u/HokieNurse328

I keep hearing that growing beans is supposed to be super easy but I am having very little luck. This has been my third year gardening and I can’t seem to get a good harvest of beans. I have usually only been able to get enough for my husband and I to have them 2-3 times as a side dish with dinner, and I’m talking like one serving each 😢 Green beans are one of my favorite things to cook so I desperately want to grow a bunch!

I’ve tried multiple pole and bush varieties in different places all over my front and back yard. After my first year I thought it was poor soil quality so I’ve tried to work on that and amended a good bit. I think it’s improving because this year my garden was much healthier and I had better luck with many things I struggled with previously (still very much a work in progress though). I also kept thinking maybe I was giving them enough sun in the area I was growing them so then I planted them literally all throughout my back yard beds and in my two front beds as well as some containers just to see if the ones in the sunnier spots did better. They did not.

I know part of my struggle is pests and disease. Ive had some fungal disease issues the last two years and got a terrible spider mite infestation this year but thats not the only problem because unaffected plants still don’t really produce or at least not much. My pole beans tend to do better but not much.

I almost never have luck with bush beans. I’ve had some decently healthy looking bush beans coming up and a few will somehow stay unaffected by the mites and disease but they’ll be weak and tiny and produce like three little two inch beans. It’s so confusing because there will be other things in the beds that will be flourishing and it seems to be all the bush beans no matter how much light they are getting. Also other things I’ve read say beans shouldn’t need to be fertilized very much but I still sometimes do a little bit of something like neptunes harvest when I’m already fertilizing other plants just to try to get them to grow a little more but not every time. The leaves rarely look yellow which I think is usually a nutrient issue, they’re usually pretty green just small and weak.

Also had some germination issues. I’ve tried many different seed companies including baker creek, burpee organic, peaceful valley, thresh seeds, and quite a few more to try to improve things. Doesn’t seem to matter if I soak my seeds ahead of time or not either. I’ve tried many times with both lol

Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!

Maybe a dumb question but this is my first year sowing some cover crops. How do you go about planting them when you have fall crops and some plants still producing from the summer? Do you just sow them around them? My first frost is the end of October so I probably should plant pretty soon just not sure the best way to go about it.

Really trying to work on soil health so any advice/suggestions to help with that in general are also greatly appreciated!

Hello, just looking to hear some other first time mom’s experiences with their baby’s digestive struggles. Want to know if what we’re experiencing is kind of the norm or not.

My son is 7 weeks old as of yesterday. He had latching issues in the beginning so I had to start pumping at 4 days and my supply really really struggled so we started him on formula at that time as well. We started combination feeding with what little I was pumping to start and then the rest with Similac 360 total care (the one that’s supposed to be similar to breast milk) while attempting to have him nurse about 3 times a day until his latch improved (this was what was recommended by our lactation consultant). Well it never improved and my bipples got so sore from it I could barely pump so we unfortunately gave up on nursing and I’ve been married to the breast pump for the last 5 weeks. I still don’t have a full supply but I’ve built up my supply enough that he’s getting 3/4 from breast milk and the rest formula. Idk if it’s important to this but we switched to the store brand of the Similac 360 total care from Sam’s club.

Anyways! Around 3.5 weeks he had progressively been struggling more with gas. It started more subtle with two or three times a day he’d get red in the face and tense up, start kicking aggressively. Around that time he went from having multiple poops a day to about one or two. All this we knew was normal and it was confirmed by our pediatrician at his 4 week appointment that everything we’re experiencing is typical. We used milicon drops and did bicycles and it seemed to help. We also started giving him a probiotic at this time. By 5 weeks it seemed to be happening much more frequently, probably 5 times a day and it seemed much much more uncomfortable but again we just went down a list of things to try and usually we’d get through it within 30 min and then once he’d have his daily poop he was as happy as can be. Last week things escalated and it’s like he’s going through it after every feed and even in between. It almost seems like a constant at this point. Still continued to have his daily poop but he still seemed uncomfortable afterwards. Two nights ago he was waking up in pain to pass gas very frequently but last night he was up at least every hour straining, grunting, turning red, crying, kicking, tensing up- just awful to see him like that 😢 He finally had a projectile poop (on me 😂) around 10:15 this morning and now is actually resting comfortably but that just seemed to be a lot.

So here’s my list of things I go through to help with the gas. The mylicon drops have seemed to stop working but I still try them a couple times a day, we do lots of bicycles, leg lifts and belly massage. We try different forms of tummy time like across the lap or arm and of course let him get on the floor and kick around to help. We’ve tried every burping trick I’ve found on the internet (he’s very hard to burp which I do think is contributing). If all that fails and he’s really really uncomfortable then I’ll use the Frida baby windi after a good belly massage. It only works maybe a third of the time if even. If that fails I’ve tried a warm bath a few times. Usually it gets some gas out but he’s still uncomfortable. Some other things we’ve done just to prevent extra trapped air are holding him as far up as possible during feeds, attempting to burp half way through (again super hard to burp the poor little guy), burping after feeds in all different ways, we’ve changed his bottle nipples multiple times and finally settled on the even Flo ones and worked on pace feedings, we’ve tried to let the bottles settle after mixing to lessen the bubbles, we hold him upright after feeding (I guess that’s more for spit up prevention but still maybe helps with air). Feel like there’s other things I’m forgetting. I’m thinking of changing his formula to the sensitive version. I also should probably keep a journal of what I’m eating in case that’s affecting him but to be honest I am having a hard enough time keeping my calories up at the moment with the stress of a newborn and my husband working all the time I’m on my own a lot, that if I start doing an elimination diet I worry ill end up hurting my milk supply.

Anyways, I know that was super long just wanted to make sure I added all the details. Just wondering if this is beyond what is normal? if anyone else experienced this? And if there are any tips/tricks I haven’t tried yet? I know weeks 6-8/9 or so are supposed to be a the worst for a lot of babies just still just worried a little over the last few days that maybe this is beyond what is normal? I did send his pediatrician a message this morning but obviously not expecting to hear back from him today with it being a holiday.