Garden Pictures June 2009, Part 2
My current favorite bean, Dog Bean, is growing here filling the bed and doing a pretty good job smothering the weeds. It’s just started to bloom, so the dry bean harvest should be in 4-6 weeks. I’m growing lots of different beans this year, given to me by a lot of different people.
I’m quite excited about the sweet corn. It’s Painted Hills created by plant breeder Alan Kapuler. I purchased the seeds from his daughter’s seed company Peace Seedlings. The website is a little out of date, and it’s worth asking them for their printed seed list which may have more varieties available.
The variety is a combination of a multi-colored starch corn called Painted Mountain and Luther Hills sweet corn, yielding a cold soil tolerant multi-colored sweet corn.
It’s clear this variety needs some more breeding/selection before it will truly be suitable for my climate. I first had problems getting the seeds to germinate, because of damping off problems. This might be unrelated to the seeds. Then I had problems with the plants dying after transplant, again maybe this might be my fault for transplanting too early. Now however, many of the plants are small and stunted and unlikely to produce ears.
The remaining healthy plants are however a true delight to watch growing. Like the ears of corn, the plants are all different colors:
Among the plants that seem to be going slowly this year are the pole beans. Many of the varieties I’ve planted this year have yet to start climbing their poles. This one, Nekar Queen given to me by Crazytomato is not only climbing the pole but the name tag as well:
The edible Chrysanthemums Kate gave me at last years meeting in Oxford are blooming their hearts out. I never did get a chance to taste the greens before they started blooming. Oh well, there’ll be plenty of seeds to try again next year!
Mike gave me seed for Cape Spitz, an oxheart shaped cabbage. Oxheart cabbage is a real food staple here, sold in all the supermarkets and markets and often used in both Dutch foods and foods of former Dutch colonies. The only other oxheart variety I’ve grown is Henderson Wakefield a few years ago, and I’m very curious to see how what Mike grows in South Africa compares with what’s available here locally.
I had originally intended to do a big planting of artichokes this year, and expected seeds from a couple of different seed savers as well as some purchased varieties. In every case, something went wrong and I didn’t get the seeds I expected or they didn’t germinate, except this variety of Cardoon from Baker Creek. I wasn’t really interested in trying cardoon particularly, except to grow it along side some artichokes, but here it is… I keep hearing very negative things from fellow gardeners about it’s taste. The gardener next to me says she has a friend who grows it, but only as an ornamental plant. Anyway, here it is. If I don’t get a chance to eat it this year, I’ll select the best 1 or 2 of the 12 or so plants I have to keep and grow next year and try then.
Finally, here is one of my oca plants. They’ve been blooming and look good so far. Last year I was unprepared to protect it from early frosts, and I din’t get much of a harvest. The plants are daylight sensitive, and produce most of their tubers in the run-up to the winter solstice, but at the same time are killed by frosts, making this a challenging plant in almost any climate. It also apparently doesn’t like to be grown in a greenhouse.
Comments
6 Responses to “Garden Pictures June 2009, Part 2”
**************
Leave a Reply
Name, email and website fields are all optional. Anonymous comments are welcome. It's nice if you leave a name, even if it's not your real one, just so we have something to call you.
See this post for comment policies. In principle, comments are not moderated here, but rather automatically screened for spam then posted. Because of a new caching system, there may be a delay of a few hours before your comment appears.
If you leave a comment here that isn't spam, and doesn't appear within a few hours, something has gone wrong. Please get in touch. Your comments are important and I don't want to lose any by accident.
Mooie Dog Bean veld heb je.
Veel van mijn Dog Bean’s worden opgegeten door slakken.
Ja, ik heb hetzelfde probleem. Maar nu met de droog 30C weer is het wat minder!
Je krijg altijd van mij extra zaadjes of deze nodig zijn…
Dat zal misschien volgend jaar wel nodig zijn, en top zijn als dat kon. Maar ik kan nu toch niet meer zaaien.
Ik heb nog wel wat Dog Bean’s in de tuin zitten hoor, alleen de slakken lijken een voorkeur daarvoor te hebben, want andere planten raken ze niet zoveel aan. Het is inderdaad mooi dag het nu lekker droog weer is.
Ik heb je Yacon plantje gezien, mijne zijn ook ongeveer zo groot, ze beginnen nu wel stevig te groeien.
I’m eating some of the dog beans now in their green state. Very prolific and tasty, but I shall let the bulk of them form dry beans I think. Thanks for a great crop!
Hi Misshathorn,
My outdoor plants are starting to form green pods too, tender and rich flavor! We’ve been eating a round started early in the greenhouse for a few weeks now, and they also came out well.
Orhan mentioned snails were eating his plants, but for now I’m not really having that problem.
I’m glad you’re enjoying them!
Things are growing in very nicely indeed. I’ve wanted to give Cardoon a try in a half barrel pot that I wheel in to the garage during the winter like some people do figs around here. In fact, I want to try figs too.
Dog Bean: Never heard of it but that’s not a surprise since I’ve not heard of half the beans out there!