Beans!

One of my favorite garden-related activities is shelling dry beans. I find it such a relaxing process.

My bean sample collection.

This year, I planted five different types of beans: three garden beans (yellow, green, and purple that came as a tricolored seed blend) and two shell beans (Iroquois skunk pole beans and 1500 year old cave beans). I wrote about the garden beans earlier this season, so this post is all about my beautiful shell beans.

The first skunk beans of the season

In years past, I have planted turtle beans and rattlesnake beans. They both have grown well and cook up nicely, but this years was a time to try something new. While shopping for seed online over the winter, the Iroquois skunk beans caught my eye with their lovely black and white pattern. Into my virtual cart they went. I knew I wanted to plant two types of shell beans so I kept browsing. When I saw "1500 year old cave beans" I was intrigued and ordered a pack of those as well. Each of these two types of beans got their own bed and simple twine trellis. They all sprouted and grew quickly. 

Skunk bean plants on July 11.

Cave bean plants on July 11.

Shell beans are wonderful for my lazy gardening style. Once the vines came in, it was just a matter of guiding them to the trellis and plucking the occasional weed from the shadows. We didn't even have many Japanese beetles munching on the leaves this year (which seems rather odd looking back on it now). The skunk beans were the first to start drying. I was able to pick the first few pods to shell in early September then stripped the entire crop in early October.

Still some green leaves but all the pods were dry.

Shelling on the porch with our new executive pod tender.

Look at all those beautiful skunk beans!

The skunk beans were much bigger than the rattlesnake beans I had been used to growing. Their size reminds me of lima beans. They quickly filled up the quart jar I like to use for bean storage. They cooked up very nicely in our InstantPot. They have a nice mild taste and smooth texture while still keeping their shape. 

Just 45 minutes at high pressure and dry beans transform into edible beans.

The 1500 year old cave beans took their time drying. I finally picked them two weeks after I had harvested the skunk beans. Even then, quite a few of the pods were not dry yet. While I am admittedly lazy in my gardening, I am also impatient. So, I picked all the beans, no matter their state of dryness, and put the ones that weren't quite ready in the food dehydrator. That seemed to work well enough. I like to store my dry beans in the freezer for fear that they may not be quite dry enough anyway. I would hate to find my beans had gone moldy in the cupboard when I went to cook them in the depths of winter.

The frost finally finished the leaves but some pods still had some drying to do.

The weather turned cooler so I did the shelling in the living room rather than on the porch. 

We could hear beans falling through the dehydrator trays as the pods dried and split open.

Not a bad haul of cave beans.

I haven't cooked any of the cave beans yet. I wonder if they'll lose their fun mottled patterns when I do. I was pleased to see that the skunk beans held onto some of their markings after being cooked. 

A skunk bean before and after cooking.

I don't know if I'll plant the cave beans again as it was more of a wait for them to be ready to shell. I did really enjoy the skunk beans but there are so many other wonderful types of shell beans still to try. We'll see how I feel while shopping for seed this winter.

Squash (and Pumpkins)

When choosing what to plant in the garden this year, I was inspired by the Three Sisters garden. The three sisters of indigenous tradition are corn, beans, and squash. This post is going to be all about our various "squashes." We planted two types of summer squash, one summer/winter squash/gourd, one winter squash, and one pumpkin.

Two blue Jarrahdale pumpkins and a Patisson Strie Melange squash.

First up is the most common: zucchini. There is the old trope of gardeners desperately trying to get rid of zucchini because they are overwhelmed by the huge numbers of fruit produced by a single plant. How I wish that would happen to me! I love zucchini so so much, but I just can't get it to grow very well here. Back when we lived on the mountain, we actually had to buy a chest freezer to preserve all the zucchini we grew (thanks to Chloe and the girls). Despite years of being told by our garden that it did not like to produce zucchini, I planted some this year. I planted one black beauty and one golden zucchini. The black beauty seeds never sprouted, so I split up the golden zucchini seedlings so we'd have two plants.

Zucchini in a shared bed with a volunteer dill plant.

Once again, I was very clearly shown that zucchini will not succeed in this garden. The plants were lovely, but only one ever put on any fruit. That one plant made two full grown golden zucchinis and then seemed to give up. Just last week, I saw it was trying again, though. It had four tiny little fruits. Within days, however, one of them began to turn brown. So, I picked the two largest remaining. They were still tiny and skiny, but they were a nice addition the my scrambled eggs and veggies yesterday morning.

Tiny and tasty with eggs and other veg from our garden.

Next up are the semi-summer squash that are also winter gourds. Just for funsies, I bought a pack of Patisson Strie Melange squash. This French heirloom squash is the best of both worlds: the young pattypan squash have a mild taste and lovely smooth texture when cooked, and the older ones left on the vine turn into freaky, bumpy gourds that are perfect for fall decor.

Two different types of squash for the price of one!

I planned on four plants in one bed, not realizing how large those plants would grow. Fortunately (?), they sorted themselves out when two of the plants died off. 

That's a lot of squash plant!

From the two that remained, we got nearly a dozen pretty little spaceships to eat fresh. I decided to leave two on the vine to see what happened. I was not disappointed! One turned into a perfect warty masterpiece. 

The texture! The colors! Gorgeous!

The other one is still on the vine waiting to turn bumpy. Squash bugs have found it, but I don't really mind. It's the only fruit I found them on and we don't plan on eating it anyway.

Squash bugs, or alien insects on their U.F.O.?

Next up, is our winter squash. I'm a huge fan of all kinds of winter squash, but when I tasted a Honeynut squash for the first time last fall, I knew what I wanted to grow this year. The super sweet, smaller versions of Butternut squash grew very well. We had two plants in one bed, which seemed just fine since they have short vines. 

Two, two Honeynut squash plants (ha ha ha).

They set fruit fairly quickly, but it took quite a while for them to start turning orange. I made sure to check on them often for fear that squirrels might sample them. One did get gnawed on a bit, but the tree rat apparently didn't find it very palatable. 

Honeynut squash on July 25.

Honeynut squash on August 22 that has been slightly sample by a squirrel.

Honeynut squash ready to pick on September 12.

We have harvested six little squashes in total so far. There are still some green ones on the vin,e but I don't know if they'll have a chance to fully ripen before the end of the season. The smallest of our harvest is just 9 ounces and the largest is just over a pound. Even though they are naturally tiny compared to other winter squash, I think I will grow them again next year.

These are going to be so nice roasted.

And finally, we planted blue Jarrahdale pumpkins for the second year in a row.  Last year, we had two plants and got two pumpkins. This year, we had two plants and got two pumpkins. I'm happy with that. We put them both in one bed at the back of the garden knowing that they would grow along the fence. They put out very long vines! 

I picked this garden bed knowing Jarrahdale pumpkins cannot be contained.

Fortunately, one plant went in each direction, giving them plenty of space. The fun part was hunting for the pumpkins. One was hidden among the morning glories on the garden's eastern fence, and the other found a place behind the corn beds at the north of the garden.

The morning glory vines may have provided some support.

Sneaky pumpkin behind the corn.

As with the Honeynut squash, I watched these carefully for signs of rodent sampling. I even sprayed them with hairspray and sprinkled them with cayenne attempting to keep the squirrels away. I don't know if either of those did deter the animals, but both pumpkins were unscathed when I finally harvested them. They are so lovely! I'm still debating whether I dare risk using them as outside decor with the danger of squirrel chewing still out there.  

So beautiful!

Next year, I would love to plant even more pumpkins and varieties of winter squash, but the space inside our garden fence is limited. I've considered allowing them to take over part of our back yard, but I fear our neighborhood deer would destroy them. They managed to decimate my rhubarb and asparagus this spring and severely stunted my tomatoes with their browsing. So, perhaps a garden annex is in order for next season. 

The Prescott Fond Blanc Melon

Our one melon.

We've never had much luck growing melons, but, since this is a year for experimenting in the garden, I decided to try again. Enter the Prescott Fond Blanc melon. The French heirloom melon looked interesting, so I bought a pack of seeds. As with nearly all our other seeds this year, we planted them directly in the garden bed and waited for the magic to happen. 

The seedlings appeared fairly quickly but they were slow growers. By early July, however, our two lovely plants were well-established.

Two melon plants.

It took another couple of weeks before tiny melons started to appear. There were maybe half a dozen tiny fuzzballs. Only two of the little green puffs turned into melons, but they put on weight quickly and claimed the garden bed as their own.

A proto-melon on July 25.

Melon #1 on August 8.

Melon #2 on August 8.

Every day (or more likely every other day as I am an admittedly lazy gardener) I went to the garden and contemplated the melons. It has been a wet summer, so I took to turning them slightly so their "down" side didn't get squishy. I poked at them gently, trying to decide if they were getting any softer and thus ready to pick. Their color slowly changed from gray-green to a khaki color, and I knew it was nearly time.

I kept telling myself, one more day, just one more day. When I finally decided to pick melon #1, I was too late. When I reached for the melon, a cloud of small flies rose around me, and when I actually grasped it, the stem fell off. The top had split open along the ribs and it was infested with tiny insect. 

Melon #1, September 3. Ew.

I watched melon #2 much more closely after that. I finally pulled the trigger three days later. No bugs this time, which I took as a good sign. It certainly wasn't the prettiest melon I'd ever seen, (even after two very thorough scrubbings) but I was cautiously optimistic.

Melon #2 is not winning any beauty pageants.

As the knife sliced though it like butter, my hopes rose. It was beautiful inside!

Melon #2, seeds removed.

The lovely creamy orange flesh was soft, but not overly so, and it smelled divine! It tasted like a cantaloupe but not as sweet.  

A fair amount of melon for two people.

It was nice to get one edible melon this summer, especially since I didn't put that much effort into it.  I don't think we will bother with melons again, though. There are so many other vegetables that will happily grow in our limited garden space that are more productive. But it was a fun experiment!

Thai Blue Butterfly Peas

This year, I purchased most of my seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I thought it would be fun to try a bunch of new, unusual varieties of vegetables. As I was was adding seeds to my online cart, I came across Thai Blue Butterfly Peas. I had heard about these flowers from which you made tea that would magically turn from deep blue to bright pink. It was a $4 impulse buy that I was happy to make. 

I planted the seeds in my zucchini bed, closest to the garden gate where they would have the fence to climb on if they chose to grew. I can't remember if I actually soaked or scarified the seeds before planting as instructed or if I simply put them into the ground. I don't think I expected to get much from them. I was therefore surprised and delighted when it seemed that every single seed germinated. They were slow growers and I worried that they would be shadowed too much by the spreading zucchini leaves, but that doesn't appear to have been too much of a problem.

Climbing pea vines

The skinny little tendrils of vine wound there way up the fence so slowly and quietly that the first lovely blue flower came as a surprise. Another blossom showed up and then another, until there were nearly a half dozen of them. 

These flowers had already closed when I noticed them.

It was by no means a bumper crop but that didn't matter. I learned that you can pick one flower at a time and set them to dry as soon as they opened up or you could wait until they closed again. So, day by day, I picked a flower or two, placed it on a paper towel on top of the refrigerator and allowed it to air dry. We only had on catastrophe when the ceiling fan in the kitchen was turned on one day and the partially-dry flowers went flying. I was able to collect them all again and the crisis was averted.

Small but powerful dried pea flowers

When I finally had enough flowers, I bought a bottle of gin and got to work. I poured 8 ounces of gin into a mason jar and added eleven dried butterfly pea flowers (green parts removed). I screwed on the lid, swirled it around a bit, then let it sit on the counter overnight. In the morning, I had beautiful blue gin. On top of the lovely color, the flowers add a very subtle floral flavor to the gin (that you probably wouldn't notice unless you were searching for it). 

In you go little pea flowers - 9:05pm

9:47pm

10:53pm

The next morning - 7:36pm

I fished out the flowers with a fork and retired the custom-steeped spirit to the liquor cabinet until it was after 5 o'clock. (I don't have any problem with day-drinking on weekends; I just wanted to wait until the evening for the magic to happen.)

I enjoy gin in all sorts of drinks. For a while gimlets were my personal favorite, though a nice martini has overtaken that spot in recent years. On a hot summer day, I like a tall Tom Collins with lots of ice. For this experiment, I decided to keep it simple by making a color changing gin and tonic. I filled a glass with ice, added 1 1/2 ounces of blue butterfly pea infused gin, then poured on a can of tonic water.  

Like magic, when the tonic hit the gin, it quickly changed from blue to a lovely soft pink color. (Science  explains how lowering the pH changes the color but I will happily ignore that. There is far too little magic in the world.) It was just as delightful to watch as it was to drink.

Blue gin / Pink gin and tonic

The pea vines are still putting on the sporadic blossom and I keep picking them. I will keep adding to the drying plate on the top of the fridge until they are entirely done for the season. I should probably try the tea or lemonade that have made the blue butterfly pea so famous, but I think I will try to save some of the dried blossoms to infuse more gin to enjoy over the long, colorless winter. 

Starting to Put up the Harvest

A typical day's harvest at the moment.

Our refrigerator has finally filled up enough with fresh veg that it was time to start putting some away for the future. I started with the beans because they are by far the easiest. We are growing two plants each of yellow, green, and purple garden beans. That makes for a fist-full or so picked every day. I added about that much to my ramen at lunchtime today but there was still a lot leftover. So into the freezer the rest of them go! Each bean got lovingly rinsed, trimmed, dried, and gently shoved into a quart size freezer bag. No blanching, no muss, no fuss.

Yellow bean on the vine.

All clean!

Bagged up, labeled, and ready for the freezer.

Before I got too busy cleaning beans, I put a pot of water onto the stove to boil. Once I had the beans all bagged up, it was ready for blanching squash. Summer squash takes a little more prep before freezing. I had two types of squash to put up - the patisson strie melange and the yellow zucchini. I cut the patisson into chunks and blanched them for five minutes. I cut the zucchini into thin wedges so they only got three minutes. After their hot baths, they all dried a little on kitchen towels. Then I spread them all out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and put them into the freezer. Freezing them this way makes it so they stay loose pieces once frozen. I can take out just the amount I want for a meal and leave the rest frozen if I want. I can also add more to the bags later down the line if/when we get overwhelmed with fresh squash again. After a couple hours, I was able to break them up into individual frozen chunks, put them into freezer bags, and returned them to cold storage.

Two varieties of blanched summer squash ready to freeze.

Bagged, labeled, and back into the freezer.

I'm still happily enjoying my cucumber-a-day habit, but that's not enough to go through them all before they start to turn on us. So, I did a couple of things with our abundance of cukes - I made a creamy cucumber soup for dinner this evening and I made some freezer pickles.

This is starting to get out of hand!

Many of our cucumbers have grown into Mobies (what we call the cucumbers that have managed to grow whale sized - Moby Dills!). Fortunately, we've had nice consistent rain this season, so none have turned bitter even as they grew humongous. They are all actually still quite sweet and tasty and made a wonderful soup. I took the four largest, peeled them (which I normally don't do but I'm following a recipe here), scooped out the seeds, diced them up, and put them in a pot with onions, garlic, a little lemon juice, vegetable broth, salt, pepper, and a dash of cayenne. Ten minutes of simmering later, I added some fresh parsley and whirled it all together in the blender. Into the fridge it went to cool. Just before serving, I whisked in some Greek yogurt to make a creamy, slightly spicy, cucumber soup. So good!

It might look like apples, but those are cucumbers!

This is such a delightful, flavorful, cool soup!

And finally, I used six more cucumbers to make quick freezer pickles. I sliced them up, added garlic and dill from our garden and a few red pepper flakes, and poured on a brine. They'll sit for about a week in the freezer before we can try them, but I've made this recipe before and they turned out well. That leaves seven cucumbers untouched, but that seems more manageable.

I love a simple freezer pickle!

Sleep tight proto-pickles. I'll see you in a week!

All of that took a couple of hours and now we have plenty of space in the refrigerator for more fresh produce. I expect it will start to fill up again very soon!