We all know by now I am an heirloom fanatic. I even banished The Captain to his own little garden when he brought home Hybrid peppers to grow. No WAY were they to be near my little garden of Eden.
Normally my garden is dominated by tomatoes. At the highest point a year or two ago, I had 10 varieties growing. This year I have slimmed back to just what our household will eat and those I share tomatoes with, will just have to understand. 30 plants of San Marzano sun drying & paste tomatoes for preserving. Just a few Yellow pear tomato & Black cherry tomato's for summer salads. I did buy Green Zebra tomato seed from Bakers Creek Heirlooms last year for including at our Farmer's market booth. So just a few of those will be grown.
(If you think these pictures look familiar, you are not going crazy. I have cropped a few bean photos taken in our garden over the years, to use in this Bean post.)
As I sat down the other night and began the garden layout, I was amazed by all the different beans I have this year. I recently acquired a long sought after Italian Baorlotti (drying soup bean type) for fall & winter soup making. This goes with the growing list of what I have waiting in the seed box:
1. Italian Borlotti (dried soup bean)
2. Dragon tongue bean (multi use)
3. Blackeyed pea or Cowpea (dried soup bean)
4. Kentucky blue lake (green pole bean)
5. Triumph de' farcy (gourmet thin green bush bean)
6. Trionfo Violetto ("purple" color green pole bean)
7. Alaskan Snow pea
(Saved seed from the original 5 gardens now. Not sure on it's name. But, do they count as a bean since you eat pod and all?)
8. Yellow wax bush bean
and I know I have another packet of heirloom bean somewhere...
So it looks like my garden plan will have to tweaked a bit and a few of each bean will be grown in pots at different spots, throughout the acre of land. (for saving of pure seed to grow in next years garden.)
I had no idea I had collected so many varieties of beans. At least I have a disperse variety of uses out of the lot.
In the garden, I have been working on a "Bean wall" for the climbing beans support. Made from branches harvested while hiking the logger trail and grapevines cut from the fallen trees. Vines will be the "fence string" where the branches hold it all up.
I have 5 more garden obelisks to make for the shorter pole beans and will try to get a few made for use with the less amount tomato varieties.
We have been working on our annual Toad house building the past few weeks. There will be a new style introduced this year which many of you may find rather appealing. Can't wait to share how it all turns out. Without a band saw, I am doing it by hand which is very time consuming. Beautiful and enchanting additions to our garden.
Now I must finish editing all the footage from this last weekends destination. My neighbor & great friend Jeannie tagged along as my "Camera Girl". For her first time handling a video camera since childhood, she did pretty good. I even have her willing to go on one of these once a month with me....For FREE! Well, I do her buy coffee. So I guess she would be considered "cheap labor".... We just giggle like school girls so at least it gives us both that adult girl time we rarely have opportunities to indulge in.
If you have not noticed in the right sidebar, Lehmans old-fashioned, non-electric merchandise store is now one of our sponsors! I am so excited to have them on board. Please do have a look around their amazing site. They have the widest variety & selection of Homesteading items. If you have never been to their store in Kidron Ohio, I must share it is like letting a kid roam a candy store. You could spend HOURS exploring and checking out all the great products. I assure you, their staff is friendly & service is fantastic. They ship to all over the world, so being outside the U.S you too can enjoy the "Lehman's" experience.
Sweet dreams,
~Tammie
