It’s July, and that means one certain thing – it’s HOT. I know, somehow, I always find something to complain about. But when the heat index climbs to 112F, the last thing I want to do is go outside and work in the garden. That being said, I took a mini “vacation” and went to visit some family and friends.
As you could imagine, leaving the garden for 10 days let the weeds go crazy – especially with the heat and humidity. Today, I finally got up the motivation to do a little bit of weeding. Most importantly, I was able to completely clear out the corn and bean patch. Let’s take a look –
Most all of the bush beans and cowpeas have started to turn yellow. Most of the pods have that leathery “bean pods starting to dry out” feeling, so I went ahead and just pulled the plants and pick all the pods. I plan to leave them outside for the next week or so, and hopefully, they’ll continue to dry. It was interesting to grow the ‘Borlotto di Vigevano Nano’ variety, but I’m honestly not sure if I would do it again. The pods are about 50/50 when it comes to actual pink flecks. However, the size of the actual bean is quite large.
The four-ish bean varieties that I planted were all crammed into a 4ft x 4ft space. At three inch spacing, it was incredibly difficult to harvest the beans as they grew for snaps, so I let most of them just grow and grow until it was time to pick.
The ‘Northern Lady’ cowpeas did much better than any other cowpea that I’ve tried to grow in the past. I decided to go ahead and pick all the pods, as the plants had turned completely yellow while I was away. I think most of these should dry nicely. 
What do the pink beans taste like?