Northeaster Green Beans

Last fall we were eating dinner at a friend's house and she served the most delicious, fresh from her garden, roasted green beans. I learned the seeds were from Johnny's, so ordered some for this year's garden.

These Northeaster Green Beans were perfect for our cool mountain summer.  Here's a photo of the kitchen garden around the end of July. The beans were already to the top of their trellis. In the past weeks, that twelve foot row of green beans at the back of the garden have gone over the top and back down again. I've picked about 11 pounds of beans so far and they're still going strong.

As you can see, they are a flat bean with no strings, tender even when they grow looooong. I decided to skip blanching (dipping them in boiling water for a short time and then sticking them in cold water) the beans. I followed this excellent video tutorial and when winter comes, I will know how it all worked out.

And I even labeled them.

Summer At The Nickel and Dime Ranch

Happy 4th of July and Fiestas Weekend!

We had some crazy hail and drenching rain yesterday. The day started out without a cloud in the sky, the temperature a nice 82 degrees. I was in Las Vegas and saw clouds gathering over our place and called Tom, but he wasn't answering. Now I know why.

Ms. Pearl did not like it one bit. It was crazy and insane!

The hail did a number on the outside garden. It looks kind of like someone took a golf club and did some swinging.

The green beans were the worst, but we will just have to see if they recover. I have veggies in the Growing Dome, so all is not lost. 

The flower garden looks like it did last week when I took this pic.

Just another summer day in Northern New Mexico.

Fall Already?

The past couple of weeks have reminded me that winter is coming. The yellow-flowered chamisa is the last of the allergens to bloom and I think this blooming schedule has been designed to make all the hay fever sufferers happy to see the first frosts and the last of their runny noses.

"Die, chamisa, die!"

The first frost was about a week and a half ago, killing the summer veggies, so goodbye to you,  tomatoes, peppers and green beans.

Since then we've had a few more nippy nights but the kale, carrots, cabbage and lettuce survive.  I planted too much cabbage and we are not sauerkraut fans, so cabbage soup is in the cards.

Next year the summer stuff will go in earlier since the raised beds are in place and ready to go.

Upcoming jobs: the dead plants are outta here and garlic goes in that empty bed in the foreground.

Plant garlic by Halloween; harvest it on Fourth of July. Sounds okay to me!