Hubby was outside the other day and came in saying that he thought we have the best garden that we’ve every had. I’d have to agree…we likely do. Initially I didn’t think we’d have the best garden. Being it’s our first year with the garden here I figured the soil wouldn’t be the best…but then again, Hubby covered it in manure last fall and again this spring. He also tilled it quite regularly for a bit to really get the soil in condition.
Here’s a peak at my beans. I have a row or yellow beans to the left. I always plant a row of yellow. They seem to come up better for me and typically I get yellow beans before the green. The row on the right is green beans. The climbing beans on the poles, those are a heritage variety that Kayla gave me.
She had some in her garden last year. She got the seeds from Seed Savers in Decorah. She grew the beans then saved seeds over the winter and gave some to me. They make a really long purple bean. I really like them and plan to save seeds from my plants this fall and grow them next year.
They get a really pretty pink flower on them as blossoms…then the pretty purple beans.
Funny this is, when these beans are cooked, they look like this…Well not exactly like this…as there are purple beans (which turn a dark green once cooked) and yellow beans together in the pot.
I think it’s so unusual that the purple beans turn green after cooking.
I have to admit…I am a little bit tempted to try other seeds that I can save over from year to year….does anyone else do that and do you have any tips? I’d love to know a little bit more about it.
Check with your county extension about saving seeds. Seeds from hybrid plants will not have the same fruit the next year. Only the non hybrid will work.
We always bought the Blue Lake bush green beans. They have no strings. They are tender. We raised our own peppers and tomatoes from seeds of plants we bought for a long time. We would gut the peppers and also the tomatoes and dry them on paper plates. Then when they were dry placed them in paper envelopes until time to start them the next growing season. We had plants that were real tasty and always had seeds no one else had. The ones we liked to grow was the little sweet yellow orange and red peppers from Mexico. We bought a bag of them at the store and saved the seeds and had our own plants for 5 or 6 years. Good luck. Chris
The La Crosse Public Library has a Seed Savers program – maybe one of your local libraries has a program.
We grow and “old-time” green bean and save seeds from year to year. At the end of the canning/eating season, we let some beans get dry on the vines, then pick them and shell out the beans and spread them on a cloth to dry more. The seed beans are stored in the freezer. We’ve had good luck using this method.