Bush Bean Redland Pioneer Life Cycle

The first bush bean that we grown was 'Redland Pioneer' in our garden and has been the best performer among the bush beans we have tried (not many though still to compare with). But it has been the most reliable bean to fill in the hungry gap. Bush bean grows really fast and provide some beans in 7~8weeks of growing, sometime earlier if the weather is preferable for their optimum growth. It is really an important veggie in our garden since it fill the hungry gap in spring and again in fall. We sow 'Redland Pioneer' bush bean 3 times a year-spring, summer and autumn. Well, rather than leaving the soil bare after harvesting other veggies, we might as well grow beans so they help fix nitrogen into the soil again. Its a win-win situation. I feel that bush bean seeds does not require much water to germinate, too much water can cause the seeds to rot easily in cool season. A really good veggie for a lazy gardener like me, bush beans not a heavy drinker and not a heavy feeder.

Bush bean 'Redland Pioneer' seedlings'

Because we don't have that much space to grow and very greedy, I tried to maximize the space we have by planting the plants densely together in spring/summer. I can get away growing them densely in a spot with full sun because they don't compete each other with light and it helps keep the soil moist longer as it is covered with the foliage. Less evaporation. Save money from buying mulch. I gave up with mulching this year because the bird will cause serious damage by their scratching habit on seedlings. Last spring when we transplanted tomato at this area, we direct-sowed bush bean seeds around the tomato seedlings. It did very well and the tomatoes grow without any fuss. Humidity is very low in our garden warm season here so our tomato plants can readily accept being close to other plants and I don't have to worry about good air circulation.

Beans grow well in partial shade too. But not as prolific as in full sun which you get more beans to harvest. In partial shade, I probably plant shorter plants together with beans to give the bean plants more light and not to over-shadowed them. We had many violas flower plant volunteers one spring season, and I transplanted them as border plant just to make the garden look more colourful. If in tropics, I can imagine portulaca (moss rose) growing in the viola place instead. At the back row are Bloomsdale spinach young plants.

Bush Bean Redland Pioneer very prolific.

At their pick season, just a few plants will give you enough harvest for an average family number.

I have been growing them for 3 years but this is the first time/year I really collected their seeds. I have been trying to collect them earlier last year but its hard to get the seed pod dried properly in autumn season.  I also found sprouted bean seeds in the seed pods during autumn. So this time I let the summer heat wave do the quick drying process for me.

Shining harvested bean seeds.

After I harvested the seeds, I planted some of our home-grown seeds. I felt very satisfied with the results and the new harvest from plants grown from our home-grown seeds. Contentment.

Have a lovely weekend!

Summer Veggies Continue...

Oppss...who was lazy leaving the eggplant at the partial shade corner not stake?

I did.

So when I finally attempt to stake the branches that were on the ground last weekend, I found 2 bonica eggplants hiding beneath foxglove foliage. One of the eggplants were bigger than my palm and very heavy for an eggplant. We had very warm days a few days ago which causes our eggplants that were growing in sunny position has wrinkle skin and not growing much. So I have to harvest them when the fruits are tiny or they stop production/flowering. Lebanese and early long eggplants are not usually bitter but due to the weather causes them to be bitter. There were many angled luffa female flower last week but not a single male around for successful fruit.

Some alpine strawberry fruits ripening in the garden this month.

The only photo taken.

They are fresh snack in the garden so photos of them are very rare.

Our first soy bean harvest from a plant.

This is my second year attempt trying to grow them.

Not easy to grow here because of dry hot weather in summer.

Soy bean like heat and humidity I think.

I tried growing them in different season and location in the garden with not much success.

How did I get them to produce this time?

I sowed soy bean seeds in the container which I prepared for a sweet potato plant.

I think the sweet potato plant crawling veins help keep the soil moist and act as a natural mulch.

Boiled the beans in salted water for snacking.

Sweet potato shoots.

Cleared up sweet potato plants that were growing in one corner in our garden.

It has been mice sanctuary.

Most of the sweet potatoes were eaten not much left for us.

We harvested spaghetti squashes before the rain comes. Left them curing naturally outside for a long time until the whole plant has actually dried off. A very tiny watermelon and cucumber were also harvested last weekend.

Cleared up the neglected patches along our driveway shared with neighbours, got some spring onions. Some capsicum were also harvested last weekend.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see different kind of harvest came from different parts of garden all  around the world.

Green Beans with Sesame Sauce

We harvested all over-wintered parsnip and carrots grown in container last week. Those carrot root centre/core are about to be woody so it was better to harvested all of them. We also harvested some broccoli. Yellow currant cherry tomatoes plants from last year starts to be so generous with producing many tomatoes now. I was very amazed to observe that the number of fruits dangling on the plant at the moment surpassed last year peak season of this plant. On top of that the fruit size were bigger as well. Beans were becoming a constant thing on the kitchen table.

A very fast healthy dish to prepare with beans last weekend was a basic classic Japanese home-cooking dish which is green beans with sesame sauce. I got this recipe from chef Yoshihiro Murata's Japanese Home Cooking with Master Chef Murata cooking book. It took less than 15 minutes to prepare this dish.

Green Beans with Sesame Sauce

Ingredients:

170g young green beans cut into ~4cm (cook in boiling water with a pinch of salt until tender but still crisp, shock in cold water and drain)

Sesame dressing:

1 Tbsp toasted sesame seeds

1 tsp soy sauce (because I prefer strong taste or 'koi aji' I used 3 tsp soy sauce)

1 tsp sugar

Chop the sesame seeds with a knife (I did not chopped the sesame seeds) and combine with soy sauce and sugar in a medium bowl to make sesame sauce. Dress the green beans with the sauce.

The first harvest of Lebanese eggplant for this spring from our 2 years old plant. Asian leaf green like red choi were also harvested and it ain't look pretty. The poppy flower stalk can even go through the holes on the leaves.

This spring I have not started to sow any leaf amaranth seeds. However, we have many volunteers growing in different containers that we even got a bunch of leaf amarant harvest last week. Last weekend we harvested one of the last cauliflowers for this year for us.

Visit Daphne's Dandelion for Harvest Monday.

Pea season Officially Over

Sigh...no more pea harvest for us this year. All the plants had withered as we had several hot days here. It was not a  successful pea season for us this year compared previous years. But my boys managed to eat peas for lunch and dinner everyday during pea harvest season in our garden which made meal time a lot more easier. They be less fussy with their meal if we mix it with peas. Now, I have to think of a new vegetables that can be my boys favourite green food. Rayyan eats anything so its not a problem. However, the big brother Ilhan when he turns 4 years old, he changed to be a bit picky on what is in his plate.

Telephone pea bloom.

We have been growing Telephone peas for 3 years and it has always been the best producer in our garden. Telephone pea is a climbing pea. We got to collect some seeds barely enough for next sowing season. Many of the seeds germinate in the pods before we can dry and store seeds properly.

We grow purple-podded peas for the first time this year. The flower bloom is pretty. However, for us it is less prolific and got sick easily in our garden environment. We think that telephone peas taste much sweeter than purple-podded peas.

We usually grow climbing peas for saving space reason. This year we tried growing bush peas 'Massey Gem' that did not performed at all, almost complete failure. We would like to try a new variety next season which I hope we will made a good decision on suitable peas for our garden with the next order. Any suggestion? Growing different variety is like an investment, some do well this year some not. Different variety of peas has  different genetic strain and the climate is ever-changing year after year. 

Sweet Scented Sweet Pea

Another new spring blooming flower in our garden that we tried growing for the first time this year. I have always been curious why many gardeners are fond to have this plant in their garden. Now I can understand the feelings. Oh this bloom scent so nice in the garden. Doing gardening task near where sweet peas are growing makes pleasant moments. I got these seeds from our local Seed-Savers group meetings early this year so I am not sure what variety it is. Nevertheless, growing them was worth it. Made me happy.

Sweet pea seeds were direct-sowed last fall. I was kind of worried that snails or slugs will munch on the seedlings but it remained untouched. Surprisingly, these sweet peas was not bothered with our clay soil . Looks happy even in partial shade.

Sweet pea climbing on our one and only garden arch which we can enjoy the view from our kitchen window. I found growing sweet pea much easier than our edible peas. Most of our edible peas are not growing very good compare to last year. Many of the plants succumb to disease and dying too early in this season. However, sweet pea is hale and hearty.

I hope legume member live up to its name fixing nitrogen back into the soil.

I still have not decided yet what to replace sweet pea for summer this year.

Any ideas?

Cottage Flora Thursday#37

Growing yam bean in Adelaide

I wasn’t sure whether we were able to grow yam bean or also known as jicama here in Adelaide as it is said to need a long growing season. But like angled luffa I was sceptical. So jicama was a new challenge for us growing them in our small little garden last warm season. Adelaide weather for me is a bit strange the weather change dramatically and temperature fluctuation is really high. Day and night temperature can sometime differ more than 10 degree Celsius. The normal summer will be blazing hot. So I expected many days of really hot weather and night which I won’t be able to sleep that much. During summer we always camp in the living room to sleep. However, we had only few really hot days and not a single night sleeping in the living room through summer.

I have never seen a yam bean plant my whole entire life. End of November I direct-sowed the seeds and when it sprouted it made me panic at first. I thought all my new jicama seedlings have been nibbled by pest because they were no leaf. if you use the camera and zoom in they do like small hands waving at you. But the naked eye view they look like it has been chomped by critters.

So it was a relieved to see their true leaves form. So next time we know what to expect from newly sprouted seeds.

More growth…

When the first heat-wave came, all of our yam bean plants growing on the front yard veggie patch died. I did not have a very deep container to sow yam bean seeds because it was full with other plants. So without any thought of success I simply sowed some seeds in 25cm depth container and 5 seeds sprouted. Well I have to console myself if it did not give me any tubers, we still can treat them as green manure. So it is still a win-win situation. Yam beans are legume relative of beans and lupins. Unlike beans and peas which the pods are harvested, yam bean pods are toxic and other parts as well. The only edible part is actually the root (tuber) which is deliciously eaten raw.

Middle of February and jicama growing together with kailan.

Early April of jicama progress. Jicama is a half-climber but needed help with climbing lesson on the okra plants. Suddenly we had ginger and nasturtium sprouting in jicama container some time during summer. Just to take note, we harvested the ginger and it was actually growing more rhizomes compare to the previous ginger harvest.

Our jicama plants did produce some buds at the end of summer but it never bloom. I suspect it is due to cold nights. I was hoping to collect some seeds and of course sharing it with other gardeners. Nope it won’t give me seeds.

This is how the plants look before we decided to quickly harvest all of them. I had to ask Lenay to help because I was too busy this week at school. Moreover, I just read that jicama tubers are very sensitive to temperatures below 12 degree Celsius it will start to rot. Believe it or not this is true. I should have harvested them earlier, yes sadly most of our tubers were rotten! JICAMA TUBER IS VERY SENSITIVE WITH TEMPERATURE. I had a bad feeling last week because suddenly nights were really cold because my husband who goes to work before 4AM told me several days when he entered the car it is 2 degree Celsius. The plants were still not looking that bad 10 days before we harvested them. Suddenly last week our jicama plants completely withered.

A lot of rain won’t cause the tuber to rot but please remember temperature is important factor to consider. Why do I say this because Lenay mother grows jicama plants in tropical weather (Borneo island) and after the plants died she just left all the tubers on the ground for months.  When Lenay went back to her mother place end last year she followed her mother to her farm. They dug some yam bean tubers to bring back home and some were almost as big as a soccer ball. She said one plant can spread to 5m²  of many yam bean tubers. Needless to say, Lenay was not impressed with our jicama harvest. Although some got rotten, I am getting excited on growing jicama again next spring because at first I don’t think we will actually got to see tubers.

Hooray! We can grow yam bean here in Adelaide and it is also possible to grow them in containers. I had one plant that were sowed early January which was grown in container. The harvested tuber were the size of medium size apple.  Just giving them 5 months to grow before harvesting should be fine.

This was the first time I tasted fresh home-grown yam bean. I think this is a plant worthy to grow and wait for 5 months. Definitely will plant much more next spring. Yam bean after washing out the dirt. See some got rotten?

We sliced those yam bean and dip it in Rojak sauce.

So happy to know the true flavour of yam bean. No more store ones for me. Can’t make a promise though, I might have cravings.We are growing kohlrabi for the first time this cool season. I read some comments that kohlrabi taste a bit like yam bean. Hope this is true and looking forward to taste it.

Behind the backyard fence

Most of our June harvest will be from this veggie patch which is outside from our house compound. As it is not been look after that much, the plants must have been very happy with the occasional rain that we are having lately. As I was looking back at my previous post about how the plants were progressing last month, I was quite surprise how much they have grown. Ilhan sweet corn patch has many cobs now and his mammoth sunflower is about 8 feet tall with no sign of bud yet. If the mammoth sunflower bloom we can see it from inside the house.

Sunflowers that have just recently bloom.

Mammoth snow peas at the back and telephone peas in front which are producing pods. We used sunflower stalks to make this trellis for the peas to climb. In between these peas are daikons growing which we had  harvested quite a lot since last month. Hopefully this patch will provide enough vegetables for our kitchen this month. Caterpillars are having a fun time with daikon leaves. Our record so far is finding 12 caterpillars on one daikon plants. I don't mind about caterpillars munching on daikon tops as long as it keep away from the greens.

Potatoes plants were so small and newly sprouted last month. I was surprised that one potato plants have already flower early this month. I inter-planted giant purple mustard with potatoes. Mustard secretes some substance that nematode dislike, function same as marigold. Near the fence, I sowed some bush peas which is about 20cm tall now. These peas are starting to give some pods now although it is so tiny. On my bad planning, I wonder how I am going to balance myself to pick them and avoid stomping on other plants. This is the first time, we are growing bush peas, in the seed packet it is said that it can grow a metre tall. But I did not think that it start to produce when it is less than 20cm tall. At the front, 4 rainbow chards plant. First time growing rainbow chard and I wonder does the leaves suppose to look wrinkle like that.

This patch is growing vegetables that I am trying for the first time. In this patch are Florence fennel, Purple vienna kohlrabi, heirloom mix beetroot, purple dragon carrot and parsnip. We never eaten kohlrabi and beetroot, so it will be fun to have our first taste with our home-grown later if we grow them successfully. Purple dragon and parsnip don't look very good on this patch but we have them growing on other patch.

Self-sowed tomato plants surprisingly bear some fruits now. Bush beans are not prolific anymore, I should plant other vegetables when I find the time.

Hope you have a nice weekend.

So Long Snake Bean

In Australia, this bean is commonly known as snake bean. Why snake bean? I don't know either, I was shocked too when I was browing the seed catalogs. On other part of the world it is also known as yardlong bean, Chinese long bean or asparagus bean. In Malaysia and Indonesia, it is commonly call "kacang panjang" which literally translate as long bean (kacang~ bean, panjang~ long). It is a very common and cheap vegetables that you usually see them sell in bundles tightly held together with rubber band in the market. I wonder how much does a bundle of kacang panjang cost in Malaysia pasar/wet market nowadays? A lot of patience is required to grow kacang panjang. It takes a long season to grow before it produce it first bean, maybe at least more than 12~16weeks. However the harvesting season is pretty long compare with other bean and very prolific. In the tropics, this climbing plant can grow more than 5 metre long.

Our snake bean season is already over as the day and night temperature is too cold for them to produce normal looking bean and the bloom won't open as well. This is how our last snake bean look like. Instead of light green bean, the bean have red browinsh tinge on it, although it does not effect how it taste like.

Snake bean mauve bloom is always my favourite.

Some of our snake bean were growing at the most back of this veggie patch.  We did not made a proper trellis for the snake bean let it  climb all over sweet corn and tomato plants. When the plants need more space to grow, we haphazardly tied some string for it to crawl all over the patch. One thing interesting about snake bean to note is that the pods hang in pairs as shown in the photo.

Snake bean growing all over this patch.

Snake bean is also nice to cook with ommelete. It is one of the easiest dish in Malaysia for mothers to cook for their kids on a very busy day. Shaz author of this fabalous blog ~ Test With Skewar has bean omellete recipe. You can use other bean variety as well to cook this dish. CikManggis also has a recipe for bean omellete in her kitchen.

I did not collect any snake bean seeds this year, planned but I was greedy. Anyway we still have some left-over seeds. Our most favourite bean. Usually in Adelaide, snake bean season is over in May. We managed to freeze just a little, it will be next year if all goes well to harvest snake bean again.

Not the Backyard

It seems growing vegetables at the other side of our backyard fence has been a good project. We started using that space because we wanted to prevent cars or trucks to park at our side of the fence that made a lot of noise so the kids can have a nice nap during the day. We started growing things there last spring and mostly sunflowers and onions. It is still less than a year from the time we started to plant our first batch of sunflower seedlings last spring. All the sunflowers are gone and were composted on the same place it has grown. Here is the update of what is growing at the other side of our backyard fence since a month ago.

The Redland Pioneer bush bean has already given us first bean harvest this week from this batch. I sowed a row of Dragon carrot seeds 2 weeks ago in between rows of this bush bean and found some carrot seeds have already sprouted last weekend.

Our first batch of Telephone peas has start to flower. We have already eaten many daikon thinnings growing in between the pea trellis. I have already plan to transplant some cabbage seedlings in between these pea trellis after those daikon are harvested. The cabbage seedlings have just sprouted and I have already daydream of transplanting them at that spot. I hope I can fool the white cabbage butterfly using the pea white flower that there are other butterflies around here. So they won't lay eggs on the cabbage later.

Mammoth sunflowers growing slowly and the chili plants growth are stunted. A row of carrot seedlings at the front can be harvested soon.

Mostly root vegetables on this veggie patch with fast growth sequence ~ daikon, 2 rows of Afghanistan carrots and 2 rows of parsnips. I sneaked in some watermelon radish seeds in between parsnip and leeks which has just develop it first sets of true leaves.

Rainbow chards seedlings at the front. In the middle new potato plants interplanting with Giant Purple Mustard (Potato seeds from Berry Gnome). At the back, a mess of self-sowed tomato plants and peas have just sprouted. Not sure whether that one papaya tree that my mother planted last summer will survived through winter or not but I will just let it be there as it please.

Sweet corn seeds sowed in middle of February has already have cobs. Some of the silk from the female ears has beginning tu turn brownish. I wonder if we get full kernal or not this time. I did not help with the pollination as I usually don't pay much attention with the plants growing at the other side of the backyard. Hopefully, a few will be ready to be harvest this weekend, after a long week coop up in school.

This is Ilhan sweet corn patch growing much healthier and taller than mine which were sowed in March. His sweet corn plants are taller than the ones at the other patch. We were making remarks that Ilhan sweet corn follows Ilhan growth like weed. So we voted that Ilhan will sow the next season for sweet corn. He will be taller and understand more what he needs to do by then. But he is still growing taller at that time which make him the best candidate to sow sweet corn seeds.

I am assuming that this veggie patches will be providing us food on the kitchen table this month.