The First Round of Beans are In!

This year we are participating in the University of Tennessee Home Garden Variety trials run by Natalie Bumgarner who you have seen on Family Plot in the past (and we have her coming up again soon). This year we are going to do side by side comparisons of bush beans and cucumbers. The bush beans will be in the square foot garden bed. We have two varieties we are comparing: 'Antigua' and 'Dulcina.' I have never heard of these varieties so I am excited to try them out. We will have six squares in beans with two squares planted every two weeks. Bush beans tend to be ready to pick all at once, as opposed to pole beans that have a long harvest season. So we will plant one square of each kind every two weeks to stretch out the harvest.
We broke from the master plan for planting this one. We were supposed to plant were the radishes were, but I decided to plant the first seeds in the square that has not had anything in it yet. Next will be the former radish squares, then the squares that are growing spinach now. It has been unusually cool this spring so maybe we can get a few more weeks out of the spinach before it bolts.
Before I could blog about planting the beans they came up and are looking happy. There are a few plants that are being shaded by the turnip greens. They will just have to grow through them.

More Harvesting

So the big harvest news (though pretty small based on what we picked) was three peas. There are more getting ready soon. That was a measly 1/20 pound, but they were yummy. I love to pick and eat peas off the vine, but I had to weigh them first in the name of science. We also picked an additional 1/10lb of spinach and a third of a pound of mustard greens.