Pole beans!

All of our limas, black eye peas, and soy beans have gone down the drain, but our pole beans are still holding out. We're seeing a few mature beans on the vines, and plenty of flowers and baby beans too.

These are a climbing variety, and I think next season we'll try a burgundy bush.

Beans

After our beans died as a result of our soapy aphid treatment, we quickly went and picked all of the ripe pods. We only wound up with a small handful of beans in the end, but had the plants not died, we could still have harvested more over time.

When we pulled up the bean plants, we did see plenty of little nodules on the roots, which means that the nitrogen-fixing bacteria were in fact doing their job. Some improved soil and a handful of beans is better than nothing.

An epic aphid attack

The other day we went out into our garden to find that our black eyed peas were completely caked with teeny grey aphids. They seemed to be taking the worst hit, but there were also some on the Henderson limas. We decided to try using some soap suds to shoo them away, with plenty of help from Seleighna, the little neighbor girl.

Unfortunately, I think we may have used a little bit too much soap. The aphids were done for, but I think our beans may have been too.



They're kind of yellowing, and have dropped some of their leaves. We're going to pick what's left of the beans soon, and hope that the plants recover a bit.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

.... er.... smell like Christmas.

This morning I walked out into our garden, and noticed something awful.

Do you see what I see? Check out all of those gray spots all over the bean leaves.



I picked out for analysis, and searched the Google machine to see if I could figure out what was wrong. I came to the conclusion that it was some sort of fungus, and it was quickly spreading. It definitely wasn't there (or at least not nearly this noticeable) yesterday, because I was looking for flowers on the beans.



After a few moments of panic, I decided on a plan of action. I had heard from a couple of places that cinnamon is a very effective fungicide, and a completely organic alternative to chemicals. I grabbed a bottle, and dashed to the garden.



I sprinkled all of the infected beans, and to be safe, doused all the other beans in a generous shaking as well. It smells like gingerbread out there.



Hopefully this takes care of the problem, but I'm still a bit nervous.