Ducks ALIVE in 2025!

[ducks4you]

Bean research inspired by @heirloomgal

How to Grow and Cook Italian Flat Beans - Farm to Jar

A guide to growing, harvesting, cooking and freezing Italian flat beans (aka Romano beans). A must-have in Italian cooking, but hard to find.

farmtojar.com

Romanos Are the Queen of Snap Beans and I Want to Eat Them All

These beans should have their own show and it should be called “Everybody Loves Romanos.”

www.bonappetit.com

 

[heirloomgal]

Pretty neat ducks! I didn't realize that there was articles like that online about them! Makes sense though, they are such a culinary dream for a fresh bean. Just looking at the recipe photos of them makes me hungry!

I sent seeds to a lady 2 years ago for a pencil pod type she requested from me, but in our email exchanges it became clear she was looking for something specific - beans that her mother in law had grown years before that she still remembered because she liked them so much. She didn't know the name of them, but saw one type I had and thought that might be it. My spidey senses told me what she was really after was romanos, not the ones she chose. So I sent her 10 romano seeds along with the other pack. It was so funny, by middle summer I get an email out of the blue, the lady wrote to tell me the ones she picked were not it, but the 10 seeds I sent WERE THEM! Hahaha, I got such a chuckle out of that. Nobody who eats romano beans forgets the experience.

 

[ducks4you]

I am not at ALL against specific beans.
It's just that, as a gardener, my successes in growing certain vegetables has not been the best.
Heck, the only saved 2024 seeds were some garlic cloves and a handful of sugar snap peas!!
Family loved ALL of the cucumbers from 2024 and all of the tomatoes from 2024 (almost all hybrid and purchased, though I was trying to get away from that,) that I grew and they loved the green beans from 2023.
I Hope to grow what I have seeds for in my seed cabinet in 2025 and to save as many seeds as possible.
That lady was lucky that you "read between the lines" for her seed request and used your "CSI nose" to decipher what she Really was looking for.
Just for the record, I am Very interested in keeping our vegetables diverse in case of massive crop failures in the future bc of monoculture farming, as well as livestock breed diversity.
I also want to emphasize that most of us out there--not me bc I own 5 acres--garden like people in Europe, a strip of land to the front of the house and a strip of land to the back of the house.
I moved here from such a property and I want to encourage ALL of you out there to plant vegetables with flowers.
Brie Arthur won her HOA's award for most beautiful front yard landscape doing Just That, and you can stretch your landscape and gardening beds in this way.
She also talks about planting peanuts in this video and pushes Rosiland Creasy's book, "Edible Landscaping."

https://www.amazon.com/Edible-Landscaping-Rosalind-Creasy/dp/1578051541

 

[ducks4you]

12 Marigolds
I have some seeds, the seeds are easy enough to come by. I would like to start them indoors and plug them in everywhere I am growing vegetables. Articles:

Marigold Companion Plants: 27 Different Plants to Grow With Marigolds

Marigolds are one of those companion plants that seem to plant well with everything. However, there are a few plants that actually thrive when marigolds get added nearby. In this article, gardening expert Natalie Leiker examines the best companion plants for marigolds in your garden this season.

www.epicgardening.com

Marigolds Are the Ultimate Best Friend for Plants—Here's What to Grow Alongside Them

Marigolds are one of the most agreeable plants in the garden because they deter pests from your other plants. These are 30 of the best companion plants for marigolds.

www.thespruce.com

 

[ducks4you]

How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen?
What old December’s bareness every where!
–William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

 

[Dahlia]

You are getting your act together! Energized, organized and specialized—your garden is gonna be tremendous!

Bright lights Swiss chard are pretty plants. Don’t eat it raw. Gave me a sore throat. When cooked, those pretty bright colors are replaced by the muddy looking version. Looks good in a flower bed, but not on my plate.

I found a good lemon lasagna recipe by Martha Stewart that uses swiss chard in it and it is fabulous!