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Bountea Growing Tips
  June 2010
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In This Issue
June Garden Tasks
Bountiful Beans
Quick Links
 Dear Reader,

 On the 1st June, we made the great leap forward into a spacious warehouse near Sebastopol, California!  The area is beautiful and lush with vineyards; the facilities are quiet and peaceful - just what we need.Roland in the garden
 
Recently, I spent two weeks in Ireland visiting family and meeting with the Dutch owner of an established compost tea business.  Hopefully, Bountea will soon be available in the EU.  It will be a relief to be able to satisfy the many inquiries we receive from Europe for Bountea products. 

On a more peGrandpa Mikersonal note, my father, Mike Evans is 97 this month.  Grandpa Mike still takes his dog Teasel for a walk and gets out into his garden a few hours each day.  His garden is magnificent though increasingly overgrown.  Gardening is still his passion - he can give the Latin name for each of the thousands of plants crowding the hillside.     
This month's article is on one of my favorite vegetables - beans.  Early every year I plant fava or broad beans and have converted many of my gardening friends to this wonderful and nutritious food. 

I also love to plant lots of heavy cropping runner beans.  The runner is much neglected in the US - only the Scarlet variety is easily available.  On my Irish trip I purchased 3 different varieties including Painted Lady with beautiful pink and white flowers.  Scour the internet and find yourself some flavorful and nutritious beans this summer.     

Best Regards,
Roland Evans
Organic Bountea


June Garden Tasks
(June 15th -- July 15th)

If you are on top of things, you should have completed the tasks for the early part of June detailed last month.  I have put them in again as a reminder in case you are a little behind.  

Transplants outdoors: tomato, cucumber, eggplant, melons, gourds, peppers, pumpkins, winter squash, summer squash.

Ornamentals: plant tender annuals

Seeds Outdoors: Regularly plant bush and pole beans (see article), radish, lettuce, and all salad greens every 2 weeks or so. If you have a cool shady spot, sow some summer spinach.

June is the month when everything is growing fast. There are plenty of tasks to keep an eye on:
  • Make sure your irrigation system or hand watering keeps the soil consistently moist
  • Mulch between the growing plants to conserve moisture and keep plant roots cool
  • Do not let your weeds grow too big or go to seed.  Keep on top of them.
  • Harvest any salads or greens that seem to be growing leggy or starting to seed
  • Clear spent plants fast.  Replant the space with a different crop or green manure
  • Start more seeds indoors or undercover for continual replanting
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Bountea Compost Tea:  If you are growing lots of leafy greens continue to add the M3 to every second application of the Bountea.  If you want to promote exceptional flowering and fruiting of tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash and fruit trees, add B3 instead of the M3.  The application rates are the same.

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Bountiful Beans
General Info: Beans are members of the legume family.  Legumes are "givers" - an essential element of good crop rotations - as their roots have a symbiotic relationship with microbes that help fix nitrogen.  All varieties prefer a non-acid soil (pH 6.0-7.5) with plenty of organic matter.

Seeds:  Come in a range of shapes and sizes from small roundish shell beans to large flat fava beans.  Seeds store for 2 years and germinate in 7 -14 days.

Varieties: Beans fall into the following types, each of which has many different varieties: 
  • Fava or Broad - a cool loving legume that sets upward pointing pods with strong tasting beans 
  • Runner - a medium temperature, heavy cropping pole bean grown for its long crisp pods, mainly in the UK
  • Bush, Snap or French - the commonest type of low-growing heat-loving bean with green, purple or yellow pods
  • Dried Bean - similar to the bush bean but grown for the beans which are allowed to mature and dry in the pod
  • Pole or Climbing- many different varieties that grow up to 10' high with round or flat beans of different colors - heat-loving
  • Lima or Butter - bush or pole varieties that have large flat soft buttery-tasting beans - heat-loving
  • Soybean or Edamame - heat-loving Asian bean grown to eat cooked straight from the pod or as dried soybeans

Indoor Sowing: Most beans do not like to be transplanted, so direct sowing is usually recommended.  However, runner beans can be sown indoors, 1 seed per container in late April.  Harden off and transplant in late May or early June after your last frost date.

Outdoor Sowing
  • Favas - Direct seed in the garden or greenhouse from early spring (or even late winter) every 3 weeks until mid summer.  Sow seeds 2" deep, 8" apart in doubleBeansrows.
  • Runners - Sow in late May and early June 2" deep, 8" apart against long poles or trellis.  Runner beans will not flower in high heat but may set beans again in the fall.
  • Other Beans - Plant after last frost date in full sun, 1" deep, 4"-6" apart depending on type... read more 
 
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Organic Bountea
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