Garden Plans in Motion - green beans!

Posted by Ethne~

Holy cow, we’re at the end of May almost – somehow I crammed what feels like 6 month’s worth of work into the past few weeks.  I have hardly gotten onto the internet to check out our favorite blogs, do creative cooking or activities, or even check CNN to keep up with the Jodi Arias trial – I know, right? (Luckily Lori is my bff and keeps me in the know.)

We leave tomorrow for Omaha to visit Dad and Mom Connie.  She’s retiring next week from her career with the National Park Service and so we’re celebrating.  The girls consider this our “summer vacation”.  Whit’s coming too, so it’s going to be a Griswold-style road trip up in here (pray for me – Emma gets motion sickness).

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I had brilliant plans to show you pictures of the girls’ first soccer practice, since that was supposed to be today.  But – OF COURSE – it was cancelled due to inclement weather.  I am thankful, of course, that the weather is just annoying and not a safety hazard, unlike down in Oklahoma.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to those folks.  I am thankful that our family friends from Norman, OK, are okay.

Lastly, guess what we’re growing in the garden this year?!  Green beans!  Specifically, pole beans, from seed.  Thrifty Nana (my mom) suggested the pole beans (since we have limited space) versus bush beans and said no point in buying plants when we can grow them super easily from seed (cheaper too).  So that was last Sunday’s task, between rain showers.  We’re also growing a whole bunch of dill (in pots).  What does this add up to?  You guessed it – we’re going to pickle our green beans a la Barb Slagle’s dill pickles. 

I got the idea from Shaun’s cousin, Tom, who gardens and pickles everything – he’s awesome – when last Christmas I ate so many of his dill pickled green beans that he gave me a jar.  I told Shaun this year that I wanted to grow cucumbers for pickling and he suggested that I do Barb’s pickles with green beans instead because my garden is small and we can, basically, get more bang for our buck with green bean plants.

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I also planted one grape tomato plant (Tami G hybrid) since the girls love to pick and eat those right off the vine.  How could I refuse?

I will keep you posted.  I am so excited!  When the bean sprouts pop up, I’ll share some pictures.

Reporting in tomorrow from Omaha.