over grown green beans

[digitS']

This is just a guess but beans have a real tuff time with spider mites when hot weather sets in.

A strong jet of water can go a long way towards giving plants tormented by mites, some relief. Insecticidal soap also works on them but use the water first and spray with soap after the plants dry. You may find that spraying them with anything other than water, isn't really necessary. They are so tiny, the mites probably need more time to climb back on the plants than what their energy reserves allow.

Mites are tiny, tiny, tiny. You have to really concentrate to see that they are living on the underside of a leaf. But, they may be there by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands on a plant -- sucking the life out of it.

Between dehydration from the heat and being drained by mites, leaves can dry up and die! Flowers don't stand a chance. .

Steve

 

[elf]

Leather Britches aka Shucky Beans

This is from The Progressive Farmer: Southern Country Cookbook circa 1972 Old Time foods section

You snap off the ends and string the pods, then with a needle and thread, pierce the center bean of each pod. Hang and dry away from dampness until the pods rattle and then bag in plastic bags.

To prepare, wash and soak beans overnight in cold water. Boil hard for 30 minutes, drain and rinse. Add salt, 1/4 to 1/2 lb fat back, salt pork or a ham bone and about 1/4 cup dried yellow eye beans. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Simmer until done, about 3 hours adding water as necessary. Cook until most water is absorbed and beans are just dry.

It sounds like the leather britches would require them to be picked and dried when still tender. Now that I think about it, if the pods are too tough now, they'll be too tough when dried and reconstituted. Just shell and cook or dry for later. Has anyone tried the leather britches? Are they any good when strung at the earlier stage? Or are they just for desperate campers and pioneers?

I've also had no pole beans this yr. (Lots last yr.) Didn't get around to planting the half-runners(may still try). My pole bean leaves look great now but no blooms. I blame my husband's insistence on us putting so much nitrogen on the corn they were growing up that it killed some of the beans, burning the rest. Thus they have no beans but great leaves after survivors grew back, but I can't eat those. We got some good corn before the racoons discovered it, pulling down the stalks. So the beans may still produce but all over the ground.