VEGETABLE Self-Sufficiency

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I could fill a page with insects that you might find on your preciously planted plants, but that would just make you paranoid. Instead, cut down on your entomological studies and just keep your plants as healthy as possible; if you see insect damage, try to figure out who is responsible. Observe the insects. The chances are the damage will be minimal. If a crop is destroyed, thank the insect for indicating that the crop was inferior and not fit for your table anyway. Recognize that the plant was under stress, probably due to an imbalance in soil nutrients. Get a soil test. Make more compost. Arrange for some manure.

Harvest

On your frequent visits to the garden you will see the beans blossoming. Each blossom will become a tiny bean, which will grow practically while you watch. They can be eaten at any size, so when they are two or three inches long have a taste. The first picking will be light and best cooked right away for a tender meal of garden sunlight. Fifty feet of beans is quite a bit. The plan here is to pick enough at their peak to store for the winter. Our favorite storage method for beans is to freeze them. We snap off the ends, snap them in two or three, drop them into boiling water for a couple of minutes, then plunge them into ice water, drain in a colander, put in a plastic bag or container and freeze. If you want to be able to take out a handful of beans from a larger container and leave the rest in the freezer, dry the beans on a towel before freezing.

This garden does not give you any other green vegetable for winter use, so you may want to put away more than in future years. Figure on 25 weeks when you won't have greens from the garden. How often do you want to eat beans each week? You don't want to get sick of beans. They are too good.

The onions are ready to be harvested when most of the tops have flopped over. There is no hurry to harvest them. When you are ready pull them all and leave them lying right in the rows. I try to leave them lying in a way that allows the most air to get around them. Leaves that are still green are laid out so they will dry rather than rot. The only danger is when the harvest is late enough in the fall so there might be a freeze. I spread them out on the porch when this is a possibility.

Once the tops are dry the onions can be put in a mesh bag and stored anywhere that won't freeze. Colder is better according to the experts, but we have had braided onions last until spring that were hanging from the kitchen ceiling where the temperature must have gone over 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

Separate any onions that have thick necks and use them first. If you have a lot of thick neck onions, make onion soup and freeze it.

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