Well this was at my sisters she has almost 3 acres that are surrounded by farmland. In the far back corner are a group of trees so who knows maybe this little guy ventured from that area. I have never been back in there to find out if a paw paw was mixed in that group but it would make sense. As far as me growing a paw paw well I did start some seeds this winter and I have one that has germinated. I am even more excited now about that. Since I rent I am going to plant it at my parents but it sounds like I may need to plant it at my sisters now. Hopefully by fall she will know more of what is going on with her husbands job and whether or not they are moving if she stays she is going to get her a paw paw tree regardless if she likes it or not, ha ha. Bev I may be totally incorrect here but I did read somewhere that was talking about letting the paw paw fruit fall to the ground and turn brown before harvesting or eating it. So maybe it wouldn't be so bad as you think. I also heard the flavor is close to that of a banana but creamier. Bad thing is that not all people can eat the fruit of a paw paw there are some that get really sick and sometimes it might not be on the first time they try the fruit. I forget if it was the amount they ate or just sampling it. I love bananas and my great grandmother that was full blooded cherokee use to grow paw paw trees and my father said she was fit as a fiddle. I am sure it wasn't just the paw paw, but I do figure she is where I get my desire for native fruits.

imagardener the Osprey community sounds very interesting, it would be great if you just happened to have your camera with you when you drive through. Do you think the residents would mind? sharbear we did not have a lot of grass to remove, but a concrete drive and parking area and a lot of neglected and overgrown shrubs with horrible roots, and weeds. Here is a photo of the front entry before we began remodeling/rebuilding the house and garden. The worst problem was that after I had bought loads of plants from the USF sale we discovered that there was a layer of hard pan from the old drive about 12 to 15 inches below the dirt covering the entire garden area. In addition the dirt was almost pure sand and very infertile. So in the middle of June we had to remove all the dirt, then the layer of concrete, then replace and amend it. This had to be done very quickly as the new plants were in their little pots waiting to be planted. There is no shade, it was so hot we could work only from about 7am to 11am at best each day and even then it was exhausting!! This is a similar view now. Just a quick critter update. It has been a few days now since we last saw our little hummer. I hope it hasn't left for the season. Yesterday as DH was watching his first Zebra Swallowtail a Polydamas Swallowtail swooped in! The photo is a bit blurry, they flutter so! I think that makes 14 species of large butterflies visiting a garden the size of our family room! Amazing! Thank you all so much! It is such a thrill to think that my little garden may have inspired some of you, you all have certainly ENCOURAGED me! There's no stopping me now!

The cleaning & sorting are finally done, so these are the results. This will cover everything except cowpeas, yardlongs, and soybeans, so my apologies for the length. After germinating normally, all beans, and most cowpeas, went through an extended period of stunting for most of June & part of July. The degree of stunting, and its duration, varied substantially between varieties; many were over a month behind. Because of this, I considered DTMs this year to be aberrations from the norm, and did not record them. Common beans: * Bird Egg #3 - pole shelly. Initial planting with 2007 seed had poor germination. I culled the sub-standard 2010 seed (over 75% was discarded) and replanted the gaps, with good results. Plant spacing was 2 @ 12" this year, to judge the effect on yield & seed size. Seed size was notably smaller. The plants recovered from stunting & really took off in late Summer. The crop was much later than normal, and much was harvested after the first light frost; but I froze 20 pints of shellies, and harvested 5 pounds of dry seed. * Champagne - pole green snap. White seed. This was one of the first beans to recover from the stunting. When I first grew it, I observed that it had no trouble setting pods in our (admittedly moderate) heat, and that was verified in spades this year. Flat, green, Romano-type pods grew to 7-8" long, had great flavor, and the yield was heavy. However, this variety has a weakness: it is hard to get good seed from it. As in my original trial, about 75-80% of the dry seed was deformed, and had to be discarded; not sure if it is something in my soil or climate, but this is the only bean I've grown with this level of deformity, and it was repeated in different years. This might be the reason it was dropped commercially. * Clem & Sarah's Big Bean - bush dry/shelly. Somewhat rangy bushes, recovered fairly late from stunting, but still produced a fair crop. The white seeds are long & nearly cylindrical, about 3X as long as wide, many with blunt ends. The shape is so distinctive that I could probably mix them with Great Northern, and still separate them fairly easily. Since this was a seed increase, I only ate a few shellies; but those were sweet, and of good quality. * Czechoslovakian - pole purple snap. This was the least affected by the stunting, and growth was exceptionally vigorous in the heat. Flowering & pod set were heavy, and the pods showed no stunting whatsoever. I had previously grown this one in pots, and like Bosnian Pole before it, the increase in vigor when grown in fertile ground was striking. So was the seed increase; with over 5 pounds, it tied BE#3 for highest yield... but in only 16 feet of row, as compared to 72 for BE#3. I only ate one meal, wish I had tried freezing them. * Dolloff - pole shelly/dry. This was quick to recover from stunting, had a heavy pod set, and was the first pole bean to produce dry seed. I would estimate its DTM at about 90 days. While the seed quality was very good, the pods had poor seed count, probably due to the heat. This means the yield potential is most likely higher than what I observed... which would make it quite high. The seed is pink as a shelly, drying down orange -> tan w/brown spots. 12 feet of row yielded 4# 3 oz. * Fortex - pole green snap. This was severely impacted by the stunting; it was over a month late. I was picking yardlongs for several weeks before these even started (!!!) which is a reversal of what would happen in a normal year. They came on strong in September, so I was able to freeze a lot... still, the performance this year was disappointing. The row dedicated for dry seed produced 2 pounds, but more than half of the pods were still unripe when cut down by frost. * Isla - pole shelly/dry. In habit, pod, and seed, this resembles a slightly smaller, more purplish version of True Red Cranberry... I suspect they are closely related. It has a very late DTM, and being forced to recover from a severe hail storm this year certainly didn't help. There were no dry pods before the freeze, so I picked all of the pods that day & dried the ripest ones indoors. The seed appears to be mostly OK, about a pound or so. The flavor is really good, I wish this had a shorter DTM. * Light Brown Zebra - bush dry. This never really recovered from the stunting, and was far less vigorous than it was when I last grew it. The small seeds are beige with black stripes, held in pods which shrink down tightly around the seed as they dry & offer outstanding protection against rain. Collected a pound of seed, it should have been at least twice that. * Poletschka - pole, uncertain use. Started as transplants. I only grew a few plants in pots, and since I was trying for maximum seed increase, I only snacked on one pod raw. Can't remember my impressions of the taste, and apparently didn't write them down. :-( Green pods that shrink down tightly as they dry, with oblong, glossy, purple-black seeds that look almost metallic. The DTM was fairly late. With 3 ounces of seed, I hope to do a larger growout next year for seed increase & evaluation. * Portugal - pole shelly. Failed. This is a shelly similar to BE#3. The vines appeared to be diseased, so no seed was saved, and the plants were destroyed. * Schwarze Witwe - pole wax. I'm told that the name translates as "the veil of old widows", which is a reference to the seed coloration. This was stunted in June, then severely damaged by hail in early July just as it was beginning to climb. However, the plants sprouted new runners & made an impressive recovery. Small 4-5" yellow pods, curved, completely stringless in all stages. The seed is small, very glossy, with fine buff spotting over a deep purple/black background... almost the same purple/black color as Poletschka. Nearly all seed dried before frost, so under less difficult conditions, this should do well here. * Soissons Vert - pole shelly/dry. Finally got a large planting to mature!!! Seeds are lime green as shellies, pea green when dry. These were inexplicably trying to vine on the ground (one other pole bean did this), only beginning to climb in late July with considerable assistance on my part... after which they grew normally. They just made it before frost, but produced a heavy crop. Froze a lot of shellies (somewhere around 20 pints, I lost count) and collected over 4 pounds of dry seed. * Uzice - semi-bush shelly/dry. As discussed on a previous thread, I had to rename this. It was originally sent to me with no name, so I called it Serbian pole, after its place of origin... only to find out that name was already being used in Canada & the U.K. for a different bean (which I hope to grow in the future). Another seed saver in Canada had obtained the same seed from my source & named it Uzice, so I have followed suit. This cultivar was severely stunted, and while it never fully recovered, it still produced an OK crop. Allegedly this is a bush variety, but grown without support, I found the 4-5 foot runners to be unruly; I will probably grow it again on a trellis. The seeds are large, and resemble a slightly smaller version of Porcelain in coloration, mostly white seeds with a patch of tan with maroon specks around the hilum. That resemblance to Porcelain does not extend to the flavor; the shellies are sweet, firm, and of excellent quality. This was a fairly large planting (39 feet of row) but because of the severe yield reduction due to stunting, I didn't freeze any. Collected 3 pounds of dry seed, though, and had a couple meals of shellies just before frost. * Uzice Speckled Wax - pole wax. From the same GW source as Uzice above. These were started early as transplants. Like Soissons Vert, the plants were severely stunted early, and reverted to almost a bush habit until mid-July... at which time they sent out numerous creeping runners. Once trained to the trellis, these began climbing normally, and I would judge the vines as having fully recovered. Flat, curling, yellow, 6" Romano-type snaps of fine flavor. Good shellies, but had enough of other varieties that I didn't eat any. Was able to save 2.5 pounds of seed. * Woods Mountain Crazy Bean - bush snap. Glad I tried this in a hot year! Seeds were started as transplants. While they were stunted in early June, the plants were very quick to recover, and IMO were only minimally affected. Incredibly lush foliage, forming a dense canopy over the beans; planted on 12" centers, the canopies overlapped to completely obscure the ground. The branching was very heavy, like what I would expect of a pole bean or bush lima. The root system was the most extensive I have seen from a bush bean, which probably accounts for its heat tolerance. I was actually late finding the beans, since they were not visible until I tipped a plant over to examine it! The snaps are round, creaseback, 6" long, and borne in large numbers. The flavor was exceptional (comparing favorably with Fortex) with a moderately firm texture. My only complaint would be WMCB's late DTM, which made it a challenge to get dry seed... but then, I suspect this is a bean well adapted to the South, and poorly adapted here. The heavy canopy protected most of the pods from the first few frosts, so I was able to get 8 ounces of dry seed... but over half of the pods were lost to the hard freeze. While WMCB is too late for it to be practical here as snaps, it is a great bean for those in hot climates, and I will continue to grow it for preservation. Limas * Cave Dweller, Black Seed Coat - bush. A black-seeded variety from SSE's collection. Started from 2007 seed as transplants (peat strips with starter mix) and had poor germination. The seeds had been planted vertically (eye down) and seemed to have trouble breaking free. Replanted in pots filled to within 3/4" from the top with packed starter mix, laid seed on its side, and covered with screened play sand. This method resulted in about 90% germination, so it will be my default method for starting limas in the future. (Makes sense when you think about it, since flat seeds in nature would naturally fall on their sides.) These were transplanted into two locations; one of poor fertility, and one of better fertility. The best location was nearly flattened by hail, but the plants resprouted vigorously, and still surpassed those in the less fertile soil that had escaped the hail! Heavily branched bushes, densely covered by flowers. The flower spikes were longer than many pole limas I've grown, flowered over a very long period, and attracted large numbers of bees & skipper butterflies. This was followed by a heavy pod set. The seeds are deep purplish black, and slightly wider & flatter than Sieva, although their seed weight was comparable (at around 60/ounce). As shellies, they had stronger flavor than Sieva, though not as strong as some (such as the Hopi limas). Nearly all ripened (even with the setback due to hail) and there was almost no shattering. From 35 plants, had several meals of butterbeans, and harvested 3.5 pounds of dry seed. * Sieva, Mottled - pole. Started as transplants by same methods, and with same results, as above. Vigorous, heavily-branched vines; I experimented with both 24" and 30" spacing, and 24" seemed to be optimal. Fusion had suggested that I grow 75 feet of white Sieva two years ago, which failed due to weather... but I tried the same length of row this year with Mottled Sieva. With all of the extra heat, and with frequent deep irrigation, the vines were healthy & produced a good crop. While the mottling on the dry seeds was similar, there appeared to be two races; one with black mottling, and one with light maroon or lavender. The seeds are a little smaller than the white-seeded Sieva, (at 69/oz. vs. 60/oz.), and the yield did not appear to be as heavy; but about 80-90% of the pods had ripened before the killing frost. We ate a few meals, gave a lot of shellies away, and harvested just under 22 pounds of dry seed. You have no idea how much seed that is, shelled entirely by hand; by my math, I would estimate around 10,000 pods. (:-o My hats off to DW, who was absolutely tireless in that endeavor... a legumaniac after my own heart. Runner Beans * Bianco de Spagna - white seeded. Failed. Severe stunting, mostly fatal; they never really recovered. The few plants that just barely hung on (I didn't have the heart to pull them out) didn't even flower until very late August / September. The pods harvested just before the killing freeze were usable as shellies, but there was nothing mature enough to save for seed. The curse continues, this seems to be the only runner I can't get seed from. * Gigandes - white seeded. These were slow to start, but were less affected by the the stunting, and were the first beans in that plot to begin climbing. Unfortunately, the vines were stripped by hail in early July. The plants responded by sending out new runners, and made a remarkably rapid recovery... but they were set back by at least several weeks. Dry seed only began ripening about 10 days before the killing freeze. Was able to harvest a lot of shellies, and 11 ounces of dry seed... which will be used for a larger seed increase next year, hopefully under better conditions. Over all, despite a few setbacks, it turned out to be a really good year for seed saving. Of 106 seed crops I planted for preservation, 94 were successful. 59 of those were legumes, including 80 pounds of various beans, and 40 pounds of soybeans. Much of my older stock has been replenished (such as BE#3 & Soissons Vert), and I found a few new varieties that proved to be keepers. I will continue with the results for peas & miscellaneous legumes later in this thread; my final observations for cowpeas & soybeans will follow on other threads.

Hi Susan! I absolutely agree with your approach! Too often you will see many people panic and run for the pesticide/insecticide/miticide or insecticidal soap/neem/etc. with little thought for the overall consequence of their actions. I know that God created every single creature for a reason, and this is true in the garden just as it is in the rest of the world. When a gardener tries to wipe out any given pest, they disrupt the food chain and throw everything off balance. Once your bug populations are out of balance, it is very easy for any given pest to overpopulate and become an actual problem (instead of being perceived as a problem just by their presence in the garden). Your example of the milkweeds, aphids and green lacewings is an excellent example. Suppose a butterfly lover were able to wipe out ALL the aphids. With no food to support their population, the green lacewings will either move on to an area with a good supply of food, or they will die. That butterfly gardener's entire garden is then more vulnerable to any bug infestation because the lacewings aren't around any more to keep other bug populations in check. So, obviously you have done the correct thing by letting the natural system work in your landscape. If I have learned anything at all from a lifetime of gardening, it is that the various insects will pretty much take care of each other. That's one reason I prefer to release beneficial insects...it is working within the natural system instead of outside of it. Could you and I ever convince some of those butterfly gardeners to let the aphids stay on the milkweed and then let the green lacewings take care of the aphids themselves?I doubt it. I think the whole 'working within the realm of nature and its cycles' thing is a unique wisdom a gardener acquires over time. Some people catch on to it sooner, some later, and some never. Does this mean that I don't panic when a specific bug population appears to be out of control? No. Of course I still get concerned. But I try to figure out first if there is an actual problem. I try to wait it out and see if nature will correct the situation (it usually does). I try to determine if the damage...like holes in leaves, for example,...is just something that is "visually unpleasant" or is actually damaging to the plant. And I have learned, through the years, that often the best action to take is "no action". So, I guess our approach is best thought of as working with nature, instead of against it, and how can that be wrong? Dawn (who is tired and will now climb down off her soapbox and stop ranting)