Harvesting This Week
Last week, when thinking of the fall garden, I wondered where we would fit things like lima beans, onions, garlic, kale, beets, carrots and more. This week we’re in the triple digits and I am reminded not to worry. For three years now, our killing “frost” has come at the beginning of August when everything gets crispy and dry and wilts in the sun.
Despite the heat and the lack of rain, the beans keep producing, the squash are slowly trickling in, and even the tomatoes continue to provide garden snacks. Oh black eyed peas, you never disappoint. And that tatume squash, grown by natives because it can take the heat and the drought, it just keeps coming. But what really upped the ante this week and drew gasps and shreaks and little faces I wished I’d caught on camera, were the melons. The first ripe Kazakh melon has been picked and eaten in all of its sugary sweet and refreshing wonder.
Upon closer inspection, the boys have discovered at least two more that need picking tomorrow. What a joy to have been there when they planted the seeds, mulched the rows, to see their faces light up when they discover a ripe one, and then share with them in the eating of every morsel of yellow melon slice, the fruit of that work dripping down their chin.
It looks as though tomorrow will be an early morning in the garden in order to beat the heat. There are beans and okra and squash to pick and water, and I know we’ll have a few helpers looking for ripe melons.
Oh, and if I shell black-eyed peas with a quart of (unsweet) tea at my side, does that mean I’m finally becoming a southerner?
No. As a true Southerner myself, you MUST have sweet tea. As I have grown older, I love my tea sweetened with honey instead of sugar, but it’s still sweet!
Cate – Good to know! Maybe I’ll try some honey in mine now. 🙂
Yes, ma’am..I believe ya’ll might be almost cured of being a Yankee.
The beans on strings look great. What sort are they, please? I presume you are drying them to shell when dry?
Tried your fermented porridge pot recipe today. Love it! Thanks for the idea.
Cynthia – These are a couple of varieties of black-eyed peas. We are drying them on strings at the green bean stage. And glad to hear you are liking the fermented porridge!
Forgive my ignorance, but why did you put the beans on strings? I have never seen that done before. Are you going to dry them in the shells?
Laurl – The beans we strung are at the young green bean stage. They are coming fast enough that we are eating them freshly shelled, snapped as green beans, and are waiting for another round to let them dry in the pod for seed and winter storage.
So, just to be clear (and I would like to know as I have a garden full of different types of beans and am looking for quicker ways of “processing” them), you put them on the strings and they dry out and then you shell them for the dried peas inside? I will be spending today blanching and freezing as many what we call runner beans here in England as I can. I also have some borlotti beans which I fancy might be good to use the string thing with. And then I can start with the zuchini……:0) Thanks for your time.
Cynthia – Thank you for asking again as I’m not sure I was very clear. I am dehydrating what you would consider green beans. I string them up with a needle and two layers of thread and allow them to dry. Then, we do not shell them as the beans within are still very tiny. Instead, I will hydrate them before cooking or allow them to hydrate in the cooking liquid of a soup or stew when I use them. Once hydrated it is much like a fresh or canned green bean.
I was planning on doing a post on this, Lord willing, next week.
For shelled beans we always just let them dry in the pod on the vine until the pod turns brown and feels dry and almost crispy. That way we can store them dry in their pods when we have a lot of harvesting to do, and then they keep until winter when we have more time to sit and shell them as we go.
Does that make sense?