Cooper,

Yes, pole beans are affected by the heat, and how much they're affected can vary depending on the variety. If you are patient, they'll eventually produce and when they do produce, they'll produce a lot. Just be sure you don't give them nitrogen because that will cause excessive vegetative growth. I plant both bush and pole beans and usually am harvesting bush beans in April, May, June and maybe July (depends on the heat and any possible cool spells) and pole beans from about August through October.

Sometimes, if you mist your pole beans lightly in the early morning hours during the coolest part of the day, that helps cool them and the air around them and aids in getting the plants to set beans. Keeping the ground around them mulched well also helps by conserving moisture and keeping the soil cooler. Once soil temps hit 95 degrees, most beans won't produce. (You'd be surprised how hot unmulched soil can get in the summertime.)

Some pole beans are daylength sensitive, also, although I don't think Kentucky Wonder is one of them, and they will not produce until the number of hours of sunlight per day is in the right range for them.

Dawn

I planted Kentucky Wonder this year and, so far, they have not been a 'star'. I have picked a few, but not a lot yet. I have had plenty of beans because I have had bush beans that were producing. This is the first year that I have had a problem with Japanese Beetles eating bean leaves as well. I read on another forum that KW are beetle magnets, and I am wondering if they might be right. I think next year I will try another pole bean early and plant KW in July for a fall harvest after the JPs are gone.

My grapevine looks weird since it has many clusters of grapes, but no leaf cover. The leaves were just turned to lace. Al saw the man that we normally get sweet corn from yesterday, and he said he has very little sweet corn left because the Japanese Beetles hit it and destroyed his crop in four days.

Considering droughts, flooding, oil spills, grasshoppers, and Japanese Beetles, I think you would be foolish not to have as much food preserved as possible. The economy is already horrible (and declining IMO) and when we begin to factor in the elevated cost of food that these mishaps will create, it's a little scary. I know that I can never grow enough to eat like we eat now, but I believe I could prevent starvation. My garden is a big experiment to make sure that I know how to grow, in the event I need it. If this is paranoia, then I have suffered from it a long time, and it is getting worse. LOL

George, We always used to joke down in Texas that the 'wonder' in KW came from the fact that you spent the whole summer wondering if the plants were going to set beans.

Carol, Your description of the JB damage reminds me of descriptions of the swarms of grasshoppers (well, they were locusts by then) sweeping into areas in the dust bowl days and devouring what little crops the farmers had been able to coax from the ground. As soon as they wiped out every living thing in one area, they went on to the next.

Food security is one reason I preserve more of what we raise every year. I want to know that we not only can grow it, but can preserve it too.

Some folks say real hard times are coming. From talking to people we know who've been out of work a very long time despite looking desperately for jobs, I'd say for a lot of folks, real hard times are already here and the question is just how much worse it gets.

Dawn

I planted Kentucky Wonder and Missouri Wonder at the same time. The KW are starting to bear but the MW have produced very little. I put up lots of beans last fall so still have some in the freezer and the Romas have done fairly well this spring so I am OK for beans. I planted the Cherokee Stripe that I got from George in early August last year and they produced very well, so I plan to do the same this year. The Tennessee Cutshort that he gave me this year were planted late--3 weeks ago I think, forgot to write it--and are now starting to climb the fence.

And this year like last have JBs on the KW and this year on the MW. Most of them have moved to the peach tree and are destroying peachs faster than we can pick them off. The beetles, not the peaches, they aren't ready yet.

Thanks for the help. I feel better about the beans. I have them mulched and do not use commercial fertilizer on anything, so I'm good there. This is my first attempt at pole beans hope there's a good result.
Cooper

Well KW is "widely adapted," which can translate mediocre performance in some areas. When I was growing up in NJ KEntucky Wonder was THE pole bean. A few grew Blue Lake pole. Italian friends introduced us to Romano. But in NJ, no one complained about it in regard to production.

We like Tennessee Cutshort better. It handles the heat better, and it's a tender podded bean with strings. At any point it is tender, for snaps, provided one pulls the strings. Dorothy, when I can use my lap top, I'll look up the email in which you told me that you had planted yours. I'm using my Ipod for this since the doc doesn't want me lifting the lap top, and today I restricted to bed.

Carol, I totally agree with your comments about food & the economy. These are good days to be a gardener or "do-it-yourselfer."

Okay... About time for another nap!

George

George,

You're already home? Hope the recovery is quick.

I'm hoping these temporarily somewhat cooler weather conditions make all our bean blossoms turn into beans!

Dorothy,

How long does the infestation of the dreaded JBs last? Days? Weeks? A month? Longer? Y'all are making me really glad they aren't common in our part of the state.

Dawn

JBs are eating my Kwintus pole beans to the ground. I keep wanting to rip them out by their roots but they are just blooming their heart out, just no beans to speak of. Now I know why I only planted bush beans before this year.

Dawn, the JBs last until they are gone. I'm thinking last year they were gone sometime in August? This is the first time I can remember them eating leaves out of the big, old trees until the ground is covered with lacy, skeletonized leaves.

Everytime we find another battle on our hands this summer, from the heat, to needing rain, the JBs and now we are being overrun with brown crickets, DH brings up what the people in "The Worst Hard Times" went through. Hard times coming? I think so. We're as ready as we can be, I think.

And Carol, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you!!

Marcy

Thanks Marcy. LOL I plant pole beans every year and this is the first time the JBs have ever bothered them. Usually they eat the grape leaves and nibble on the okra. This year I have found them on many things.

Marcy,

Well, I think I wouldn't like JBs at all. I find the little brown beetles we call June bugs here annoying enough, and they are neither present in large numbers most years nor as destructive as the JBs.

Usually in my garden, it is the grasshoppers that devour the bean plants. This year, though, they've been eating holes in all the herb leaves and sweet potato (both ornamental and culinary types) leaves.

If it makes y'all feel any better, I have as many grasshoppers (or maybe more) as y'all have JBs. We have grasshoppers in just about every color of the rainbow, including some red ones and some orangeish ones. They sure do look colorful hopping around eating the green plants. I'd prefer to get my garden color from flowers though.

Dawn

Dawn, I haven't seen one grasshopper. Maybe the JBs ate them too. LOL

Carol, I guess your climate there is more ideal for JBs and mine is definitely more ideal for grasshoppers. Today I found drowned grasshoppers in my rain barrel. It was only a few. Too bad it wasn't more.

Dawn

We are beginning to wonder 'what' our climate is. We normally have rain and now we are dry. We at least are past that horrible impossibly high humidity/high heat index spell. I normally find that it is not unpleasant to work until 11 or 12 in the yard or garden. It is hot, but not awful. In June it was awful. I have had to water the garden several times, and normally I only water container plants. I haven't been watering my flowers and they look terrible today. I will water them tomorrow if it doesn't look promising for rain really quick.

I think we are fast approaching the need for fruit cages. The birds and squirrels are hard enough to fight off and now we have hoards of beetles. Last year the beetles were bad but this year they were worse. They hit here the same day the Mayflies came up so those first couple of days you swatted at the disgusting beetles while the Mayflies were taking a hunk out of you. At least the Mayflies only live a couple of days and then that's over.

The squirrels are not as plentiful as they once were and I haven't seen a rabbit in several years. Of course, we have many dogs that run free and our usual red fox family, so maybe they are thinning them down.

I don't have any fruit trees, but have a couple of grape vines, 2 blueberry plants, 1 blackberry and 1 raspberry. I got the blueberries last year in the spring as bareroot plants and kept them in a container until last fall. They look really healthy, but only had 2 blueberries. That was my big fruit crop. I didn't expect them to make anything at all until next year. The blackberry and raspberry are new this year and are still in containers. I could see a few berries forming on one today. I think it would be wonderful to have a fruit cage like the Brits use and have lots of berries and dwarf fruit trees. We might have to borrow a bee hive from George to get them pollinated tho.

George, do you sell honey or just bees? I hope you are feeling well today and was surprised to see you posting. Be careful. \Carol

I've not yet been able to grown beans here. I've only tried every other year or so but it's always something... Good thing dried beans are cheap in the store and I can live without fresh green beans. I don't like it but I can. LOL

Ya know, we're one of those desperate people Dawn mentioned. Things have been terribly bad since hubby's lay off 18 months ago. He's gotten odd jobs here and there that have managed to see us scrape by thanks to our naturally frugal nature but, dang, it's hard. We were just talking about how we'll look back on this in a couple of decades and tell stories to our grandkids of our own "Great Depression". (You may be thinking: How difficult can things be if she's still on the internet, for Pete's sake? We fight tooth and nail to keep the internet and hubby's phone since that's where the majority of hubby's odd jobs have come from.) But, yeah, things are really tough. There is hope on the horizon, though, as hubby has a job interview on Tuesday. Yay! It's in Illinois so we won't get to see him other than when there's extra gas money for us to visit him but it'll get us by fine until things improve. We're a strong family so we can ride through this.

Diane

Diane, I have worried about you and your family because it seems like you have been hit with so many problems in the last few years. I have admired your spirit and determination. Steve is a real talent and any employer would be lucky to have him as an employee. He will be in my prayers as this interview approaches.

We have other families on the Forum that have endured some real hardships through this economic downturn, and my heart just goes out to all of you. I think many of us are thinking, 'but for the grace of God, there go I', because it is a hard time for so many right now. All of us who have a steady income and reasonably good health should count our blessings. Hang in there!

Diane,

I have been truly amazed by the strength and fortitude you and Steve have shown throughout this whole unemployment ordeal, and then of course, his terrible Splat-man adventures. You both inspire me so much. I think of y'all and say a prayer for you every day, asking the Lord to give you strength and to send some 'good luck' your way. Were it not for your already-frugal nature and ability to make lemonade when life hands you lemons, I don't know how you would have gotten through 2009 and 2010. I also pray for all the others here affected by the horrible economic conditions. I know we Okies are tough, but the last couple of years have been really rough ones for so many people.

I'll be hoping and praying Steve gets the job in Illinois. I know it will be hard to have him there and the rest of y'all here, but what a blessing a good job will be! Keep us posted on the job interview!

Carol, I reread two books every summer to remind me how 'easy' we have it nowadays compared to some previous times in our history. One of them is "The Worst Hard Times" about the Dust Bowl days. It amazes me that people survived for YEARS with very little in the way of crops and almost no actual income. The hardships were tremendous. Can you imagine canning and eating Russian thistles in order to survive? Can you imagine seven years with almost no rainfall at all and with huge dust clouds infiltrating your home? It breaks my heart to think of all the folks who died of dust pneaumonia, and all the farm animals who starved or who died when dust filled up their bodies. My dad's family was greatly affected by the Dust Bowl in northwest Texas back in those days, but not as severely affected as folks further north/west in Colorado, Jay's part of Kansas, Nebraska, and the OK/TX panhandles. (Jay, if you see this, your town is mentioned pretty often in the book!) The other one is a novel by Elmer Kelton called "The Time It Never Rained" and it is set during the 7-year-long drought in Texas in the 1950s. After reading those two books, I am reminded that hard times never last but tough people do.

When I'm feeling whiney about the heat or lack of rain or grasshopper invasion, I think about parts of those books to help me put it all in perspective.

Dawn

Prayers heading out for Diane and Steve's job prospect. "The Time It Never Rained" is on the book list.

And Dawn, having gardened in the Texas Panhandle and Northeast Oklahoma, I would have to opine that grasshoppers and JBs are a toss-up. Just have to thank God we don't have both at the same time. If we ever do, I'll take it as a sign we're indeed in for a hard time.

Marcy

Oops, I have been sporadic on the forum. But yes, I got home the same day as my procedure and face weeks of restrictions on my activities.

We do hope to sell honey. It will be organic and raw, and Tulsa health food stores offer a lot for it. Our son, who is in veterinary college, suggested that we offer it at $16 per lb to hospitals, for special wound dressing material. Turns out that unpasteurized honey makes a fantastic wound dressing.

George

George,
Your Tennessee cutshort produced better for me last year than Kentucky Wonder has in the past. KW does produce here but mainly in Sept and October till we have a freeze. Like you said it can be mediocre and is here most years unless we have an unusually cool summer. I'm growing some pole beans from Native seeds this summer. And so far think they adapt to heat better than some of the other varieties I've grown. Too early to make a fair judgment though. Again it is a matter of finding what will produce in your garden. Very few if any varieties of garden veggies will perform great in the wide range of climates in the USA. Jay

George, I have read that bacteria can not live in honey, so maybe that was correct.

I am planting one of your beans this year as well, but they have only been in the ground a couple of weeks. I think it is the same one I had last year that I loved. We had a lot of them to eat, but I didn't get to save any to dry on the vine. I planted them in August last year. I only had 20 beans this year and I planted them all. I noticed that something has nibbled on a couple of them so it is probably the Japanese Beetles, but I didn't see them. They don't seem to be as bad now, so maybe they have moved on. My object this year is to grow seed from these, so I hope it works. It is sure hard to leave beans on the vine for seed when you know how good they would taste. Guess it's that instant gratification thing again. LOL

George and Carol, I know that for thousands of years, people in many cultures have used honey as wound dressings.

Marcy, The first time I read "The Time It Never Rained" it just scared me to death to think such a long drought were possible. (I was born in 1959 so just missed the big Texas drought of the 1950s). Then I read "The Worst Hard Times" quite a few years later and realized what hard times really were. My dad was born in 1919 and lived through the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression on a west Texas farm and he and his 8 surviving siblings told us stories about how hard their lives were, but it wasn't until I read "The Worst Hard Times" and "The Time It Never Rained" that I really and truly understood what kinds of things they went through.

I think grasshoppers are bad enough on their own and cannot imagine them and JBs together!

Finally, Some of you who are seeing bean issues should be on the lookout for Mexican Bean Beetles. I have a small problem with them about every year, but not a major one.

Dawn

Thanks for the prayers! The interview is tomorrow -- I'll let you all know what happens. He just left for IL a bit ago so I think I'll spend the rest of the day sulking and being generally unproductive. LOL

George, raw honey is wonderful stuff!! I did a stupid human trick when I was pregnant with Nellie and worked for hours in wet cement with no boots. Got myself a hefty chemical burn and lost a good area of skin on my ankles. Long story short, I ended up using raw honey and it worked better than the other stuff I went through trying to get it healed. (Gardening on crutches is not fun, by the way.)

Diane

Dawn, thanks for the new book suggestion! I've added it to my wishlist for when the dough starts rolling in again. I love, love, love reading history! Oh, wait. It's fiction? Do I have the right book? I'll link the one I found below.

"The Worst Hard Time" is already on my list. I'd go borrow it from the library but they actually expect you to give the books back! Of all the crazy ideas....

Diane

Here is a link that might be useful: The Time It Never Rained

Carol, you must be referring to Long Cut Old Timey Greasy Beans which I sent you. Yes, they are good! I have them growing together with Black Greasy, in hopes of a productive cross between the two. I usually designate for seed, before there are flowers. Most years I designate tripods for seed production. One tripod will usually produce a quart of seed. A single pole will do a little less than a pint. In the future, plant you seed and designate what will be for seed. Then you can eat without feeling guilty.

Diane, we will be praying for you guys, that you find work. I lost my job last November, and a few (very few) have voiced concerns that I am too easily satisfied, being a janitor for Northeastern State University. True, the pay is low, but that is a fine job, an it's steady. I love my co-workers too. During these times one needs to be grateful to have any honorable work. If you have room, would you let me send you some bean seed? "A hill of beans" makes a big difference. These old time varieties are usually good, also, for dry beans. So one can't plant too many.

George (who is starting to feel human again)

George... OH! OH! OH! pick me pick me PICK ME!!!! (raising up out of my chair putting my hand so high up the air i am almost falling out of my seat) Sorry.... but I am new to gardening, but not new to natural and alternative medicines, so when i see a topic i DO actually know something about i get alittle excited hehehe. (And BTW my KW have two tiny beans on them right now but last year they didnt start producing until around August. I am supplementing for now with my yard long beans that I LOVE.) I had to type that so i wasnt COMPLETELY off subject. Ok so honey..... hehehe is my all time fav natural cure for just about everything. The reason why honey is such a great dressing is because once the honey is diluted say by an open would or ingesting it orally, it naturally produces hydrogen peroxide. Nature is so amazing isnt it?!?!?! This is why it has been used on dressings for centuries and over all health cures. I give it to my family during cold season and as a reliever of allergies in the summer. It soothes a sore throat and acts like an anti inflammatory for allergies. It works so much better on a persistent cough than any expensive over the counter meds or prescriptions. It is also thought that when you ingest local to YOUR area honey, you put pollen into your body lessening the effects of your body over reacting to the foreign objects in the air (pollen). I keep a huge bottle in the medicine cabinet and one in the pantry. It is not effected by different strains of bacteria like antibiotics can be, so it works on ALL bacteria. I am wild about honey so i better stop now before i just start looking plain weird. But here is a link to some good info on it. Or just google it sometime... such amazing stuff.

~Danni Girl

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/1999-02-01/Honey-Benefits.aspx

Here is a link that might be useful: honey

Diane,

You're welcome. Yes it is fiction but it is based on the drought that hit the Great Plains from approx. 1949 through 1957. During that period of time, rainfall averaged less than 40% of usual and many cattle ranchers were driven out of business. In one year in the 1950s, Lubbock, Texas, recorded no rainfall. So, the conditions were not unlike the Dust Bowl days although by the late 1940s the Soil Conservation Service had put many programs into place that prevented, largely, a repeat of the dust storms of the Dust Bowl years. I believe Mr. Kelton wrote this incredible book to put a human face on the suffering of the Texas ranchers during that time, when many of them were driven out of the cattle business. It was because of the 1950s drought that Texas embarked upon an ambitious program to build reservoirs so they could stockpile water to avoid a recurrence of the Dust Bowl Years and the 1950 Drought years.

When you read "The Time It Never Rained", you can just put yourself in Charlie Flagg's shoes and imagine how horrible it was to not even be able to feed your cattle or sheep and, eventually, yourself and your family. For Charlie, there were some things more important than 'saving the ranch at any cost'. He wanted to do things his way and maintain his independence. He didn't want to take a 'handout' from the government and he didn't want the government telling him what to do or how to do it. He just flat didn't want to compromise his own principles. That's part of what makes the book so fascinating---it wasn't just a struggle with nature, but an internal struggle to stay true to what he believed in. I had relatives who farmed and ranched in Texas in the 1950s and 1960s and they thought Elmer Kelton captured the reality on paper so well.

"The Time It Never Rained" is a great classic western tale and it is one of the reasons the Western Writers of America named Elmer Kelton the greatest western writer of all time.

For as hard as times are now, this novel is just such a chilling representation of one fictional man's life during some incredibly hard times, and that's why I like it. It reminds me how easy we have it much of the time, and it reminds me that when you make your living from the land, it can be a hard life with, perhaps, more downs than ups.

Can you tell I love this book?

Dawn

Dawn, thanks. It's staying on my wishlist then. It sounds right up my alley! And, yes, comparing our lives with those that lived through the Depression & Dust Bowl, wow. As hard as things seem right now, I know they pale in comparison to something like that!

George, I appreciate the prayers and the bean offer! I still have some KW seeds left since I caught them on clearance early this summer (yay!) so I figured I'd give those a try in a couple of weeks, unless you think something else might work better?

Just to update you all: Hubby's interview today went well. They're calling his references and he should hear something tomorrow -- looks VERY promising! He'll still have to pass a physical so there's a little worry there with his arm still broken but he's pretty sure he can get through it. It's not like they're going to x-ray his arm at an employment physical, right? As long as he keeps his mouth shut... LOL

Right before hubby left this weekend, I pounded a bunch of t-posts and hubby and the kids strung new fence so the goats and chickens now have a new, HUGE area to browse and, hopefully, won't work so hard to eat my garden for the rest of this year.

Now if I could just find a fix for the stupid squash bugs....

Diane

Danni Girl,

my son, who is a natural born skeptic, and in his last year of veterinary med school, has actually come to me to tell me much the same about honey. It's amusing to hear him warm up to honey, when he is generally so skeptical of so many natural remedies, etc.

Diane, if you'll send me an e-mail with your mailing address, I'll send you a couple of seed samples. At the very least you would get a jump start on trialing another bean. I can think of two routes to try, 1) one of the Appalachian tender podded, all purpose, WONDERFUL beans like Tennessee Cutshort, Cherokee Striped Cornhill, Ruth Bible, Long Cut Old Timey Greasy Bean etc. Or 2) I have seed to Cooper's Running Snap, which seems to be related to Rattlesnake. It makes pods which, in my opinion are on par with KW, but it is HEAT RESISTANT, setting pods through the worst heat. It is also a prolific producer of pinto type dry beans, which are exceedingly easy to thresh.

Another thought, this year I planted most of our squash on rotted piles of manure out in the pasture (not fenced). So far they seem to be faring well, in spite of the pasture being inhabited by a good number of goats, cattle and horses. Squash bugs have been minimal too, and I'm suspecting that the chickens are eating them. So, when we clean our barn, we're going to make piles where we'd like to grow squash next year. Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin has been the star, again, this year. I like this, since it doesn't take up valuable space in my garden.

George

Thanks, George, I'll email you.

Very interesting about the squash in the pasture. When our chickens and goats got into the garden, the squash were untouched by them. Hmm, I guess I'll be growing squash in the pens from now on! I got some Old TImey Cornfield pumpkin from the swap and planted it around your Mesquakie corn in the large, lower garden but it all died. :-( I'm pretty sure it was bugs again.

George
Yes, Long Cut Old Timey Greasy is what I planted. I think something took a few while they were young but I did manage to get a dozen or so plants growing. They are just about tall enough to start climbing now.

They were, by far, our best tasting beans last year and they were also faster to start producing than the Blue Lake I was growing. They were not consistent in length so maybe not a good candidate for dilly beans or something you wanted to be uniform, but wonderful taste and production. Thanks for giving them to me.

Armadillo Chili.......now really!

To Diane and Steve,

Prayers and hugs!!! ((()))

J0

PS Diane what kinds of things does your husband do? Just curious as we need a ton of things done here (not sure if it is too far to travel for whatever he does).

Jo

Thanks, Jo. Hubby's a welder but he's up in Illinois right now trying for a factory job.

They didn't call today so guess it'll be tomorrow. They need people to start Monday and they need to do physicals first (shhh, no one mention the still-broken arm!) so I don't imagine they'd not let folks know any later than tomorrow. They'll call either way, though, so not hearing isn't a bad sign. They're just up to their eyeballs in applicants.

Diane

Don't give up hope! When we moved to WV, Dave (my husband) interviewed with Amazon.com and waited for weeks, Finally we decided they hired someone else. Then they called, after like FIVE WEEKS of waiting, and hired him to start the next day (as a systems administrator/computers).

You'd think a welder would be in high demand wouldn't you?

He could make awesome garden art, gates, and trellises!

Jo

I was wondering the same thing about my romano pole beans they are not doing to much at all.

George, We use Medihoney all the time on our patients. The wound care clinic here and the one in Claremore are really praising its healing powers. I take a tsp a day of local honey to help with my allergies and it has really helped.

Here is a link that might be useful: Medihoney