dutch oven full of beans - often Jacob's Cattle Beans - would be lowered onto the hot coals and then covered with dirt.  The beans would bake for an entire day, ready for Saturday night's supper. 

cooked Jacob's Cattle Beans

After marrying and working as a medical photographer in New Hampshire, John Withee eventually took a job as the head of the Photographic Laboratory at what is now Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston in 1960.  He and his wife finally bought land of their own, settling in Lynnfield, Massachusetts.  John built a garden and wanted to build a bean hole to revive the fondly-remembered tradition of his childhood.  However, when he went looking for Jacob's Cattle Beans or any of the other varieties he remembered, he couldn't find them.

Jacob's Cattle Bean flower

He began writing to friends and family looking for the beans he grew up with.  He found those and more.  After hearing stories of nearly losing some of these unique bean varieties, he realized that collecting them could be an important project.  He started visiting food stores throughout New England and putting notices in publications, looking for different beans.  By 1975, John had collected over 200 varieties of beans.  After retirement, he founded a non-profit named Wanigan Associates, made up of members that could grow and share these varieties and keep them alive.  By 1981, he had collected 1,186 varieties of heirloom beans.

As John got older, he started looking for someone to look after this living collection of seeds.  He found a promising seed saving group named Seed Savers Exchange, founded by Kent and Diane Whealy in 1975.  He asked them to take over his organization and bean collection.  Due to this, Seed Savers started growing as a central repository to preserve heirloom seeds, eventually becoming the largest seed bank in the United States outside of the government.

Good Mother Stallard was one of the 1,186 bean varieties that John Withee donated to Seed Savers, given to him by Carrie Belle Stallard in Virginia.  I am very glad that this tasty heirloom was not lost to us.  John Withee passed away in 1993, but his legacy lives on.

available on Amazon

Happy gardening,

and happy cooking!

A Hill of Very Long Beans

My new gazebo garden gave me more fenced-in space this summer, so I just had to try growing a few new veggies, one of which was the Chinese Red Noodle Bean.

Chinese Red Noodle Bean (banana for scale)

This impressively-sized bean is also commonly known as the Yard Long Bean, Chinese Long Bean, Snake Bean, Asparagus Bean, and Pea Bean.  The botanical name is Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis, and this legume is not actually a bean at all.  It is a variety of cowpea and in the same family as black-eyed peas.

The heat-loving vines did wonderfully in my sunny front yard.  I planted the seeds in June, and two months later they started producing beautiful, fragrant flowers followed quickly by the beans.

The vines are vigorous and indeterminate (which means they keep growing and growing), ending up around 9 to 12 feet tall by the end of summer.  Once they started producing, they didn't stop.  I think I planted 8 seeds, and I ended up with crazy amounts of beans.  I gave away piles of beans, as there were far more than we could eat along with the other veggies from our garden.

one harvest of Chinese Noodle Beans

The beans were definitely better picked before they got too long and overly mature, before about a foot and a half.  I enjoyed the mild flavor.  Many think they taste more like asparagus, which is probably why a nickname is Asparagus Bean.  This is a great bean for a stir-fry.  It is highly nutritious, a good source of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, folates, and other nutrients.

So were these plants incredibly productive?  Yes

Were the beans delicious? Yes

Would I grow these again?  NO, because of...

THE ANTS.

Yard Long Beans have extrafloral nectaries right below the flowers.  These nectaries secrete a sweet, carbohydrate-rich food that attracts ants.  In return, the ants protect the plant from predators that want to eat it.  Like me. 

several ants on this one

I don't know if it was just my ants or what, but they were very good at their job.  Every time I tried to pick a bean, the ants went crazy, racing up and down the bean.  Imagine me, a vertically challenged woman who has to harvest these beans while standing on a step stool, trying to pick beans in this jungle of vines while constantly swatting ants off of me.  I only got bit once, but still. 

my hard-fought pile of beans

Online others have said that they would just shake the bean and the ants would run away or fall off, but that didn't work with mine.  I must have the extra-special guard ants.  It is too bad, as these were great, productive beans.  If anyone has a solution to fight off the ants, let me know.

Until then I will be sticking to my more regular pole beans.

Salad Success

Ever have a plant that just won't grow for you?  Or even a whole group of plants?  For me, it was greens.  It didn't really matter what type - if it went in a salad, it probably wouldn't grow for me.

Spinach 'Bloomsdale'

Seeds wouldn't germinate.  It would be too hot or too cold.  Slugs ate the lettuce.  Grubs ate the spinach.  Whatever the reason, I never ended up with enough greens for a even a garnish, much less an actual salad.

Corn Salad 'Bistro'

This year, however, I was determined that things were going to be different.  It was going to be THE YEAR.  I sowed early greens in well-prepared raised beds and under the protection of a row tunnel.  I soaked and germinated my stubborn spinach seeds between damp paper towels in a baggie and then planted them in seedling trays indoors.  Lettuce seeds were also started indoors before careful transplanting into the veggie bed.

Did it work?  Did all my efforts pay off?

claytonia, spinach, lettuce, and corn salad

It was a resounding success.

To my delight, this year all of my salad greens grew - almost too well!  I can probably now invite the entire neighborhood over for salad and garnish some pasta plates while I'm at it.

one of many harvests of Claytonia

I grew four different types of greens this spring, and they all did well.  My favorite was Claytonia, also called miner's lettuce after being used by California Gold Rush miners to prevent scurvy.  Native to western North America, it has mild-tasting, succulent type leaves and eventually little white edible flowers.  It was both the easiest green to grow and the most productive.  I couldn't eat it all and started giving bags of it away!

Lettuce 'Four Seasons'

The 'Four Seasons' Lettuce was delicious, productive, and the prettiest of them all, with its beautiful red-tinged leaves.  Corn Salad, aka Mâche, did well and was the earliest of the greens to grow.  Last on the list was spinach.  I love spinach, but it was most notable for both taking the most work to grow and for bolting the earliest in the warm weather.  I did still get quite enough for a salad or two, though.

I call that success!

Seed Starting Tips

The past couple of years I've helped lead workshops on seed starting, and I find that many people are hesitant to start seeds indoors.  Even a Master Gardener I know confessed that there is something about seed starting that scares her silly!  On the opposite side of the spectrum, my kids wonder why I would even bother to lead a workshop on seed starting.  According to them, you stick a seed in some dirt and voila!  Sadly, it's not quite so simple as that, but I have a few tips that give me pretty good results every spring.

'Purple Bumble Bee' Tomato seedling

1.  Plan when to start the seeds.

Thankfully most seed packets will tell you a lot of information about how to grow your seeds, including how long you need to grow them before planting the seedlings outside.  You will need to factor in time for your seeds to sprout (usually around a week).  You will also need to plan for a week or two to slowly introduce your seedlings to the outside environment before planting them outside so they won't go into shock, a process called 'hardening off'.

The back of this tomato seed packet gives
pretty good instructions on when to start the seeds.

Many summer vegetable and flower plants don't like cold weather and won't be able to be put outside until after the last frost of the season.  You can find out around when the last frost in your area will be by searching online. 

2.  Use a sterile soil or seed starting mix to plant your seeds in.

Don't just use soil straight from your garden to plant your seeds in indoors.  Outside soil or even those big bags of potting mix may have bacteria, fungi, or bug eggs in them that might hurt small seedlings.  Instead, use bags of seed starting mix, which are completely sealed and sterile.  They are made of a water-retaining mix of peat or coir with some perlite or other light, fluffy materials added.  Another sterile option that is easy to use are those compressed peat pellets that expand when you add water.

If you do want to use a potting mix or soil that you have lying around for seed starting, you will need to sterilize it first by heating it to between 180° and 200°F (85° to 90°C), which will kill off any nasties.  I usually do this by putting the soil in a large bowl, moistening the soil, covering it with plastic wrap, microwaving it for 3 to 5 minutes, and then letting it slowly cool.

3. Plant your seeds in moist (not soggy!) soil and then cover them with plastic to keep them moist until they sprout.

Many seed trays will come with a plastic cover to cover them with, or you can use plastic wrap.  Some seeds like some light for germinating, some like darkness.  Some like it cool, most like it nice and warm.  (Your seed packet should tell you, or you can use search online.)  Just don't put your seed trays in direct sunlight, as that will cook them.

Ground Cherry seedling

4.  After the seeds sprout, they will need air, water, and lots of light!

When most of the seeds have sprouted, uncover them and put them in a sunny window or under some fluorescent shop lights hung a couple inches above the plants.  If you are using florescent lights, pick the light bulbs that cover the full spectrum of cool and warm.  Keep them on for 12 and 16 hours a day.  (My lights are on a timer from 6am to 8pm.)  Water the seedlings when they get dry, but try not to water so much that they are sitting in soggy soil.

my grow light setup: bakers racks and shop lights suspended on chains

5.  Put on a fan.

Good air circulation prevents fungal diseases.  Keep a fan nearby running on low.

6.  Start fertilizing at half strength after the seedlings start growing their first true leaves.

If you are using a seed starting mix of peat or coir, it likely doesn't many nutrients in it.  When the seeds first sprout their first baby leaves, they are using energy stored in their seed.  However, when they start sprouting their next leaves (called their 'true leaves', since the baby ones will at some point fall off), they need some nutrients.  Fertilize at a diluted half strength every couple of weeks.  A liquid fish or kelp fertilizer is great.  I tend to use whatever fertilizer I have on hand.

pepper seedlings starting to grow their first true leaves

7.  Once your seedlings get a little bigger, thin them down to one plant per cell or pot. 

Unless your plants are meant to be grown closely together (like bunching onions), they will start competing for light and space.  Use a small pair of scissors to cut extra plants off at the soil level.  It is emotionally hard to get rid of seedlings, but if you thin them, the remaining plants will grow much bigger!  (Sometimes you might even have to plant them in bigger pots.)

8.  Pet your plants!

Lightly run your hands over the seedlings for a minute or two every day.  This actually helps toughen them up and grow stronger.

9.  Harden your plants off gradually starting a week or two before planting outside, and keep an eye on the weather.

Like I previously explained, if you just plant your seedlings outside right after being in a nice, climate-controlled house, they will go into shock.  Start getting them used to the elements by putting them in a shady, protected place outdoors for a couple hours.  Each day, gradually increase their exposure to the sun and wind until they are ready to be planted outside.  Keep an eye on the weather! If there is a late season frost forecasted for after you've already planted your tender annuals outside, cover them with a sheet or blanket overnight.

10.  Enjoy!

Veggie Garden Remix

It may be officially spring, but with snow on the ground and more in the forecast, spring still feels far, far away.  Thankfully the Boston Flower Show was this past weekend, giving us a much appreciated glimpse of spring!

The Water Wheel garden by Heimlich Nurseries at the Boston Flower Show

As spring has to come sometime, I've also been busy starting seeds indoors for this year's veggie garden.  I really enjoy planning the vegetable garden every year - since most vegetables are annuals, every year's garden is different!  I love finding fun new things to grow, and I was very excited when this book came out this year:

Veggie Garden Remix

Northern gardeners might know the Canadian author, Niki Jabbour, from her fabulous book The Year-round Vegetable Gardener.  Her new book, Veggie Garden Remix, is another great one, and I was delighted to be able to go to Niki Jabbour's talk about it at the Boston Flower Show.

Niki Jabbour at the Boston Flower Show

The book showcases different vegetables that are not as commonly grown here in the US.  While some I did know and grow myself (ground cherries, walking onions), many I'd never even heard of (molokhia?  Chinese artichoke?)

The book is ingeniously laid out.  For each common vegetable, the book gives several unusual options that people might also like and tells how to grow them.  My favorite is the section on spinach.  While I always seem to have trouble growing spinach, Jabbour gives several options that seem easier to grow, as well as some that are more heat-tolerant for summer harvesting!

Jabbour is also a fan of trying more unusual varieties of your common veggies, and her book lists some noteworthy varieties that she's tried and enjoyed.

Niki Jabbour talking about different types of beans

Less adventurous growers (and eaters) might not enjoy a book like this, but I though it was a lot of fun, and I thoroughly enjoyed her talk as well.

Here's to growing some new things in 2018!

And here's to spring, wherever it might be...

  

The Veggie Quest Begins Anew

There might be snow on the ground now, but recent spells of spring-like weather have me in the mood to plant!  Even though I really do have plenty of time before spring truly arrives, I feel a little behind this year, as I am still deciding my seed orders for this year's upcoming vegetable garden.

last year's 'Mammoth Melting Sugar' Snow Peas

So how did last year's garden go?  It's evaluation time!

veggie garden 2017

The season began for me in early March with the starting of the onion seeds.  It was the first time I had started them from seed...

onion seedlings

...and it possibly might be the last.  It's just so much easier to order a bunch of seedlings, honestly.  I've heard that one can grow bigger onions by using seeds, and I'm sure that is true, but I started the seeds on the late side due to travels and ended up with the same size of onions as always.  I usually grow red storage-type onions, which lasts us through most of the winter.

'Red Hawk' onions

This year I was very excited to also grow Egyptian Walking Onions, aka Tree Onions.  They are a perennial onion, and one can eat the bulb, the stalk, or the bulblets that form on top.  They are called 'walking onions' because the bulblets weigh down the stalk, bending it down to the earth so that the bulblets can root.  Thus the plant slowly 'walks' to spread to other areas.  You can see a couple of the stalks in the picture below already bending down to start their stroll.

Egyptian Walking Onion

This year we ate mainly just some of the stalks as green onions, so that our patch of Walking Onions could increase.  They were strong with a bit of a spicy kick, which we enjoy!  The best part about them, though?  Nothing else eats them, so I could actually plant them outside of my fenced veggie garden.  I love trying new things in the garden every year and discovering new favorites to grow.

Clockwise from top left:  Purple Podded Pole Beans, potatoes, Half Long Guernsey Parsnips, Xtra-tender Sweet Corn,  Japanese Minowase Daikon Radish

Out of the new varieties we tried this year, my hands-down favorite was the Purple Podded Pole Beans.  They were prolific, indestructible, and delicious!  One of my daughters also discovered how much she liked parsnips (always a win!).  A carb-lover like most kids, she had so much fun digging and eating the potatoes out of my garden that she wants to grow them in her own garden this year.

potato plants

The kids also enjoyed the Sweet Corn, even though they ended up being more like corn 'nuggets', if you couldn't tell from the picture.  Our poor corn plants lived quite the hard life, having been completely knocked down by a strong storm and replanted/propped back up into place.  We also grew the usual suspects of garlic, peppers, and tomatoes, and I was able to can over a dozen jars of salsa in the attempt to keep us in salsa until the next harvest.

This year I tried growing Brandywine tomatoes again -  but in the greenhouse and away from the chipmunks this time.  They were as impressively delicious as everyone said, though I think I still prefer the Black Krims.  The Brandywines also didn't really produce quite as many tomatoes, either, though I did get one impressive 1.5 pounder!  Our tomato season is just so short up here, and by the time tomato plants really get going, it starts getting cold.

my 1.5 pound Brandywine tomato

My favorite tomato varieties this year?  Black Krim, Chocolate Cherry, Brandywine, and Magic Mountain.  I had one dud, the 'Green Vernissage' tomato, which I unfortunately grew from a complimentary free seed packet.  Maybe others like it, but I thought it tasted so awful that I cut the plants down.  My greenhouse space is at a premium, and that one was not worthy!

step inside to find my tomato and pepper plants

Of course, every year there is some sort of pest to deal with.  This past year I found myself with a deluge of slugs and grubs, which cut down pretty much all of my lettuce and spinach that were in those beds.  I consoled myself with how pretty my favorite turnips looked, grown under a row cover and away from the usual flea beetles.

'Hakurei' turnips

So what new ventures shall this year's garden bring?  Perpetual spinach? Wonderberries? 1500 Year Old Cave Beans?  There's always something new to grow and discover.

So let the season begin!

Anyone growing anything new and exciting this year?