Experiment 11 - Planting the magic beans
There are still no definitive answers yet on what type of “magic” beans I have and what they say on them, but I have delayed their planting long enough. If you want to try to identify these beans from Chinatown or translate their message, it’s not too late!
I prepared two pots a while back that I thought seemed adequately sized to accommodate the beans. One of the pots already had soil in it and was a tad on the mossy side, but I’m banking on that not mattering too much.
Goodbye for now, beans. Hope to see you again very soon!
I acquired a pretty substantial bank of photos during Garden Science’s period of inactivity. This one shows some of the garbanzo beans picked while they were still green.
Experiment 8 - The harvest so far
Look at all the cool instant garden stuff!
From the top left moving counter clockwise, we have pinto beans, navy beans, lentils, and green lentils.
The number of pinto beans dried and ready for picking gets higher every day. The beans pictured above are from yesterday alone!
The number of beans per pod seems to range anywhere from 1 to 6.
This may not look like a lot of lentils, but it took a long time to hand pick them all. There are still a bunch more lentils still on the plant that have already dried and are waiting to be harvested.
The one green lentil plant ended up producing a lot more than I was expecting it to. They have a lovely coloration! As with the regular lentils, there are still a bunch more on the plant.
The navy beans aren’t drying quite as fast as anything else, but there should be a fair number of them ready within the next week or so. At that time, there will likely be more pictures.
Another round of “Meet the Garden” should be posting very soon!
Experiment 8 - The first beans
I check the instant garden for developments about twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. Yesterday evening I made an awesome discovery.
These pinto bean pods were completely dried out on the vine. For those unaware, my goal for the beans and lentils has been for them to dry naturally with the sun so I can finally harvest them. Therefore, these are the first items from the instant garden that are actually ready for harvest!
A couple of beans were still the tiniest bit soft, so I left them in the sun for a while to become fully dry.
I’ll have even more of a bean update soon, I think, because it’s supposed to almost reach 100 degrees (F) today and I’ll bet that sort of heat moves the drying process along pretty substantially. I also picked a few dried lentils yesterday, but I’m saving that update for a little later when I’ve had time to pick more. Stay tuned!
Experiment 8 - Lots of beans
All of the beans seem to be progressing at about the same rate. The pinto beans are showing a sort of marbleized coloration on their shells that I can only assume is happening on the inside as well… it’s kind of the pinto bean trademark. The fava beans, navy beans, and garbanzo beans are also well on their way.
Experiment 8 - Pinto and Navy Beans (MTG 6.6)
Yet again, the pinto/navy bean developments are somewhat parallel so I’m grouping them together.
I really like taking worms’ eye view shots of the pinto beans. It makes them look so… majestic. Majestic beans. Fancy beans.
I was going to post several photos of the bean pods in their various stages of development, but I realized some of my newest photos already do that on their own without me having to post a bunch of old ones. Pictured is one of the plant’s only mature bean pods, surrounded near its top by a number of pods that aren’t quite as far along yet.
The navy beans don’t grow as vine-like as the pinto beans, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping them from producing a super dense crop of pods.
My plan at the moment is to let the beans and lentils all dry out on the vine as the plant dries. I can’t wait until harvest time.
Experiment 8 - Garbanzo Beans (MTG 6.4 - Part 1)
One of my favorite things about the instant garden is the fact that I had no clue prior to planting some of this stuff how it would look if/when it came out of the ground. One of the biggest surprises was the garbanzo beans. I’m not sure why, exactly. I guess it’s because they don’t look anything like beans.
I took a lot of mediocre to decent closeup photographs of the garbanzo bean plants over the past couple of weeks. Most of them look pretty much the same. My recommendation is to imagine a quiet, classical piano tune playing as you carefully admire the stillness of the remaining photos.
The piano music gradually fades out.
The last photo is special because it shows there are actually beans in progress. Also, it perfectly demonstrates how the plants are covered in a fine fuzz.
More and more of these pods are appearing, to the point where it may warrant another post shortly after I finish MTG 6.
Edit: Edited post to include the “Part 1” label in the title. This vegetable will have two posts for MTG 6!
Experiment 8 - Meet the Garden (Part 5.2)
Fava Beans
Regular readers may recall that the fava beans weren’t really a “reclaimed kitchen item” like other things growing in the instant garden, but I adopted them anyway. This photo shows a quartet of new leaves at the top of the plant.
Another photo. There are actually two plants, but one was planted quite a bit earlier than the other and is still significantly smaller.
Navy Beans and Pinto Beans
I am grouping the navy and pinto beans into one category because much like the lentils, they are so closely grouped together that they basically look like one big plant at the moment.
That said, the pinto bean plants are definitely the tallest.
They’re also blooming!
The navy bean plants are blooming, too. I have yet to find anything resembling bean pods on any of the plants yet, but if every flower produces one, the instant garden’s bean yield is going to be very high. Exciting!
Peanuts
Yes, plural. At first, I thought only one had made it. Upon closer inspection, however…
There are two! This small one was practically being smothered by the lentil plants and I didn’t see it until just recently. Apart from what looks like some minor slug damage, it seems fine.
I removed the makeshift squirrel/bird barrier after discovering the smaller peanut plant. I’d like to think it helped both plants survive, but in reality I’ll never know. I’ll probably use the same strategy next year, though.
Thus concludes Meet the Garden Part 5. As fast as things are progressing, I’m sure it won’t be too long before there’s a Part 6.
Experiment 8 - Best buds
One of the pinto bean plants started becoming increasingly more vine-like, so I grabbed a dowel out of the garage to see if it might want to climb it.
Answer: Yes.
It’s amazing… in the morning I go out and see a bit of new growth hanging in the breeze, and by the time I get home from work it’s managed to wrap itself around the dowel.
This same plant also appears to have flower buds forming behind some of its leaves.
Speaking of which, the lentils (regular, not the green ones) appear to have flower buds forming, too. You can see them in the above photo right below the two big leaves at the top middle.
Exciting!
Experiment 8 - As promised a short while back, here is a picture of the garbanzo bean seedlings. The white growing thing that looks like it’s coming out of the rear plant is that plant’s taproot, which I covered with dirt after identifying.
