This year I would say the results are mixed. The green bean I selected very quickly grew up the bean tower and started flowering, but that was as far as we got. Not a single bean and now it's looking heat-stressed already and summer hasn't really got going yet.
Perhaps I selected the wrong variety - the one I chose was "Tenderstar" a runner type, which reminded me of the runner beans we used to have in England. Perhaps that variety doesn't do well in our climate. Next year, I'll get them started earlier, and maybe plant a couple of different varieties.
We are, however, having better success with the Roma tomato I selected. It's doing very nicely and we've harvested several delicious fruits already.
I had thought that the Sir Crunch-a-Lot cucumber was a flop. It had lots of flowers but we didn't see any fruit forming for ages.
Then earlier in the week, I noticed two huge cucumbers hanging from the frame. Yay! Success!
So this afternoon I went out in the rain and picked a cucumber and some tomatoes...
... and sliced and diced them and tossed them with a light balsamic vinaigrette to go with our dinner tonight.
Can't wait to taste it :-)
Words and photographs by Jayne Wilson, Green and Serene, Jayne's Country Garden.
4 comments:
Your experience with the beans was exactly the same as mine this year. I had this packet of French beans. They grew and flowered profusely but no beans developed. So one day I decided to remove them. I cut them at the bottoms and pulled and that was when I saw some beans! Was I too hasty, not enough water, late bearers? I will not be growing them next year. I'l still to the tried and tested for this area and you will probably dod the same. Meanwhile you have a nice crop of toms. and cukes.
Nothing tastes better than vegetables you've grown in your own garden. We've had remarkable success with our spring veggie garden this year. This was after a couple of years of mostly failure, so our vegetables taste especially good this year! I don't know if you have room for bush beans, but I can recommend Burpee's 'Tendergreen' bush beans. I grew them in a 16' x 4' raised bed this year and they were very prolific. We got three "pickings" from them and I canned 24 pints.
Such a wonderful garden Jayne. Lovely to see all those veggies.
Like you, Jayne, we grow just enough vegetables for ourselves to eat fresh, plus a few beets and beans to can. Visitors are amazed when they see I have only one tomato plant. My runner/pole beans are very heat stressed this year as we have temps in the 90s the last few days -- yes, in PA! I grow 'Rattlesnake' pole beans which in the past have been very successful for me. Gardening is such a challenge over here, isn't it? P. x
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