It Was A Sunny Day

Many times I've stood in the sunshine in my garden and watched heavy thunderstorms pass along the Kaw Valley. Yesterday it happened again, providing a nice backdrop for the sunflowers.




Sometimes I like to get in a sunflower's face. A butterfly clinging to the petals is almost invisible in the bright light.




After observing the storm, I pulled the remaining shallots and a few dried bean pods. Shallots mature at different times, and I've been pulling the ones whose tops are turning brown for several days.

Last year I lost a third of the crop to rot because I hung them in bunches to dry. The thicker stems began to rot before they dried, infecting the bulbs. This year I'm through with the romantic idea of having bunches of allium family members hanging around. I'm back to the tried and true method of separating all the sections and spreading them on newspaper to dry.

Here they are putting the treadmill to good use.



Those in the foreground were harvested a week ago and have been through their first clean up. That involves removing outer skin until I reach a layer that doesn't have dirt under it. The tops will dry completely now and I'll pull them off before storage. I've been growing this variety for four years now. The original bulbs came from the grocery store, where I noticed they were beginning to sprout and decided to give them a home.


The dried bean pods are beautiful to me with their curvy shapes and mottled colors.



They are an heirloom dried-bean variety descriptively called Tiger's Eye. I grow them because they are beautiful, sure, but they have softer skins than most beans, which makes them more tender and digestible.