Beans

It's what's for dinner!

How my Garden Grows

Blogger is giving me fits today, but I did want to post some photos so you can join me in celebrating the progress of the farm. Slowly, we are growing!

Lazy Housewife Bean     

Anazazi Bean

Bloody Butcher Tomato

Black Ethiopian Tomato

Cinderella Pumpkin

Carrots

Callendula

The flowers bring in the bees and the good bugs that will deal with the bad bugs.

Beets

Bee on Borage

When Seven Makes Many

When I planted our backyard garden in Santa Clara this summer, I didn't know what the future would bring. We were looking at houses and then very quickly got very serious about purchasing a house. So I planted a few low maintenance crops - just in case I wasn't around much.

Mid season, I knew what was going on. Land purchased. Visions of farming on the brain. I planted some beans to use as seed for next season. I had very few of some favorites I planted from last year.

Here is the harvest from seven seeds that will now go into the ground at Seven Cats Farm:

These beans are Good Mother Stallard. They have a great flavor and plump up quite nicely. You can be sure that these will be grown here on the farm.

Bean, beans, the magical fruit....

It's harvest... a CRAZY time of year when you need to harvest what you have, pull what is not producing anymore, start seeds for the fall/ winter garden, amend the soil, and plant for the winter. So I am harvesting like a fiend, clearing the fields of what is spent, and praying that the tomatoes keep on going! There are two types of beans: green (where you pick them and eat them pod and all. They can be purple, yellow, or green, but they are all categorized as green bean in my book) and Shelling. Shelling beans are left on the vine to dry. They keep for the year. When you go to the grocery store and see pinto and kidney beans in one pound plastic packages, you know those are shelling beans. You know, you have to soak them in water and then cook them to get them soft. Yeah - those!

Yesterday I harvested all the shelling beans from two gardens.

They are beautiful. These beans are called Calypso, although some folks call them Yin and Yang. The Baroness calls them Orca because it reminds her of a great white shark. These beans are lovely, round and most of them are black and white. Some are all black or all white, but those are few and far between.

I'll post photos of the others as I shell them. They are all different. And beautiful.