Putting Up Green Beans

I was a little worried this year about my green beans.

I built a new trellis for the plants, hoping to save quality space in the garden.

I planted.

They grew.

For more info on how I built my trellis, click here.

And I have to say, the trellis worked great...

but there weren't any beans!

Long story short, I waited

and found out quickly that I really needn't have worried.

We've gotten so many green beans this year,

and the plants are still going strong.

I've been putting them up in batches because we've even been getting way more than we can eat.

Ben's new favorite activity is picking beans in the morning.

Every morning I pick and hand the beans to Ben, and he puts them in the basket.

For some reason, he thinks it's hilarious.

I don't do pressure canning as of now, just good ole water bathing,

so the only canning I do of green beans is of dilly (pickled) beans.

Luckily, I have plenty of freezer space this year.

I get all of my beans cleaned up,

blanch them in salted water for a minute,

shock them in my sink filled with ice water,

and then lay out to dry a bit before portioning and freezing them.

And that's it! So simple.

They're all ready when I need them.

And usually I need them with bacon.

Mind you, we don't have enough to really put up huge amounts without supplementing from the farmers market, but I'm just so excited that I'm able to put up any at all from my own limited space.

Overall, I am more than pleased.
What do you all do with your beans? recipes? canning? pickling?

Vertical Insanity

I got my green beans in the ground over the weekend,

and I'm glad that I did because the weather made a turn for the worse.

I've seen a lot of ideas for vertical growing out there,

and as someone trying to optimize space in a city lot,

I'm overall a fan.

However, there seem to be a ton of fancy schmancy trellises out there (I'm looking at you Pinteresters)

made of all kinds of weird things.

While I appreciate the creativity,

I thought I would show you all how I built mine.

It's far from creative, but I would argue that it is what I have found to be most practical. :)

Growing pole beans is the bee's knees when it comes to saving space in the garden. They grow up, not out, and since they're so nice and tall, you can plant plenty of things in front of them,
and still have access to the plants when it's time to pick.

For my trellis, I only used things that I had at the house, scrap wood and such,

and even if you had to buy these materials, they are super cheap.

I had this fence panel left over,






so I cut one panel down using my circular saw to make three tall stakes.






I stuck them in the bed toward the back edge.












and attached bamboo at the top and bottom horizontally.










See how much room I have left over in the beds? Perfect.








Then, using a natural jute rope, I weaved up and down to create my trellis.
Up and down. Up and down again.








I know these pictures are brown on brown on brown,
but hopefully you can see everything alright.


I really like this method because at the end of the season, once the plants have stopped producing,
I can just cut the rope with the plants,
and since it's natural,
I'll just throw it all into the compost.



I've planted bush beans in the past,
but like I said, if you want to optimize your space,
I really like pole beans because they take up very little space in the garden,
and they're easy to grow as long as you give them something to grab onto.

I'm planting a Kentucky Wonder Pole Bean this year (there's a joke there somewhere).





I like to soak the beans in some water overnight before I plant,
and then just scatter them in rows below my trellis.
This variety is meant to be planted about 3 in. apart, but I went heavy and I'll thin them out later.
I've had bad luck with green beans in the past, and sometimes, not a lot germinate.
This way, I should have plenty, and if I'm lucky and a ton come up, I'll just thin to 3 in. between plants.

And that's it!
I'll let you all know how successful these are as the season continues.

Raised Bed Garden 2012



Pinatas are fun

I hope everyone had a super weekend.

Mine began with a get together for cinco de mayo.

At which I drank these margaritas.

But only for adults, apparently.

ridiculous... ridiculously awesome.

And since I was feeling super festive,

I brought a pinata.

Adults drinking Mexican beer and hitting stuff?

Fun!

On Sunday, Chris and I wound up some more prep work for the 2012 Veg Garden.

It was getting down to the wire before I had to start getting things in the ground,

and the weather was mighty fine.

As many of you know,

we live in the city, and our yard is decently-sized for such city,

but still, every square inch counts.

Our side yard which gets the most sun is now home to a HUGE (for our lot)

raised bed.

I'm hoping to get as much bang for my buck (or veg for my space) as possible this year,

and having a nice neat raised bed seems like just the ticket.

This was really affordable for us, too.

We just used 2x4's for the sides

and leftover 4x4's that we had lying around for the corners.

I chopped the 4x4's down to one foot lengths using my mitre saw,

so there's a solid 4" in the ground, and then screwed the 2x4's to the outside.

I cut a couple 2x4's in half to 4 foot lengths for the sides.

This puppy isn't going anywhere.

All together, this thing goes about the whole length of our house.

The most costly part of the project was filling the thing with dirt.

I used a mixture of topsoil, compost from my handy dandy composter for additional nutrients, peet moss to hold some moisture, and organically fertilized garden soil.

Soil differs tremendously based on where you live, so check your soil and talk to your local garden/dirt guru about what you should add to your space.

And as always, for veg and other edibles, stay away from anything that is chemically treated.

Y'all don't want to eat that stuff.

In other news, I'm growing my potatoes in a laundry basket this year,

and they've just started to come alive.

As they grow, I'll cover them with more soil,

encouraging the roots to grow beneath.

My cucumbers and squash are starting to germinate, too.

All very exciting!

For me anyway. :)

Coming up next: attaching my pole bean trellis at the back.

I opted for pole beans instead of bush beans this year,

so they'll be growing more vertically at the back of the bed

and taking up less space in the garden.

I'll have the details for that up in a few days (ish).