The scarlet runner beans are just blossoming. I plant these for the hummingbirds, and I love the big, shiny, pink, and black beans. They grow on tall climbing plants, and lend themselves to growing on tee pees or arches . This year they are on wire with the moon flowers.
The green beans , yellow beans and Italian beans have been ready for picking for awhile now. Unlike most things that get picked first thing in the morning, we wait to pick the beans until the vines have dried. Beans can get "rust", and I was always told not to disturb the beans when they are wet because of it. Lately with our thunder storms every day, finding a time to get into the bean patch has been a problem.
Finally yesterday Ed had a opportunity to pick the Italian green beans. Neither one of us enjoy picking the beans. The vines make me itch, so I appreciate his doing it. The Italian beans are now in the freezer. We did get more rain last night so we will play the same game today with the yellow and green beans.
The garden is overflowing with food now, so harvesting is taking the time used for weeding before. Believe me when I say the weeds are taking advantage of this. With all this rain they are growing like weeds. There will be oodles of compost to harvest when we can get to it.
Two bluebirds were seen sitting on the posts in the garden yesterday. I didn't get the binoculars on them, but I think they were the latest babies.
It's not just the clocks that are springing ahead. Suddenly after weeks of waiting for something to happen in the garden, so much is going on outside. All over the garden, plants that have finally lost their blanket of snow are bursting out of the soil. One of the reasons we northern gardeners plant bulbs is their thrilling , rapid growth. Blooms are soon to come!
Ed set up a new compost bin. The first fresh kitchen scraps were ceremoniously dumped this morning. Today, the first blue birds made their appearance atop the nest boxes outside the kitchen window. I wasn't entirely sure at first , but then I got a flash of brilliant blue.The cleaning of the nesting boxes went directly to the top of Ed's to do list. The contents of the boxes was mostly old nesting material from last year. Ed did have to evict one squatting tenant. A mouse had set up a nest in one of the boxes. The white fluff you see in the compost bin is the nest. She must have worked quite hard on it. It appeared to be made of little balls of plant material, perhaps milkweed or goldenrod fluff. No matter, the bluebirds have an ironclad lease on these nest boxes. Eviction is not negotiable! The beautiful bluebirds have until the arrival of the tree swallows to choose their nest site. The boxes are placed in twos so that tree swallows can nest in one and bluebirds in the other. It's a system that works well!
I was outside inspecting the garden and then walked down the drive to see Ed's progress on the wall by the wild cherry tree. A group of geese flew overhead, flying very high in the sky and going north. Even looking through the branches of the wild cherry tree you can see this was quite a large group. It must have been the fourth or fifth group to fly over so far today. Having left the wall long enough to have lunch, Ed is back out there now. He'll probably be out there until sundown unless rain dampens the fun.
