Yes!! My beans are up, ditto onions, chard, strawberries, squash, corn, and tomato starts, oh, and eggplant. I usually do the Japanese eggplant, but I added a white eggplant this year and am anxious to see how it tastes. I have a small garden this year as well. The tiller wouldn't start in the big garden, so I hoed out 3 short rows for corn and tomatoes. (need to get out and get the rest of the weeds and feed them to the chickens) I was gone most of the spring so I didn't get starts ready, had to buy most of my stuff. I have a 5' high fence panel set between 2 posts in the small garden, and I get a 16' row of pole beans. Lovelovelove beans! However in our windy summer afternoons, it tends to act like a sail! I had to stake it down in the middle to keep it on the posts. Hope your seeds get to you soon. Ours were late coming up last year and the cool spring/early summer kept them from growing. When they did get going, it was all I could do to keep them picked and processed on a day to day basis. I think pole beans are better producers than bush beans by far.

I am enjoying the snow peas I planted and think I will plant more. We have a long growing season.
My big surprises are the red potato leafed brandwine (?) tomatoes I bought on sale....they looked so bad when I got them but they are thriving. I have never grown anything but hybrids.
The lettuce is doing very well and so are the red onions,
The pepper plants look terrible but are blooming and producing so maybe they just need a little food.
I got my garden in late this year.....the very end of May so I am happy with how well things are doing.
I am just sad I didn't plant pole beans ....maybe tomorrow. LOL
I want to see pictures of the pole beans growing up the ham radio tower!

I love growing beans and we love eating them. Fortex is so worth growing and the others too. I have lots of them in the freezer already and still some growing.

Your gardens sound great!! Ruthie, I'm glad to see your vote for Fortex.

I want to see pictures of the pole beans growing up the ham radio tower!

Me, too, Carol! I'll be sure to post pictures (she says confidently).

I have a small garden here in the Sonoran Desert but the cost of water is insane!! However, I keep doing it year after year because we love those fresh veggies. Right now, we are enjoying tomatoes, yellow squash, okra, onions, chard, peppers, and eggplant. I planted bush beans for the first time this year and they're loaded with blooms. It's so hot that I am not sure if they'll ever produce or just cook on the vine. We are also enjoying apricots now, with plums, peaches and apples beginning to ripen. Good luck with your beans! Bettye/AZ

I'd like to see her picking the beans from the ham radio tower :) I didn't put out a garden this year. However Amber has planted some things for me in her garden. She doesn't like green beans, she must be from another planet, but she planted several rows of them at different times for me. Blue lake. She also planted a lot of sweet potatoes for us as well as all kinds of peppers, zucchini, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and pumpkins. I have probably forgotten some things too. The good thing is I don't have to tend it! I will help can or freeze whatever we have.

Sue

When you mentioned the tower,and the beans, I thought of Jack and the Beanstalk!

We just ate a bunch of sugar snap peas. YUMMY!
BUT, next time, even though the seed packet says
they are bush... I will put something more up for
climbing! yummy! Our tomatoes are doing nothing.
Just too cool, I guess, plus I planted them too early
and it stunted their growth.

We are going to have a few raspberries! our friends gave
us a bunch of plants this spring. Our blueberries are
LOADED! just wonder if it will ever get warm enough for
them and our apples and pears to ripen! lol
Italian plum trees look truly awful.

My beans didn't germinate, and neither did my beets. But my tomatoes and peppers are doing great, as are my carrots, onions, broccoli and cauliflower. I wish I had a lot more room. I would plant a lot more stuff.

Yes, I am excited about what I'm growing too. We have a very short growing season here in Colorado and I did have a rough start because I planted some of my seedlings outside on a hot and windy day. But I have tomatoes with babies on them already, blooming zucchini and pumpkin plants, green beans, snap peas, cucumbers....I hope to get at least one pumpkin out of the plant (it's pumpkin for cooking, not jack o lantern) I had 5 beautiful pumpkin plants, 2 died for no apparent reason, one looks like a small animal tried to drag it away and the 4th died in a hail storm. So I'm counting on that one plant to do something (can it germinate itself??)!

I get so excited every spring. I love planting my vegetable garden. I buy very few plants, start most everything from seed. My peas are about done (too much heat). I've been picking beans, lettuce, bunching onions, and even a few tomatoes. I see teensy squash, cucumbers and bell peppers on the plants. The cantaloupe are blooming, the cippolini and shallots are doing well, too.

Bigack, I thought of Jack and Beanstalk, too! I guess when (if) the beans reach 6 feet or so I'll encourage them to grow downward.

Glad to hear about so many great vegetable gardens!

They actually will just fall over on the plant itself and you can sort of train it to go to a vacant or less full spot. I have found that here in this area, I can have a great fall and winter garden. Our worst winter comes in late Jan and Feb so there is lots of growing time where just a little protection (or even none at all) is enough to keep the garden going.

this year I'm growing only three things: Tomatoes (eight heirloom varieties), Purple Majesty Potatoes (yes, the flesh is purple, mashed potatoes come out blue), and finally a small section of Mesclun Mix. Also a few herbs in pots. I love beig able to pick fresh lettuce for a salad and fresh basil to throw in spaghetti sauce! DH is attempting to grow hot peppers. His first crop of seedlings died in the cold, he recently started more seeds. Hope the season lasts long enough to get some fruit!

I've managed to scrape up a little bit of ground this year on the new lot to grow a few things..so far,the corn,beans cucumbers pumpkins are all doing well

in pots I have tomatoes of various sizes and peppers...

It's the middle of July. How's everybody doing? I have about 35 tomatoes on the vine, all heirlooms, all sizes. They're still green. I love when they turn pink, then red and I can pick a warm tomato from my garden for my salad at dinner.

Best garden I've had in years. Planted early and the weather since has been mostly hot. Already had squash, Swiss chard, broccoli, little beets w/greens, cherry tomatoes and onions. Only one heirloom tomato plant this year (Brandywine). I've grown many varieties in the past which I started from seed - love heirlooms!

Jannie, I have to say tomato excitement surpasses even bean excitement! I stopped growing them because I really shouldn't eat them, but I miss the whole beautiful process. Heirlooms are the best! I also used to watch the Tomato Gardening Forum for ideas on varieties to try.

My terrace is looking interesting these days. I have the Kentucky Wonder and Fortex beans planted at the base of the arch. The Fortex are taller. They look less sturdy than the KW plants, but I think they're going to make it up the arch faster.

Also beginning to grow up the arch are cucumbers planted in a 5-gal. container. I have some bush cukes growing in another container. The container-sown Kentucky Wonders are doing pretty well, plus when I thinned the beans at the arch I planted some of the thinnings (I'm such a softy) in another container by the radio tower. And I have a big (20-gal.) container of beets growing, too.

Just for fun, I planted the outside edge of the terrace with zinnias, gloriosa daisies, and a couple of leftover sunflower plants.

Here's a picture of my bush beans in pots in the front yard, taken last week. They're a little bigger now, covered with flowers and even the beginnings of a few beans. I posted a picture of purple bean flowers in today's "I'll Show You Mine....." thread.

{{gwi:42071}}

Anyone else?

Hi Mamatoad,

A bit late for this year, I figger ...

... but do you insert a small container, e.g. soup can, yogurt cup, open at both ends, into the ground near the plant?

You can fill that and the water will pretty well all go into the ground, and not at the surface, so that you'll suffer little evaporation and almost all of the water will be accessible to the roots ... and, even better, not near the surface, for you want the plant to put out deep roots, especially if you seldom get rain.

ole joyful