#greasy beans

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Seed starting!

How much do things I would/should be doing anyway count for #solarpunkactionweek ? It's just me alone at home doing these, but it's definitely working towards building the world I want to see.

I've only filled half of this mini greenhouse, and I've done all the seeds that will benefit much from being started indoors. What to do, what to do... I don't want to spend money on more seeds, and although I need peppers and tomatoes in my garden, I'm planning to buy seedlings for those, when the time comes.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

I’ve got three kinds of beans in the garden, in various places: Greasy beans, lima beans, and my old standby field peas. Shown in order.

I probably planted the lima beans pretty late, and at first I know I planted the field peas too early (since they just failed to come up well), but the second planting I got right. They and the greasy beans are in poor soil, while the limas are in better.

But the only ones producing food for me so far are the field peas. Maybe they’ve just self-selected for dealing well with my gardening style (not to mention the local climate) over the generations, but they just kinda...work. They just grow beans, delicious ones, in whatever weather, and you can either harvest them to eat fresh or let them dry on the vine and pick them then. If you miss some, and you probably will, they resow themselves freely.

The limas and the greasy beans are growing a lot of nice leaves and flowers, but so far, no actual beans. They’ve still got time, I guess.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

Garden log 4/5/20

Planted beans today. I started some of them indoors, to get a head start on things and to test the viability of these greasy beans, which have been through some stuff. The germination rate wasn't great, so this planting is a mixture of seeds and started seedlings. I separated each variety with a row or two of my field peas, bc I think the plants will be different enough that I'll be able to tell everything apart.

Two short rows of Lazy Daisy on the left, then one row field peas, then two rows Pink Tip, two rows field peas, and two of the Phil Fox greasy.

[continent-of-wild-endeavor]

@petula-xx said: Thanks to this post I just learned that there’s such a thing as ‘Greasy Beans’.

Hell yeah there are! If anyone wants to try growing them, here's a place you can get a bunch of different varieties: https://www.heirlooms.org/store/c15/Greasy_Beans.html

You'll want a relatively long growing season - they grew vines well enough for my friend in Indiana, but didn't manage to produce much in the way of beans for her. They did fine for me last year in central NC, when I only had a few plants. I don't know which kind I have; said friend gave me some last year and they got all mixed together in the garden. I think I have two kinds, though, one with a greener bean than the other.