bush beans and runner beans

I was thinking about these folks and their headline making front yard garden today.

And how a bean patch with a runner bean tepee or any trellis creation in the center (the possibilities are endless!) is such a beautiful thing for a front yard garden. 

 But not only is it beautiful, it's a fabulous way for grow-your-owners to actually get a huge harvest from a relatively small area.....there could even be enough to freeze for winter!!

If you're just starting out with the idea of producing your own food, it's good to start with easy projects.  Bush and runner beans are fun and easy, very productive and a great way to start!  They're very nice for seasoned gardeners too for all those same reasons.  If you don't have a patch of tillable land, check out this great idea!

I often plant beans in a circle.  This spring we planted purple bush beans around the edge of this circle and runner beans in the center, around the rebar and grapevine teepee.

This year, I asked my wwoofers to plant the beans.  I soaked the seeds first because it helps them germinate faster which seems to help get them big enough before the forest varmints find them and dig them up and eat them.  But if you don't live with a forest surrounding you, this might not matter.

Unlike the green and yellow beans I've grown that have white and yellow flowers, these purple beans have purple flowers.  They're so pretty, I use them in flower arrangements....the little maturing beans are nice in bouquets too.  They're also lovely edible flowers in salads.   And check it out!  Before they open up and bloom the flower buds look like bean seeds.

Teeny tiny beans forming on the bushes....it won't be long 'til they grow bigger and turn purple.

Look at them beans!!

The climbing beans are green with a kind of purple marbling.  They're producing piles and it never seems to stop.  Like the purple beans and purple flowers, they're interesting and nice to look at in the garden, and also just like the purple beans, they turn green when you cook them.  Their colour on the plant makes them easy to spot when picking which is very helpful....altho' I love eating beans, I really do hate picking them.  One of my least favourite harvesting jobs ever because as soon as you try to use one hand while the other is holding something else, you're ripping off entire vines....grrrrr...they insist on your engagement and care when picking...no distractions!....not only that, all the bending over when picking from the bushes can get back-breaking.  Bean-picking time is always a time for me to remember those yoga poses while I accomplish my task.  Sometimes I create new ones.  It actually can turn it into some kind of fun.   I especially like my Wide Leg Forward Bend when picking beans : )

These climbers are called "Selma Zebra' and they are so sweet, even when they get a little over mature...very delicious!  An impulse buy when I was at Buckerfields in Victoria last spring (probably because of the pretty image on the packaging)....was totally worth it...there are so many different types of beans to try!

These are really a fast food in the summertime. (well, ok, I mean after you do all the work to grow them and pick them, of course!) Anyway, so easy to snip into pieces, so fast to steam and so delicious (very colourful and beautiful too) when mixed with quickly chopped tomatoes of different colors, peppers of different colours too and just pulled onions with some chopped up homegrown garlic, thrown all together, it needs nothing else, (hmmmm....maybe some butter) the flavours are so darned fresh and amazing...perfect for an al fresco supper.  Maybe if more people knew how much better this good fresh grub tasted, more people would grow it?  Makes me think of that front yard garden again.  Three tepees or trellis circles in a front yard (or anywhere!) with climbing and bush beans would provide a huge bounty, maybe some for the neighbours and some for the freezer for holiday dinners in the wintertime too!

Some yellow beans from Christina's Garden, all packaged up for display at the Farmer's Market last summer.

Bean Patch Kid.  Getting to know some yellow beans in last year's late summer garden.  We're never too young to enjoy a nice bean patch!

wwoof

In May we hosted the first wwoofers to ever stay and work at Christina's Garden.  A milestone!....and the best first-time wwoofers ever.

WWOOF:  World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms or sometimes people call it "Willing Workers On Organic Farms"....and there are a few other versions too.....

Pascale from Montreal, (another of this summer's best wwoofers ever) signed the garden visitor book "Willing Weeder" (on organic farms) tee hee, cute!!  We couldn't believe we hadn't thought of that one before....have I ever mentioned what an important job weeding is in my garden?....and isn't that sweet how she left that little found dried bit of flower with her message?  So touching.

Anyway, the wwoof website is a place where travelers who are interested in learning about rural and organic lifestyles can link up with people who live that lifestyle and need help on the homestead.  Both host and volunteer traveller have a listing on the website.  The host provides food and a place to stay in exchange for a few hours of help each day from the "wwoofer" with all the daily work. I think it's a remarkable organization.

Our first wwoofers ever, Jess and John are from the north-east of England (Sunderland and Durham) and were here for 2 1/2 weeks.  

They were a huge help.  I think I really like this wwoofer thing!  I was thankful to know that they were happy and comfortable here.

Jess took on the responsibility of chief weeder and she got very good at it!  It really is such an important and never-ending job here in this garden (and in every garden that grows without synthetic chemical herbicides) so there was always lots for her to do!

John told me that he enjoyed doing things that involved destruction of some sort. Unfortunately, I had trouble thinking up many jobs of that nature but luckily he also enjoyed the machinery!  Here he's helping develop some new beds and keeping them weed-free so the click beetle doesn't decide to lay eggs in the weeds and on the soil....the dreaded wireworm would result in the soil for  a few years after and we don't want that!!

They were here during the caterpillar plague of 2012 so were a huge help with caterpillar control.  Here they are under the cherry  tree.  John is wielding the long Fiskar loppers as Jess helps manage the operation.  Sometimes it's hard to see which branch the tent is attached to and another set of eyes is a necessary thing. This was  such a big  help to me because it's an extremely time consuming chore. 

They stayed in the little garden house hand-made of cob and wood.

They slept upstairs in the very cozy sleeping loft.  It has lots of gardening and food related books on the book shelves.  John read "The Omnivores Dilemma" while they were here and Jess did a lot of writing. There's also a little desk and a lovely view of the forest below on one side and the garden below on the deck and private entrance side.

They made their meals in the downstairs kitchen.  It has a little oven, 2 stovetop burners, a little fridge, a table and chairs and lots of other stuff.  

There's an outdoor shower next to the garden house  and an outhouse with a compost toilet down a short path.  The living experience for helpers here in the garden is a little bit like glamping and pretty much just like how Chris and I live. (I think I might need to go woofing and glamping around the world : )

Bye-bye wwoofers!!   Happy travels!  (We were their first stop and they had 5 more months of exploring the west coast of our beautiful country.)  May the west coast of Canada and our people be good to you!

stargazers

The stargazer lilies have been blooming again this August and they are, as usual, stunning!!

 Stargazer lilies are the look-after-themselves perennial treat of the late summer garden just like peonies are the look-after-themselves perennial treat of the early summer garden.  After I plant them, I don't have to do anything....they just come up on their own year after year, looking awesome.  Such a smart investment for a cutting garden.

This arrangement was made to fill an order for a special wedding anniversary.  In with those gorgeous lilies, I mixed limelight hydrangea, grapevine and grapes, golden hops vine, fennel flowers and grasses, all found in the garden at this time of year.  Yet another example of "whatever grows together, goes together"!

Some stargazer bouquets that I made last weekend for a bride and her maid of honour.  They wanted something not too big and crazy yet still special and also natural and a bit wild looking too.   These have almost the same plant and flower material as the large anniversary arrangement, just a lot smaller.  I think they're beautiful and they seem to have what I think is an ideal feel for a Mayne Island wedding.

Here the lilies are mixing beautifully with pink and green flowered gladiolas, amaranth (green tassels and love lies bleeding) and polygonum (kiss me over the garden gate).  This was a special order for a honeymooning couple 2 or 3 summers ago.

When I use these lilies for arrangements, I remove the anthers from the filament of the stamens because they are full of a powdery pollen that stains like crazy when it gets on your skin or on fabric.  

On days when I'm working with these beauties and I'm too lazy to bother to get my gloves when removing those anthers, well, I end up looking like a chain smoker who rolls her own.  

oh great, now it's on my jeans....if you ever get this nasty stuff on your clothes never wet it!!  The best way to deal is to try to pick it up off the fabric with sticky tape, or try to blow it off and I've also heard that placing the stain in the sun does wonders too.  Water, it seems, sets it into the fabric and it may never come out after that.

Apparently, removing the anthers makes the flower last longer too.....

Anyway, I wish I didn't have to remove them for arrangements and bouquets because I think they are a most amazing part of the whole design of this gorgeous specimen (they look naked without them!)....but, at least we can enjoy them intact on a stroll through the garden.  Just don't get too close and brush up alongside them!

hmmmm...have I mentioned the fragrance?

out-of-this-world.