Growing Chinese Red Noodle Beans

The beans are here!  It's been about 70 days since sowing the seeds back in May and I had my first official harvest yesterday. I pulled the three fattest beans, measuring in at 16" long. They were surprisingly bendable - just like a noodle. For dinner they went raw into a chopped salad. The flavor was similar to any string bean but slightly more nutty. In the future I might pick them when they're smaller and slightly more tender. 

This is just the beginning of the harvest. I had an amazingly successful germination rate (about 100%) and all of the plants reached maturity (even those planted in the shade of some massive sunflowers).  

The bean begins with a flower, pale lavender to white, almost shaped like a clamshell. After pollination, a threadlike bean begins to form. 

It doesn't take long for the beans to stretch out and adopt that signature red color. 

After about a week the Chinese Red Noodle Bean is nearing 18" and ready to pick. They can be eaten raw, steamed, or sautéed just like a regular bush bean. One to two beans per person is plenty.  The plants are quite heavy producers so I'm trading my beans with other gardeners for what they've got too much of. 

The plants are also fast growers and I've supported mine with an unfortunately unattractive combination of tomato cages, bamboo canes, and willow branches. Some of the vines are trained up a few tall sunflowers in my plot too. If I had a proper trellis they'd probably be at least six feet tall. Right now they've begun growing back down on themselves so harvesting will be at a slightly more manageable height. 

The verdict? They're easy to grow, they make lots of beans, and they're fun to look at. I recommend!

Lots of Veg

These are from the last few weeks. It's dropping into the 50s in the evenings here, so the plants are beginning to lose their green. There are at least a dozen more unripe tomatoes on the plants and a couple dozen carrots in the ground. They'll be fine but the baby eggplants and maturing cucumbers aren't going to be too happy. We'll see how they look later in the week. 

Make Way for Eggplants

After spending a long holiday weekend at the Bay, the garden was in pretty sad shape when I returned. I had asked several people to water while I was away but who knows if anyone got around to it. Temperatures in the low 100's didn't help either. Most of the bean foliage was fried, the cucumbers shriveled beyond recognition, and the remaining beets wilted to a stringy pink mess.

The situation forced me to make some tough decisions about the beans. We had already eaten quite a few, they were taking up most of the plot, and at this point they looked horrible. So into the compost they went. I spared two plants off to the left. After mulching and giving everything a loooong drink, the plot looked a little more respectable. I trimmed off the dead beet greens and pulled a few of the larger ones for dinner. I also planted three salvia plants between the marigolds to the right side of the plot and added two musk melon plants by the carrots. I put in two escarole plants behind the large marigold row in the front hoping to take advantage of mid-day shade. All of these plants were abandoned and left to die on the picnic table in the garden. I was happy to try some new things.

My hope is that with the beans gone, the eggplant will get more light, water, and soil and grow big and strong and make a huge crop of eggplants. I would settle for just one eggplant. So far the blossoms have all fallen or been knocked off before anything has had a chance to happen.

The pepper seems totally fine. It's the healthiest in the plot and making a few new peppers which I plan to leave on the plant until they ripen to red.

Yesterday the first red sunflower began to open. You can see the big yellow guys in the background already drying out post bloom and preparing their tasty seed crop. This has all happened much earlier this year. I may be pulling the sunflowers in August at this rate.

Today the first red sunflower bloomed. I noticed it is still a favorite to the local honeybee population.

First Tomato! Figs! More Beans.

I couldn't help but pick the little Brown Berry tomato that's all rusty brown and perfect looking. He can ripen for a day or so in the safety of my kitchen. More beans were also ready and one of the fig trees has some ripe figs on it. They're a sweet green variety that seems to ripen in early summer and I usually miss it. Not this year! Hopefully some more will be ready to bring to the Bay for July 4th.

Two of the 8' tall sunflowers are blooming. I would have documented it but my camera was at home.

End of June, Beginning of Summer

Earlier in the week the garden was beginning to resemble a jungle. I pulled carrots, picked beans (and then sacrificed bean plants in the interest of space), and tried to wrangle the sunflowers together behind the trellis. This is a "before" picture of what it looked like when I got there on Monday morning.

Everything has a bit more breathing room now that even more carrots have been pulled, bean plants composted, and lettuce picked for one final home grown salad. My concentration has shifted to fruiting plants: tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and eggplant.

Monday's harvest included a few more baby beets, beet greens, lettuce, beans, and some funny looking carrots.

Today's harvest yielded an impressive stack of beans, some fat carrots, my first hot pepper, and the rest of the lettuce (not shown).

A couple Mortgage Lifters are enjoying the sun and heat. It's my largest plant at the moment and has me dreaming of big tomato slices with salt, pepper, and olive oil.

In other news, one of the little stray kittens in the garden was enjoying a bird this morning when I walked in. I also spotted several gigantic scarab type beetles flying around after first hearing that dreaded low pitched buzz that they make. I've started wearing a hat while gardening mostly to avoid the horrifying possibility of one getting stuck in my hair.

Salad Season Has Begun!

Yesterday I harvested the first of the lettuce thinnings for a dinnertime salad. Two White Icicle radishes and a Cherry Belle also joined the mix. Everything was delicious, of course. Alas, I did not have my camera at home to document it.

Thinning the lettuce is such a win win situation: we get to enjoy many tender green salads and the remaining lettuce gets more sun and soil and grows even bigger. Bigger lettuce then means bigger salads for us.

Plot News:
I can now confirm that the cucumber, squash, and four varieties of tomato seeds are sprouting. I know the cucumber will have no trouble catching up once the weather is a little more sunny. I think the squash should do well also. I planted three of the tomato seed types because I've had such lousy luck with growing things indoors and figured I'd try a new approach this time. Knowing I'd be getting tomato seedlings regardless of what happened, I just threw the seeds in the soil instead of going through the minor agony of starting them indoors. The fourth variety of tomato has sprouted from the droppings of the rather unsuccessful cherry variety I planted last year. Although I never had the chance to harvest more than a handful of the little orange tomatoes, there were always plenty all over the ground that I just missed. We'll see what happens.

The spinach is sloooowly getting larger. The bush beans may surpass them and could even cover them. Timing and space allocation is something I am still mastering!

The carrots are all short and frondy. I wish I planted more! After the huge rainstorms last month and the seeds getting washed everywhere, it doesn't look like I'll have as big a crop as last year. The beet area is a different story. I may have gone overboard but I'm really looking forward to stealing their leaves from time to time for some braised greens. Last year we accidentally pulled most of all the leaves off the beets thinking they were chard and the beets seemed totally unfazed. They are a hardy bunch.

The peas are also slooooowly getting bigger. It may be somewhat of a struggle to keep them from using the baby tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash as a trellis. I'm adding lots of other stick options whenever I can get to the garden.

Enjoying Springlike Weather in the Garden

Now that the weather is being more spring-like, the garden is thriving. Lettuce is in the lower left, first round peas are under the left side of the trellis, followed by later peas on the right, radish are behind the remaining cabbage, and bush beans have sprouted in the right center. Some of the carrots are beginning to frond out, the beets are about 2" tall, and the spinach leaves are about the size of a quarter. Marigolds are popping up everywhere so I've been experimenting with transplanting them in other locales. I have a secret fantasy of planting them in green spaces all over my neighborhood a la Guerrilla Gardening. Later in the summer when they're all thriving and I'm walking around I can point them out proudly and say, "I planted those!" I may even do that with the sunflowers too since they are all over the place including in the pathway next to my plot.

The lettuce is looking really crispy and delicious. I'll wait until it's a bit larger to thin it out so the thinnings can be part of a little homegrown salad. You can see a marigold in the lower left. I scooped this one out and gave him a new home in one of my stoopside pots. A later planting of lettuce is in the upper right. I didn't plant too much this year and I'm wondering if I'll have enough. Usually it bolts before I eat it all so we'll see if this is the right amount.

In the very upper right corner of the plot the snapdragon seeds are sprouting. A few weeks ago I noticed that the old snapdragon stem was showing signs of life but it has since died off. I'm excited to see the new little sprouts. I bought a multicolor mix so it'll be a pretty display.

The Plot Thickens

I visited the garden last Friday and took some update photos as well as some Pretty Spring Flower photos. I didn't have my camera wire at home last week so they never made it up here. Yesterday I also spent some time at the garden snapping photos, planting more seeds, and even doing a little Spring Harvesting! First we have two Before and After photos with the pics I took last Friday and the ones I snapped yesterday.

You can see the cabbages are a little bigger and there are a few more green things showing up around the plot. At this point, I can locate peas, lettuce, beets, radishes, and carrots. I cannot tell which sprouts are the spinach. There are some other volunteer seeds poking up that may or may not be something from last year. A couple sprouts look like chard and there may even be a sugar baby watermelon but I won't hold my breath.

The peach tree in the garden is in full bloom now and the bee population is very busy with all the blossoms it has produced. We'll have to do some thinning if each of these turns into a little peach.

I'm hoping the peas survive this heat wave we're having (they're predicting 88 tomorrow). They haven't changed much over the past few days so I'm guessing they would prefer cooler weather. They have been joined by some squash seeds, cucumber seeds, and tomato seeds just in case.

My Big Plan included replacing the peas with some trellised vining vegetables. I'm hoping to get a cucumber plant out of the seeds I planted but if that doesn't happen I'll buy a seedling. The same goes for the tomato seeds. Last summer I saved seeds from some particularly tasty tomatoes and decided I'd give direct planting a try. The squash seeds were a mixture of acorn, crookneck, and summer. I would be very happy if one of the vines took off and made a couple of fruits.

The radish section of the plot must have turned into a lake last week during the storm. The seedlings are sprouting up in clumps rather than the tidy rows I had created for them. I filled in the gaps yesterday with additional seed.

A green leaf lettuce is sprouting. Again, the row was in disarray so I filled in areas with additional seed. I guess we're doing a little sussession planting.

The Gourmet Blend lettuce is sprouting. Three or four different leaf lettuces make up the mix. Somehow this row remained intact so between it and the next I put in additional carrots. The plan is to have the carrot tops shade the lettuce in early summer.

In other areas around the plot I put in mixed red sunflower seeds and more marigold seeds. I noticed the snapdragon plant from last year is springing to life and I added some new snapdragon seeds around it for company.

Around the garden everything is blooming. Big clumps of this white flowering stuff are everywhere!

I harvested the three chinese cabbages! I'm pretty sure the florets were a sign that it was bolting so I took action, cut it down, sauteed it with some garlic and ginger, and called it a success. It tasted good and now there's more room for other stuff like the bush beans I planted.