Garden time --Again-- :)

Here we are looking at the end of February.  Today is gray and cold.  The weather forecaster is calling for SNOW.  Supposed to be lots of snow, but they sometimes often miss their mark.  This means we could have a deluge of snow, or we could have just a light dusting.

So, as we contemplate the weather, just when should we start thinking of gardens?  Most gardeners don't really ever stop thinking of gardens.  We are constantly analyzing what we have, what we WILL have, or what we should have...

I keep a journal, and although it is never quite a complete as I would like to have kept it, it is very helpful in my next year's garden.  As I stated earlier in my garden posts, I have a list of the type of vegetables, herbs, and even a few fruits that I like to grow.  When purusing a garden catalog, remember, they are supposed to look perfect in the pictures!  Most garden catalogs begin at the beginning of the alphabet in their listings.  It has nothing to do with anything, except alphabet...smile.

"Asparagus" for example is the one of the first in the listings.  Asparagus is a perennial, and you plant roots.  I say that, but yes, you can grow them from seeds, it just takes much, much longer.  However, if you are not in a hurry either way works.  Eventually the plants end up in 'beds', hopefully with a walkway in between rows.  The male plants make large uniform spears. Note--I have covered asparagus somewhat in another post...

Beans are listed next, and there are many varieties of beans.  There are green beans and dried beans, yellow wax beans, bush beans, and pole beans.  The green beans are used fresh, or canned in jars for winter consumption.  Dried beans are soup beans.  Yellow wax beans are similar to green beans, and the term 'bush', or 'pole' is just the growing habit of the plant.  A bush bean plant will only grow to about 36" tall, whereas a pole bean needs a fence or a support to grow up.  Some pole bean plants grow close to ten foot high.  You should make a trellis for them.  

Our favorite bush bean is 'Provider' it really is a good decent bean.  We will usually get two good pickings from my double row.  A 100 foot row usually gave us enough green beans for some fresh eating, and approximately 50 quarts of canned beans.  Also note, I figured I wanted at least 50 quarts.  There are 52 weeks in a year and that gave us enough for approximately two quarts a week winter use.  We had a large family and/or enough guests that it often took two quarts per meal.

Note here: when I plant beans I use a 'marker'.  --I believe in one of the other posts (I will check it out later.) I may have had a picture of my 'marker'.--  It is two electric fence posts with a length of --in our case--baler twine so many feet long tying them together.  We usually try for 100 foot rows, so our twine is in something that will give us that measure.  So, I push one of the fence posts into the ground, stretch the twine out tight and push the other post into the ground.  I want the twine/string tight so it doesn't have room for play, or it will 'sag' out in the middle.  I use this to steady my hoe as I run the hoe along the twine making a trench approximately three inches deep.  I then move one end of the marker careful not to disturb the trench.  When planting beans --for example-- I kinda sow them in the trench so many inches between each seed (approximately 2" between seeds I believe the directions say).  Then beside that row I just made I measure one of my shoe lengths, push a post in where the toe of my shoe comes (that's going to be between 8 and 9 inches), take the other post down to the other end of the last row, measure one of my feet measures and push the post in.  I make another row and sow the seeds in it same as the first row.  *When the snow does disappear, I will have my photographer du jour take pictures of this process in order to make it more clear. 

That is my 'double row'.  It is a little more hand tilling when they first come up, but they canopy and keep most of the weeds out from between the rows.   I do many of my vegetables this way.

I enjoy 'playing' with my beans.  I have a mix of bush, and pole beans.  The pole beans usually have more 'character' because they are older varieties.  Some of my favorite pole beans are: Scarlet Runner, Purple Podded Pole, Painted Lady, Mayflower, Cherokee Trail of Tears.  The beautiful colored flowers on fences have brought comments through the years from neighbors and passersby.  I also use these to tell stories, for example "Mayflower" supposedly came over on the 'Mayflower' with the early settlers.  The Cherokee Trail of Tears goes back to Andrew Jackson moving the Cherokees from their homes in Georgia in the bitter weather to the reservation. Purple podded pole reminds me of the time my daughter chose to plant 'purple' beans, and so forth...

The beauty of the flowers, and wonderful flavors of these different beans make them well worth the effort to grow them.  They can also be grown up a fence in an out of the way area, or make a tipi for them to grow up as a conversation piece.

The ground needs to be warmed up for beans to sprout.  If planted too early they will (at least mine would) just lay in the ground until the right time to sprout and grow.  In our area I wouldn't plant beans until (depending on the weather) about mid-April.  If you are in a more southern area probably the first of April, maybe a little earlier, again depending on the weather.

Beets are the next listing, and I would plant beets earlier than beans.  Indeed the directions for beets say: plant as soon as soil can be worked.  I stay mostly with the old varieties of beets.  Detroit Red or Ruby Queen.  This last year I tried a new variety.  I was reading about beet greens being edible, and low-and-behold as I glanced through the garden catalog pictures the variety, "Kestrel" had the most beautiful vibrant green leaves against the red of the beet itself, those beet greens waved at me.  And one of those little voices said, 'that one there!'.  I was rewarded with my choice.  The beet greens were excellent.  If you like spinach this just may be a variety to take its place.  They are much easier to grow as well.

Another tip...if it has the word 'gourmet' about a variety I steer away from it.  I have tried several things that had that word in the title.  If that was gourmet, I've decided someone has a different idea of gourmet than I do...smile.

Our beets, turnips, kohlrabi all did well in spite of our horrible drought last summer.  Mostly they did well because they were planted early in the spring when there was still enough moisture for them not only to germinate, but to grow.  My double rows are also designed to help with weed control, and the canopy helps preserve moisture as well.

With the next post I plan to share more on the 'early' garden, or early spring plantings and what they would be.  For the scripture I would like to leave with you:

Ecclesiastes 5:9  Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.

To Live Your Life

In a direct way most will find times when we are 'afraid' to live our lives.  Not even for any real reason, only the fear of making a mistake.

Ecclesiastes 9:11  I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.
Time and chance...I don't know if I believe that 'everything' happens for a reason, as some people have stated.  I do know that God can --and does-- change even bad things into something good for those that love him.  Romans 8:28  And we know that to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose.


In the fairy tale story of Sleeping Beauty the angry fairy came in, and determined to take her revenge on the king. So she cries out, "The King's daughter shall in her fifteenth year be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead." But we know that there was one fair fairy yet to give a gift to the little baby, so that "the twelfth, who had not yet given her gift, came forward and said that the bad wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften it, and that the king's daughter should not die, but fall asleep for a hundred years."

And so that story goes. The evil that was intended is softened and something good comes from it.  In the case of Sleeping Beauty it took a good long time to see the end of that story.  Our individual stories don't always take so long.

2Peter 3:8  But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9)  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Some minutes pass like hours, and some hours pass like minutes it just depends on circumstances.  To us a thousand years is a long time, but for God --who does not live by our standards-- time doesn't pass.  It reminds me of being a drop of water in the ocean.  Where does one drop end and another begin?

Circumstances?  We can't always control our circumstances, but we should choose our response to those circumstances.  I say should because even though we should always choose to do the right thing in any given circumstance, many of us would admit that time and chance have a way of taking us by surprise, and only later do we think 'I should have said this...or I should have done that'.   Doing the right thing?  Even when we set our mind and determine to do the right thing it is far too easy to fall short of that noble mark.

There are two things we need to be mindful of.  As humans it is not always possible to keep our promises, but we should always strive to do so to the best of our abiblity.  When my children were growing up I tried to keep my promises.  If I promised some treat or if I promised some punishment, I tried to follow through.  However God does keep his promises.

Living here on earth is like living in a photograph.  Like seeing just one picture, or maybe one corner of the picture.  We blunder along.  We fail to trust in God.  We allow Satan to side track us.  We confuse God's longsuffering with...well, we confuse it with God being slack, or sometimes we believe God doesn't care.  Maybe we believe that there really isn't a God. 

The Bible contains many fulfilled prophesies.  There are many scientific truths, many historical truths contained in scriptures, that all point to the majesty and omnipotence of God, and yet...  People want to quibble with God.  Many people believe they can tell God what they will do, or what they think, or even what He should do and what He should think. 

I don't know why they would be so arrogant, but they are.  Would they treat a president, a king, a queen, a ruler of any kind in such a manner?  

 Galatians 6:7  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

Ecclesiastes 3:14  I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

Live your life before God, but remember:
Ecclesiastes 11:9  ...but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment. 10)  Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh...

Put your life in order, walk in the ways that God would have you walk.

Psalms 46:10  Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.