Asparagus beans/Yard long beans

We decided to try some asparagus beans ( also called yard long beans or chinese noodle beans) this year. They are drought tolerant, and they even tolerate our Texas heat. While our bush and pole beans seem to be wilting in our 95 degree days (it's been soooo hot lately - we hit 100+ degrees last week a couple times), the long beans seem to be doing just fine.

They make this pretty little flower, and when the flower falls off, there is a teeny tiny little green bean.

It's amazing that they start out this small and (overnight it seems!) they grow into inch long beans....


... and progress to semi-long beans....

... and finish as really long beans. I need to time them, but I'm pretty sure it took less than a week from the time the flower fell off until harvest.

Squash vine borer info

I had a comment from Dawn, an avid follower of mine ;-):

"I've always wondered how do those kinds of bugs find the plants that they love the most? Are they native to your yard? B/c then wouldn't you have every kind of bug there just waiting for you to plant their plant specialty? I mean, where do they come from??"

Isn't it crazy that out of all those plants in my garden, they are able to hone in on just the one they need? Your comment cracked me up, because I can just imagine a line of bugs in my backyard, twiddling their thumbs, waiting for me to bring out their favorite meal.

Here's a link for some more info on the squash vine borer. It wouldn't let me paste a URL in the comment box for some reason.

Squash vine borer

This is talking about Kentucky, but it's pretty much the same for Texas.

I also read in the Texas Organic Vegetable Gardening book that this is mostly a problem for home gardeners - not so much for big squash farmers. Maybe the use of pesticides?

This might be a better answer to your question:

How do insects find the right plant?

I learned something new today.

Oh, and for some reason, I just can't have a regular post without a picture in it. It doesn't feel right. So here is M, checking out the small pumpkins that are starting to develop on his pumpkin vine (which is free from vine borers!)

No easy death for squash vine borers

This is a squash vine borer. It is about an inch and half long, and about the thickness of a pencil. It starts out as a teeny tiny egg - like the tip of a ballpoint pen. After it hatches, it burrows its way into the stem of a squash plant.


Look what it did to my lovely white pumpkin plant. I had to slit the vine to get it out. I covered it up with dirt, since other bugs like to take up residence in there if it's left exposed.
I've lost too many squash and pumpkin plants to these dang bugs. Although disposing of them has become a little more entertaining. These guys used to get an easy quick death by squashing (ha! pun intended). But now, they become chicken food. These guys are to chickens what dark chocolate truffles are to me - gourmet food. They will actually chase each other around, grabbing at whoever got the bug first, trying to snatch it out of their beak. It's a lot of fun to watch. Probably not so much for the next squash bug waiting in line...


To get that ugly squash vine borer pic out of your head, I'll leave you with E - enjoying her outside time while eating dirt:
See that white thing behind her arm? That's the actual spoon she was using to eat the dirt. She's so civilized.

Behind the scenes workers

If you've been to my house, then you've probably seen these, but I haven't shared some of the backyard helpers on my blog yet.

The first 2500 workers (approximately) have been with us for about 3 years. They joined us, not knowing that I had accidentally killed 1000 of their relatives. Well, not me directly. Our lovely Texas heat did. I had placed their home outside (in direct sun - what was I thinking?) and it just got too hot for them. I would like to think that most of the worms escaped somehow and wriggled away to a better life.

I still have the current bin outside, but the heat problem has been remedied by burying it halfway underground. Here is an inside view of our worm bin:

It's almost harvesting time. I use the castings for fertilizer - usually as worm tea. We have 2 bins - the second smaller one is used to hold extra worms, which I allow to multiply then pass on to friends so they can start their own bin.
And sometimes, these guys get used as treats for our next 3 workers:
Our 3 chickens. They are going on their 3rd year with us. We started with five. One died after one year with us (no idea why), and the 2nd one was unfortunately attacked by our dog. These girls reward us with not only eggs, but also with manure, which really adds good, organic stuff to our garden beds.And I'll leave you with a wonderful picture. Thank goodness, no more of our sunflowers have been beheaded. Here's one of our new giant sunflowers blooming:

The perils of a front yard garden

I have been doing more gardening in my front yard over the past few years. A first it was just flowers, but I have been adding vegetables slowly, adding some raised beds, and covering up the grass with more useful plants. We have our beans growing in the front, as well as pumpkins and other assorted herbs. There is always some danger to these plants, as the front yard is where my kids play with the neighbor kids. The neighbor kids don't have quite the same love of plants as I do as I have seen them running over my plants, as well as attempting to pull things off. My oldest usually sets them straight, and we have had fewer and fewer incidents.

I planted several sunflowers in a tiny bed near my mail box. A couple of them were the giant types. Well, we had our first one open up a couple days ago, and I was so excited! It was over 6 feet tall, and it was gorgeous.

But then tragedy. We came out this morning and found this:
Someone had ripped it off its stem, pulled out several petals, then dropped it to the ground. I was really upset.

Here is where it would have been. Right in the middle of these unopened flowers. They even bent some of those stems.

I wish more people would instill a sense of responsibility in their children. Don't destroy things that don't belong to you. At the very least, if you have a need to rip defenseless sunflower heads off of their plants, please grow your own and then do whatever you want with them.

I'm glad they left this one alone. It's not as big as the first one, but it's still beautiful.
I thought about putting a sign up, but that would probably invite more trouble. Most of these kids are just bored.

Other scenes from our front yard garden:

M planted a pumpkin seed in the front yard. It doesn't seem to care that the soil has not been amended or that it has been attacked by squash vine borers (twice I have saved it!). It seems to be thriving.


Our 2nd sowing of beans are coming up:


And finally - our figs are coming in - yea!