There's a saying in the army that you should never pass up an opportunity to eat or to ....er, um, relieve yourself, as it may not come around again for a while. Around here, you should apparently never pass up an opportunity to pick the beans or do anything else in the garden.
I think it was Sunday morning when I judged the beans to be dry enough to pick because of an unusual period of several hours without rain. I picked the Contenders, but thought the Commodores (also known as Kentucky Wonder bush) could use a day or so more, because we like them well developed. Unless I can get home early today, assuming it doesn't rain first, and pick them, it looks like a long time before the next opportunity. I may end up picking them wet. I know, I know, that spreads diseases and they are likely not to produce as much afterwards, but those beans are going to be all shellies if I don't get them soon.
I haven't given up on the weeds, either, but about the best I may manage is to keep them from going to seed. Hoeing mud is no fun. In about a month, it will probably be dry as toast here, and only the weeds will be growing. To heck with Star Wars. Lets try for Weather Control!
My Kentucky Wonders last year were so stringy when snapped they weren't fit to eat. They made really good, and ran up the fence I put in for them to run on. And while I guess some of them were a little over grown and should have been shelled, I thought the most that I snapped would have been fine. But they were soooo stringy, I didn't bother cooking another pot as I was so disappointed with them. What did I do wrong??? At what point do you pick yours for snapping?
I'll probably put in some pole Kentucky Wonders this year even though I've only had one out of four years when they did any good for me. I'm partly gonna plant them because one of the seed catalogs I got this year had a badly over-priced "bean tower" thing that got me thinking about what I could do with an old TV antenna taking up space in my shed. I think I can make an exact replica of the commercial bean tower with that thing. Maybe the Kentucky Wonders will appreciate my efforts and reward me.
Last year was a great bush bean year. We only put up a few bags of frozen beans and quarts of canned, but we also made some "chow-chow" with some of the excess and pickled some of the long Commodores. I gave away at least a couple of bushels. This year, if we have another good year, we'll be saving more for ourselves because all the stuff we put up was good and is now almost gone.
How big is your garden? How many rows, and how long are the rows where you grow your bush bean?
I am contimplating some bush speckled butter beans, but dont know how productive one or two 30 foot rows might be.
I don't know anything about lima or butter beans, except that I like them. Never have tried growing them. As to bush green beans, last year I planted two fifty foot rows of Contender and Commodore, followed by two more rows a couple of weeks later. We had beans out the ears. We weren't prepared to can them until rather late in the season...no canner. I froze several pint and quart bags of lightly blanched beans, and they worked so well we'll probably do more this year if the production is as good as last. I should note that I use one of those wheeled planters(Garden Way?), and following Bird's advice I would pull a string across the garden and then run the planter on both sides of the string. That gives a fairly dense double row of beans. Seems to work really well because the two rows are far enough apart....a few inches....to allow the beans sufficient space to grow, and also swamps out any weeds between the rows. So, when I say I planted a fifty foot row, I mean I planted a fifty foot double row, with about the number of plants you'd put in a one hundred foot single row. That might work for your speckled beans, too, but I don't know how big those plants get.
My main garden area is about 50x50 feet. This year I am also planting a separate 50x50 corn patch, and am trying to get enough compost for a new 10x25 foot raised bed in which I'll plant whatever I think the deer won't eat really quickly. My main garden is fenced against the deer, but the corn patch and the raised bed will be vulnerable.
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