It is mid-September and today I picked our first beans. Unheard of! Usually I'm picking beans like a mad-woman from July on and can hardly keep up with the production from a few feet of plants. Not this year. This year I planted green beans and lima beans - we like the shelling kind of beans. I made three successive plantings from June through July, expecting a continuous supply all summer and enough to freeze.
Lest I am getting repetitive, I shall skip over the horrible growing conditions of this summer because you've heard me rant about them already. Suffice to say, no beans this summer till today, and September 18 is barely summer, really. It's been cool and we lit our first woodstove fire last night. But, beans there were. I picked enough for dinner of both varieties. Shelling a few lima pods produced about a cup of the most luscious beans - white with red splotches. The pods are fuzzy and definitely not palatable but the beans inside are delectable. Simply steamed together the string beans and shell beans were delicious - no butter, no salt, just plain and yummy. I hope we don't get a frost before I have chance to harvest more. I can't cover them to protect the plants because they're 12-14 feet high on poles!
Everything comes to she who waits!
Love those pretty Limas! My beans were a tad earlier than yours...about the middle of August was when my Italian heirloom pole beans were ready. I was given a handfull of seeds that were brought over from Italy by a wellknown historic landscape architech (of whom will remain un-named in case it's illegal for seeds to cross the Atlantic without the help of the wind or birds!)They were fantastic and I am saving some for next year in hopes of a better season of course!
ReplyDeleteHi Lauri, I just figured out how to see comments! This all new to me. Yes (as a former government agriculture official - I say it is illegal to carry seeds across national borders - so mums the word).
ReplyDeleteThanks for following.