Endless Summer

I’m not ready for an endless summer.

—-Lyrics from “Endless Summer” by Superchunk

I’m not ready, but the beans are not objecting. Every warm, dry day buys time to finish the harvest.

The season ended on a rough note, what with about 25% of the crop lost to pounding rain. In late August three storms nailed the farm. In the end, the farm got about 6” of rain, which soaked in because the soil organic matter keeps it porous. The Bird Egg bean variety, normally the most prolific and reliable, more or less survived the first two storms. But the third beat-down plastered them into the sodden soil, where they were too tired to get back up. Many pods that were drilled into the ground got soaked through and the beans inside began to sprout.

However, the show will go on at the Mill City Famers Market this Saturday, 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. I’ll have Kenearly Yellow Eye, Ireland Creek Annie, Peregion, as well as a red Italian variety, Rosso, which works great anywhere you’d use kidney beans.

New this year is River Rock (pictured above), an Encore Farm exclusive. A few years ago, one variety started throwing offspring in different colors. I culled those from the parent beans and saved the seed. This year I planted them. The result is a free-for-all of colors, shapes, sizes, and patterns. They cook up beautifully and taste great, too. Remember as a kid discovering the different letters in your alphabet soup? Same kind of playing-with-your-food fun here!

Word is Saturday will be a beautiful day, if a little windy. Hold onto your hats and I’ll see ya there.