It’s 9′ tall. Calling it Encouragement worked, and so did good non-GMO seeds, and lots of water and good aged horse manure as fertilizer. (Also continuously getting rid of as many Japanese beetles as I can, since they make lace of green bean leaves if you let them run wild.)  I’ve now had to string wire between two trellis arrangements and add more bamboo as taller supports, and I just picked a nice hand full of green beans for supper.  That picture above was taken June 15th.  Here’s one from today, with volunteer tomatoes growing at the bottom of the beans, too. I’m seriously going to be picking those beans from up on a ladder.

There’s a tee pee of bamboo inside the fence now too to let younger green beans, black eyed peas and kidney beans grow up. Sometimes a jerry-rig is necessary to get the job done.   I put that tee pee up about a week ago and the plants are already crawling almost  half way up each pole. I’d be so lost without bamboo this year.

Disregard the grass in there, it’s not getting pulled regularly enough, but my crops don’t mind cos they have their own space to grow. I post these things for several reasons. It’s fun to show people you can grow food in sometimes small areas, and sometimes crowded conditions, if you still give the plants the right water and also good  fertilizer.  I also like to reinforce the idea of natural seeds, not GMO seeds, since I believe you get better plants and better food from the natural seeds.  I don’t like poison to control problems in the garden, or chemicals instead of natural fertilizer.  I have a friend who brings me aged horse manure and it’s the best thing you can add to earth to grow things.  I’m using a naturally occurring bacteria available in spray form to kill cabbage worms on cabbage, collards and Romanesco broccoli.  It doesn’t hurt anything else except those little green devils that eat cabbage the worst, and also anything from that family.  It’s called BT, and you can Google and find it available from many companies. The Japanese beetle trap also works without poison, cos they’re evidently dumb and slow and just fly into it, and drop down in the bag.  🙂

So, I grow small amounts of things, enough to have for myself and share some, have the fun and amazement of seeing it all happen while I just stand by and assist, and hopefully get some other people encouraged to grow some food from reading my blog.  Hopefully also growing their food in organic ways that don’t harm the environment or other critters that aren’t hurting anything.

I also just like writing this blog!  It makes me smile when I make my readers smile.