June Newsletter

Over the Memorial Day holiday, we visited family in the St. Louis area. Lucky for me my brother lives less than 5 minutes away from the Missouri Botanical Garden. If you haven’t been, it’s worth the trip. It’s one of the oldest public gardens and has plants from all over the world—including an indoor rain forest with banana trees. There is something for everyone there. I have been several times and always try to get there when it’s possible as the garden is different every day. We spent about 3.5 hours there, though could’ve easily spent the day.

Sunflower GOA Garden Tour

The Sunflower GOA is having a garden tour on Saturday, June 7 9am-5pm. The tour consists of eight gardens in Wyandotte county, with something for everyone. Water gardens, container gardens, flowerbeds, perennials, butterfly gardens, daylilies and much more highlight the tour. Melissa has the flyer and can get you a copy of the directions to those who are interested in going. The cost for the fundraising tour is $5 per person, 12 and older.

Library project

If you haven’t been out to the Blackbob Library lately, you will notice some great additions. Boy scout Bobby Rolle, his father Bob, and other scouts added some benches, a picnic table and a gazebo, in addition to mulching the pathways to complete work for Bobby’s Eagle Scout project.

There will be more library workdays coming up. Linda will let everyone know when the next one will be.

Garden Tour and Pot Luck

Mark your calendars for Saturday June 21st for our annual garden tour and potluck lunch.

10:00 AM Our day will start with a tour of Whittaker Flower Farm's gardens and green house, 15855 W. 183rd Street, located between Lackman and Renner Road (1/2 mile west of Blackbob on 183rd). This part of the tour is $3 and includes not only an hour-long hosted tour but also a flower bouquet and use of their lath house for our lunch. Please bring folding chairs and something to keep your flowers fresh (shallow jar for water or a Styrofoam cooler are suggested). Other details are still to be determined, and I'll keep you posted as they develop. Also bring a side dish and lawn chair for lunch potluck in the lath house.

2:00 PM Marvin Snyder, 9107 Outlook Dr, one block south and east of 91st and Lamar, Overland Park

Tracy would like a headcount so Gaye Whittaker can prepare enough bouquets, so please let her know how many are coming. Family, friends, all welcome.

June Program

The topic for our June meeting will be "Growing Roses". Our speaker will be Al Karsten, Master Gardener. He will be telling us how to care for roses throughout the year.

Annual Convention

I would like to ask your help via your club newsletter, if there's time, or phone calls, or whatever means you might use to ask and encourage you and your fellow club members to sign up to attend the June 26th through June 29th Annual Convention in Albany, New York. It will be a growing experience and wonderful time for everyone who attends. Registration and convention information has been in the last two issues of The Gardener.

Please re-check it out, and seriously consider joining all your fellow gardeners in New York.

Recap of May Meeting

The speaker for the May meeting was Sandy Bonar, a Johnson County Extension Master Gardener; and her topic was "Herb Gardening".

Herbs need sun (6 hours is enough in our hot summers), plenty of air circulation, and well-drained soil. Herbs usually need some fertilization. Sandy recommends fish emulsion, as it is organic.

Many herbs are easy to start from seed. Some herbs, such as parsley, dill, and fennel, have a taproot and dislike being transplanted. When purchasing these plants, buy small starts rather than large ones; they may transplant easier. Some perennial herbs can get old and need to be divided to be revitalized.

Herbs aren't too easy to grow indoors; they need lots of sunlight and they tend to dislike the dryness and heat in most homes. However, herbs that are perennial but not hardy in our area, such as rosemary, can be potted up and brought into an unheated (but not freezing) garage or shed. Let them go dormant, water occasionally but don't allow them to sit in water.

The quality of the plant can affect the taste and scent of the herbs; some varieties are better than others.

For cooking with herbs, remember to slightly crush the herbs before you add them to release the flavor and aroma. When substituting fresh herbs for dry herbs, you usually need to add 3 times as much. The best time to add fresh herbs is at the end of the cooking process.

Refreshments for June

June 7 Sunflower GOA Garden Tour

June 14 Christ Episcopal Church Garden Walk

June 19 June Meeting “Roses” by Al Karsten

June 21 OGOA Garden Tour and potluck

June 25-28 TGOA-MGCA National Convention—Albany New York

June 26 “Cutting Gardens” a program at the main branch of the Olathe Library

July 12-13 KC Metro Water Garden Tours

July 17 July Meeting “Gardening in the Heat” by Andrea Ray Chandler

September 20 MO-KAN Regional Convention

MO-KAN Regional Board meeting

Melissa attended the Regional Board meeting on May 17. Discussion was held on the booth at the Bartle Hall Home Show. The region or maybe just the Johnson County clubs may man a membership booth at the Johnson County Home and Garden Show next spring. Currently this is being looked into, but nothing has been finalized or confirmed.

The MO-KAN regional convention will be held September 20 at the Colonial Church, 71st & Mission in OP. A tour of Kauffman Gardens will highlight the day. No information is available on cost or other details, but watch your newsletter for upcoming information.

MO-KAN Regional Convention

Come join us for a day of fun, education and rekindling of old friendships. Our speakers will be Madalein O’Dell (GKC/GOA) and Duane Hoover, Horticulturalist for Kaufman Gardens.

Details and cost will follow in the next couple of weeks but I wanted you to be sure to set aside this date now.

PLANT OF THE MONTH: 2003: YEAR OF THE BEAN

Young snap beans to eat fresh from the garden. Colorful green, purple and yellow beans. Bush beans that grow on compact stems and pole beans that clamber up tepees and trellises. Few vegetables are as varied as beans, as easy to grow, and as versatile in the kitchen, which are the reasons the National Garden Bureau designated 2003 as the Year of the Bean. Add nutrients to the equation, and you have a truly bountiful crop, worthy of space in your garden. Beans contain fiber and a lot of protein, including the essential amino acid lysine. (Most grains lack lysine; combine them with beans, however, and they form a complete protein.) They also provide folacin (folic acid) and some minerals. All together, beans are a healthful vegetable, and they taste delicious.

What's in a Name?

There are basically three types of beans: Snap, green shelling, and dry shell. Snap beans are named after the sound they make when pods are broken. They "snap." We grow snap beans to eat the pods fresh (or frozen); green shelling beans, such as limas, to eat the young, green seeds inside the pods fresh (or frozen); and dry shell beans for the mature seeds, which dry in the pods on the vine before being shelled. We are going to discuss the first two types because we do not have enough space to address the dry type.

All beans belong to the legume family (Leguminocae), as do peas and some favorite flowers, such as lupine, sweet pea, and baptisia. Legumes have the ability to fix nitrogen in the soil, which makes that nutrient readily available to plants.

Botanically, most of our edible beans are in the genus Phaseolus (pronounced phase-olus). Snap beans, French (sometimes called European or filet) beans, romano, and wax beans are P. vulgaris. The genus name is from the Latin for kidney bean; the species name translates simply as common. French beans are bush-type beans that produce very narrow, sometimes pencil-thin, pods. Romano beans, a favorite from Italy, are thicker and flatter than other snap beans. Wax beans have yellow pods, which look rather waxy-but they don't taste like wax! Bush snap beans take 45 to 55 days to bear a crop, depending on the variety; pole snap beans begin to bear in 60 to 70 days.

Lima beans are P. lunatus; lunatus means crescent-shaped, which limas are in a plump sort of way; they are often called butter beans in the south. Lima beans require slightly warmer temperatures than snap beans to germinate well. Bush limas take 70 to 80 days to produce a crop; pole limas need 80 to 95 days.

Snap beans add more to the garden than the color green. They also come in purple, such as 'Purple Teepee,' 'Royal Burgundy' and 'Sequoia,' and yellow, such as 'Brittle Wax,' 'Goldcrop' and 'Rocdor.' Other beans we grow to use in ornamental plantings. Old-fashioned and pretty scarlet runner beans, P. coccineus, are edible when the pods are young but are planted more for their attractive red flowers than their beans. Blue hyacinth beans, Dolichos lablab (also called Lablab purpureus) produce striking, deep lilac-blue flowers followed by maroon bean pods, which are edible but not the reason to grow the plants; they make a beautiful and fast-growing cover for all kinds of fences, trellises and arbors.

A Bit of History

People have cultivated beans for thousands of years, but before breeders developed stringless beans, beans had fibrous strings along the seam of the pod and a rather tough lining-and were aptly called string beans. Gardeners removed the strings and cooked the beans quite awhile to soften the lining, which was time consuming and did not result in the best tasting beans. Prior to the late 19th century, most beans grown by home gardeners were raised for shelled, dried beans, not fresh green beans.

In the late 1800s breeders began to select varieties of beans pollinated by bees or by hand, looking for improved characteristics. Calvin Keeney, in New York State, has been called the "Father of the Stringless Bean" because of his breeding work in this area. In 1898, he bred 'Burpee's Stringless Green Pod,' which became the most popular variety until 'Tendergreen' came on the scene in 1925.

Nothing much was done with bush beans until the breakthrough 'Bush Blue Lake' bean was introduced by Asgrow in 1962. That strain combined the great flavor of the 'Blue Lake' pole bean with a bush habit. Nowadays, gardeners demand new varieties frequently and every few years a new bush bean appears on the market. The National Garden Bureau found, in addition to flavor, the emphasis in all bean selections is on disease resistance.

Pole beans were even slower to change: 'Kentucky Wonder' was introduced in 1877 by Ferry-Morse Seed Company and is still a very popular variety today. The pole bean 'Kentucky Blue' resulted from a cross between 'Blue Lake' and 'Kentucky Wonder'; bred by Rogers Bros. Seed Company, it was an All-America Selections winner in 1991.

Lima beans can be grown as pole or bush beans. The original 'Henderson' pole bean was released in 1889 and 'The Fordhook' bush bean in 1907 by Burpee. The latter was discovered in a field of pole lima beans in 1904 and subsequently sold to W. Atlee Burpee. Both varieties have led to improved bush and pole limas. Gardeners tend to think of all vegetables as hybrids, but that is not accurate. Beans are not hybrids. They are produced as open pollinated crops, primarily in the northwestern U.S. where growing conditions are optimal and disease pressure is minimal. Improvements in existing lines are made when breeders select a parent that has a desirable trait, such as virus resistance. Breeders then "fix" that trait, making the new variety genetically identical through many generations of self-pollination. In doing so, they are careful to make sure that the new beneficial trait breeds true and that it is carried from one generation to the next. The newly bred variety is an open pollinated bean.

Bush versus Pole: Pros and Cons

Some gardeners like bush beans better than pole beans because bush beans produce a lot of pods in a short time frame; they do, however, take up more space in the garden than pole beans. Bush beans rarely have trouble with pests and diseases, simply because they are not in the garden long enough to be bothered. The bush bean's shorter life span gives gardeners a chance to dig up the dead stalks and plant a different crop or a succession crop of beans.

Gardeners who prefer pole beans like the way they make great use of vertical space by climbing up trellises or tepees, a bonus in small gardens. Their longer presence in the garden does make them prey for pests and diseases, which can disfigure the foliage toward the end of the season. They also take more time to begin producing than bush beans, but they continue to bear, slowly, through the summer, which is advantageous if you do not want to eat beans every other day or bother to replant a crop.

Some gardeners think that bush beans taste better than pole beans, but just as many prefer the flavor of pole beans-definitely an individual choice!

How to Grow Great Beans

Beans are warm-season vegetables. If you plant before the soil has warmed up in late spring, the seeds may rot before germinating. Wait until all danger of frost has passed and soil and night temperatures remain at 55 degrees or higher-that may mean in April in southern zones and as late as June in colder northern regions. Because they take longer to mature and prefer even warmer soil (about 65 degrees), lima beans may not have enough frost-free days for gardeners in the far north, unless you try starting them indoors. If you do, sow them in individual biodegradable pots about 4 weeks before setting them out in the garden; beans do not adapt well to transplanting.

Growing on

Growing Beans in Containers

Bush and even pole beans grow well in containers, outdoors or indoors, so you do not need garden space to harvest these nutritious vegetables.

Outdoors

Select a large container, such as a half-barrel or a 12- to 24-inch diameter planter. For pole beans, set up a tepee made with bamboo poles or tomato stakes in a half-barrel.

Sow beans at the same depth you do in the ground-1 inch deep-and allow basically the same spacing between plants. Think in terms of the "square-foot gardening" method: Figure on nine plants per 12-inch container. With pole beans, sow three to four seeds around each pole.

Mulch the soil surface with a layer of compost, dried manure, or decorative wood chips.

Water when the soil dries to a depth of 2 to 3 inches, depending on the size of the pot. Large containers cut down on the frequency of watering; the soil in small pots dries out quickly in the heat of summer.

Indoors

Be creative! Grow pole beans on a trellis in a planter or window box in front of a south-facing window. Make a living, green curtain: Attach monofilament fishing line in a criss-cross pattern from a window box to the top of the window frame and train the beans up as they grow.

Select the sunniest window in the house. Water when the soil in the container dries to a depth of 2 inches. Fertilize once a month with a water-soluble fertilizer. Because most beans can self-pollinate, they produce pods without the help of breezes or bees, but you may want to brush your hand along the flowers occasionally just to be sure.

Kids and Beans

A lot of children don't like beans (or any vegetable for that matter!). Attract them with a planting of their own, using the psychology that if they grow it they may actually want to eat it.

Let very young children (three to six or seven years old) discover how seeds work. In a glass jar filled with soil, sow a few bean seeds, pressing them against the glass so they show; moisten the soil. As the seeds germinate, the children will clearly see the roots and shoots begin to form as the two halves of the seeds split apart. The germinated seeds may not grow if you plant them outdoors because beans do not take to transplanting, so treat this as a fun experiment. A note for teachers and leaders: To avoid the disappointment of seeds not germinating, do not use dried shell beans from the store; they have been dried for food consumption and undoubtedly will not germinate.

Set up a bean tent: Sow pole bean seeds around a tepee, leaving an opening between two of the poles. As the beans grow, they form a cool, dark tent where kids can hold "secret" meetings.

Because bean seeds are so large, they are easy for even the youngest child to handle. Set aside a space in your garden for the children to grow their own. No matter how inexactly they sow the seeds-even simply pushing the seeds into the soil to the depth of their first finger-the beans will grow, although you may want to help when the time comes for thinning. Try bush snap beans for a first-time planting; they mature faster than pole and lima beans.

Pests and Diseases

Modern bean varieties are resistant to many of the diseases that can infest a planting. Prevention is usually easier than a cure. With beans (and many other plants), avoid working around them while leaves are wet, thoroughly clean up garden refuse at season's end, and rotate crops from year to year.

Anthracnose, caused by a fungus, creates dark brown, red, or black spots and a pinkish mold on pods or seeds. To prevent, avoid working around wet plants; remove affected plants; rotate crops from year to year.

Bean mosaic virus produces deformed pods and mottled leaves; the leaves wrinkle and curl under. To prevent its spread, control aphids, which carry it from one plant to another, and remove any affected plants. Bean rust affects the undersides of leaves, with orange-brown blisters; leaves yellow and drop. To prevent, clean up the garden at the end of the season; avoid working around wet plants; dust leaves with lime.

Mexican bean beetle, a problem in the eastern United States and some parts of the southwest, resembles the beneficial ladybug, but it has 16 black spots and no white marking between the head and body. Round, yellow eggs, pale yellow larvae, and adults usually remain on the undersides of leaves where the latter two forms feed until they skeletonize the leaves. In very hot and dry conditions, nature controls the beetles. Handpick all stages off leaves. Cover bush beans with row covers; it's difficult to cover pole beans. Interplant potatoes and beans; each repels the other's favored pest. Plant resistant varieties. (There are other species of bean beetles that plague other regions of the country.)

Japanese beetle, mainly a problem in the eastern United States but spreading westward, spends its grub stage underground, often under lawns-where you can defeat them by spreading milky spore disease (in powder form) over the lawn in spring, although it may take awhile. The beetles skeletonize leaves. Rainy, cool weather deters them. Handpick from leaves or knock them off into a jar of soapy water. Plant white geraniums among the beans; an element in the leaves poisons the beetles. Set out traps made specifically for them; use with caution, however, because the traps themselves may attract the beetles from neighboring yards. Cover bush beans with row covers.

The Nutritious Bean

Beans are low in calories, about 31 calories to a cup (cooked), and contain vitamins A, B, C, calcium, phosphorus and some iron, in addition to protein and fiber. The fiber, which is good for you, can sometimes cause problems if you eat raw beans in large quantities because it may not be easy to digest. The amino acids, broken down from protein during digestion, truly are the "building blocks" of the body, and folacin, or folic acid, contributes to cell growth and the formation of red blood cells, as well as digestion and the nervous system.

You simply cannot go wrong when you eat beans, and you do not need to relegate them to be the side dish of dinner. Try main-dish ideas, such as green bean soup, casseroles, and colorful mixed salads with green, yellow and purple beans. If you plan to freeze beans, mix some purple beans in with the green when you blanch them: the purple in beans is water soluble; after 2 minutes of boiling, the beans lose that color and turn green-a built-in indicator for the correct blanching time.

The National Garden Bureau recognizes Eleanore Lewis as the author of this fact sheet.

Controlling Yellow Nutsedge in Turf

Yellow nutsedge is a relatively common problem in lawns, especially in wet years or in lawns with irrigation. Although it looks much like a grass, it is a sedge. Unlike grasses, sedges have triangular stems, and the leaves are three-ranked instead of two-ranked, which means the leaves come off the stems in three different directions. Yellow nutsedge is pale green to yellow and grows rapidly in the spring and early summer. Because of this rapid shoot growth, it sticks up above the rest of the lawn only a few days after mowing. This weed is a good indicator of poor drainage, but it can be introduced into well-drained sites through contaminated topsoil or nursery stock. As with many weeds, nutsedge is less competitive in a dense, healthy lawn than in an open, poor lawn.

Nutsedge is difficult to control culturally because it produces numerous tubers that give rise to new plants. Pulling nutsedge will increase the number of plants because dormant tubers are activated. However, it is possible to control nutsedge by pulling, but you must be persistent. If you are, eventually the nutsedge will die out.

If you are going to treat with a herbicide, it would be better to leave the nutsedge plants undisturbed so the herbicide can be maximally translocated to the roots, rhizomes, and tubers. Several herbicides are available for nutsedge control. Manage is the most effective and safe to most turfgrasses. It is also the most expensive, but if an infestation is not too severe, one application should take care of the problem. The Manage label says to apply it after nutsedge has reached the three- to eight-leaf stage. Waiting until this growth stage apparently results in improved translocation of the active ingredient to the underground tubers and rhizomes. Small packages of Manage are available to homeowners.

Basagran (bentazon) and MSMA (monosodium acid methanearsonate) also can be used but are less effective than Manage and often cause temporary discoloration of the desirable turfgrass. Basagran is somewhat more effective than MSMA, but both products require repeat applications. MSMA is the least expensive of the three and is widely available in the homeowner market. MSMA is often sold under such generic names as "crabgrass killer" (because it is also used for post emergence crabgrass control) or "nut grass killer." Check the label to determine whether such products contain MSMA. (WU)

Parting Shot

A true businessman

Three garden contractors were touring the white house on the same day. One was from New York, another from Missouri, and the third from Florida. At the end of the tour, the guard asked them what they did for a living. When they each replied that they were contractors the guard said, "Hey, we need one of the rear fences redone. Why don't you guys look at it and give me a bid."

So to the back fence they went. First up was the Florida contractor. He took out his tape measure and pencil, did some measuring and said, "Well I figure the job will run about $900. $400 for materials, $400 for my crew, and $100 profit for me."

Next was the Missouri contractor. He also took out his tape measure and pencil did some quick figuring and said, "Looks like I can do this job for $700. $300 for materials, $300 for my crew, and $100 profit for me."

Then the guard asks the New York contractor how much. Without so much as moving the contractor says $2700. The guard, incredulous, looks at him and says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"

Olathe Gardeners of America

Melissa’s Monologue