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Beans are an important staple crop to grow along with corn, squash and potatoes. Devote most of your gardening time to learn how to grow these staples consistently. Fortunately, they are among the easiest plants to grow, store and propagate thanks to their large seeds or tubers and their fast-growing natures. Part of the difficulty is learning to plant, grow and harvest these crops in sufficient quantity to provide food for you all year.

Beans are especially important because of their role in crop rotation. Beans, peas and other legumes foster nitrogen-producing bacteria that add nitrogen into the soil. If your garden space is limited, consider growing pole beans or climbing beans on other plants, such as corn stalks. Just plant the beans on the sunny side of the corn plants when the corn is already 6 inches high. Some people even grow squash in the same area in what they call the “three sisters” planting, where groups of the three are planted every 4 or 5 feet in mounds. The nitrogen from the beans isn’t released into the soil until after the beans have died, and the roots decompose, so the corn might need some manure or compost early on. Vine beans don’t produce well if fertilized with nitrogen (they produce too many leaves), but bush beans with pale yellow leaves that seem struggling might need a little nitrogen in the form of fish emulsion.

How many bean plants are enough?

In hard times animal protein will be scarce and expensive, so beans will be needed to add protein to more of our meals. I still only expect to need about a ½ cup of cooked beans (1 serving) per person per day. That translates to 60 pounds or a 5-gallon bucket of beans per year for each adult. The OSU extension service says 100 ft of dry beans will produce 20 to 25 lbs of dry beans which means you need 250 to 300 feet of beans per person per year. Almost all bean varieties can be picked young as green beans, but the pods on typical dry bean varieties quickly become too tough to eat fresh.

How much garden space is needed?

Bush beans can be planted every 6 to 8 inches but climbing vine beans are spaced wider at every 10 inches. It turns out the land needed for both types of beans is approximately the same because climbing beans produce more per plant. Commercially grown dry beans in Idaho are planted in rows 24″ apart, but a grower in the dry part of Oregon produces much more by planting 44″ wide beds with three rows 1 ft apart. Some dry beans are also tasty if harvested early as green snap beans. In this case, plant them 2ft apart so you can pick both sides of the bean plants, but dry beans are only picked at the end as you pull up the whole plant, so a closer planting works well.

What variety of beans should you plant?

Beans are self-pollinating so you can easily plant any dry bean seed and get the same variety again. In fact, if you have old, hard beans in your food storage that don’t cook up well, just sow them into the ground. Many of them will sprout and produce a new, fresh crop for you. You can even save seeds from multiple varieties in the same garden and they won’t cross with each other as long as they aren’t planted side-by-side.

I recommend Tepary beans for their drought tolerance even in hot, dry climates. Their seeds are small, but prolific and they handle the alkaline soils of the West very well. The Cherokee “Trail of Tears” bean is a good variety of small black beans that can be harvested early as a tasty snap bean and later as a small black bean, but it is a pole bean and needs a trellis, cornstalk or sunflower to grow up for best results. Mother Earth News has a good summary of other heirloom bean varieties with tips on how to grow them, but I would first just try the dry beans in your food storage that you already like using. They should stay true-to-type even if they aren’t an heirloom variety.

Harvesting dry beans

This can be challenging on a big scale without a combine. The best advice on harvesting came from the small farm in Eastern Oregon mentioned above. They stop watering their ½ acre bean field a month before harvest to encourage it to dry out and finish off. Before the fall rains hit, they pull up the plants in the morning when a little dew keeps them flexible. They carefully remove any dirt clods that might get mixed with the beans and be hard to separate later, and then they gather the plants on the biggest tarp they can find (at least 20 ft x 60 ft). After allowing them a few days to finish drying, they thresh the dry plants by simply driving over them with a vehicle until all the pods are broken up. Some people with smaller quantities just thresh by walking or dancing to break open the dry pods while others pound them with sticks. Next is sifting and “scalping” away the dry plant material and the final step is to winnow or drop the beans in front of a strong fan to blow away the last, fine particles until only the dry bean seeds remain.

Storing Dry Beans

Dry beans, of course, store very well. But they need to be dried out thoroughly. They are properly dry when your teeth can’t make an indentation, or when it shatters rather than smashes when hit with a hammer. Store in an airtight container like a bucket with a sealed lid. Beans will last several years in cool, dry storage, but a good pressure cooker can soften up even older, hard beans. But nothing beats the flavor and easy cooking of freshly harvested beans. With the wide variety of beans available, try several out and find the variety that you prefer and that grows well in your garden. [END]

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February is a great time to garden—in your mind and on paper.

When most parts of the US are just beginning to thaw out from winter, gardeners are already envisioning plants growing and producing in the warmth of summer. Some gardeners succumb to the lure of temporary warm spell and start their plants early only to have Jack Frost nip them back. Don’t gamble—use this time instead for planning out the next garden. There is a lot to do before spring when you will be busy preparing the ground, setting up the watering systems and sowing seeds. February and March are perfect for reading up about plants, evaluating last year’s garden, and learning how to combat pests and diseases. It is also time to take stock of the seeds you saved from last year and order or buy new ones.

What to Try First

Be careful when perusing seed and plant catalogs; glossy pictures of beautiful mature plants and ripe produce are so tempting you can easily end up buying more seeds than you have space or energy for. From a preparedness perspective, you should start out learning to cultivate plants that are easy to grow and produce high-volumes of food, such as: zucchini, potatoes, beets, carrots, squash, and beans. Most gardeners also want to grow a few garden favorites like tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, peppers and pump

kins. After you have a little gardening experience you should also grow early-to-table crops like peas, lettuce, radishes, chard and kale.

Start a Garden Journal

A good garden plan should be written down each year in a notebook. These garden journals document how the garden was prepared (raised beds, furrows, square plots, etc), where plants grew, and a host of other information. You can document soil pH from tests, watering methods, fertilizers, mulching strategies, pests, diseases and remedies. The more information you keep track of, the easier it will be in a few years to know what went wrong and what worked well. Experience is very important in gardening, but there are so many factors it can be hard to remember where a plant grew well and where it fared poorly. By tracking the plant’s location, the general weather that year and other inputs, you can learn why some plants failed and hopefully how to remedy the problem to get a good crop when it really matters.

Crop Rotation

Crop rotation is an important part of your garden plan. The idea is that since plants use and give back different nutrients to the ground, it best to move them around each year to keep the soil healthy. However, crop rotation is a very inexact science, depending greatly on your gardening style and plants. In the first place, perennials like asparagus, rhubarb, and most herbs regrow in the same place year after year. Some plants that reseed themselves easily like turnips, lettuce and some onions are also best left to thrive in their own spot.

Crop rotation is most important for crops that are grown in large isolated groups—crops like corn and potatoes. Corn uses large amounts of nitrogen so it should follow peas, beans or other legumes that put nitrogen back in the soil. Chicken manure is also high in nitrogen, as is hay or shavings from animal stalls.

Potatoes are said to produce better if planted after corn. This important crop also has to be rotated to a new place each year to reduce the chances of disease building up in the soil. Try to give the soil three or four years between potato plantings to discourage any diseases. Tomatoes are in the same family as potatoes and may attract potato blight so don’t plant them in succession. Some gardeners keep tomatoes in the same spot year after year without problems and others claim they do even better if tomatoes are grown in the asparagus plot.

Farmers group their plants into similar families and keep members of the same family together in the rotation or separated by a few years. Here are the biggest groups: Nightshades: tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplant; Brassicas: cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, collards and turnips; Legumes: peas, beans, lentils, and clover; Squash: squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and gourds; Carrots: carrots, turnips, fennel, celeriac. Goosefoot: beets, swiss chard, and spinach. Some plants, like onions and carrots, can be planted anywhere and are generally beneficial.

Here are a few more tips: The cabbage family does well following beans. Squash spreads out and smothers weeds. Beets and carrots pull a lot from the soil and are best following squash. Eliot Coleman, an organic farmer recommends rotating in this order: (1) Tomatoes, (2) peas, (3) cabbage, (4) sweet corn, (5) potatoes, (6) squash, (7) root crops, (8) beans.

The benefits of rotating crops has long been established, but the exact method varies. You may not want a plot of peas as big as your sweet corn was. Or your garden may be so small moving the corn around would shade other plants. You will have to find ways to work around the problems. Perhaps you may have to rotate by growing some crops one year and not another. Shade tolerant crops include beets, spinach, carrots, and summer lettuce. Some gardeners have success without rotating by growing many diverse plants together with companion plants that help revitalize the soil at the same time. You may also be able to revitalize most nutrients with good compost and digested manure or other natural fertilizers, but you have to watch out for diseases and pests.

As you can see, there are plenty of ways to grow crops, but to keep your soil and garden healthy year after year you should make a plan that will work for the next several years. Your garden journal is an important tool in this planning, and can really help you maximize your space to grow more abundantly. A good plan will save you time knowing where (and when) to plant things during the hectic spring. Your plan is also a valuable reference for identifying that new squash or tomato variety in the dense overgrown jungle at the end of the summer. Don’t forget to add notes at the end of the year about which varieties grew well for you, which preserved well, and, above all, which tasted good. [END]

 

Gun enthusiasts can never agree about the best home defense firearm because every category of weapons has its own pros and cons. Handguns are easy to wield, rifles are more accurate and shotguns are more powerful, so which should you consider? First you must understand the challenges facing you when defending a home at night with loved ones around you and the relative strengths and weaknesses of each weapon type in these situations. Here are the issues relevant to each category of firearm:

The handgun:

For most people their first self defense firearm will be a handgun. Small, portable, and easy to carry concealed, handguns are the most common firearm purchased for self defense. I

n many ways handguns are also ideal for home defense. When “things go bump in the night” and you have to check your house for intruders (called “clearing a house”), the smaller handgun is better for concealing near your bed, wielding when navigating around corners or opening closed doors and operating one-handed if you also have to grab a child.

When choosing a caliber of gun, remember that you probably won’t be wearing ear and eye protection like on the range, because you have to be able to hear the tiniest sounds, and see shadows and movements. Although there is military-grade eye and ear protection for these scenarios, they are expensive and you (and your family) might not have time to don them during an encounter. R

emember too that gunshots are often louder within small spaces of the house. 9mm rounds usually only leave minor ringing compared to larger caliber handguns like a .45 or .357 magnum (revolvers are louder in general). There is a big step up in noise produced by the powerful rounds in the rifle calibers, but a shotgun report is very loud can leave you temporarily deaf (or worse). Find a balance between bigger caliber weapons with “knock-down” power and the ringing it leaves in your unprotected ears after each shot.

If you do choose a large caliber weapon consider subsonic rounds (less than 1000 fps) which are quieter because they don’t make the loud “crack” as the bullet breaks the sound barrier. All gunshots still make quit a pop unless you invest in a silencer. Silencers are legal in 39 states and becoming quite popular among gun enthusiasts despite the $200 “tax stamp” that must be paid to the government each time you buy one.

The rifle:

 

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A rifle such as an AR-15 might not seem like your first choice, but it can perform well in home defense too. Plenty of military and police have learned to effectively clear even tight spaces with a longer weapon, and until recently, they also never carried ear protection. The principle advantages of a rifle are increased accuracy, more firepower and 30 round magazines. If your intruder is armed and you get caught in a firefight, your rifle will give you a decided advantage over a handgun.

Military-style rifle rails are often cluttered up with expensive and unnecessary accessories, but a tactical flashlight is a valuable addition. The idea is to clear your house without turning on interior lights, since these light up the room you are in and illuminate yourself as a target. Instead try to surprise the intruder with a sudden flash from a powerful tactical flashlight to blind them as you confront them with a command to stop or freeze. This light is important to identify the intruder from friends or family, but the blinding light won’t let him see (or aim at) you easily. SureFire brand lights are the best out there, but they cost upwards of $200.

The shotgun:

Many people like shotguns for home defense because nothing compares to its “knock-down” power and its effectiveness in close quarters. Clear a house with a long gun can be a little cumbersome, but still possible, especially if done in pairs. If you live in an apartment you won’t have to worry about stray bullets going into the neighbor’s if you use birdshot rounds, but remember they are only really lethal to about 5 yards. Part of the benefit of shotguns is the variety of shells made for them, particularly if you have a 12 guage. The best for home defense if 00 (“double ought”) buckshot (lethal to 30 yards) or slugs (100 yards). Shotguns don’t have to cost much (like the pump-action Maverick 88 at under $250).

The downside to the power of a shotgun is, of course, the noise. Subsonic rounds help considerably but there isn’t much in this category to choose from. Federal’s Top-Gun 900 fps birdshot round is popular with scattergun enthusiasts, but to get larger buckshot in a subsonic shell you may have reload them yourself. Ballistic Products has reloading information for several kinds of subsonic scattershot rounds.

As you can see, every weapon has pros and cons. The best firearm for you will depend on your specific situation and familiarity with your weapons. Ultimately the best weapon is the one you feel comfortable grabbing in the dead of night and wielding accurately even during misfires. Can’t decide? You don’t have to choose just one if you can keep the others accessible. In fact, a popular competition is the three gun shoot that tests people in each of these weapons and highlights each weapon’s strengths. [END]