Long Beans and Summer Greens

Village Farm Team,

Our green beans may be done for the season but our long beans are just beginning to produce! Chinese long beans, sometimes referred to as yardlong beans, asparagus beans, or snake beans, produce edible pods that can reach up to 18 inches in length. Unlike our green beans which create bushy growth, long beans produce vines and thus need a trellis support to climb. Now that we’ve trellised our beans we’re just starting to see the first flowers and pods. We have both green and red varieties planted.

Remember the summer greens we started in the greenhouse? We were finally able to find a break in the rain to get them planted this week. We transplanted a couple of raised beds with the amaranth while the Malabar spinach was transplanted into the spot previously occupied by our lemon cucumbers since it will require the use of a trellis. We’re excited to be growing these varieties as it means we’ll be able to offer leafy greens throughout the summer!

As much as we love rain and not having to run our irrigation, there can be too much of a good thing when it comes to moisture. Due to the incredible amount of rain we received throughout the entire month of May and the beginning of June, some of our crops didn’t make it. Our first succession of peppers appear to be the hardest hit followed by our tomatoes and our summer squashes. The upside is that our second succession of peppers is doing great! Once we’re able to get in and weed our rows we’ll be trellising these peppers and harvesting soon after. This succession is a mix of mild and sweet peppers like Jimmy Nardello and Cornito Rosso.