You Give Me Fever
Holy St. Lucifer on toast, it’s hot. I popped outside last night before we went to bed to decide if we should shut off the AC and let the night air in—my clothes got instantly moist and stuck to me, my hair frizzed into a white girl ‘fro and I marched over to the thermostat and turned the temp down a few degrees to insure that it would stay on all night long.
But you know what that means, don’t you? Hot nights? Ripe tomatoes. Hoooo doggy.
Well, it’s just as hot this morning and the pressure is building in the air. Severe thunderstorms predicted, and just to the west of us on the radar, a rather angry looking red and orange mass of clouds. Keep the heat and the periodic rain coming, this season just may redeem itself in August.
My mental health day didn’t exactly get off to a great start, but I pulled it together after lunch and schlepped out into the high heat (low 90s, 100% humidity) in the afternoon and did about 4 hours of work clearing and planting. I put in more Basil, Arugula, Haricot Verts, Royal Burgundy bush beans, Shoigun Turnips, Golden Ball Turnips and Cilantro. I still have two big beds that are empty and ready to plant, but may just transplant a bunch of the collard and kale thinnings into them over the next couple of weeks (I did that with about ten of each yesterday as well, giving the plants a good 16 inches of space so they’ll hopefully grow big, fat leaves and I can freeze some). I wanted to put in more Vermont Cranberry beans, but the bag says 70 days and I don’t have a great feeling about the weather in October/November, so I decided to not potentially waste all of that seed and just save them for next year.
Here’s what I’m most excited about in the garden this week:
The second planting of Haricot Verts are on the run! My first planting got taken down by slugs, but these babies are coming on strong. It’s not a huge patch, four rows about 6 feet long. I saw about a dozen beans that would need picking tonight, pencil thin perfection. And a couple hundred more a few days behind them, and the plants are covered in blossoms.
It’s truly amazing to me what several hours of uninterrupted time in the garden will do for my sense of self-worth and well-being. Last week at work pulled me way out of my sense of center, everything a crisis and a fire to be put out immediately. I was stripped at night and unable to even get into the garden to do anything but gawk at the plants and feel helpless. Trying to work on my freelance was pointless too, I was making a mess of it. But amazingly, knocking down a bunch of fall planting really gave me a feeling of accomplishment and now I know that over the next few days I can finish up these two freelance gigs without that finger of I need to hurry up so I can go plant more beans feeling tapping me on the shoulder. I’ll be able to give them the attention they deserve and do a much better job with them.
Physical labor is amazing like that, the way it clears out the mental clutter. The wanna-be farmer in me just loves this realization.
So I’m heading back to my cubicle in a few minutes here with a dirt mani-pedi and maybe just a wee bit more sanity.
Technorati Tags: garden, organic garden, fall planting, mental health, therapy
"In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy."
~Henry David Thoreau
August 7th, 2007 at 7:32 am
All I have to say is this:
110 degree heat index today.
I’m taking wagers on my chicken, Emma Goldman.
August 7th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I’m convinced that I am so even-keeled about things because I get adequate time in my gardens, so I so understand what you say! What makes it really tough, though, work-wise is I work from home T-Th! I don’t get nearly as much done with that green stuff calling my name.
May I ask what variety of haricot vert you planted this year, Kelly? I planted “Maxibel” and I am amazed by their productivity. Taste, too, but of course…
August 7th, 2007 at 8:57 am
All I can say is this is the main reason we have decided to give up the summer garden ghost here. The weather you’re suffering is our weather every single day, oh, and add about 50 million mosquitos to the mix.
True summer is mostly our down time and there is winter gardening, but there is something demoralizing about deciding summer is moot for veggies.
August 7th, 2007 at 2:46 pm
Your haricot verts are tres jolie! SO delicate and beautiful.
Yes, but it is time for tomatoes was actually my first thought when I read abt the heat. Yum.
August 8th, 2007 at 6:08 am
Okay, so how’s Emma doing, Lisa? When we chatted yesterday, it was so-called 76 here. The sun eventually came out and it got into the 90s again. The air is swamp water.
August 8th, 2007 at 6:09 am
Hey El, Maxibel, as well! They’re just incredible. Must be vigilant about picking them early.
August 8th, 2007 at 6:09 am
Jeanne! Yay!!
I can’t blame you there, and if you have the opportunity to winter garden, then it’s just a question of pretending summer is yr old winter and getting on with it, right?
August 8th, 2007 at 7:36 am
Amazing storms yesterday. Just added to the humidity. Our little valley stores the heat and humidity (for a rainy day?). My curls have curls and the frizz is frizzier! I picked about a quart of those little volunteer cherry tomatoes, a couple of zucchinis and a cuke. I’m planting more Maxibels too. Between the slugs, bugs and my life in general this summer, the garden is on survival mode.
October 31st, 2007 at 5:15 am
hi, I just found this page today while searching for Haricot Vert “Maxibel”
I see you and one of your commenters have tried growing them! Do you need a trellis for them? are they really only 20-24 in tall?
I enjoyed reading this post. I think I’ll be bookmarking this page and coming back often
October 31st, 2007 at 5:23 am
Hi Wendy, welcome!!
Yes, this Maxibel variety of Haricot Vert is a bush bean and should be planted in rows about 12″ apart. No trellis needed, they won’t climb like that. I do recommend mulching around the plants with straw because some runners will grow and will droop down on the ground if it rains and they pick up a lot of dirt which weighs down the plants.
They’re a wonderful bean!
-Kelly
May 24th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
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