Beans, Beans, Beans, Beans, Beans
Jul 25th 2008andyself-sufficiency & food
We are awash with beans. Small bushes, big bushes, climbing beans, trail of tears, lazy housewife, metre long beans, yellow ones, purple ones, green ones, spotted ones. Almost every meal has a load of sliced green beans (or purple or yellow) in it, and quite a lot are going into the freezer for the winter.
Next month I will stop picking them, and let them grow to full size & dry out. Then we’ll store them for winter, and stop buying those jars of precooked beans (so convenient, and we get the jars for storing stuff). It will certainly be reassuring to have lots of dried beans stored away, which when mixed with some grain, rice or seeds makes a full protein source.
Heres a photo I took that conveys the ‘jungle’ that is my garden. I love it, and wouldn’t be as happy in a garden full of straight beds, orderly crops etc. Watering, weeding and harvesting involves clambering through the undergrowth, barefoot. The closest thing to a hunter gathering lifestyle?
Stumble it!
5 Comments »
Powered by FireStats
Paulo on 25 Jul 2008 at 7:17 pm #
Hello! Very beautiful photos you have!
This is our first comment we have posted here. Your blog is very inspiring and with very nice photos.
I assume it may be hard to grow in the extreme heat of summertime. Do you try heavy mulching and depressing the soil so it can soak up more water?
We expect to have also our own smallholding in a few years. Meanwhile we are living, still, in city but that does not mean we do not grow!
Check our blog in www.cantinhoverde.blogspot.com where we grow our plants in balcony (last year we were growing in Braga, Portugal now we are in Vienna, Austria, unfortunetly we still havent settled down) You may have a look at lots of links in our blog too.
Paulo on 26 Jul 2008 at 3:28 pm #
Dear Andy, thanks a lot for your reply in our blog.
We have sent you an email too, asking you about some advice on our path to go back to a rural and self-reliant lifestyle. We are still young, 26 and 21, and therefore we are actively researching as much as we can in the topic, practicing as we can (we have a love of all the craft lifestyle, plants and permaculture)
We do want to buy a smallholding in soon, if there was no peak oil, we would probably buy it some 5-6 years ahead of now, but the future seems to promise a great challenge and maybe we could do it earlier. But of course we still have some way while we gather sufficient financial resources and research in a possible place.
Its great to see our work, we have already some few quintas in Portugal and hope to visit yours when we return. Maybe you can also helps us a little bit through your pureportugal project. Greetings, we hope you hear from you in soon
steve mckay on 31 Jul 2008 at 5:00 pm #
hi guys ,
love the photos, you cert seem to be doing well, we will pop over once we have arrived , ferry is booked for the 17th sept, cant wait…..got a few questions for you guys re: types / strains of some plants.
i am bringing tons of seeds with us from the uk ,so if you want anything let us know.
take care,
steve & ness
Wiebe on 31 Jul 2008 at 5:54 pm #
I have to agree with Steve, the garden looks amazing! Are you using any fertilizers or feed - or is the soil there THAT good?
andy on 31 Jul 2008 at 8:55 pm #
paulo,
yes, peak oil does seem to be making quite a few people bring their plans forward. we didnt know anything about it, and landed here kind of accidentally! i am very glad we’ve had some years to get established - although we still haven’t renovated our ruin. hopefully work will start (turf roof, soalr panels and all) in the next few months.
steve,
thanks, we’ll think about your offer and get back to you with plenty of time. see you then!
wiebe
the soil is very high in minerals, but was depleted because the old owner used fertilizers. we have horses, and fill our raised beds with their manure, and also have huge compost heaps - everything goes on them, from cardboard boxes to kitchen waste and chicken shed straw. I am really looking forward to emptying our compost toilet onto the heap in a few months. that should get some great results in the garden. you can read the humanure handbook online (just do a search for humanure).
cheers
andy