Pole Beans vs. Bush Beans

This week, I’ve been reading Vertical Gardening: Grow Up, Not Out, for More Vegetables and Flowers in Much Less Space. I do a fair amount of vertical gardening here at Chiot’s Run because I like the structure that vertical features bring to the garden. They also take up less space, a very important thing when you’re short on garden space for all the things you want to grow.

On Tuesday I read that pole beans outproduce bush beans and decided to see if this was true. Luckily, I have both pole beans and bush beans growing in the garden. The pole beans are growing on a teepee in the lower garden and the bush beans are growing in a row beside the asparagus. I have about the same number of each, perhaps more bush beans than pole beans. The pole beans were planted a week or two after the bush beans.

After harvesting both types of beans, I weighed my harvest. The bush beans produced 11 ounces and the pole beans produced 1 pound 6 ounces. (pole bean harvest on right, bush bean harvest on left).

The nice thing about pole beans is that they produce continually over a longer period of time than bush beans, they will be producing until frost. The bush beans are just starting to bloom for a second time and will probably fade soon after I harvest this batch of beans

I also prefer pole beans to bush beans because they’re easier to pick. The beans are easier to spot and higher since the vines grow vertically.

I always love learning little bits of information like this. Even though I will have more garden space next year, I’ll still be trying to maximize that space in any way that I can. There’s just something about pole beans scrambling up a trellis in the garden.

Do you grow bush beans or pole beans?

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Friday Favorite: Quotes

I’m a huge fan of quotes, though I’m sure this comes as no surprise to you given that each Sunday I post one. There are quotes scribbled on pieces of paper on my fridge, jotted down in the notebooks, copied and pasted into text files, and stuck to my computer with post-it notes. I even have a Pinboard dedicated to them over on Pinterest. Pairing quotes with photos is also one of my hobbies and you’ll find me often make them up in my spare time. Here are a few of my favorites:





Do you have a favorite quote?

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Brushing Up on Chickens

I’ve read countless books and articles throughout the years about keeping chickens, though I’ve never actually had chickens. Since it will only be a little over a month until I have them, it was time to brush up on my chicken knowledge.

Earlier this spring I requested Free-Range Chicken Gardens: How to Create a Beautiful, Chicken-Friendly Yard from the library and it arrived last week – perfect timing.


It provided the perfect refresher course in chicken husbandry with a permaculture twist that most other books don’t have. Since permaculture is something I try to practice in my garden, I really appreciated this aspect of the book.

I’m sure, like most things, having chickens is a learning experience and most of the knowledge you need will come through experience. Now I just have to decide what new area to study and learn about, goats, cows, pigs – all things I hope to end up with someday.

What skills have you been reading up on recently?

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Quick Healthy Eats

With all the activity going on around here, there’s not much time for cooking. That doesn’t mean we’re not eating healthfully. Besides our health, one of the main reasons we eat healthfully is because it gives us more energy and helps us accomplish more during the day. I know that when we’re as busy as we are now I can’t afford to slack on the food front.


Over the years, I’ve developed a few ways to eat healthfully without spending tons of time, see this post about maximizing time in the kitchen. The best way I have found to save time is to make double or triple batches of everything to freeze for quick meals. This week we’ve had an abundance of zucchini, so I made a few batches of zucchini noodle lasagne. Luckily I had some canned Roasted Tomato Passatta in the pantry, so it only took minutes to make a few pans for the freezer. (passatta recipe from The River Cottage Preserves Handbook)

The best thing about lasagne is that it only takes a few minutes to prepare and it spends the majority of the time in the oven while you can be doing something else. It’s also fantastic as a leftover, I always think it tastes even better the next day.

A few people have asked about the containers I use. I like the Pyrex Glass Rectangular Storage Containers because I can use them for baking, storage and freezing. I use the 6 cup one to make our lasagne so we don’t end up with a huge tray since there are just 2 of us.

Vegetable fajitas are one of our other quick meals. Generally I make up a big bath of of tortillas and keep them in the freezer. Then we sauté whatever vegetables we’re harvesting from the garden and sprinkle them with cheese and spices. Sometimes there’s meat, sometimes not. If we’re lucky, there will be guacamole for the top!

I’m also planning on making lasagne up to eat during the move. The day we’re moving everything into the house in Maine, it will be handy to have a hearty healthy meal fresh from the oven. This weekend I’ll be making up a few trays to put in the freezer to keep everyone well fed during the move.

What’s your favorite quick healthy meal when you’re busy?

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A Different Kind of Packing

Over the past 6 years I’ve been collecting a wide variety of plants of all colors, shapes and sizes, some of them rare, many of them nurtured from tiny seeds. Many of the plants from my collection will be moved to Maine via cuttings, seeds and a few as potted plants.

Over the past month I’ve been taking cuttings of the hydrangeas in my collection that I won’t be digging up. Most of these have been gifts from Mr Chiots. I have close to 30 different varities in my collection, they range from mature shrubs of 10 feet to tiny first year plants with just a few leaves. There are 10 or so that are small enough to be dug up and potted to make the move. The larger ones are moving via cuttings.

I’ve also been saving seeds for a wide variety of plants that have proven themselves to be great specimens. There’s a stunning yellow/green foxglove that is very hardy and quite lovely, as well as a regular tall purple foxglove that has seeded down every year and managed to survive our coldest winters. My black hollyhocks will also travel by seed to Maine, along with a beautiful pink hardy hibiscus. My collection of herbs will be also traveling by seed as well, catnip, greek oregano and a few others.

There’s even a master list of all the plants I want to take so I don’t forget any. Luckily if I do miss any of my favorites I can probably find seeds or plants in Maine, though I’d much rather have a descendant of one of my plants here. My mom has most of the family heirloom plants so I don’t have to worry about getting those this year, I can get starts from her next spring.

There are plenty of plants I wish I could take but can’t. Many of which, I’ve nurtured from tiny cuttings themselves to the grand specimens they are today. My ‘Limelight’ hydrangea is one in particular, I planted it 10 years ago when it was a mere 4 inch tall stick. I’m also sad to be leaving the boxwood hedge I planted last year. Hopefully whoever ends up gardening here in the future will have always dreamed of a box hedge like I did.

Have you ever moved plants from one home to another?  If you could only take one single plant which would it be? 

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