Post by haecklers on Dec 22, 2014 7:59:51 GMT -5
I thought I wanted to grow beans to dry for winter use. But we don't actually use dried beans all that much, LOL! and the stinkbugs kept piercing my beans in the pods, resulting in nasty looking bean seeds. What I was able to salvage from the pinto bean plot, tho, were some not quite ripe pods that were yellow-green in color with full-sized seeds that were still green. They cook in minutes, like fresh vegetables, and taste utterly delicious. In KY they call any beans harvested like that "shelly beans". I froze a big bag of them and we pulled them out to have yesterday and I still like them better than the green beans I froze or the dried beans you have to soak and then cook a long time, plus the flavor is really good.
To do over, I'd plant the black-eyed peas later in the summer, they didn't do much until the days started getting shorter. I'm reading now about Asian vegetables, that some of them won't bloom/produce during the long days of summer and I wonder if the black-eyed peas work the same way.
To plant, I just got a bag of black eyed peas from the grocery store and broadcast the seeds onto the ground the pigs had worked up, then raked it in a little. I think I did it mid-June. The chickens, who gobbled up most of my corn and squash seeds, left the black-eyed peas alone.
They attracted lots of pollinators all summer. Some plants held the beans high above the foliage, but some hid them down under the leaves. Some sent out long tendrils looking for something to climb. Most of them didn't grow all that big, tho, not like my pole beans where 5 plants covered a trellis that was 8 X 16 feet then spread outward from there! They didn't seem to mind not being watered, or hot days. I've read you can grow them in partial shade, even under trees in hotter areas, and they're actually more productive.
I thought the pigs could eat them as a protein supplement to the corn I feed them, but the pigs weren't too interested. Even when I let the pigs into the paddock where the beans grew, they barely touched them, tho they seemed to eat the beans I shelled for them and threw on the ground.
The cows ate any bean leaves that tried to grow on the fence that separated the pigs from the cow pasture. They even reached their tongues inside the panels to eat leaves 8 inches from the fence.
To do over, I'd plant the black-eyed peas later in the summer, they didn't do much until the days started getting shorter. I'm reading now about Asian vegetables, that some of them won't bloom/produce during the long days of summer and I wonder if the black-eyed peas work the same way.
To plant, I just got a bag of black eyed peas from the grocery store and broadcast the seeds onto the ground the pigs had worked up, then raked it in a little. I think I did it mid-June. The chickens, who gobbled up most of my corn and squash seeds, left the black-eyed peas alone.
They attracted lots of pollinators all summer. Some plants held the beans high above the foliage, but some hid them down under the leaves. Some sent out long tendrils looking for something to climb. Most of them didn't grow all that big, tho, not like my pole beans where 5 plants covered a trellis that was 8 X 16 feet then spread outward from there! They didn't seem to mind not being watered, or hot days. I've read you can grow them in partial shade, even under trees in hotter areas, and they're actually more productive.
I thought the pigs could eat them as a protein supplement to the corn I feed them, but the pigs weren't too interested. Even when I let the pigs into the paddock where the beans grew, they barely touched them, tho they seemed to eat the beans I shelled for them and threw on the ground.
The cows ate any bean leaves that tried to grow on the fence that separated the pigs from the cow pasture. They even reached their tongues inside the panels to eat leaves 8 inches from the fence.
