Carrots, Beans, Manure: A Farm Video Trilogy

When I grew for the farmers market in the Chico, CA area I shot and edited 3 short videos that I have uploaded to youtube. They are meant to be both instructive and fun. If you grow carrots, this shows you how I manually harvest and sell my carrots in the fall.

Sometime in the early 1980's I came across a bean variety called "German Pole". Because I come from German background I ordered a packet and grew them for 3 years. I then decided that I needed to try other varieties to see what bean I liked the best. The "German Pole" beans were the best by far. They produced a longer season, were more abundant, and most importantly were the sweetest most tender green bean I have ever eaten. I eat them by the handful right off the vine, like a sugar pea.

I have not been able to find them anywhere, including in the Seedsavers Exchange, which is one of my most favorite organizations in the world. Kent Whealy is Seedsaver founder and author/compilor of the book: Garden Seed Inventory: Inventory Of Seed Catalogs Listing All Non-Hybrid Vegetable Seeds, Available in the United States and Canada

For several years desperate to make sure that these seeds were not lost I have saved seed and even sold packets of them at the farmers market or given them away as gifts.

I sold these bean seeds at the local farmers' markets for several years. People love them. When the greenbeans are in season I sold these for twice the price of anyone elses - and sell out.

Late customers complained they didn't get their's. Sometimes I handed out raw beans as samples, telling people "these are the sweetest - most tender greenbean in the world."

 

They take the sample bean with a "You're full of beans!" expression and move on as they chomp down.

It took about 2 or 3 steps before they would turn with an amazed expression and exclaim "these really are good!" and come back and buy some to take home. It doesn't always happen, but often enough to be comical.

In checking online just now I find the name - but not the variety. These beans are dark brown to black seeded when mature and dry. As they over-mature for eating green the pods turn purple. Usually this is an indication that they are too mature to eat raw or steamed. When very large but green they get strings, but it is very easy to string them and eat raw or cooked as long as the beans are still green.

Now that I am no longer growing for market it was wonderful to go to a Seed Swap a few months ago and find some young gardeners had brought in "German Pole" seeds they had gotten from friends. They knew nothing of the back story to the seeds. In this video I am pulling down the vines and hand threshing and cleaning the seeds. These are simply the beans that I missed picking during the harvest season. When I see I have missed a few I just leave them to mature. It doesn't seem to slow down  production.

I do notice that here in Chico CA  during the hottest part of the Summer the temperatures are too high for the flowers to set fruit. Patience works though. Just keep the vines watered and they begin setting again as the weather cools off in the fall, making them the longest producing beans I have grown.

One friend of mine says the dry German Pole beans are also his favorite dry bean. I haven't tried them dry myself. Maybe this year.



In the middle of winter I spread manure in my orchard. The great clouds of steam rising from the manure heap are just so wonderfully photographic. I had great fun shooting and editing this video. And for some reason I have gotten about twice am many people viewing "Manure" as I do "Carrots" and "Beans".

Note: Applying the hot manure in the winter gives the manure time to decompose and cleans itself of pathogens long before the harvest season. It did make the grass grow though, which maybe wasn't such a great idea.

I gave my old truck away, and I think it still in use somewhere locally.

Oh, and if you have any questions about the very last "opps!" shot - don't worry - (hehe) it was a borrowed camera - from my long time organic farmer, garden class organizer, and long time vegetable growing mentor David Grau of Valley Oak Tool Company. I just cleaned it off and he hasn't said a thing.




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Not to say: I've been wrong before . . .