Holy Beans
Years ago now, I posted the advice that if you save beans from your garden, you should freeze them before storing them. This year, I’m paying the price of not following my own advice.
In addition, these probably have something to do with it:
These are sacks I buy my coffee in. I’ve posted about this before too. I buy green coffee beans, that come from many exotic tropical places in the world, then roast them myself.
The holes in my beans are from Bean Weevils, more specifically I suspect Coffee Bean Weevils.
Of course I thought I was being clever by reusing my coffee sacks to store my garden beans!
In my case, I think I caught it pretty fast. I first noticed them in November, and quickly froze my bean seeds. Weevils are hardy enough to survive a day or two in the freezer, but are usually killed after several days. Occasionally you have to thaw and refreeze the seeds, in order to mimic the weather cycles that cause them to hatch, in order to kill remaining eggs. In my case, freezing them once seems to have taken care of it.
I’ve had a couple of reinfestations over the last few weeks, and by now all of my bean seeds are a little suspect. I don’t think I lost any important varieties, but did throw some unimportant ones away. The most irritating thing of course is now my beans aren’t appetizing to eat, because there are dead larvae hidden away in many of them. I’m not sure how this will impact the germination rates of my seeds, but I’m sure it will be reduced for many of them.
For those of you hoping to trade bean seeds with me, I’m sure you’ll understand why I’m not sending them out this year.
Seed storage is an all too often neglected topic, and one that’s very important. I’ve heard it said loosing seeds in storage is more common than crop failures.
You often have to balance risks like this. It’s very possible for example to lose seeds in the process of freezing them, or storing them in an airtight container. It’s also possible to lose them to pests like this. Sometimes there aren’t any right or wrong answers…
Interesting Links
Soilmix
If you save your own seeds, make your own compost and recycle and reuse in your garden, many people don’t need to buy anything except some lime if they have acid soil and starting mix in order to start plants indoors.
A lot of people ask me about making your own seed starting mix, so they can avoid buying anything for their garden. What’s particularly troubling for many is nearly all seed starting mixes are based on either peat, which is often harvested in unsustainable ways, or coir, which is a waste product of the less than ethical coconut industry, and gets transported long distances. Starting mixes not based on peat or coir need to be sterilized, usually requiring fossil fuels or chemicals such as household bleach.
I don’t know if this is truly a recipe for everyone. Perhaps not everyone raises bats for guano? Anyway, Alan just posted a great recipe for starting mix, he makes nearly completely with waste or other products from his farm. I think this is a great starting point for many people to think about making something similar with sustainable things you may have available locally.
Yakraut
And Owen on Radix4Roots posted this great looking recipe for fermented yacón root! Something guaranteed to keep your digestive system in motion.
Island Blog
From a working 400 acre farm on Manitoulin Island in northern Ontario, this is a blog of someone I know from elsewhere on the Internet. DirtSunRain
Garden Pictures January 2010
The garden is a winter wonderland now. While we aren’t breaking any records yet, it’s pretty darn cold. The snow is about a foot (30cm) deep. The canals are all frozen.
Everything is covered in ice crystals.
Even the cobwebs under the shed roof didn’t escape the ice crystals.
The view in the distance just fades, because the whole area is covered in a winter mist. No footsteps in the snow, because I’m the only one crazy enough to visit their garden. Mine were the only human footsteps visible. Otherwise there were tracks from the hares and birds that live in the area during the winter.
Planning is already underway for a possible Elfstedentocht this year! We need another few weeks of cold winter to make it possible…
Yacón 2009
I grew two kinds of yacón this year. The first you see on the right is an unnamed variety with brown roots, which seems to be the most common kind at the moment. The other variety, on the left, is called yacón morado and has red roots. You can see yacón morado also has reddish leaves.
The unnamed variety is significantly more productive, yielding around twice what the yacón morado does, or about 10Kg per plant.
Yacón morado has an abundance of small flowers throughout most of the summer. While the unnamed variety can bloom from time to time, it usually only does so as a result of some kind of stress.
The flowers also attracted large numbers of bees, but for whatever reason every time I was ready with the camera all the bees went away.
Here are the harvested roots. Either something changed in the way it grew, or perhaps I was a little rushed during harvest, but it seems like the tubers broke off more readily this year during harvest. Anyway, the one sure thing about yacón is the harvest is big, so even with a few pieces broken off there’s still lots left. I’m not sure if the broken off pieces will rot before I have a chance to eat them or not.
I also haven’t had a chance to taste these two varieties side by side, so I’m not sure if the flavors are different.
Fruit Trees
For me this is the year to start getting into fruit tree grafting. I’ve purchased a few fruit trees already grafted onto rootstock, but also extra rootstock, a grafting knife and grafting wax. I hope in the coming years to start trading scion wood with others, and doing my own grafts.
I’ve already had an offer of a trade from Søren!
If any of you have tips, tricks or favorite fruit tree varieties, I’d love to hear.
By the way, I bought my fruit trees from Blackmoor Fruit Nursery in the UK, and so far I’m a very satisfied customer. Everything arrived in very good condition, and the varieties they offer are interesting ones, and not just commercial ones. For me it’s very important they were willing to ship to mainland Europe, as not all nurseries in the UK will do that.
I even changed my order in the middle of everything, something not a lot of online companies appreciate. It didn’t phase them a bit, and my order arrived just as I expected it. If you live in the UK or mainland Europe, I would recommend them as a place to look for soft fruit and fruit trees.
