Has bean

My borlotti beans are now largely has beans.

They were planted quite early for us ( in September) and most survived the late October frost. They have produced a few beans for me - I ate them at their green stage as there was little else coming from the patch at the time. I found them quite good green.

But then they started to turn yellow and wither. On pulling the plants up I found that many of their roots had been nibbled off.

I suspect it's the chafer grub.

Certainly I find them when I am digging thru the patch. I usually toss them to the chooks when I find them.The chooks just love them. Looks like the girls will have to do some work for me!

But here is the weird thing, it seems that it is only the borlotti beans that are effected.

Why is that? Other beans are thriving as are other plants in the neighbouring beds.

Have you any idea what's happening?

The pulse of the pulse

With such a new patch, I have deliberately tried to grow lots of pulses. As well as harvesting them for food I am growing them for their ability to provide fertility thru their nitrogen fixing properties.

Today's pick of pulses (loads of broad beans and some snow peas) came in cradled in my home-made paisley frock! I so often forget to grab the basket when I hit Fortress Wallaby, mostly because I intend to go for a stroll rather than pick!

The broad bean patch is now looking very tatty - soon I will turn  the de-beaned plants into the soil and let it  stew a for a bit while I think of what to plant in the nitrogen richer spot.

I took a slightly different approach with the spent sugar snaps. When they had finished producing I cut the plants off at ground level leaving the nitrogen fixing nodules on the roots in the ground and then put the contents of a compost bin on top.

Note the be-sandled toes of the peasant! Something pulsey will go in here soon or maybe cucumbers?

I used the tops of the sugar snaps as a mulch for the tomatoes.

Other pulses I have in are some borlotti.

They are at two different stages of development - some of the plants got knocked over in a very late frost and the younger ones are from me re-planting the spaces left behind by the frosted-off plants.

I also have some climbing  'Purple King' in which seem to be doing very well.  I am enjoying the purple stems very much.

 In front of them are some 'Hawkesbury Wonder' bush beans which were also knocked around by that same late frost and so the gaps in the bed...more have gone in.

I am picking a small crop of snow peas right now ( as you saw above).

They wont go for much longer - as the heat creeps up the plants fade.

I also have in a row of 'Kentucky Wonder' - thanks Nina.

These too would have been more advanced except that late October frost did all of the Wonders from Kentucky in! Well, at least these little wonders are looking quite healthy!

What pulses do you have in... what should I grow that I am not?

Beating the tip nippers - experiment

A while ago now, I posted about my beans beating defeated by Mystery Tip Nippers. With a new patch, I decided to plant lots of bean seeds - some for eating green and yellow and some for drying and storing, all for adding nitrogen to the soil to start the patch off  in the best possible way.

But after putting loads of beans in most suffered from having their growing tips nipped out. With their first proper leaves being taken out the plants quickly died. Those that managed (by luck) to avoid the tip nippers  (possibly earwigs) were badly affected by the unrelenting heat we have had.

Stubbornly determined to get some beans this summer I have decided on two anti-tip nipping experiments.

Experiment 1: Hiding the beans

As no pests seem to be worrying my radish, beetroot and rocket rows, I have decided to see if I can deceive the tip nippers by hiding  my beans amongst them. I have put a row of bush beans (ones with black seeds) behind the radish and in front of my beetroot and rocket. Perhaps the other plants will put the tip nippers off? That's what I am hoping anyway.

Experiment 2: The barrier method 

I have put plastic cuffs around the planted bean seeds. Out of 3 whole rows of borlotti, I had only one bean plant left in the ground and 6 seeds left in the packet. I have put all those 6  in with cuffs from juice and milk containers protecting them - hopefully.

To deal with the heat problem, I have mulched everything heavily with lots of lucerne.

Let's see what happens!

Dried beans and winter food

One of the great pleasures of winter is beany, soupy, stewy things. They are the kind of food, like good porridge and risotto, that warm you from the inside out.

It was a cold for Sydney (max 14c) and drizzly wet day yesterday (and is again today) and so I decided to make a beany thing. It all started by me remembering that, way back in the cupboard, was a stash of home grown dried beans.

I have two jars of a former season's dried beans. I didn't dry any of last summer's beans, I guess I didn't need to considering I had two jars! I tend to dry my beans when I have been away on holidays from the garden when the beans are in full flush and come home to beans too fat and bulging to be nice to eat green. I don't let them go to waste though and pick them off  just before they are fully dry and do the last bit of drying on the back verandah and then jar them up.

The two jars are of two different beans. One is a  lovely brown skinned bean. It was a green bean, but do you think I can remember which?  I am serially bad at noting varieties, its something I need to change.

The other jar is the dried bean of a climbing borlotti. It dries a two-toned brown rather than lovely red and cream pods they come from. The original seeds came over the fence from the Italian-origin neighbours. The pods were red and cream -  just like normal dwarf borlotti beans.

I made a beany, soupy thing out of the brown beans.

Lamb shank and bean thick soup
(* from the garden)

2 lamb shanks
1 cup dried brown beans*
1 onion chopped fine
2 carrots chopped fine
2 sticks celery chopped fine
4 cloves garlic chopped fine
1 can tinned toms
stock (I had home made chicken stock in the freezer)
risoni
bay leaves*
rosemary*
thyme*

Soak beans overnight. Drain and put on to boil  until cooked a long way thru they don't have to be totally cooked cause you will cook them in with the rest of the ingredients. Brown the lamb shanks and discard any excess unwanted fat. Sweat onion, garlic carrot and celery in the same pan that you browned the shanks in. Add all ingredients into a large saucepan and cook on a low heat. Eventually the meat falls off the bone, remove the bone and any of the bits that you don't like.When the beans are cooked thru serve with toast.

I am contributing this recipe to Greenish Thumb's Garden to Table Challenge.

But what's your favourite beany thing to eat during winter? Are you a chilli con carne fan like myself?
Which beans to you grow to dry?