A Windy New Year

On Tuesday morning gusty winds caused a few problems for my tomato plants. Some of the plants are now taller than the stakes supporting them, so their tops were bent by the wind. And to make things worse one plant almost snapped near the top when I tried to straighten the plants out. I guess I got a bit complacent and didn't tie the plants up as high as possible, so I've fixed that.

On Friday I shucked the "mystery" beans. It turns out there were three types of beans: khaki-coloured kidney beans, white kidney or "cannellini" beans, and black beans. After shucking I have about 160 grams of the first type of beans. 100 beans weigh about 25g, so I have 640 beans in total. I have 100 grams of cannellini beans. At around 60 beans every 25g, that makes it about 240 beans. Finally, I got a hefty 10 grams of black beans. Since there were so few, I counted all 63 of them. I've included a mediocre photo of the various shucked beans.

In hindsight the khaki-coloured beans could in fact be "teghe" beans, which are usually harvested before the beans mature, and are eaten with the pod. I thought I would be able to browse the internet to find photos of various beans and what they're called, but in the case of the khaki-coloured ones I haven't been able to find anything conclusive.

The other major development of the week was that all of the capsicum plants, while still quite small, are now starting to flower. One aubergine plant has also started to flower.

To view the latest photos, click on the links below:
The tomatoes (week 16)
The shucked beans - clockwise from top left: borlotti, black beans, cannellini, (out of focus, why do I bother?)
The aubergines and capsicums (week 10 after transplanting)
An aubergine plant flowering
A capsicum plant flowering (overhead shot, out of focus - who hired this photographer?)
The basil seedlings (week 9 after transplanting)