Butternuts: Metro PMR productive and larger than usual, feeding schedule good; trimming/thinning of extra leaves helped with air flow and Serenade helped with mildew; new variety (Honeynut) was stunted (probably from bad real estate in 3 sisters bed), try on trellis next year; think about no squash in 3-sisters bed
Cucumbers: productive and healthy until premature die-off from wilt: look for wilt-resistant varieties, research bugs for potential traps
Delicata: more productive than usual; fewer vine borers (alternating planting with butternuts and sticky traps worked well); Serenade helped with mildew; feeding schedule good; long harvest season
Pumpkins: productive and larger than usual (one was enormous); less borer damage due to sticky traps; feeding schedule good
Summer Squash: not as productive as zukes; try fertilizing more; Serenade helped with mildew; vine borer damage not as bad due to sticky traps; look for new variety?
Zucchini: very good, do again; vine borer damage not as bad with sticky traps
Four Pole Bean Varieties
Four pole bean varieties 
Kentucky Wonder 
Trionfo Violetto 
Blue Lake 
Blauhilde
All four pole bean varieties were harvested this week (Sep 19).
Trionfo Violetto was the earliest to mature and is very prolific. The other three varieties took 2-3 weeks longer to mature, but were all harvestable around the same time. We noticed some thin rusty blemishes on some of the surface of the Blue Lake beans (seen in the close-up picture), but it’s not clear whether the blemishes are a concern.
Lima Beans
One of our experimental crops this summer was Henderson’s Bush Lima Beans from Rohrer. They are described as a prolific heirloom variety with smaller 3-4″ pod.
By early August, the plants were loaded with flowers and beans and they can continue to produce for months until the first frost. Since they have a long growing season and pods can be at different stages of maturity, we weren’t sure how to decide on whether a pod was ready to pick or not.
The pods grow to about 3-inches long and seem to go through 3 stages once they reach that size:
1) relatively immature where the pod is full length, but it is still flat-ish and the beans inside are very small and difficult to shell
2) mature where the pod looks about the same size, but the girth fills out as the beans expand inside
3) dried.
The pods dry out on the plant surprisingly quickly, so the transition from mature to dried might happen in week or so. Some of the earliest dried pods we found had very small beans inside. It was discouraging at first because it seemed to suggest that the limas would be small, no matter how long we waited to harvest them. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case though. After a couple weeks of harvesting, the mature limas beans that we picked were larger.
With the first big lima harvest of the season, I decided to try sorting the beans as I shelled them to try to figure out what signs we could look for when deciding which beans are ready to pick. The biggest limas had a pod that felt full to the touch and I think the shell starts to turn a little paler green in color like the unshelled pods in the second column of this photo:
On the left are the dried beans. Those are easy to tell apart. In the middle are the mature beans. Most of the mature pods were plump to the touch. On the right are the less mature beans which were a deeper green on the outside. These took a lot more effort to get out of the shell and the beans inside were smaller and still a little green instead of the bright white color of the mature limas. It was tricky to tell some of these immature pods apart from the mature ones because the immature ones had also filled out, and were plump to the touch. I found the slightly yellow/pale color on the plump pods to be the best clues that the pod was mature and would shell easily.
Both the green and white limas tasted good. The main difference was the size of the bean and the effort to shell them.
Take way: Harvest pods when they are plump to the touch and the color is just starting to pale (lighter green).
In the end, I had a nice pile of shelled limas, some were big, others small; some had turned white, others were different shades of green:
I just boiled the limas and served them with salt and pepper. They all tasted pretty good, even the little green ones!
As for the dried beans, they were extremely easy to shell but there are only a few of them, so not sure how the dried ones taste yet. Interestingly enough, the dried beans seem to be a little smaller than the mature limas. Perhaps they shrink a little as they dry out?
Fence update
Mike, Michael and David planted all five of the new fence posts on the far side of the garden in one day! (Well almost – one still needs some digging). I (Alan) finished the rails on the Eastern Ave side. If the weather is good Tuesday evening, I’ll oil the rails, and should be ready to hang the fence fabric next Saturday. I have no doubt now we can finish this season.
The general fence-building process is:
- Measure and plant the metal post bases, in a reasonably straight line, evenly spaced, right height, and plumb. Every so often we get lucky and just pound one straight down without any digging. Most of the time we need to dig a hole, get the post base in the right position, and pack the hole with rocks and dirt to hold it firm.
- Cut a notch in each 4×4 posts for the irrigation lines and paint them with raw linseed oil.
- Cut and fasten the 1×4 rails, making everything nice and square, and paint them with raw linseed oil.
- Screw and staple the 1×1 hardware cloth to the posts and rails and trim up the edges.
- And when the new fence is finished, we need to disassemble and dispose of the old one.
A couple of challenges left – we’re recycling about five post bases that are currently holding up the old posts, so we need to at least partially disassemble the old fence to finish the new one; what do we do with the Philosopher’s Stone?
Mid-season – a time of transition
Mid-summer is a time of transition in the garden. Today we pulled the spring peas and replanted the area with pole beans. (We use the same tall trellis for both.)
The garlic was also harvested today and replanted with turnip seed. Last week, we harvested the first spring broccoli and cabbage, and the last of the fava beans, which were replanted with fall peas.
Harvesting of our heat-loving nightshades (eggplant, peppers and tomatoes), okra and squashes (cucumbers, crooknecks and zucchini) has begun and the first of our bush beans were ready today.
Our everbearing greens (collards, kale, perpetual spinach and Swiss chard) are in full production and the sequentially-planted greens (arugula, mustard and lettuce) have been providing continuous harvests.
Next week, the first of the potatoes should be ready for harvest. That will herald replanting with fall brassica seedlings (broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower) seeded last month in our nursery bed.
The last of our spring salad turnips and the first of our onions were also harvested today. There is much to look forward to, and it’s feeling like the garden is in full swing!
Welcome
Robbins Farm Garden is a cooperative community garden project at Robbins Farm Park in Arlington, MA. Since 2010, we’ve grown vegetables organically as a group, created an educational resource in the community and continued the agricultural tradition of the farm at the park. We garden Saturday mornings April – November and Tuesday or Wednesday evenings June – September. The project is run through Arlington’s Recreation Department.
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