2021, Meán Fómhair.

[CelticRambler]

With the weird weather of this year, it seems somewhat too optimistic to label this thread either "summer" or "autumn" harvest, so let's stick with an older term that's served us well!

Only half a bushel, but this is the third - and largest - crop I've taken off my small patch of green beans (about 0.75m²)



There are a few small beans still left on the plants, but no flowers at the moment. I'd be surprised if they bloom again, but it is 2021 and some of my "June" strawberries have decided it's June enough for them to flower and fruit again.

end-of-July-sown peas look like they're not hanging about either and might be ready to pick at the end of the week.

Have also started picking my lamb's lettuce ... four months early! Keep forgetting to sow more, but really must do it this week or I'll have no salad in the winter months.

[Osciiboscii]

Do you put them in the freezer?

[CelticRambler]

I will. The locals "can" them in bottles, but that takes all the crunch out of them, so I cut them into 5cm-ish pieces, give them 10 mins in boiling salted water, then freeze them. They can then be cooked from frozen very quickly (5-10 minutes depending on the quantity), or thrown as-is into a shepherd's pie or similar.

I'd normally try to pick them a little bit sooner, but had too much else to do these last few days (including picking and processing a load of butter beans - about a quarter of that quantity). For "instant" use, straight off the plant, I prefer to pick them when they're still really skinny, but those ones don't stand up to the boiling/freezing process quite so well.

[765489]

Nothing like your own beans. Totally different texture to the frozen sh1te you get in the shops. The rabbits unfortunately got mine this year. Its a crop that you can't really throw a crop protection mesh over without putting down hoops.