Yesterday I set out 44 tomato plants. DH dug the holes with a post hole digger and I set out the plants. Later we went back out and put cages around all of them.
Thankfully the ground is moist. and today it is cool and misting. Hope to get some grass clippings on them soon and then on the whole area.
As soon as I have recovered I will start on the squashes, melons, cukes and zukes. I need to make sure that the area I choose for the watermelons, cantaloupe and pumpkins have plenty of room to expand. My okra is about ready to be set out and as soon as it is warm enough I will plant some beans. I will plant a limited number of Roma 2 and French green beans for eating fresh. We already have plenty canned. I am thinking about soy beans and some lentils. The last time I tried lentils it got so wet that I could not even get into the plot to weed. This year they will probably die from lack of water.
I guess all any of us can do is sow the seed and hope for good gardening weather.
I currently have giant sunflowers , 3 kinds of 'maters , lettuce , spinach , cayenne peppers , punkins , acorn squash , zucchinis , and cantalopes - and last years onions makin' seed - up and growing in my little garden . The carrots haven't come up yet , but I'm thinkin' any day now . And I have a space about 6' square that I haven't decided yet . Luckily we have a long growing season here .
edamame being the Japanese word for 'green soybean'.
I'd love pointers on how to improve the yeild from mine. I only grew half a dozen plants of them last year, and when all was said and done, I got perhaps four cups of dried beans (actual beans, not the pods) out of the lot.
I have some mung beans growing, but I've never grown them before (outside of for sprouts). They're all remaining awfully small - basically not much larger than a sprout.
I"I've got seeds for green and black soy beans so I will see what happens. I'm now thinking that it may be too late to plant lentils this year. Maybe I can get them going earlier next year.
soybeans or edamame? (they are different varieties)
the regular soybeans i've grown here have done well. i suspect you might be keeping them too dry and perhaps they could use an innoculant. from what you've written before i think you have open skies and plenty of space. are you in the foggy zone?
the patches i've grown here have yeilded about 5lbs per 40-60sq ft. full sun, if it doesn't rain enough i give them some water from the hose. in comparison to the farm fields around us (that do not get irrigation but do grow soybeans most alternate years) my soybeans are twice to three times as tall.
i'm growing an edamame variety this year and doubt they will yield the same.
Tokio Verte (from Baker Creek), Green Butterbeans (from Johnny's). These were grown last year, and the year prior (respectively).
Also have Fledderjohn (Baker Creek), and Fiskeby Edamame (High Mowing) to try this year.
ALL of them are described as "edamame type".
I'd let them to to dry beans as it seemed that the pods never got all that plump until they just started going dry, as if the seeds were doing a last grab for moisture after the shell passed its prime.
Tons of N in the soil here, though I do use a legume innoculant as well.
No, north of SF and the gate. We get cooling night fog on some summer nights and have a longer than average growing season for the region.
5 lbs green or let to dry? Yes, I realize that most bean plants stop flowering if the beans are left on the plant too long (i.e. to dry), so dry harvest is less than green harvest (besides the difference in moisture content).
How densely planted? I had 6 or 8 plants last year. They were very green, but never got more than about 12-18 inches tall. they weren't vining, so didn't seem like the sort to be on a trellis. The pole beans were adjacent and were producing like nuts.
Mine were part of a timed irrigation with my pole beans on a soaker hose.
Free standing or supported? How tall?
Moist soil, but not soaking. I just transplanted them out this morning. Not anything near being root bound or anything in the containers they were in. I half expect the birds will clear them out soon enough.
ok, edamame type are not what i have grown here. so that could be the entire difference. after this season i'll know a little more about growing one variety of edamame and see if they are of similar size plant to the "regular" soybeans i have been growing.
however, below you mention growing them with pole beans and if that is the case they might not be getting enough sun to produce well.
try a regular organic soybean variety instead. that will give you a direct comparison planting them side by side for your conditions.
when you pull the plants out of the ground do they have nodules on the roots?
grr, i wish i can remember exactly, i think soybeans take a different species of bacteria than a regular bean plant. i've not needed to innoculate here as there are soybean growers all over the place. when i dig up plants there are always plenty of nodules on the roots.
soybeans will keep flowering. i have some plants where i've seen 15 pods per node. i've never seen anything other than a bush type of soybean. 4-5ft tall.
5lbs dry.
planted 1lb of seeds last year and ended up with 44lbs harvested/sorted. i wasn't particularly careful in how i planted them, so easily i could improve that by half or more again if i spaced them out more and didn't plant two seeds per space. i didn't have that much room.
this year i'll have a thousand more sq ft of room for bean varieties, but i'm not going to be planting as many soybeans as i did last year. i'd rather grow the kinds of beans i can store and cook for food and it will take me a few years to use up the soybeans i've already got on hand if i can't sell them.
i plant densely enough so that the plants will support each other against the winds we get. most of my patches are about 50sqft. 4-6 inch spacing. the plants on the edge are larger than the plants in the middle. they self crowd and regulate so that if i planted thinner they would probably produce about as well. some plants will have hundreds of seeds and others will have one pod. i plant thickly as i use them for weed control, and controlling runners for strawberries.
if you recall the pictures from the roof i put up a bit ago and the one that i called the jungle, the biggest clumps of beans in there were soybeans about
4ft tall.
hmm, ok,
free standing, supporting each other, 4-5ft max, un-irrigated fields right next to us normally reach
1-2ft plants. same exact seeds the first season i tried them (then i switched to an organic non-roundup- ready source). i use them to make soymilk and as a green manure, ground cover, worm food, shade provider, strawberry runner control, soil improver, etc.
they'll do much better when they get some good strong light for a several full days.
beans sprout quickly enough and are planted deeply enough that i've never done the sprout indoors before planting thing. i don't get much bird damage, more often the damage here is grasshoppers, japanese beetles, mice, voles, and chipmunks. none of them enough to worry about.
No, in an area adjacent to pole beans. Not intercropped with them. They were to the southeast of the pole bean suppport structure, so no shadow. I'm particular about where I let tall things grow in the garden - mostly limit it to the North side of things.
Yea, all the beans end up having white rice/barley looking things on the roots. First year I pulled up a bean plant, I thought it had a bug infestation or disease.
hm, well if your regular beans and pole beans are doing fine then it seems to come down to variety differences or perhaps they like less moisture than what they are getting. couldn't say for sure without doing a test plot this season with regular soybeans side by side with the edamame. i'll be doing that here this season, but no timed irrigation will be happening for these gardens.
let me know how it goes or if you figure something else out. i'm always curious...
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