garden news-beans and soil prep and the last of the tomatoes

GARDEN NEWS-BEANS  AND SOIL PREP AND THE LAST OF THE TOMATOES

these are beans i shelled yesterday after harvesting from my garden

i call them billie beans named after my mother in law who used to ship them to us

she bought them at a local mexican market

i usually buy mine now at the mexican market a block away 

the lady that sells them always tells me those are the best beans and how she cooks them

the real name of the beans are peruvian bean or myocoba beans or peruano beans

ive written about them several times before in my blog

last year i planted just a few enough for a mess of beans

thats a southern term which means just enough for us to all eat some

i saved a few beans to plant this year

when you save seeds like that the seeds over time become adapted to your environment 

ie they my get natural selected for you garden site

i hope so

so this year i made a new garden row and planted it with the beans

i added a dripper and let them grow

when the beans matured i let them all turn brown and let the plants die

i then harvested the whole plant to hang and dry

then i pick the beans shell them and store them dry

the last time i looked for these beans i couldnt find any

everyone i guess was stocking up on them 

well when i get through with my small mess i will have a few lbs to cook 

i cook mine vegetarian in the crock pot 

i add onions garlic pepper salt to taste diced tomatoes olive oil a pad or two of butter and a squirt of mesquite liquid smoke

i soak the beans overnight then add enough water in the crock pot to cover the beans well

when they have softened then i add all those ingredients above

the onions garlic tomatoes are all from my garden 

all organic of course

sometimes i will add some kale amaranth spinach carrots celery squash to up the nutrition some

my wife she cooks a pan of cornbread to go with them

this makes all the effort to grow these beans worth it

as i remove plants from my garden

like a tomato that got blown over by the wind

like my two squashes that were overtaken by powdery mildew and insects and quit producing

like my beans i just harvested

then

what i do is add about a 4 inch layer of compost on top of this 3 ft x 8 ft bed

i use a garden fork to fork it in to the soil

i stab the fork as far down in the soil then work it back and forth 

i do that every 4-5 inches all over the bed

i dont use a shovel or tiller on my beds 

i add a scattering of a good organic fertilizer over the bed

i water it all in with a fish emulsion molasses sea weed mix

then

i cover all of this with a layer of mulch

i let it sit then until its planting time again

which on these beds will be 1-3 months

i did add a cover crop of oats beans peas hairy vetch to fix nitrogen in the soil

then

i keep the bed watered 

this allows all this stuff i put on there to sort of ripen

then when i plant i add my worm compost i make in my buried 5 gallon buckets in the garden

this allows me to grow these beautiful giant heirloom tomatoes like these

the organicgreen doctor