2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

[Blue-Jay]

Hello! I am sitting waiting for the latest storm to rumble over and wondering if there will be a dry day coming up to dig the garlic. It has been a “regular” rain summer after three years of drought and I had forgotten how nice and lush everything grows (including the weeds of course).

Three years of drought how awful. I hope the one year old drought we are having here doesn't go that long. We are in moderate drought but with the heat that we have had this summer if I had not watered all my beans I'm sure would be dead by now. I haven't watered now for two weeks and tomorrows forecast is for rain starting around 7 am and going on and off all the way to 2 am Thursday morning. So many times the rain forcasted just evaporates when the day arrives. If no rain tomorrow I will be at it again with the garden hoses.

All the beans are blooming or have bloomed. Many are growing pods and this is the time of the year when the beans are at their greatest water requirement if the seed is going to be well filled out and of good germination.

 

[ducks4you]

Our Illinois rain this year is SO SPOTTY!!! DH and I drove into C-U on Saturday, driving into and under a shelf cloud.
It.poured.buckets of rain There, not a Drop at my house 25 miles SE.
THEY had flooding...we had dust bunnies. Such has been our summer and the past few years.
A friend believes it's bc of those stupid 90K lbs x 3 wind turbines farm south of us...
Can't do it Now bc of my knee, BUT, If I can get my gutters cleaned out I have a nice new rain barrel in the box at the ready.
THE plan was/will be to hook it up to the SE gutter spout and hook a 50 ft hose--which I know will reach bc I have watered the front beds with it in the past--that will empty directly into my cistern adjacent to the house.
@Blue-Jay, IF you can set up something like That, your crops might have a better chance.
The nitrates in rain water are better for the plants, anyway.
Cheers for future irrigation at your place and mine...

 

[SusanneinHastings]

I've been scratching my head wondering why this bean might be called 'Black Snake'. It came to me today!
View attachment 76534

Can you tell me where you got the black snake bean? All I can find when I search is some kind of gourd, and Chinese yardlong beans.

I love your birch log bean pole garden. Very chic!

 

[heirloomgal]

Can you tell me where you got the black snake bean? All I can find when I search is some kind of gourd, and Chinese yardlong beans.

I love your birch log bean pole garden. Very chic!

Thanks!

I got it in a seed trade with a fellow who collects very rare seeds, lots of Appalachian beans and native varieties as well. I'm not sure where he got it from, but he knows a lot of people in the heirloom seeds collecting circles. I'm guessing he got it from one of his connections. The next time I talk with him I'll have to ask it's origin! I couldn't find anything about it either, but most of the beans on his trade list were like that.

 

[heirloomgal]

Well, I'm in a pickle.

A rabbit has officially taken up permanent residence in the forest just past the edge of the garden. He's inhabiting the center of the raspberry bushes which have formed a thicket. He's even beaten a path down out of there toward the tomato garden, and my dog is always tracking to it.

I've tried to live in peace with him now that my plants are well established. But he is actually eating my 5 foot pea vines by just biting them 1 or 2 feet up, and he's scattering developing pods on the ground. It's frustrating, and I've lost a fair few. He's munching bean leaves from the pole beans too, and last night ate ALL the leaves off the 2nd 'Helios' bush bean - I had a total of 6 plants, now 4! The poles will be okay because he's just getting 2 or 3 leaves per plant, but still.

I feel like he's got to be terminated, but feel really bad about it. I know DH doesn't have the heart to do it with the pellet gun (his family raised lots of rabbits and he's full up with killing bunnies at this point in his life, I get it) and I'm afraid to not land a good shot, not to mention I don't walk around with a weapon normally. I see him regularly, but only fleetingly. He's usually in top speed. Seems like the only way is a snare, but that is a gosh awful way to go. Strangled to death by wire, ack. But I really am at my wits end. My garden has been turned into a junkyard trying to block him off everywhere. A fence is due, but it won't go in this year. So, what to do. I have live traps but I know he'll never go in, rabbits are too cautious. A weasel almost had him 2 days ago, he nearly crashed into DH running from him but got away. One rabbit, yet so much hassle!

 

[heirloomgal]

Ok, a more cheerful sharing. More pole bean pods are developing!

'Matilda' and 'Pam's Speckled'!

 

[ducks4you]

@heirloomgirl, these European rabbits, NOT natives breed like...rabbits!
I once saw an episode on "Croc Hunter"--I know he passed away some 15 years ago--on how multiplying mice will gnaw away at contained livestock, in this case hogs, tormenting them and making them ill.
Rabbits are similar. There are just TOO many of them.
I was talking to the at home physical therapist who is also a licensed deer hunter. In IL we have a very healthy population of deer bc of hunting--you can even carry a license to hunt does here! The # is limited and has to be reported.
Without hunting deer overpopulate and become sickly.
Let you DH shoot it, then bury it in your garden to feed your plants.
When I couldn't catch the 1/2 female black cats that somebody dumped on our property--the other one became very friendly and she spent her winters indoors, sleeping on a blanket on top of my bedroom radiator--she would often catch rabbits to eat and feed to her 5 litters. FINALLY, with the last litter--where we brought in the three "mean girls" at 3 weeks old--she went out hunting and never came back, probably she became the hunted.
ANYWAY, cats will take down rabbits.
POINT is a handle of wild bunnies are cute, too many are vermin.

 

[ducks4you]

@Blue-Jay , I Just came across this article that may help you!
https://modernfarmer.com/2014/09/build-closed-loop-system/