Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Late garden this year

Because of the rain, our garden is coming in later than I can ever remember, but we're finally getting some good out of it. Got plenty of tomatoes, squash, and okra. Zipper peas did good and the purple hull peas are finally coming on. Picked 2 1/2 bushels of PH's Tuesday and another 4 bushels today. Already put up all the snap beans we want and the dang butter beans are making like crazy. Pick a bushel of them last Tuesday and 1/2 bushel today (only picked 1/2 of them today). Called the neighbors and told them to come get what they wanted. We've put up about all we want.

Got a purple thumb?

Nope, we got a pea sheller!

Had the darndest thing happen to my green beans in the garden this year.....they were all vines, and extremely few beans. Otherwise, have a good garden.

Fortunately, we had a years worth of canned green beans, and I've planted some late ones.

Got home from Quemado just before dark Monday evening. Cut grass yesterday and was gonna bush hog. Hooked up the bush hog, drove out of the barn headed for the house and saw the right front wheel wobbling. Checked it and got bad bearings, at least I hope that's all. I dont figure the spindle is worn, but I didn't take the wheel off to see. Ordered bearings and seals for both front wheels.

Got up this morning and picked another 4 bushels of peas. I thought I was thru with peas a couple of weeks ago.... now I'm thru.

Are those the pink eyed purple hull peas my brother in South Carolina talks about? He seems to really like them.

We're getting green beans, cucumbers for pickles ( doing our second batch tonight), and yellow squash and zucchini.

Yep, pink eye purple hulls.

Local Mennonite seed store had sold out of purple hulls when I went to buy some, so rather than go somewhere else, I bought some peas that they told me were practically the same thing....................only they weren't. Three rows all the way across the garden, and all we've been able to pick so far has been a bushel and a half, and they last ones were so faulty that they almost weren't worth picking.


They look good in the garden, but are nowhere close to being as good as the original pinkeye purple hulls. By the way, this same store also sold me Blue Lake green beans that turned out to be another variety. Next year, I'm buying my seed somewhere else.

There must be more than one kind of pink eye purple hull peas. The ones we always planted turn really dark purple when they are ready to pick, but this year we had a different pea. It turned pink/purple looking, like it needed another 2-3 days to fully turn, but if you didn't pick it then, it was dry in another couple of days. Never did completely turn purple. We lost the first small picking, because we thought they needed another couple days to finish turning. The peas look the same and taste the same, but the hulls don't.

We usually plant Contender Snap beans, but when we cant get the seed, we plant the Blue Lake. Both are good.

I also need to add that I hate picking any kind of bush butter beans. It can come a heavy dew and the dang things will bloom again and again and again. Frost and a disc are the only way to get rid of them. But, they do taste good.

Randy, I grew some "top pick" purple hull peas a couple of years ago that were like that on the turning purple. I did not think it was as good a tasting pea as the old pink eye. miles

Miles, Dad bought the pea seed, so I don't know what kind of purple hull pea he bought. It might have been the only one they had, I don't know. We cooked up some fresh ones and they tasted good, we'll have to see about the frozen ones. Put up 31 bags this morning.

I bet a pot of those with some piping cornbread will taste pretty good in January!

That's how these are. The hulls didn't turn a deep color, and we waited the first time too long, and lost them. Taste was no different though.

Did your green beans ever bloom?

I've had the same trouble, plants look great but they refuse to flower

That sounds like hybrid plants.

Guy I know went down to the supermarket and bout a bunch of blackeyed peas and planted them.

They came up wonderfully, and would not produce anything. He called the county agent out, or at least offered him a beer to determine why.

Took about a minute. First thing the agent asked was where he bought the seed? Grocery store.. bag of dried black eyes....

Well, there ya go. They are hybrid.


Sounds similar to what you guys describe. Or bad seed.

Back when my Parents were still alive, I could not grow butterbeans (pole beans). Parents loved them, and Dad had a favorite variety, but they would put on pods, but fall off before they filled out with beans. Never figured out why, but quit trying them after a couple of years. miles

I have grown good pinto beans using grocery store beans. miles

I used to pride myself with being able to grow the best crop of green beans in the county. Only joking about that, but for years, I had bumper crops of green beans, and gave away bushels and bushels. I always grew White Half Runners, and stuck the beans, using a teepee of four 8 foot poles, usually sassafras. I either bought my seed from the local co-op, or from a farm store that sold seeds.

About 15 years ago, Mennonites began to move here in large numbers, and opened up several stores that sold seed, and I began to buy from them, as it was closer, and a better selection........and that's when my troubles began. I suspect that some of their seed is blended, that is old and new, sold as fresh seed. I've also seen a decrease in my yields on certain things, the beans being one of them. It might be just a coincidence, but I don't think so. I've also gone from raising bumper potato crops, to having failures, with little to no yield.

To answer one posters question, yes the beans bloomed, and bloomed a lot. Just no beans ever developed. I have wondered if I didn't over fertilize the garden, in the spots where the beans were grown, as I put some chicken manure on that area. Chicken chit is high in nitrogen, and beans don't need much of it. Otherwise, my corn and tomatoes were some of the best I've ever had, and the okra is too.

I also have a high tunnel, and grow early and late crops of green beans, mainly to sell some at the local produce market. This is the fourth growing year in there, and the salt buildup in the ground is staring to kill my yields on the beans, as it seems to affect them more than anything else. But, where the salt isn't bad, I'm getting some pretty good beans, so that leaves me scratching my head, as to why the beans grown inside will make beans, but the ones outside aren't. Of course, they are different varieties, so that may explain it.

As far as buying dried seed from the grocery store and planting it, that's all I ever used to do for blackeyed peas, and they always came up. Never tried anything else, but I do grow pinto beans and dry my own, so I suspect they'd be okay planting from what was bought at the grocery.