Tennessee 2022 Garden

[applestar]

I’ve seen those before, but didn’t know what it was, so this was an opportunity to find out —

American carrion beetle - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_carrion_beetle

[imafan26]

Thanks for the tips Gary. I will look up some bread and butter pickle recipes. I have a few extra cucumbers.

[Gary350]

I have been ignoring the blackberry patch waiting for a better harvest than 1/2 cup of berries per day. 2" of rain an slightly coolers weather seems to have helped the berry harvest today I picked 1/2 gallon. There is another 1/2 gallon of berries on top of this 8 ft tall berry patch that I can never reach. Berries always start out slow then gradually produce more & more every day until I get 1 gallon of berries every day for about 1 week then berries starts slowing down. East side of berry patch is the biggest harvest maybe because its full sun the coolest part of the day. There is a shade tree on south side of berry patch & not many berries on the south side. North side is a good producer too almost as good at the east side. West side is a low producer probably too hot full sun the hottest part of the day.

Cucumber patch is making goofy shaped gold ball size Q-cumbers pointed on both ends. 2" of rain was helpful for 2 days but soil is dry again.

I learned Carman peppers will not turn red in the kitchen like other peppers do they swivel up like raisins in the kitchen after 2 weeks so I sliced them, we made pizza with them. Carman peppers on the plants are starting to turn red. Wife likes RED sweet bell peppers because they don't have the GREEN bell pepper flavor but Carman does not have the GREEN bell pepper flavor its just a nice sweet pepper flavor. I want several RED color peppers for mature seeds to plant next year. Actually seeds might be a bad idea growing among 8 other varieties seeds will surly be cross pollinated with 1 or more of the other 8 varieties.

Today I picked 4 ripe tomatoes. For some weird reason tomatoes seem to have got stuck at being about 95% ripe for a whole week. There is still a tiny bit green on top. 3 weeks of no rain an near 100° every day may be the problem. They will get ripe in the kitchen unless we eat them first.

I also picked a sweet yellow pepper. NO tag with the sweet pepper I must have picked up a 4 pack of plants with no tag. I remember reading a tag from another tray it said, sweet peppers, its not a HOT spicy pepper. Wife is cooking something we sliced the yellow pepper it taste like a green sweet bell pepper. I'm not sure what is the advantage of have a dozen yellow peppers instead of 1 large green bell pepper in a recipe.

[imafan26]

Nice harvest. Your garden grows fast.

[applestar]

Looking good!

About the cucumbers — When I read your description before seeing the pics, I was going to say didn’t you mention you were growing ‘Lemon’ cucumbers? they grow in elliptoid shape to size of limes or small lemons and turn bright yellow when overripe and seeds begin to develop

But those look like gherkin (small pickle) cucumbers that have gotten too mature and started to fatten on the middle… What kind are you growing again? There are lots of interesting (non standard) shape cucumbers.

[Gary350]

Looking good!

About the cucumbers — When I read your description before seeing the pics, I was going to say didn’t you mention you were growing ‘Lemon’ cucumbers? they grow in elliptoid shape to size of limes or small lemons and turn bright yellow when overripe and seeds begin to develop

But those look like gherkin (small pickle) cucumbers that have gotten too mature and started to fatten on the middle… What kind are you growing again? There are lots of interesting (non standard) shape cucumbers.

About 3 months ago I learned about lemon cucumbers for the first time but I never planted any. I planted, National again and Gherkin & Wisconsin 58. National Pickling cucumbers are the best I will plant these again. Wisconsin 58 SUCK I will never plant them again.

[applestar]

Wisconsin SMR 58 is described as one of the best tasting, productive and disease resistant pickling cucumber, but there was a mention that it doesn’t grow as well in greenhouse.

Maybe it’s not heat tolerant and can’t take extremely hot summer temps?

…hmmm maybe it will like the climate in my garden better — I’ll put it in as possible for my future garden

[Gary350]

Wisconsin SMR 58 is described as one of the best tasting, productive and disease resistant pickling cucumber, but there was a mention that it doesn’t grow as well in greenhouse.

Maybe it’s not heat tolerant and can’t take extremely hot summer temps?

…hmmm maybe it will like the climate in my garden better — I’ll put it in as possible for my future garden

YES maybe TN is too HOT. Our hot weather broke a lot of records for bring the hottest day on record in 150 years. It has also been much dryer that normal no rain in almost a month.

Today I found 3 Gherkin cucumbers they are golf ball size with pointed ends. I think these are probably intended to be finger cucumbers. I remember my grandmother had a 8 gallon container with 5 gallons of pickle brine every morning 6 am she picked all the finger cucumber she could find then put them in the brine. A month later she had 900 finger cucumbers in the brine, wait 1 more month pickles were ready to eat. Easiest pickle recipe in the world there is no work involved slicing cucumbers. Pic below shows 3 Gherkin cucumbers on the left.

Today is a record harvest 10 National cucumbers. Cucumbers are a nightmare to find them the correct size before they become watermelons. LOL. 2 of these are a bit too large but I think they will be fine. I'm not trying to win a contest. Pickles will all become sweet relish we never eat pickles on anything we only eat sweet relish.

Does anyone use soaker hoses? Are they intended to be ON slow all might or faster for 30 minutes?

[Gary350]

This morning 7 am I only found 1 cucumber and 1 cup of blackberries. It is too hot and too dry 2" of rain 2 days age was not enough. It is 78° already and feels like 100° humidity is very high. I am staying inside the house all day 93° will feel like 110°. I was hoping to have 10 lbs of cucumbers by tomorrow morning but I guess not. I wonder if I can bake a loaf of bread in the mail box wife does not want me to use the oven.

[Gary350]

Is this considered companion planting? Before Zinnia had flowers & before pac choy had blossoms all the white color butter flies were on the cucumber plants. About 2 weeks ago after Zinnia had flowers all the white butter flies were on the Zinnia flowers. Then after pac choy had blossoms white butter flies were on them too. I have been watching for 2 weeks I see, humming birds, bumble bees, honey bees, butterflies, and birds I never seen before on Zinnia flowers. Zinnia flowers are doing an excellent job keeping white butterflies off of the cucumbers. In the past cucumbers were a bug magnet but now there are no bugs. Zoom in on the yellow bird, I have never seen this type bird before, pic 7 & 8. You might need to copy & paste bird picture to your computer to zoom in big enough to get a good look at the yellow bird.

Yesterday evening I put a chair in the garden to set down to water cucumbers for 30 minutes. A humming bird kept coming it flew into the water hose spray and stayed in the water spray for 30 to 45 seconds each time. It was still hot at 7 pm 91° I wonder if the bird was cooling off or taking a bath. Today when I water cucumbers I be sure to have my camera with me.

[Gary350]

Today I picked 2 sweet green peppers for dinner. There is probably 10 or 12 more on the plants but I am only going to pick them as we need them.

I picked 1 more ripe tomato and 5 sweet Habanero peppers. I cut the habanero apart to eat small pieces it tastes like a bitter flavor yellow banana pepper not spicy hot. I have no clue what to do with these they won't add good flavor to anything.

I picked 11 lbs of cucumbers in 4 days. The plan to save cucumber until there is a large enough quantity to make 4 quarts of pickles is NOT a good plan. Cucumbers that set in the kitchen 4 days get riper and turn yellow color plus seeds inside the cucumber grow larger. Skins get so tough they are very hard to slice sometimes they refuse to slice then cucumber splits open then the insides squirt out. I had about 1 lb of cucumber that self destructed from me trying to slice them. From now on I make 1 quart of pickles every time I have 2 lbs of sliced cucumbers. I will probably have to make 1 quart of pickles every day.

I did not pick blackberries today high humidity makes it feel like 100° at 7 am. I stayed inside the house all day except for picking cucumbers about 6 am and watering plants 7 pm.

[applestar]

Cucumbers really should be picked immature — ideally when they are approximately uniform diameter throughout its length.

Cucumbers should be washed (and treated for fungal infection if present) by soaking briefly in baking soda water or salty water.

These can then be put in paper towel-lined gallon size zip bag — or semi-individually wrapped — and kept fresh in warm part of the refrigerator (top shelf or upper door) or veg drawer for at least a week.

[Gary350]

I did an experiment putting toilet paper tubes over cucumbers to make them grow longer & grow straight. Tubes prevent cucumbers from growing bent like bananas, it also prevents cucumbers from growing fat is the middle. Search for cucumber among the plants that a toilet paper tube will slice over. If cucumber can not grow fat it is forced to grow longer. If I can't get the cucumber out of the tubes I put water on the glued seem so the tube comes apart. After cardboard dries it is easy tape tubes together with blue painters tape. Next time tube needs to be removed pull off the tape. So far so good. Don't get tubes wet when you water your plants. All toilet paper tubes are not the same diameter we have 2 different sizes that are 1/8" difference in diameter.

Todays harvest, 1 tomato, 1 Poblano pepper, 4 yellow banana peppers, 4½ lbs cucumbers, 1 carman sweet green pepper, several cranberry beans for garden Chili. Cranberry beans are not full size yet & beans are not easy to remove from pods.

[Gary350]

The tiny sprinkle rain we had at 9 pm was enough to make the toilet paper tube wet & soft the cucumber grew larger and split the cardboard open. This cucumber it not the weird looking perfect hot dog shape I typically get. Cucumbers are so perfect shape grown in tubes they look odd. I have enough Q-cumbers for 1 jar of pickles but not today. I am tried of pickle making every day. I picked 1 ripe tomato. Corn has tassels & silks. Blackberries need to be picked but I am not excited about blackberries this year, birds & deer can have them. No one will come pick berries in this heat an no one likes thorns. Beans are not growing fast with no rain. I can't think of anything to do in the garden. Wife wants to go to Aldi's and lunch about 12 noon.

[farmer32084]

the broccoli looks great! do you sell or do you keep most of it for yourself?

[Gary350]

the broccoli looks great! do you sell or do you keep most of it for yourself?

If you see something that looks like broccoli it is Pak Choy the seed tops look like mini broccoli. I keep cutting seed tops off and eating them, they tastes like broccoli. Our spring & fall are too short 4 weeks & summer too hot & dry for broccoli. I wish I could grow, broccoli, peas & carrots. I don't have any good seed tops at the moment let them all bolt.

[Gary350]

Several Carman peppers are turning red color. Those grow much better in our hot dry summer and flavor is much better than sweet bell peppers. I don't think I will ever grow sweet bells peppers ever again.

1 of the 6 cantaloupes looks like it will be ripe soon.

Now that I am watering cucumbers about 20 minutes every day keeping soil moist I am getting a steady harvest of cucumbers about 12 every morning 7am and about 12 every evening 7pm. I finally found my Master Gardener Bread & Butter pickle recipe this makes pickle making much faster about 5 minutes per quart after all the jars are filled with brine.

Master Gardener Bread & Butter pickle recipe is for 1 quart. I lined up 10 jars poured vinegar in each jars, next sugar in each jar, add herbs next, shake well, add cucumber slices. Brine pulls water from cucumber slices then the slices become soft this makes more room in each jar to add more cucumber slices every 12 hours. Keep adding cucumber slices every 12 hours until jars are full. Vinegar, sugar, salt, are all preservatives. These are ready to eat in 1 week.

Every time I find 12 more cucumbers after slicing them I drop slices in the jars. Every 12 hours add more slices until jars are full.

MASTER GARDENER BREAD & BUTTER PICKLE RECIPE

2 lbs of cucumbers sliced
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup of white sugar
1 tsp celery seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp canning salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 slice of onion optional.

Put 1 brine recipe in each empty quart jar. Fill jars with all the sliced cucumber that they will hold.
Add more cucumber slices every day until jar is full to 1/8" from top of jar. When jar is full pour brine into a pan, when brine comes to a boil pour it back into the jar, add seal & ring to the mason jar, stand jars upside down on a cloth towel until jars cool & seal lids. Wash jars, date lids, store in pantry, ready to eat in 2 weeks.

[Gary350]

Garden salsa for lunch, remove skins, seeds & juice. Mash tomato pulp. Add diced onion, herbs, salt. I added nothing spicy hot. I have 1 ripe grocery store avocado this makes good chip dip.

[Gary350]

This evening.

[Gary350]

What do you do with 100 red onions that don't keep well in the kitchen pantry. You make pickled onions.

I sliced and diced all the red onions that have been laying on the patio table for a week. It was easy & they look good. Wife said, those will good on & in everything, tacos, pizza, sandwiches, salads, Enchiladas, chicken, pork, casseroles, potatoes, salsa, stir fry, Tikka Masala, scrambled eggs, more. I still have several red onions in the garden & pantry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifRpwe3wiJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gr9QpsQxgQ

[greenstubbs]

It's been a dry toaster to the south of you too, about 2.75" dry for the month of June. My banana peppers are going nuts with the heat, Swiss chard is big too. Glad I have water close by!

[Gary350]

Dog found a 5 ft long snake in the garden, I'm glad dog found it before me that would have scared me to death. Round head snakes are not poison, I hope the snake goes away.

Onion row still has onions. I saw on YouTube onions with round hollow stems that never mature are not good, I can't remember why? I pulled up several onions that refuse to mature several days ago and left them on the garden table in the yard stems dried up several days later. I'm trying that again I pulled several with stems like bamboo wait and see what happens this time.

Carman pepper plants finally grew 9 red color peppers, I only picked 2 for now leave the rest in the garden for later. I think we are having stir fry for dinner this evening.

I made a big mistake letting wife talk me into planting only 6 tomatoes plants. 2 plants are growing no tomatoes, 3 plants are growing flat round donut tomatoes with a hollow hole in the bottom center. I think this deformity is called Cat Face. Birds pecked holes in 1 of these tomatoes. Sometimes plants from the garden store are labeled wrong & something I get bad plants. This crazy hot dry weather makes it worse. We only had 2 good tomatoes to eat so far I might need to buy tomatoes from Farmers Market.

No cucumbers yesterday evening & only 2 cucumbers this morning. Water every evening is not helping. 98° to 100° every day & no rain is probably the biggest problem. 7am this morning it is 81° it feels much hotter. 10 minutes in the garden I had to come inside the house. High humidity steam bath is suffocating it seems like it is hard to breath. Camera lens keeps fogging over. I don't like being a prisoner inside the house but I can't stand heat like this anymore.

[applestar]

It’s possible the temperatures or weather is keeping pollinators from the cucumbers… or like tomatoes cucumbers can’t set fruit.

You may want to try hand pollinating some cucumber female blossoms to see if it makes a difference. (pick som male blossomed and touch face-to-face -kiss- with female blossoms)

Tomatoes also suffer from heat and humidity— you might be able to help by buzzing with electric toothbrush or even a razor — anything that micro vibrates (I’ve heard of innovative gardeners just using their cell phones) — touch top of floral truss arch with the device.

I’m seeing bumblebees and hoverflies as well as rare visits from hummingbirds working my tomato blossoms (I’m actually worried I may have to tulle bag some blossoms to protect from getting inadvertently crossed variety seeds.)

[imafan26]

Bees are not deterred that much by hot weather. The inside of the hive is kept at a constant 98 degrees F. They will only forage in the morning and afternoons on most days and the foragers usually find a place to take a nap in the middle of the day. Now, in a drought, they do need a water source and habitat preservation. Which means lots of nectar and pollen plants and very little pesticides.

Most tomatoes will not set in high heat. Supposedly not in high humidity either but that has not been a problem for me. Flowers and sometimes fruit will drop in high heat. For me high heat is anything above 85 degrees. The heat tolerant tomatoes will continue to produce and set but the Northern varieties and regular varieties will pause. If they are kept watered, they will resume once the weather cools.

Heat tolerant heirlooms are Brandywine, Sioux, Super Sioux, Arkansas Traveller, Ozark Pink, Neptune, Tropic, and most of the cherry tomatoes. Other tomatoes with good heat tolerance have been Big Beef, Creole, Florida 91, Homestead 24, Pruden's Purple, Heatwave II, Bella Rosa, Omar's Lebanese, Costuloto Genovese, Sun Master, Sun Chaser, Solar Fire, Talladega, Fourth of July, Sungold, Sun cherry, currant tomatoes.

While these stand up to the heat, some of them like Solar Fire does not have the right disease resistance. I have grown Brandywine, but it needs a lot of babying. It needs to be in a pot because it is not nematode resistant and needs a regular fungicide program because it lacks fungal resistance. It is a very large plant, but does not produce a lot of fruit for its' size. I can no longer grow it because it does not have TYLCV resistance either. Overall the cherries are the most prolific and heat tolerant. Sungold is very sweet, but it cracks when it is ripe. For that reason and better disease resistance, I like sun sugar better. However, nothing right now beats the resilience and tenacity of red currant. It is very sweet, but laborious to pick such tiny tomatoes. They are definitely carefree. The birds love them so they pop up all over the yard and in my containers. There are three things I almost never have to care for or plant. They are the red currant tomato, wild bitter melon, and Moorcap roses.

[Gary350]

We had a very hard 10 minute rain yesterday evening. A 10 minute rain is 40 times better than I can do watering the garden 1 hour with a hose. I searched cucumber plants 4 times, 1st time I found 4 cucumbers, 2nd time I found 5 cucumber, 3rd time 1 more cucumber, 4th time 2 more cucumber = 12 cucumbers. I picked 1 more ripe tomatoes. After it rained temperature cooled down & I picked 1 gallon of blackberries & ate 1 pint of them.

[Gary350]

Beans

This morning I pulled up a 34 foot row of Blue Lake green bean plants to work on under a shade tree. Most plants have no beans but a few plants have 20 beans.. I have been watching these beans for 3 weeks plants had 100s of blossoms in 98° weather no rain and no beans. Lots of bees & butter flies on blossoms but no beans. I started watering beans every day still no beans. Then we had 1" of rain after that there were a few beans starting to grow. Then we had 1/4" of rain not much change in beans. Yesterday I see a variety of many different size beans some are over the hill pods with seeds inside. In the past I usually get 30 lbs of beans from a 34' row of beans but this year we have 2 lbs 13 ounces of beans. Now wife gets to sort and snap the beans we might get to keep 2 lbs of beans. We are not big green eaters we only wanted these for stir fly. Best part of this 200 bean plants will make good compost.

[Gary350]

Today I picked 16 cucumbers 1" or rain 2 days ago and 1/4" of rain yesterday was helpful to make cucumbers grow. Some of the cucumbers were a bit too large so I made a donut cutter to cut out seeds to salvage good pieces of cucumbers. Pickles will all become relish we don't care if pickles look ugly. Cutter is 2 different diameters. I made another gallon of pickles today. We only need 2 more quarts of pickles to be finished.

[Gary350]

Storm last night flattened the corn. This should not be much of a problem corn has already pollinated for a week and corn usually tries to stand up straight again with not very much success. Corn will not be easy to harvest with stalks going in all directions. My plan to harvest what we want then leave the rest for the squirrels has changed.

[Gary350]

Today I picked 3 cucumbers this morning then 17 cucumbers this evening. I sliced 3 Qs this morning and 6 more this evening. 20 cucumbers for the day is the record so far. I think all this rain & over cast sky is very helpful.

[Gary350]

Sunday morning garden harvest. Big Beef tomatoes, Big Bertha sweet bell peppers, Carman sweet 7" long bell peppers. banana peppers, sweet hab peppers not spicy hot, tabasco peppers, cantaloupe, cucumbers.

[Gary350]

8½ Gallons of Bread & Butter pickles. 28 quart jars, 1 jar is 1/2 gallon, 1 jar is 1 gallon, = 8½ gallons of pickles. They will all become relish for, potato salad, hot dogs, etc. we seldom eat pickles. 3 years ago I made 7 gallons of pickles. I won't need to grow cucumbers in the garden again for at least 3 more years. 80 cucumber plants in the garden. Approximately 250 cucumbers made all these pickles. Plants are still producing cucumbers that I no long need.

[imafan26]

That's a lot of pickles. It would be more like a 10 year supply for me.

[Gary350]

That's a lot of pickles. It would be more like a 10 year supply for me.

Every time the kids come to eat wife uses 1 pint of pickle relish in potato salad. If we have hot dogs of some type of sausage on BBQ grill we eat more relish. We might eat 3 or 4 quarts of relish by Christmas. We don't eat much relish in winter. If we eat 4 quarts every summer 34 quarts divided by 4 quarts = 8.5 years. That is good I won't need cucumber again for 8 year.

This morning I picked 1/2 gallon of blackberries. After lunch I picked another 1/2 gallon of berries and put them all in the freezer that makes 3 gallons total so far. I am not trying very hard, I am only picking what is on the surface easy to pick.

I listed 20 free cucumbers on Marketplace some 1 came to get them about 12 noon. I have not decided yet went to pull up Q-cumber plants.

[Gary350]

I picked our first watermelon today, its in the refrigerator getting cold.

I pulled up the whole 32 ft row of flat pod beans then sat in a chair under the shade tree and pulled beans from the plants. Scales shows 9 lbs of beans. Flat pod beans are substitutes for snow peas. I can't grow snow peas in TN but I can grow flat pod beans. These will be good in stir fly. I have a trash can lid full of beans. I had a terrible germination problem on this row only 1/2 the seeds grew that was the beginning of the drought. I replanted beans 3 times & only about 40% of them grew and 3 weeks later than the first crop. Plants that I pulled up today were a mix of plants with mature beans and the other 50% were plants with no beans or the beginning of 1" long beans too small for anything. A good row of 100% germination beans should have been about 30 lbs of new flat pod beans. Oh well $#&% happens. LOL.

[imafan26]

That's a lot of beans. I only get a handful of beans at at time. It takes 24-30 beans to make 8 oz. I have to hunt and collect them a few days before I make even one pound. I don't grow that many beans.

The berries look good. I don't have the space or the climate to grow good berries. And the few strawberries I do get, I have to get to them before the birds and snails find them.

[Gary350]

This morning I pulled up the last 32 ft row of white beans. This is another row that only 1/2 the row germinated because of our crazy weather. When I was 6 years old I was told to search for pods soft as rubber, pinch both sides then pull, pods pull open like small banana peals & beans fall out. Every day search for pods soft as rubber, in about 1 week all the pods get soft 1 by 1. This crop of green beans is 10 lbs 14 ounces. After removing white beans from pods I will be lucky to have 4 lbs of white beans. Beans will make good, Chili, soup, stew, etc. Soon as wife saw these beans she started making a big pot of garden Chili.

This winter I read an FFA article = Future Farmers of America. They said, bean plants are full of nitrogen, the bean harvester pulled behind the farm tractor removes the pods then chops the plants, then throws the chopped plants out the back of the harvester. Farmer then plows the field to put nitrogen rich beans plants into the soil so next years corn crop has nitrogen.

I have always thought beans put nitrogen in the soil just by growing in the soil. Now I learn bean plants are nitrogen rich fertilizer. I built a compost pile just for a bean plant nitrogen fertilizer experiment. If I had some type plant shopper machine I would till chopped bean plants in to the soil & not do compost. I have a lot of bean plants from 3 rows of beans.

[Gary350]

I have 32 cucumbers to give to the food bank lady that is coming Saturday. She comes every summer for tomatoes because I usually have lots of them. There will be 3 more cucumbers today at 7 pm and maybe 9 more cucumbers by Saturday.

I picked 4 ripe tomatoes today. I sliced & diced 1 tomato for taco salad and saved about 150 seeds to plant in 2 rows in the garden. These will be crawlers I am not staking them. They will be ready to pick about Sept 25. The food bank lady can have them all.

I pulled up the rest of the onions in the onion row for the food bank lady. She can have all the green beans too except the white beans. I shelled the beans and we have 4 lbs of white beans in the freezer. She can have several sweet bell peppers\ & several banana peppers. I might be able to give her 5 tomatoes we don't have many. She can have several garlic bulbs too.

There is a volunteer sunflower plant in the garden. The only sunflower I planted was giant sunflowers that were ugly & birds & squirrels would not eat them. I have no clue where this sunflower plant came from it has multi flowers it looks very nice in the garden. I will have seeds to plant these next year.

I have 3 big piles of dead bean plants for the compost pile. I need a chopper machine, I wonder if electric chain saw cut through the piles over & over several times will work.

I am enjoying all the, butterflies, bees & humming birds that are coming to the Zinnia flowers. There seems to be more butterflies early morning, more bees middle of the day, and humming birds in the evening when sun is low and temperature is dropping. It was 68° this morning.

[applestar]

Ideas, but depends on how tough the plant material is and how powerful your machines are —

1) put plants in a trash can or barrel and chop with weed wacker
2) put plants on ground and run over with lawn mower
3) put the plants through leaf mulcher/chipper shredder

…what do you think?

One more that I want for myself but you have better chance of building —

Secure a typical bush machete with a hole in the upper corner of the cutting point end, and secure it to a base do it pivots at the secured tip while you hold the handle up and down — picture a multi-sheet paper cutter like they used to have in school office, etc. Do you know what I mean?

This is a great ref by a tools smith for what it actually looks like disassembled: https://www.takitetu.com/entry/2019/03/08/235415

Sorry this is a shopping site, but has best examples of the tool being used for cutting various bulky materials
https://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/wide/63741.html

I have found a few similar tools — meat cutter, bread cutter, etc. by searching for “manual lever cutter”

[Gary350]

Ideas, but depends on how tough the plant material is and how powerful your machines are —

1) put plants in a trash can or barrel and chop with weed wacker
2) put plants on ground and run over with lawn mower
3) put the plants through leaf mulcher/chipper shredder

…what do you think?

One more that I want for myself but you have better chance of building —


Secure a typical bush machete with a hole in the upper corner of the cutting point end, and secure it to a base do it pivots at the secured tip while you hold the handle up and down — picture a multi-sheet paper cutter like they used to have in school office, etc. Do you know what I mean?

This is a great ref by a tools smith for what it actually looks like disassembled: https://www.takitetu.com/entry/2019/03/08/235415

Sorry this is a shopping site, but has best examples of the tool being used for cutting various bulky materials
https://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/wide/63741.html

I have found a few similar tools — meat cutter, bread cutter, etc. by searching for “manual lever cutter”

Machete.....great idea. I have 3 machete, light weight, medium weight, heavy weight. Light weight is for grass & small weeds. Medium weight is for big weeds & small limbs. I use the heavy weight to cut down corn stalks it will cut about 10 corn stalks in a row with 1 swing. Medium weight might work best for bean plants I will test it tomorrow morning to see how well it works. Top to bottom in picture, light on top, heavy on bottom. This gives me an idea, I have a shovel that is razor blade sharp I bet I can punch bean plants over and over with the shovel to chop them into pieces. I need to be 40 years younger about 10 swings I will need to 10 min rest.

[Gary350]

I can't swing machete fast enough to cut beans plants. Hitting a 2 ft tall pile of plants is like hitting a spring or trampoline machete goes down then bounces up. I spread beans out thinner 4" deep I need to almost lay down on the yard to hit bean plants hard enough to cut them. 2 ft tall plant pile is still a trampoline with the razor sharp shovel. 4" thick layer of plants on the yard is easy to cut with the razor sharp shovel. I chopped in 1 direction then rotate 90 degrees and chop the other direction. Plants are easy to chop with the razor sharp shover, 100 hits 2" apart rotate & 100 more hits 2" apart most of the plants are 2" pieces. I chopped both beans plant piles down to a 1" layer on the yard they take up 90 less space. I set down in a chair to rest both back legs fell into a mole tunnel it tipped me over backwards and dumped me in the yard. I moved the chair then both left legs fell into another mole tunnel and dumped me in the grass. Moles are staying under the shade trees I need to double check the chair before setting in it. Chopped plants & pods all fit into a 30 gallon trash can.

I had to drag 50 lbs of chopped bean plants to the rusty compost barrel. Birds like the trash can lid full of rain water there is a different bird here every 60 seconds. One of the bird houses next to patio has birds coming & going none stop they must be feeding babies.

My camera is weird it use to take terrible pictures in full sun but now it takes good pictures.???