The 2014 Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans On The Cheap

[Blue-Jay]

Marshall !

It looks like you are really back this time. Oh how wonderful to see that marshallsmyth avatar on the left side of posted message on this board ! Yay! It just wants to make dance and smile and sing.

I know you been working very hard on your beds. You now have a lot more gardening space than in years before. Where do you get all the soil to make some beds deeper and to create the new ones. So how many square feet of gardeing space do you figure you have now.

I took my two raised beds down last October, and had the area doubled in space in my back yard. I had a landscaper come in and take out the sod, and dig out the clay soil to about a foot deep and put in black top soil. I also had him dig out a space along the south side of my house 40 feet long and 4 feet wide. Which I told the Home Owners association was a flower bed. There will be blossoms of tomatoes and beans in that bed this year. I still have my 3,384 square foot offsite bean garden.

I will be fascinated to see what you get out of all those outcrossed beans I sent you. You will have to take their pictures when they are dry.

I won't be planting beans for another 5 or 6 weeks, and I hope it won't be longer than that. This weather of ours is just a bit slow in warming up. I usually have to cut the grass for the first time by around the 21st of April. Probably not a chore I'll have to do for another two or three weeks yet.

Sure looks like your posts are coming through now.

 

[897tgigvib]

Yep, the posts usually work, but sometimes they don't load on the first try, so I leave my typed words on it and try again an hour or so later.

I'll have to calculate my square footage up.

In the main garden I have one bed 39 actual feet long, averaging 3 feet wide.

2 other beds in the main garden each have a 2 foot walkway made in the middle of them, splitting them, so call those 2 beds 37 feet long by 3 feet wide.

The front section is more complicated to measure. Be right back, I'll step out to measure it up...

Front section has beds that are:

17 x 3
11 X 3
13 X 3
And another that is 17 X 3

The back side of my garden, nearest the lake still needs a lot of work, but I will get it done.

One bed back there will be 20 X 4
The other bed back there will be 25 X 2

Let me calculate that all...

I get 693 square feet. That's all the beans area.

I also have the north bed that is planted to 11 kinds of bramble berries.
Boysen,
Logan,
Tay,
Fall Gold Raspberry
Indian Summer Raspberry,
Black Satin Blackberry,
Himalaya,
Wild unknown small purple not sweet Raspberry type,
Lacianatus Blackberry,
Navajo Thornless,
Burbank Thornless

In the berry bed I have had success planting Lima Beans in the thin areas between plants, so I'll plant some second plantings of Limas in there.
The berry bed is 40 X 3, actually closer to 4 foot wide. So my garden adds up to 813 square feet.

I also have 5 half wine barrels in my garden. 2 of them have strongly successful grafted Chardonnay grapes which are preparing to bloom for the first time this year. nAnother wine barrel has another Chardonnay graft which almost did not take last year, but looks real nice, small but good, this year.
There are 2 other wine barrels which are now not planted because the grafts did not take last year, which is alright. Perhaps next winter I may purchase a Himrod seedless eating grape, but meantime, I should be able to put some bush beans into those 2 barrels. With the rich soil in them, 6 bush plants is not unreasonable in each. At 3 each of 2 kinds per half barrel, that gives space for 4 varieties.

When I set the barrels in the garden, I drilled about 20 three quarter inch holes in the bottom of each for drainage. The grape rootstocks are root growing nuts! They sent roots right through the holes into the ground. The rootstocks and grafts were from Lee Martinelli Jr. of Martinelli Vineyards. You can probably find their wines at your local Safeway. I also last year struck new rootstocks for the Martinelli's young daughter to grow as her first row of grapes so she can learn their family's craft, and to learn to graft at her young age of 7 or 8 or so.

=====

My soil is mostly forest compost mixed with wood and leaf ash. I am presently trying to reduce the percentage of ash. There are areas near here with small ravines where the forest litter area becomes deep, and composts on the bottom. I pull and rake off the top litter of leaves and twigs, and shovel out the compost. After doing that, I replace the forest litter. There were other areas that simply needed cleaning to a park like setting. Doing such clearing leaves a lot of surface compost that would otherwise simply wash and erode away. So that went into my garden.
The areas which need such work are now farther, but that's where I will get it for the back part of my garden.

 

[Wishin']

You guys are seriously making me jealous with all that garden space.
Ummm what does "outcross" mean?

 

[the1honeycomb]

Sprouting seeds!!!! I still have nothing!!! Russ thanks for the reminder!
Marshall and Bay please send some of that sprouting voodoo to my house!!

 

[897tgigvib]

Trying to upload a bunch of photos I took today. First my bean seed system.

I'm having to copy paste them.

The 5 gallon bucket is packed with the coffee I had to purchase for the cans
The 17 empty cans on the floor will soon be labeled for the last 17 bush varieties I'll be planting probably tomorrow. Then they too will be in the shelves above where they are here. My dresser is already full. They are not yet in alphabetical order, but they are grouped.

This set of shelves has most of what I am not planting this year. That is 60 cans.

 

[baymule]

Marshall, I busted out laughing when I read the 5 gallon bucket is full of all the coffee you had to buy for the cans to put your seeds in! I showed my DH the pictures! That is priceless! Or the price of coffee!

 

[897tgigvib]

The last full sized image is the drawer that has more of my bean varieties I'm not planting this year. This year, almost all the varieties are new to me.

Wishin asked what an outcross is.

An outcross is what rarely happens with beans, a natural hybrid done by an overachieving bee. Beans almost always self pollinate. I'm thinking that outcrosses happen more often when a garden has lots of beans growing in it, and lots of different varieties. Hybrid beans happen so rarely that getting some is really cool because usually some good and unique brand new varieties result.

An outcross is a hybrid.

Clevland doesn't squint when the flash happens.

I don't know why it double imaged Clevland. This is the start of a section of antigopher cage. 3 foot wide hardware cloth. Lots of snipping and stitching...

Ok, I'm not doing this right! Things are getting doubled and even tripled...

This photo is of kind of my work area. Got my snips, scissors, measuring tape, poly string, plastic, hardware cloth, future siding for the back beds, staple gun, other assorted things like baling wire...

I'll make another post. i stopped copy pasting and am using the upload a file but now it's overachieving...

 

[897tgigvib]

Yea, 30 cans of coffee cost, i forgot, but like 130 bucks! Got me an 8 or 9 month supply now!

 

[897tgigvib]

This is the front section, south half of it.

Still doubling images. These are the middle and north parts of the front section. Beans are sprouting here!

 

[journey11]

Wow, Marshall, that looks like a lot of work. No wonder we haven't seen you much here lately. I always get cramps in my hands trying to cut lengths of hardware cloth. I need a better, sharper pair of clippers. I'm sure your hard work will be a worthwhile investment to keep those gophers out.