I picked the last of my shell beans and most of my green tomatoes this weekend. I cleaned up most of my home garden (except for my giant kale plants). Though the weather is balmy, nothing is really growing anymore. The sun is very low and days are shorter. I spread a good layer of winter rye seed that should get off to a good start if this warmth keeps up.
Tomorrow I am looking forward to a visit to my community plot. I haven't been there at all in the past THREE days! (A long absence for me.) My plot is still growing nice escarole, beets, carrots and radish.
harvests from my vegetable gardens
I'm embarrassed to ask this question -- what are shell beans? My mother never grew them, so I'm unfamiliar with them. I've tried to learn about them, but I can't a find a description that explains how they differ from green beans or dried beans. I'm very confused.
ReplyDeleteYours are so pretty -- they look like they are on fire.
Looks like you were up to the same thing we were this weekend. It's that time of year!! What kind of shelling beans were those? Love the color.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your blog so much especially information about the community plots - and of course Skippy is so darn cute! So thanks so much for sharing your gardening experience with us! It really is an insporation to new gardeners.
ReplyDeleteI need to pick all of my green tomatoes as well. What will you be doing with yours?
ReplyDeleteEverything looks wonderful! The beans are beautiful - so I'll echo a previous poster, what kind are they? :)
ReplyDeleteThanks!
My shell bean variety is "Tongue of Fire".
ReplyDeleteHere's an earlier post of mine showing shell beans out of the shell. And here's Wikipedia on types of beans.
And here's a nice description from Golden Gate Gardner, along with a shell beans succotash recipe that looks yummy!:
"Gardeners sometimes eat beans at the shell stage, which is after the beans have fully formed in the pods, but before they have hardened. Just about anything you can cook with dry beans, you can cook with shell beans--but faster. You won't find them in the market often, since they don't keep well, so they are mostly a gardeners' secret.
"You could eat any common garden bean variety at this stage, but several are sold specifically for it. They often have these splashy red pods. This one is a bush bean called 'Taylor's Horticultural'. Sometimes you find a similar one called 'Tongue of Fire.' At the shell stage, the beans are white or white streaked with red. When they become dry beans, they are brown streaked with maroon, and are often called cranberry beans."