*Planting The Bean Garden*

By Eli/Stallion/JW

13 June 2003

Well the day started with JW and me roto tilling @ the other team garden. Neither of us are superstitious, but Friday the 13^th nailed us. #@$@!#^ tractor broke down. Bummer…should be an easy fix.

The original plan was for the team to plant the bean garden tomorrow, but the weather guessers are forecasting rain so we moved it up to today. Unfortunately everybody else except us 3 was busy, but we went for it anyway.

Dry beans should be planted no later than mid June here and since mid June is here already so it had to be done.

12-year-old (roughly) compost

Got a lucky break. I ran up to Mike’s house on the 4 wheeler the other night and we got talking gardens. He lived here about 12 years ago and had a garden. He goes "you know there’s a big pile of compost down there don’t ya." So I go "huh?? Where?" He told me where it was and it just so happens that I was sitting on top of the pile earlier that day. I thought it was a big mound of dirt covered in grass. Nope…it’s a big pile of old compost and manure. SCORE!!! Now it made sense why the grass was so tall on it while the stuff around it was shorter.

So while I was waiting for JW & Stallion to show up I shoveled a bunch of it into the back of my old brakeless, power steeringless, shockless and all around POS rickshaw…. but it runs good. It was some nice looking stuff.

So the compost and my small rototiller were hauled down to the garden. I commenced making rows with the tiller and attachment. JW and Stallion came behind me spreading fertilizer and beans.

JW, Stallion and Friday

2 cans of beans on the ground, about 35 lbs

The fertilizer goes on the bottom and the beans directly on top of it. If it was new stuff it would go on the bottom and have about 1" of soil over it and then the beans

JW fertilizin’

Beans in

You’ll notice the light speckles in the dark (fertilized) row above. Those are the beans. Just walk along the row and lightly sprinkle them. 1 handful at a time.

Stallion doing hoe ops

Then hoe about 2" of soil on top of the beans and lightly tamp it down and YER PLANTED!!

This garden is about 150’ long and 30’ wide.

We have 3 150’ rows of Marifax (brown) beans so far. We managed to get one row of Jacob’s Cattle beans in before it started getting dark. We’ll have 3 rows of them too.

Not too bad for 3 of us over the course of 2 ½ hours.

When the stocks start coming out of the ground and get about 6" tall, hoe some soil up around them. This keeps them stabilized.

Coming this fall- Harvesting and product outcome.

Eli/JW/Stallion