mbvirtue's Blog

How 'Bout Them Beans?
Jul 29, 2007 | 9:23 AM PST
Tags: green beans , trial seeds

Back in March, I sent away for some seeds from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Extension.  There were five sets of seeds, each with two varieties:  Green beans (blue lake bush and espada), carrots (atomic red and rainbow), marigolds (safari mix and durango outback mix) , snow peas (goliath and oregon giant), and sunflowers (prado red and moulin rouge).  There's a basic questionaire to fill out that asks which produced first, better, healthier, etc...your basic comparison questions.

Well.  Now that everything has had a chance to establish and grow, the results (and produce) are in!  Just this morning I picked over two pounds of beans from the espada bushes, and got three (yup, count 'em, three) beans from the six blue lake bushes.  Although the Japanese beetles are still nibbling on them, the espada variety will not be deterred.  Not a bug on the blue lake, so I'm hoping they're just starting off slowly.  Maybe they'll produce after the espada have run their course?  Moving on to the snow peas, I'd say the oregon giant have won out.  They taste better and are much more tender.  The plants withstood the winds without my having to restake 'em every morning.  The carrots haven't matured yet, so that jury's still out.  Both varieties are growing well so far.  (I was s'posed to get a purple variety, but they mis-shipped a second set of rainbow instead)

Marigolds are the salvation of the garden this summer, as almost all other flowers succombed either to late snows (tulips and daffodils) or recent drought (dianthus and lilies).  They've been blooming their fool heads off, even as those #&)@#&$ Japanese beetles munch on the flowers.  Yup, you heard right, the beetles are eating the marigolds!  Sunflowers did not fare well this year.  There were three varieties planted, two red and a run-of-the-mill yellow just for contrast.  I planted one of each in the front of the house, and until the wind/rain on July 3rd, all was well.  The wind that night snapped the yellow and one of the reds right off at the base, no hope of propping them back up.  As for the patch in the back yard, well let's just say that seedling sunflowers and an angry 12-year old mowing just don't mix.  I think there is one of each left, but they also only get afternoon sun so they're about 5' behind the one out front.

So that's the report so far, I hope I can get some seeds from these so I can replant next year, all were good choices!  If I get the chance today I'll get the photos up and organized with captions so you can see how it progressed.  For two months of growth, they're really doing well.  Check in Photos, I'll create a folder with the experiment pics (Trial Seeds).  Thanks for visiting, and I promise no more griping about the lack of rain, I've got that out of my system, I think...