Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Film Project Over & Green Beans!


The film project is finally over, and I am exhausted! For those who are interested, basically the 48-hour film project challenges local filmmakers to write, shoot, edit, and produce a 7-8 minute short film within 48 hours (2 days). On Friday night, we are given a genre, a line of dialogue , and a character and occupation that we must use in the film. We have the rest of the weekend to put the thing together. But it's exhausting to try to do all of that in 48 hours. Yikes! But we made it. We drew the "Sports" genre, and the result was a hilariously funny short film. I played the Sports Agent. LoL. Can you just imagine!

The screening will be on Wednesday, July 30th at 9 p.m. at the Belcourt Theatre in Hillsboro Village. I'm in Group D. It should be fun. Tickets are $7.50 to see all the short films in Group D.

In the garden, the green beans are growing very nicely. I believe the variety that I'm growing is the bush type. As you've seen, I harvested a small number of beans last week (as posted Saturday), and there are more growing in its place.

I have to hold the branches up in order to see the healthy beans. I guess the weight of the green beans is too heavy for the plant, so many of its branches are lying on their side. I think this is okay because the beans seem to be producing regularly and are very healthy and delicious.

My question now is... After you pick the beans, do more flowers grow in its place? Or is this the end of the cycle? How many beans normally grow on one plant? Anyone know the answer?

We planted these from a packet of seeds. We have two rows of them. One row is growing in the shade, and the other is in full sun and is protected by the tall corn stalks. So far, each row is producing regularly and I haven't seen any scarring or bug damage on the plants. The shaded row seems to be producing quicker than the one in full shade, but I've harvested green beans from both locations.

The first harvest of green beans was small, but it made delicious Vietnamese green beans and egg stir-fry. (See Left photo).

I stir-fried the beans with scrambled eggs, onions, garlic, and fish sauce. I ate the dish over rice, and it was very good.

I can't recall any American-cuisine dishes that use eggs and green beans together.

What do you cook with your green beans?

12 comments:

Eve said...

Congratulations on finishing your project. Fighting a deadline can sometimes produce great results.

Your beans look wonderful and so does that egg dish! I will usually throw whatever veggie I have in my stir fry.

Beans will keep on producing for a long time. I planted mine the last week in March and they are still going strong. The harvest slows down but they keep producing. You get a Lotta bang for you buck when you grow beans. I am letting some of them get large now and shelling them. We like a combo of the shelled and the snaps together.

Anonymous said...

9:30, not 9:00

tina said...

Congrats on your film. I agree with Eve, green beans give and give and give....not like corn.

Skeeter said...

Your film sounds very adventurous! Good Luck with the viewing!

Your beans look great and in the egg dish. Yum-o. I love Egg fried rice over the plain but the Saint likes the white sticky rice best. We are so made for each other, ha... I steam them and put a drizzle of cream gravy on them at times or just cook in pot with water, small whole potatoes, onion salt and pepper. Good stuff...

Our beans bit the dust! They did not take the transfer from container to ground and turned all gray and died on us. I wanted to plant more beans but could not find any seeds this late in the year. We put a tomato slip in its spot so hopefully we will have tomatoes from the beans absence...

Anonymous said...

I had a lot of beans in mid to late June. Then the plants stopped producing and I wondered what was going to happen. Now, just this past week, new flowers appeared and I have more little beans growing.

I noticed some eggs on my pumpkin leaves tonight (squash bugs maybe), so I am a big depressed by that. I picked them all off, but I'm sure there are some I didn't find. Plus, my cantaloupe is pretty much dead from something (vine bores maybe?). My watermelon leaves look great, but the two little melons... not so much. Something has eaten a chunk out of both, and neither one is growing very well. No more blooms either, so I guess I am out of luck.

Waht did you do for fertilization and what did you do or do you currently do for bug control? I have lost the cucumbers and cantaloupes, and now it looks like the pumpkins might go (although i am going to fight those little buggers!)

My e-mail is gloworm693@hotmail.c I'd love to talk garden sometime. It would be nice to talk to a new gardener with a small back yard garden in Nashville.

Gail said...

Dp, How exciting your weekend was! What a great idea and a good fundraiser? We may wander over there with some friends. Hillsboro Village is one of my favorite Nashville neighborhoods and we like to support the Belcourt!

I love green beans and that is the extent of my knowledge!

Gail

Anonymous said...

Mmm those green beans look yummy - usually I just drown mine in butter (definently not so healthy!) - but a stir fry sounds much better.
congrats on your short film sounds exciting :)

DP Nguyen said...

Eve-Thanks for the info. I have a lot to look forward to. I love green beans, so I'll keep my fingers crossed to have crop until the fall. Too bad it doesn't come back next year...

Tina- I'm so glad to hear that green beans like to give. Too bad about the corn though. I have lots of new corn ears growing, so I'll keep my fingers crossed that it survives any damage from hungry animals.

Skeeter- Lots of delicious ideas! Yum! I'm sorry to hear about the bean death. Can you buy seeds online? Or has the season for selling seeds passed? Well I hope the tomatoes have better luck!

Becca-Wow, congrats on your bean surprise. I guess your plants are starting to pick up. That's great. I hope you get a nice summer crop in the next few weeks. Sorry to hear about your bug problem. Hmm... Have you tried spraying the plants with anything? Insecticidal soap or anything like that? Also, sometimes watermelons and cantaloupes need more water than you're giving them. we water those plants twice a day, and they're doing very well. But the bug problem... that's really hard. Have you tried not only spraying, but planting herbs and other plants that are natural bug repellents? We grow lots of herbs in our garden, so that helps keep the bug problem down... or at least i think it does. lol. I'll send you an email sometime, and we can talk. I don't know how much help I'll be since I'm a newbie myself, but I'd love to talk garden!

Gail-I hope you do go to the Belcourt for the film festival! It's a really fun contest. We don't win anything and it's not a fundraiser, I don't think. It's just something fun and competitive local filmmakers like to participate in every year. It gets your creative juices flowing! Hehe! :-) And of course, green beans are delicious!


Plantgirl- Haha! Drowning them in butter does sound delicious. LoL. I'm not sure that stir-frying is that much healthier. I guess it's healthy because i use tons of garlic and eat it over rice. And rice is always good. lol.

Daphne Gould said...

Your beans look wonderful and I like your recipe for beans. I'm always looking for new ways to cook them.

Cindy said...

Congrats on finishing your film. That sounds like such a neat project. Any chance the film will end up online. I'd love to see it but won't be able to make it to TN :(

I don't think I ever had beans with eggs but it sure looks good. My beans are just starting to have little baby beans, so hopefully soon!

DP Nguyen said...

Daphne, I'm also always looking for new ways to cook my vegetables. I'm a 'creative cook.' This means i play around with everything I have, lol.

Cindy- I'll definitely post up the youtube clip after the premiere. Congrats on your baby beans. It won't be long now. Just a week or two and you'll have harvest-able beans!

Skeeter said...

Nah, with this drought, I am finished planting for this season. I will try my luck with beans again next year...