Pinto Beans

 It was time to harvest the rest of the pintos on Saturday.

While the guys were out back putting down a new concrete

pad under the cow scales, I picked all the beans, pulled the

dead plants and did a good weeding.

Left the okra.

Before...

Now.

And then it took me ALL DAY to shell them.

I put on some YouTube and sat in my chair and

shelled beans.

Now I get it why pioneer ladies used to get together

and sit on the porch and chat while they shelled peas/beans.

It's BORING!

(And your thumb nail hurts when you are done... lol)

We learned that companion planting okra with the

pinto beans isn't a great idea.

We aren't getting a terrific harvest from the okra.

They are quite short.

They should be about 3 or 4 feet tall and they are

maybe 18 inches... not much room for lots of okra pods.

But its ok, summer is just starting and we are going

to plant LOTS more...

But we also got about half the production of pinto beans.

This was our harvest from the bed that was only beans.

And this was the harvest from one bed (all beds in the garden

are 4' x 8' except the ones along the fence...)

Each bed only produced about 50% of what we got in the big bed.

(I got two bowls about the same size.)

Not stellar.

But a good experiment and now we know.

Meanwhile I also picked myself a pretty little bouquet.

The zinnias are just about done.

We'll give 'em a couple more days and then pull them out,

and then replant that bed in more zinnias.

They seed themselves, but we want to clean it out

and start over.