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Green Beans

Posted on July 30, 2009 at 12:05 AM

It's sweltering hot here this evening.   Cooler outside in the garden than inside the house.   After I got home from work this evening, I quickly fixed dinner and then headed out to the relative cool of the garden to pick the green beans.    My daughter joined me and together we worked for about an hour and  a half harvesting.     When we wrapped up at about 8:30 pm we had picked just a little over 7 lbs of green beans!                        

   

  

      

Had a nice summer evening visit with my daughter as we worked.  Caught up on a lot of things and shared a laugh or two as well.    That is one of the enjoyable things about harvesting and preserving - she always jumps in and helps and we manage to have a good time together while working.        

     

I need to prep all these beans and get them into the freezer.   Not sure if I am up to getting all that done this evening, but I will get a start on it. before retiring for the night.        

 

Have you been doing some mid week harvests or preserving? 

 

Categories: Harvesting, Vegetables, Weather

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13 Comments

Reply Annie's Granny
01:23 AM on July 30, 2009 
Your beans are in full production just as mine came to a complete stop. Now I'm inundated with tomatoes and cucumbers, so its sauces and pickles coming out of my kitchen.
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
07:28 AM on July 30, 2009 
AG - It does appear I am about 2 or 3 weeks behind you on the timeline of the warm weather crops. That makes sense given your warmer/dryer conditions. I am looking forward to the cucumber and tomato abundance. I find them easier to pick and more fun to process than green beans. However, green beans are one of the vegetables we really don't mind eating from frozen and canned and use alot of them in the winter to augment the overwintered root crops and greens. Having a good supply of them going into the winter months is always appreciated.
Reply Daphne's Dandelions
09:47 AM on July 30, 2009 
I have pole beans and they have just started producing. So there aren't all that many yet. Certainly not enough to freeze. I've been working on getting all my herbs dried for the winter over the last couple of weeks. I wish my tomatoes would come in so I could can some sauce, but who knows when that will happen. At least the chilies are coming in well. I keep picking and freezing them.
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
12:06 AM on July 31, 2009 
You have been busy Daphne! I just finished the freezing process for all those green beans tonight (Thursday 7/30). Noticed that there is already enough mature beans in the patch that I could do another picking today if I were up to it! They tend to overwhelm me by the end of their run. I am really pleased with the volume so far though.
Reply Dan
07:29 PM on July 31, 2009 
Your beans are beautiful, always amazing how much they can produce. I noticed today my poles are just starting to get blooms and the dragon tongues can be picked any day now. When you freeze your beans, do they stay some what firm out of the freezer? I tried blanching some a few years ago and they turned into water logged mushy things after they were unfroze. The last preserving I did was the cherry salsa & sour cherry jam. I keep forgetting to post about all the canning I have not so far.
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
11:01 PM on July 31, 2009 
Dan - I have had good luck with freezing but I do not boil them for the blanching process for very long and I do the ice bath process to stop the cooking immediately. This get's the produce as close to uncooked as possible but ensures the enzymes are broken down that would deteriorate the produce. They are never as good as fresh (just an impossibility because freezing breaks down the cellulose) but so good in the winter when beans are out of season.
Reply hsheather
07:44 AM on August 01, 2009 
Ah yes, the beans have been quite productive. The tomatillos are also doing well. I spent yesterday morning canning up some salsa verde.
My tomatoes have all died, so none of those this year. Very sad.
Reply Jim G
12:24 PM on August 01, 2009 
I'm liking the bush (snap) green beans - and have harvested a full strainers worth this AM. Tonight we will steam them and sprinkle a bit of Parmesan cheese...yum!

My 7 y/o counted 36 tomatoes today and all are still green. Sigh.

Broccoli is officially done and even all the lettuce has bolted. Now I need to plan round two of what will be the Fall crop.

I'm really glad I kept up w/ the weeding. There's a weird 'growing window' of vegetables and weeds growing at the same pace to compete over the other. The vegetables have since won, w/ my 2 minutes of stirrup ho action.
Reply Sandy
12:47 PM on August 01, 2009 
I have been freezing things. It has been too hot to can! But, I am going to try to do some canning this weekend. I bought a new pressure canner and am going to try to can some of the beans that are going crazy in the garden.

Oh, I am having trouble with my tomatoes. The bottoms are rotten on a lot of them. Not good . . .
Reply momto2
07:40 PM on August 01, 2009 
Your green beans look great! We too can eat frozen green beans throughout the winter,, How has the heat affected your garden? Any problems? They keep telling us on the news here how unusual it is for your area to have such heat.
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
09:21 PM on August 01, 2009 
hsheather - Sorry to hear your tomatoes are a bust this year. We had a lousy tomato year in 2008 and so I can definitely sympathize with you. Of all the crops to have fail - tomatoes are the hardest for me to bear.

Jim G - You are so right about the "weed window". It pays to stay on top of it early on. The parmesan on the beans sounds like a yummy idea!

Sandy - Do you have your tomatoes in Self Watering Containers? Often the blossom end rot is a function of watering problems and I have heard several people mention who use SWC that they have had problems with blossom end rot.

momt02- The heat definitely made watering the garden a constant chore. Other than a few parched looking leaves here and there - the garden fared beautifully and is going strong.
Reply Sandy
10:36 PM on August 01, 2009 
Yes, the blossom end rot tomatoes are in in SWCs. Some are OK, some are not. Bummer. Definitely need to get on my big garden expansion plans so I can plant these in-ground next year.
Reply kitsapfreedomgardener
11:37 PM on August 01, 2009 
Sandy - I think the SWCs work but were pushed beyond normal limits with the intense heat we experienced earlier this summer (and again just recently).