Lousy Attitude

These are the early brandywines. There's a third, about ripe, to the right of the little green one.

I think these may be all I get from this plant. It hasn't produced a new tomato since that little green one, I think due, in part, to the extreme heat last month and the fungus attacking it from the ground up. I may go ahead and pull it, excited by the chance to plant more perennials in its place.

In fact, its been a lousy year for the vegetable garden in pots. These purple podded-beans were a complete failure -I think this is maybe one of five beans we've gotten from this container. Called Bush Bean -Purple Queen, Phaseolus vulgaris, described on the Botanical Interests (TM) packet as an heirloom with beautiful deep purple pods, a compact plant that is a good container vegetable to be harvested in 55 days. We planted these about May 20th or so. They continued to grow to at least double the height of the blue lake beans, falling over, producing little flowers that never seemed to form pods. What they did produce were yellow leaves -ugly and unproductive. The common Blue Lake bush beans have done so well over the last few years in the pots that I must've gotten complacent. I am willing to figure it a failure on my part -something missed, uncared for. Inoculant? Diseased soil?

This is what they looked like before I pulled them out a minute later. I cleaned out the container and planted new bush bean seeds I got from J&L (a steal so late in the season). We'll see how that goes. I love fresh green beans, and in these little containers, 24 x 10 x 10 inches, I have been able to reap two crops of green beans (Blue Lake Bush) from the same plants over the last few summers.

This is my total harvest this year. The green ones are from the three blue lake plants that sprouted -my seeds were passed their prime and didn't fare as well as past years either. Wah wah waaahh.

This volunteer tomato seems all the more healthy for being in the ground. Maybe it's that I am tired of container vegetables altogether. I wasn't going to plant any vegetables this year, yet I did. Now that I have the beach farm, I think that's it -except for the herbs which I always want to have close to the kitchen.