Phaseolus vulgaris, my word, there's nothing vulgar about the greenbean

Hallelujah, it's cooled down and the beans are growing!!! (finally)

This was not the year for the Phaseolus vulgaris, otherwise known as the green bean. They do not like HOT HOT weather. Beans were scarce at the farmer's markets and scarce in our CSA shares this year. Which is contrary to where we stood at this time last year, it was a bean bonanza! This year our first planting of beans was lovely, the first pick of beans are always the prettiest. Then came the Mexican Bean Beetle, he's a rotten little fellow. We've never seen them here before this year, but apparently they got the word from some other insect comrade that this is the place to be. They reproduce fast and eat fast, destroying plants fast. The best biological defense against the bean beetle is a parasitic wasp called the Pediobius foveolatus, also nicknamed the pedio wasp for obvious reasons. The Pedio lays it's eggs in the Mexican Bean Beetle larvae. Wasp larvae feed inside the Bean Beetle larva, kill it, and pupate inside it, forming a brownish case or ‘mummy’. About twenty five adult wasps emerge from one mummy. These wasps are not native to our area, so they have to be purchased from an insect rearing laboratory (who knew there was such a thing) and delivered via overnight shipping. We didn't order the wasps this year, which probably ended up being o.k., because even though we were planting beans every two weeks or so the heat caused the blooms to drop, the rabbits were eating them down to nubs, or the plant was just frying up in the heat. This means we never had any substantial amount of bean plants for them to live off of. I'm hoping their numbers are low and that there isn't another generation behind this one (that is called wishful thinking!) We'll see how it goes, they were new to us and now we know better for next year.

In other farm news Henny P has decided to cut the apron strings and let her chicks forage for insects without her protection. She is laying on another clutch of eggs!