Yield Report: Soybeans, Part 2

Over the weekend (we were away) the rest of the soybeans ripened and had to be pulled in as soon as we got home. This variety of soybean was quite a bit fuzzier. I'm not sure what variety it was. We just planted the generic organic soy beans we order for our homemade soy milk. The dirt was a bit tenacious, which made them quite a bit harder to clean. I ended up filling up one of our 10-gallon buckets with hot water and stirring 1/3 of the beans at a time and pulling them out, not 100% clean, but good enough. I'm making a note on the freezer bags to give them a really good wash before cooking and eating them. Better to get them into the freezer as quickly as possible. The total yield from these plants? 18 pounds, 7 ounces. That gives a soybean total of about 20 pounds (the distoy soybeans were a little more than I thought) from 28 square feet. I put in a couple of tomato plants, okra, and more peppers in one third of the bean bed. The other two thirds is waiting for cover crop seed. Better get that ordered!
Meanwhile, several of the corn stalks have toppled over because of the weight of the ears. The last measuring showed that they had reached 12 feet, 6 inches (!). Tall! We tried some of the corn three weeks ago, but the kernels weren't fully developed. Not too tasty. Now, the kernels are fully developed but the corn is not particularly sweet. Now I have to research what we could have done to improve the flavor, if anything. Or maybe it needs another week? Stay tuned!

The sakata melons have a few big ones (maybe 8 inches long with a 3 inch diameter). Right now it's green like a zucchini, but I think it will turn a light yellow before it is ready. Supposedly it goes from underripe to overripe in just a day, so you have to really keep on eye on them.

There are a few orange-ish tomatoes coming along. Some have burst already. This is usually caused by uneven watering. We've been watering in between rainstorms, but there have been a few short periods where they've gone a little longer than usual without water. Hoping they all come out okay.

Plenty of cucumbers are coming our way. I really need to make time for pickles and relish. The cucumbers are delicious and my favorites are the Israeli cucumbers.

Salad greens I wasn't too pleased with. They've been superb for feeding the chickens though! I love arugula. The spinach completely failed, probably because it got too warm before it had a chance. The mesclun mix I got wasn't a good balance of sweet and bitter. I prefer sweet lettuce mix with bitter accents. I got some free lettuce seeds (Simpson) - BLEAH! That variety didn't work at all. Romaine was so-so. That will take more experimenting to find the right variety for us.

The carrots and the beets have been pretty good. Tonight I roasted the carrots without peeling them and they were delicious.

The zucchini bed in front is sizzling. I think we must not have gotten all the vine borers. The other squash bed (winter squash) is doing GREAT, so I think we beat it there. I bought a few zucchini seedlings to put in there in the hopes that the vine borer moth is all done laying eggs and these will escape unharmed. We'll see. Hopefully they'll have enough time to mature before the summer sizzle.

That's all for now!