The plants on the patio are actually producing! The first bit of a crop, picked while Sharon was here:
The strawberries are doing great in their pot. Last year they didn’t really produce, but there are a lot more berries and flowers in the wings, and I’m feeling very pleased with them.
The beans are a bit confusing to me. I feel like the plants should be spending their energy growing and they can produce later, but I don’t know how to convey this to them. Each plant (I have two) put out a few beans when it was so hot a few weeks ago. The plants are still mid-to-small in size, and now they each have several more baby beans. Any ideas on whether to cut off the baby beans now, or just let them grow?
The pea vines are the most pathetic. They’re each about a foot tall, and they also produced 1-2 peas each during our hot streak. So you have these sad little vines (with half dead leaves from our hot week) with a big plump peapod on the upper end.
They seem happy (green, firm) in a stunted kind of way, but if anyone has thoughts on magical pea growing tricks, I’m all ears.
We have an amazing amount of wild strawberries in our yard this summer. They are very small but have a lot of flavor. Hope you enjoy yours.
I'm guessing that picking beans will encourage more flowering and beans to come.
Peas however are hopeless. In my experience, they put out a meager pods then give up the ghost. Pick them as soon as the pods get plump.