I am embarassed by the relatively meager looking size of the harvest, but in my defense, like half the early crop got swept into a slow cooker (and I have no idea what was in it! I think a lot of Yoeme Purple. There were words.) and I sacrificed a load of Trail of Tears and Tarahumara Red to chili. But a couple just plain did not perform–I’m done trying to make the “ojo” types work. Whatever they want, it’s not what I’ve got here. And the Aztec Cave Beans are very pretty and don’t hold a candle to Mother Stallard in terms of production and flavor, so they’re out.
On the other hand, I just went and looked up standard yields for dry beans, and a lot of them average something like 1.5-3 lbs per 25 foot row, and even 25 plants per pound of beans. So given that I have maybe 25 feet of beans TOTAL, and that heavily intercropped with tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers and squash, the fact I managed at least three or four pounds worth is not too embarassing at all.
Next year, I’m looking at Trail of Tears, Mother Stallard, O’odham Pink, Tarahumara Red, Rattlesnake Pole and probably Yoeme Purple. We’ll give it a year or two and see how those fare…
I’m new to your journal entries (though I first found your work some time ago) and I was wondering if you have a list somewhere of the days (cedar day, fir day) and months (month of frost). Also, I’m really enjoying Summer in Orcus.
Yes! Well, not my list, exactly–it’s the Jacobin Calendar! You can get them on Etsy at:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/252861077/french-republican-wall-calendar-10×7?ref=shop_home_active_1
or follow the day-by-day on Twitter at @JacobinCalendar
Thanks! I figured out that my birthday is the Scythe day in the Meadow month. (I scrolled through 7 months of daily twitter updates to figure that out.)
I had great results last year with tomatoes in nested five-gallon pots — where I live we don’t actually expect any rain in the summer, so an enclosed reservoir is great for watering efficiency*, but also one can carry them around as the sun moves. If one is gardening in a box.
*mosquito screen included yes