Weekend Duties

Thursday morning I decided to pick cranberry beans. We had noticed several new blooms after the last rain. We were seeing lots of green beans but they were not filled out. I recalled seeing somewhere that they are delicious at that stage if you don't mind forsaking the mature beans. Anyway, since we are wanting to try a fall crop, I decided to harvest the whole shebang, just pulling the vines out by the roots and picking off all the beans, much like harvesting peanuts. The vines were put aside for hubby to put in the compost heap. The mature beans were shelled and the others prepped, and the yield was surprising. I wasn't sure I could get all them in pints, so I just canned them in quarts, which yielded 4 full quarts with some left over for lunch, which was delicious, by the way. The jars with the intermingled green beans were so pretty! They will be for special occasions with family.

Friday, hubby rototilled and prepared two short rows. It wasn't too hard to do since the ground had remained friable from the previous crop. We made a trip to Wal-Mart to purchase a bag of cranberry beans. We don't bother to spend unnecessary money on seeds from a company; we just plant what nature provides and have excellent results. So, bright and early Saturday morning, after soaking the beans for about an hour to speed up their process, we planted two rows of beans, watered them in the little trenches, covered them and then mulched on top with newspapers we had saved, which funny enough equaled the exact amount we needed. After all this, we have had a nice rain! Anyway, we are so eager to see if we have had any luck getting them to sprout, with all this hot weather.

The remainder of the beans were soaked a good bit longer and canned, yielding 7 pints. This is for convenience and well worth the effort. Pretty good yield for just over $1.50 for the package.

We have been watching the Christmas butterbeans carefully, not wanting to let any get too mature while we wait. My husband actually picked a double handful this morning and shelled them, which we had for lunch along with the running okra (which I'll show another time) tomato and banana pepper, all from our garden.

This slow rain today couldn't have come at a better time. So much better for the veggies, and the work is all done. Tomorrow I guess is canning day for some tomatoes.