the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

all those thistle seeds i saw flying in the air last month have become sprouts in the gardens... as i've been picking beans and weeding the past few weeks i've had hundreds of them coming up. got them with my weeding knife - probably missed a few.

high today of 60F and now sunny. this week temperatures going back up to the mid-80sF. rains Thursday night and Friday afternoon. if the forecast holds it's sunny from now until at least Friday.

today is sorting through bean pods that i've just picked to get the wet pods (not fully dried down yet) apart from the dry pods so the dry pods can be put in paper bags and the wet pods need to be spread out and dried before they too can join their brethren in the paper bags. the other reason to do this is to reclaim boxes so i can have yet more pods to sort in a week or two as they finish.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

all those thistle seeds i saw flying in the air last month have become sprouts in the gardens... as i've been picking beans and weeding the past few weeks i've had hundreds of them coming up. got them with my weeding knife - probably missed a few.

That stinks! Glad you're able to work on them and get 'em while they're still small.

 

[flowerbug]

That stinks! Glad you're able to work on them and get 'em while they're still small.

same here, because i know what they're like if they get those roots running all over, in all these rocks that would be no fun at all.

today looks beautiful outside. i don't have any major chores lined up other than burying scraps from canning tomatoes and bean sorting - that makes a nice mix for the worms.

 

[flowerbug]

i need to get some of the dust bunnies off the floor of this room, plus check for spiders. there's a lot of flats and bags of dry bean pods around so i'll also need to work around all of that.

this is not the time of the year when i normally clean much because of all the dust that happens from bean pods and shelling but there's various spots that really need to be done before this weekend so if i can spend an hour here or there each day this week i'll get them at least improved... i did some spot cleaning about a month ago so it won't be nearly as bad as it could have been, but still i hate cleaning/dusting of any kind.

 

[flowerbug]

September bean shelling season is here, well, sort of, i have a lot more to do, but this is the first small selection of some Lavender and various other outcrosses. i'm glad to see that Flair (a Purple Dove and Lavender outcross) came back along with some others i also hoped will continue to stay true to pattern and colors. some of these need to be seen in sunlight or bright light to really get the layers of the colors that are happening. also the pinkish/reddish bean with some light markings on it is something i've been trying to get for quite a few years (go back in my bean page and you'll see a Pink Pinto that didn't really work out well).

as usual i'm always excited to see new beans and old friends too.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I see some purple-ish speckles and a two-tone reddish ones. Also some mostly cream colored with a couple dark spots. Those really are some pretty beans.

 

[flowerbug]

back to more dry bean picking, with the gardens already picked through once there's fewer plants and also with more leaves off the plants i can see the pods easier it will go faster... as long as i don't get too impatient because then i can shatter some of the more delicate pods and then have to pick them off the ground.

there's no rain in the forecast for the next week and that means i should be able to get through all the gardens by this weekend or the end of the weekend.

 

[flowerbug]

updated forecast now shows chances of rain for Sunday Night and Monday. since things can change i won't count it for much anyways.

picking beans going ok today. still troubles with my right foot and then last night i had a cramp in my left leg so i'm not really pressing it too hard today but i'm still managing to get things done. two shifts today so far and i'll try another one later in a rather sparse garden so that may be a matter of 15 minutes or a half hour. leaving me with parts of three gardens remaining to go through by the end of the weekend, not counting tomatoes that will need to be picked and processed and some other things that Mom wants to get done here or there... so we'll see...

 

[flowerbug]

i managed to finish going through the bean gardens inside the fence today. i wasn't really expecting to be done until Saturday but there wasn't too much to pick left that i didn't get last time. three more boxes.

as i was finishing up a ground nesting bee was buzzing around me and i was trying to ignore it to get those last few pods picked. and then it became even more aggressive so i just covered up my face and walked away and it followed me all the ways to the garden gate (which i left open as i didn't want to stop to close it). came inside and took a few minutes break and took off my shirt and hat and put on a different shirt and wrapped my head in a towel (leaving just a bit so i could see) and went back out to pick up my boxes of beans and the weed bucket. the bee met me at the gate, but did not pursue at all so i walked back and picked up the boxes and weed bucket and got back out of there. bee did not come after me but i also did not hang around the gate for longer than to just get it shut. later this evening i'll go out and get it properly shut further (we wrap a fabric strip around the top to hold it shut tighter).

so what is left is Purple Dove outside the fence and those may not give me dry pods of any quality at all. i'll look at those tomorrow morning and see if there's anything worth picking yet. mebbeeee, mebbeeeee not...

the change in the forecast now puts us down for some chances of rains tomorrow afternoon. everything could use a good drink so i'm fine with rains now that i have the majority of the dry beans i know about picked...

i'm going to have some fun and shell out some beans for a while and maybe finish up at least one box tonight as it will have quite a mix of beans in there as i combined picking from three different gardens. most of the beans are unique enough that i'll be able to tell what they are. i was admiring some red beans that are likely the results of some outcross plantings i did so it will be fun to see how many of those i have and what they look like when i have a bit more time to oogle them. on the hoof just doesn't do them justice...

 

[flowerbug]

bean post, you be warned!...

i'm not sure if i've mentioned it elsewhere's in the SS forums, but if not, my shelling the other day started with a box of beans from a specific garden where i'd planted some outcross seeds, i knew there might be chaos coming based upon the pattern on the bean to begin with. in the first five pods there were four different beans.

now some days later and shelling those all out plus some other beans i think i have an easy few dozen different new beans to explore (explode would be more accurate as to what this always done to my plans )... there's really no end to adventures these beans can put me on.

as usual the Purple Dove beans are the most reliable ones in terms of productivity along with their other traits i admire this time of the year (being fairly easy to shell out). most of the new beans are not easy to shell types as they came via Painted Pony or Lavender (both harder pods to shell) which is ok for those looking for beans that will stand up to more automated methods of harvesting and shelling without shattering. Purple Dove beans do shatter pretty easy when they are completely dried - if you look at them wrong they can all drop before you get the pods picked and then you are picking up beans off the ground if you can find them. reminds me of picking thimble berries up north, you'd see this perfect lovely ripe berry hanging there on the plant and go to pick it and the vibration of your footstep or your breath on the plant would cause that berry to fall...

ok, time to get back to work.