stubbed toes and mud pies

flowerbug

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got me two more times in the nose! i made a bee suit so i could go back out to pick some beans but with the sun out it was too hot so i gave up after picking only half a bucket. the bee didn't bother me at all. i made Mom laugh good with my getup though, bright yellow plastic raincoat, bright green rubber garden gloves, big head with a home made screen with duct tape holding it together. :)
 

flowerbug

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I am so happy that those melons have done well for you!

Mary

us too! :)

today i got outside early before the bees and picked a bucket o' beans. pretty damp at first but the last half hour it was dry enough but also getting warm that i was worried the angry bee would be back. a few other bees started coming around but none of them were close to me nor were any behaving strangely, but since i had the bucket full (and my pocketses too :) ) it was time to come in for brunch anyways. spread the bucket full out into a large flat so they could all dry out well for the afternoon in the sun and the breeze before i do the next stage sorting.
 

digitS'

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Do you have so many of each bean variety that you can pick just one at a time, 'Bug? Or, is segregation necessary by the handful?

I was down on my hands and knees in the melon patch this morning. It required putting my nose on the earliest Gris de Rennes to sense the fragrance of melon. There has not been the slightest change from gris and green so, I think that a few more days are needed. (I then had to crawl 30 yards to a bean teepee so as to pull myself up to a standing position. kidding! :D)

This may work out just fine. The other varieties will play out soon so the Gris may extend my melon season.

Steve
 

flowerbug

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Do you have so many of each bean variety that you can pick just one at a time, 'Bug? Or, is segregation necessary by the handful?

I was down on my hands and knees in the melon patch this morning. It required putting my nose on the earliest Gris de Rennes to sense the fragrance of melon. There has not been the slightest change from gris and green so, I think that a few more days are needed. (I then had to crawl 30 yards to a bean teepee so as to pull myself up to a standing position. kidding! :D)

This may work out just fine. The other varieties will play out soon so the Gris may extend my melon season.

Steve

you know it is dangerous to ask me about beans... :) some beans i only plant a few seeds so i may want to keep those apart from others.

other times i'm out there and hoping to get just certain kinds which can all be in the bucket together because they are visually easy to sort from each other so it doesn't matter, but then i'll be walking by a plant i've been trying to get enough seeds from and they are ready so i pick them but i don't want those mixed in the bucket or i may forget which ones they are.

i have some cross breeds that haven't settled down yet. each seed planted may look identical but i can get different results from each. a prime example from what i planted are what i called Domino Children Light (they were a lighter color than others), most of what i have picked are darker than light, i think only one looks like what i planted.

this year i have two white lima beans, one is a pole bean and the other are the bush Fordhook lima beans. can't mix those up!

i also have some other lima beans which i don't want to mix them up either so i have to be sure to put those in their own containers as i pick along the fence.

and to keep things interesting i also keep track of beans which i pick early and those i pick later so those go into different containers. it is a good thing we keep containers... :)

the melons, if you have to get down on your knees to smell them they're not ready. i can usually smell the ones here from some distance away.
 

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today was a busy day, but we got the tomatoes put up that we needed to have done, i picked a few dry beans and then finished up mowing.

i have nothing major to do tomorrow at all on my schedule. it will be a day of puttering around, shelling beans and whatever else i want to do, likely including making some hummus.

tomato season might be mostly done.

beans doing ok, some beans i planted later are just now blooming and setting some nice pods, but i don't know if they'll finish or not and how many i might be eating fresh. if i can talk myself into it i'll pick some tomorrow to cook up too.

get to learn about how these melons go at the end of the season. i'll pick a few more tomorrow if it isn't too cold and blustery. hmm, i should really also see if any squash should come in. for some reason i have a hard time remembering to get around to them - partially probably because they are further away so somewhat an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of thing.
 

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the melons were a bit watery tasting from all the rain, edible, but not as good as those before. the one that had some of the end chewed off was half rotten through so i ate what i could of that and the worms out in one of the gardens will get the rest.

a quiet day, started with a storm and the power going out for a while, but we just went back to sleep for a while.

i shelled/sorted some beans (mostly a box top of really beat up beans that had been rained on too many times and they were hidden under other plants and pretty icky) and then tried various rescue operations on moldy ones to see if they actually will make any difference.

all those melon seeds i had in the yogurt container... well i was glad i went to put some more in the container this morning and noticed it smelling kinda musty (even if i was leaving them with the top propped a bit so there was air getting in there, obviously not enough) so i dumped them out and sure enough they were starting to show signs of mold on them. so i washed them and then used a weak bleach solution on them and hope they will be ok. will dry them much more now that i know what is going on. the hollow seeds store a lot of water in them so you really need to dry these seeds well before putting them in storage/containers. live and learn! :)
 

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Should let you know, flowerbug.

Mary sent me lots of Gris de Rennes seeds, I learned when checking the envelope. They sprouted well this spring. There is little reason to think that they won't be good in '21.

You need some of our low humidity: 16% during all that wind the other day ... on second thought 🙄 .

Steve
 

flowerbug

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Should let you know, flowerbug.

Mary sent me lots of Gris de Rennes seeds, I learned when checking the envelope. They sprouted well this spring. There is little reason to think that they won't be good in '21.

You need some of our low humidity: 16% during all that wind the other day ... on second thought 🙄 .

Steve

we had three weeks of warm, sunny and dry weather up until a bit ago. now it is 59F and 79% humidity out there. rain, rain, rain.

been a nice morning of shelling beans and puttering around. just asked Mom if she wanted me to pick some fresh beans to cook up and she didn't give me a yes or no, but i want to go out and get a bit of fresh air if the weather will let that happen so i'm going to do it anyways. i haven't eaten enough fresh beans this season yet... i need a break first, so TEG it is for a few minutes and perhaps i'll fall asleep.
 
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