Sometime in the fall, we planted green beans and carrots. They beans were growing well, and the carrots were growing oh so very slowly. Then we had quite a bit of cold weather—and a premature baby – so I did absolutely nothing to protect the plants in any way from the freezing night temperatures.
I knew the carrots would be ok, but the remaining tomato and pepper plants were definitely goners! The green beans looked pretty wilted too, so sometime in December I told the kids to go pull up everything except the carrots. They did, but then discovered that the green bean plants were covered with ripe beans, undamaged by the many freezing nights! They carefully picked them all and we had a couple of meals of yummy fresh garden green beans.
On a mild, spring-like January day, we enjoyed some fresh air and sunshine…and a bit of playing in the dirt.
Elaine had the freedom to dig as she pleased…
And Travis built an elaborate series of canals…
Two weeks later on February 6, we had snow and sleet and ice …
A week after that, we pulled up some of the carrots. I was quite surprised at how big they were. Some were as big around as a quarter at the top and 3-4 inches long. Most of the carrots ended up in our stew and the tops made a friend’s guinea pig very happy.
Just a couple of weeks later we got some grape tomato transplants and some green bean seeds. We planted the same kind bush bean seeds that grew so well last year, and also decided to experiment with some pole beans (Kentucky wonder beans). Another experiment was to plant some 1015 onion transplants and some red onion seeds. About a week after planting, on March 11, 2014 here’s what it looked like…
About three weeks later, on April 4, 2014…
And two weeks after that, on April 19, 2014 (about 6 weeks of very mild, sometimes even cold, weather after planting), we had this…
I noticed that not very many of the bush beans sprouted. I’m not sure why. It was a brand new package of seeds. Other the fence side of the tomatoes, where I planted the bush beans I found seven or eight of these…
NOT beans, but SQUASH! Now, I know the difference between bean seeds and squash seeds. I definitely planted beans! I’m guessing these sprouted from the kitchen scraps I threw in the compost bin. I pulled them up because I didn’t really want them growing in that location and didn’t want them to steal nutrients from my tomatoes.
Since the pole beans were doing well, I planted some more on April 19.
On May 12, 2014, 2 months after planting, we picked our first few tomatoes and beans. Well, actually, I think some birds got the very first tomatoes … we found several with big holes in them. Maybe caterpillars, but I suspect birds. So, we’ve been picking them when they start to turn orange and they ripen inside in just a day or two.
By May 22, 2014, we were picking 3-5 tomatoes a day…
… with LOTS and LOTS of green ones still in there!!
By May 24, we picked this whole pie plate full of them in one day!
The next day we got another pie plate full!
This was our second bowl full of beans. Some of these ended up in a pot for our supper on Saturday; the rest of them, plus all the ripe tomatoes from above went into a big batch of minestrone that I cooked for Sunday.
Our red onions never did sprout. I thought maybe I picked a bad spot without enough sun after the tomato and green bean plants got too big. So I planted some more in a more open spot in April. But they still never did sprout.
Our 10-15 onions grew some. One grew up tall and developed a flower on top. I’ve left it just to see what happens. We’ve picked several of the others when the tops started to turn brown. They were quite small, but yummy! And the green tops were nice on some baked potatoes we had last week!
I am very glad to not have to buy tomatoes at the store now for a while. And I enjoy going out in the evenings sometimes after supper … alone… and getting a few minutes of quiet to refresh my spirit and my ears after a long noisy day with the kids.
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