It this really a post about beans, you ask? Why, yes, yes it is. But if you don’t care about beans, you can jump to the updates (but you should really care about beans — they’re magical).
Yup, it’s that time of year again. The garden is (mostly) planted. There are a few things that didn’t come up so I need to fill in a few gaps. For some reason, the soil is a lot more clay-ey this year.
I have a few tomatoes and a couple mounds of potatoes, plus some carrots and kale. I have one zucchini — you only need one — but a couple of squash. And a watermelon, even though I don’t expect to get a watermelon, but I’ll grow any plant once. But, this season, I doubled down on beans. There are a few reasons for this.
The first is beans are so easy. There’s a reason they’re the thing they get you to grow in a cup in elementary school … or maybe that was just my school. Yes, you need to give them a bit of love, but once their established, they don’t need much watering, they outcompete most weeds, and you don’t need to constantly harvest.
Next, they’re good for the soil. They take nitrogen from the atmosphere and “fix it” into the soil, and the other plants need nitrogen.
Third, they can provide shade for other plants. I’ve grown lettuce under them in past, though this year, I have some squash there — we’ll see how that does.
But most of all, I love being able to get dried beans that you don’t find in stores. This year, I have scarlet runners (yes, you can eat the beans), gorgeous Tiger’s Eye, the very productive Swedish brown bean, the beautiful Bird’s egg, the unidentifiable cross, and that’s just to name a few. I do also have a patch of plain old green beans — they’re great for pickling.
Oh, and beans are healthy and delicious. I do think beans are magical.
If you have a garden, or a pot on your window sill, what do you grow? What’s your favourite?
My update
I back to working on book 3, incorporating beta reader feedback. Fingers crossed the changes are straight forward.
Meanwhile, I just finished reading a book called Eating to Extinction — sort of relevant to beans, it does talk about a few of them. It’s non-fiction, and the gist is how our change food production systems have put some food plants at risk of extinction … and how that’s not good for us for various reasons. It you’re interested in plants or food or travel, I’d recommend it. I picked it up from the library but I might get my own copy.
Now I’m onto Wool. I want to read it before I watch the TV series. Have you read it? Thoughts?
Books for your TBR shelf
If you’re looking to discover new authors, you can still get these free books until June 13.
Happy reading!
— CR
Where to find my books
If you’d like to read any of my scifi or urban fantasy books, you can find them at your favourite online retailers. Or you can buy them direct from me on the Armchair Alien store.
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