A slightly out-of-focus photo of the 2012 potato harvest.

I met my good friend, Mrs. G, at the UBC Farmers Market this morning. She recently gave me some day lilies from her step-father’s garden and have intended to blog about how happy I was about this, but as I have been procrastinating on splitting my lilies and planting hers, I have also been procrastinating on the blog.

Anyway, the UBC Farmers Market had the world-famous “nicoise” beans, but which they called “Filet” beans. When I googled that term I found out that they are also called “haricots verts” and that several varieties of beans can be planted to produce these tiny, flavourful beans. Here is a good blog post that discusses filet bean species and how to grow them: http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/5627/how-to-grow-fine-tender-filet-beans.  Something to add on the list for next year.

In other news, my Assistants have returned from camp and are eager to earn extra money by doing yard work. One of the guys dug up all the potatoes; this year the total yield (shown above) is only about a fifth of what was harvested last year. I mentioned in an earlier post that the potato plant leaves had a lot of holes. Although the potatoes look fine, they do have a rougher and more scaly skin than last year, so I wonder if they were afflicted by some pest or virus that I wasn’t aware of. Next year I am trying a different (and possibly more robust) variety of potatoes.

Tomorrow: raspberry canes.