Scarlet Runner Beans - Growing and Harvesting

I have Scarlet Runner beans growing in the garden now. They seem easy to grow and they have red or red and white flowers. The beans can be eaten if they are removed from the plant early or else they get stringy. The flowers are attractive to hummingbirds. Scarlet Runner beans are one of those edible landscaping plants. I will take pictures when mine are blooming.

My Messy Garden

    Right now, my garden is filled with blackberry plants that I thought would be a good idea to let them overgrow in the garden last year. We had the gardens cleaned out a couple of years ago, and the only blackberries were outside of the garden along a trellis that lined the side of the garden area. But little by little, the blackberries started to grow in the garden area again. I did pretty good at first at cutting them out. Blackberries have roots that grow underground, so unless you can pull the roots out, they will just come right back.
  I have three of the garden beds cleaned out except for the thick stemmed blackberry plants. I will have to take some clippers and cut them out and I can try to dig the roots out as well, while nothing else is growing in the garden bed.
  So, little by little I am tackling the garden beds. I am almost done with the asparagus bed as well. My goal is to get it done before it gets too hot! Then I can plant all my peppers, squash, beans, and corn and there will be plenty of room for them to grow.
   The next thing I have to do is to get my worm compost out into the garden area. The soil needs to be fed. The soil also has to be mulched which I will use newspapers for. The soil will love the mulch and it will help the plants in their development.
   Happy Gardening!

GMO Issues

I just thought you would like to know what is going on in the agricultural world. For years, I had heard the term GMO, which stands for Genetically Modified Organism, but I failed to understand what the issue was about that seemed so distressful to many people, particularly gardeners. 

   With the ability to alter the nature of seeds by use of genetic engineering, plants can be developed that have special capabilities, like resisting certain bugs or diseases. So good, so far, right? Nope. Here's why; There is a large food company that owns many, if not most of the other smaller food companies. The name of this food/agriculture company is called 'Monsanto'. Many meat companies and produce are ultimately owned by Monsanto. Monsanto is continually coming up with ways to patent their food products. For example, they have a soy bean that is patented. The soy bean has been genetically modified to be protected from certain things like diseases and certain pests. All the other soy bean plants in the world do not have this resistance (because they are not genetically modified). So, let's say that people use Round-up in their gardens (which is also put out by Monsanto). It will have an effect on the plants that haven't been genetically engineered like the Monsanto ones. But the Monsanto ones will stand strong. And if someone is caught growing one of Monsanto's plants, that farmer or gardener could get in trouble with the law because there is a patent on the Monsanto plants. You would have to have special permission to use a soy bean as a plant if it is one that Monsanto produced. If you want to grow your own soybeans that are not from Monsanto, the soybean might not grow as well as the Monsanto ones. Little by little, Monsanto is taking over the entire food industry by doing this. It will come to the point where people won't even be able to do their own gardening anymore! There are people who have gotten into trouble legally for using Monsanto soy beans, as well as just having too much produce in their gardens!

   Having said all this, there are quite a few garden seed companies that sell 'heirloom' seeds. Some sell organic seeds as well. These seeds have not been tampered with and are good to use in the gardens. We need to be supporting the companies that sell these seeds. What we don't want to have happen is for Monsanto to end up having complete control over all food/agriculture decisions in the future. 

   Also, I find it ironic that a man named Mike Taylor has been a lawyer for Monsanto, and also has played a part in being president of the FDA. I'm sure he has a hand in all this as well!

   Here is a link to an article from Dr. Mercola's web site on GMOs:

The researchers are calling on farmers in some parts of the country to stop planting corn with anti-rootworm genes altogether, or to plant such corn only intermittently ...  Mercola on Corn GMO

Organic gardening: How to grow an organic vegetable garden

Vermicomposting: Creating Compost with Worms - For Dummies

Vermicomposting: Creating Compost with Worms - For Dummies
Here is another article from the Internet on Vermicomposting. Lots to learn and a lot of info is available to us.

Vermicomposting

Have you ever heard of Vermicomposting? It is wonderful to do if you can do it. Vermicomposting is a fancy word for worm composting. When you have a bin full of worms living off your vegetable peelings, you can end up with great compost!
   What are some things to put into a worm compost bin? They will eat vegetable peelings, tea bags, coffee grinds, egg shells, fruit and vegetable scraps and many other nourishing things like that. Don't put any animal scraps in your bin though.
   What the worms do, is to feed off the food scraps, then they expel what was digested, and they lay eggs to make more worms. All of this ecosystem creates food that is suitable for plants to live on.

Here is an excerpt from an article off a page on the Internet about vermicomposting:
Many gardeners compost both yard waste and kitchen waste with compost piles, sheet composting or some other method during the growing season. Fortunately, very little yard waste is generated during winter months when cold temperatures make composting difficult. However, usable kitchen waste is constantly being generated and must be disposed of. Vermicomposting is the process of using worms and micro-organisms to turn kitchen waste into a black, earthy-smelling, nutrient-rich humus.


http://lancaster.unl.edu/pest/resources/vermicompost107.shtml


Here is another article on vermicomposting:
http://home.howstuffworks.com/vermicomposting.htm


I have a nice worm bin, and have been doing this for a couple of years. I took the bottom layer out and dumped the compost into my garden. I just planted some seeds, so they should benefit from the food provided in the finished compost, thanks to the worms, and all the other micro-organisms in the worm bin.

My Lone Mason Bee

I posted a picture on the right of a mason bee getting into his house. I saw this a couple of days ago and it looks like he has a favorite hole picked out to build in. Mason bees are good because they help pollinate vegetables and fruits, and honeybees are becoming more and more scarce. You might be able to see the bee if you enlarge the picture. I had a little box of the bees in their egg cases, but the box blew away and I never found it. Hopefully, the bees will find their way to their new house and start living in it.
   One good thing about mason bees, is that they don't sting. I hope to have more housing for them in the future. I ordered my bees from Nichol's Garden Center.