Garden Chat

By Jean Lundquist

Get ready, get set, GARDEN!

Inoculants lead to more productive plants

There are so many things to plant, and so little time to decide what those things should be. I used to try to plant something new to me every year. That’s how I ended up with okra, fennel, artichokes, celeriac and the like. These days I settle for trying new varieties of things I know I like.

This year I ordered Coyote Bush Bean from Vermont Bean Seed Company. According to the description in the catalog, it is the 2021 Bean of the Year. I figure that has to mean something coming from a bean seed company. This 55-day bean has a concentrated pod set, making for more efficient picking, the summary said. It also “has amazing bean flavor,” the company stated.

I’ve been growing Contender green beans for a while. They take only 40 days to mature. I might have to plant a few of them again this year, as it will mean a meal of green beans two weeks earlier than Coyote beans.

This year I am also going to invest in an inoculant. I have used it in the past but can’t say I ever saw the value of it. My green bean green thumb has almost always provided lots of beans to harvest.

Last year growing them in bags didn’t provide nearly enough, so this year they are going back into the ground. Because my garden is so much smaller than the one I had years ago, I need to make the most of my space. According to the VBSC, inoculated seeds planted in a 25-foot row will produce 26.4 pounds of green beans. That same row, without added inoculant, will provide 17.2 pounds.

By the same study, inoculated peas will produce 7.1 pounds, while those seeds not treated will produce 4 pounds.

An inoculant is not fertilizer but microbes that help legumes take up nitrogen already in the soil.

Because I’m going to fork out the $14 for inoculant, I also will plant peas this year. I plant them to be a snack when I’m working in the garden. For me, it’s much more efficient to buy a bag of frozen peas than it is to grow them and freeze them myself, but there’s nothing like the taste of a fresh-picked pea to encourage the work of gardening.

If you’re in the process of deciding what kind of beans to plant, bush beans require a lot less work than pole beans. They mature earlier, too. But if you’re patient and willing to build supports, pole beans mature later but produce larger crops than bush beans. They also produce over a longer period of time. I’m fortunate to have neighbors who purchase Copra onions for me from their source. They are tasty, and they last almost forever in winter storage. If you don’t have a source for Copras, Patterson onions are supposed to be just as good and last just as long. If you are purchasing your onions from a catalog or online, be sure you buy long day onions. Long day onions begin to set bulbs when daylight hours approach 14 hours. If you decide to buy short day onions, they stop growing when the days are 10-12 hours long. When the daylight hours are longer than that, they flower and go to seed.

Some people trim the green tops off onions to encourage the plants to set larger bulbs. I’ve never tried that but might do so this year.

If your onions come out of the ground oval rather than round, it means you’ve planted them too deep. That could matter if you want to win a blue ribbon at the county fair, should we have one in 2021, but oval onions don’t bother me a bit.

If you’re starting seeds under lights, this is the month to do it.

Let the gardening season begin!

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