Bean There Done That
Beans, beans, they’re good for your heart,
the more you eat the more you’ve art in your landscape. But I’m not talkin’
pinto and navy beans, but some beautifully flowering exotic tropical beans that
grow like crazy here from spring into fall. Their lush vines boast a blend of
blooms and protein-rich bean pods for bouquets and the dinner plate. All they
need is full sun, soil enriched with dog food nuggets, and an ugly fence you’d
love to see transformed into a lovely flowering “trellis”.
But beans?
Yup. Remember Scarlet Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus) from our grandma’s
flower gardens? A white mailbox looks charming swathed in those emerald leaves
and ruby blooms. Imagine picking and nibbling a crisp raw pod as you reach in
for the daily mail! Chop them into salads and stir fry for a taste and texture
you can’t buy in the produce market. And those crisp red blooms add a sweet
surprise to salads! Look for them in the garden flowers section of seed
displays.
The Yard Long Bean (Vigna sesquipedalis) is
sold in Asian veggie seed displays. A staple of Chinese cooking, this relative
of the Black Eyed Pea thrives just as well in our muggy summers. Expect the
lovely orchid-like flowers to quickly transform into bean pods up to 3 feet
long, though they are best picked when a foot long and sweetly tender. Easy and
thus great for kids to grow, they also provide newly unfolded leaves excellent
when chopped into soups and stir fry for extra fiber, bright green color, and
healthy nutrition.
Want to freak out friends, neighbors,
passers-by and dinner guests? Grow African Jack Beans (Canavalia ensiformis)
and watch jaws drop first when the vines rival those in ‘Jack and the Bean
Stalk’, then again when monstrous bean pods form. I use mine in soups and stir
fry when 8-10 inches long and crisply tender, pods and all. No need to shuck
them. Think that size DOES matter? Grow African Jack Beans!
Prized in Filipino cuisine, the green-podded
Hyacinth Bean (Dilochos lablab) is tastier and grows far more luxuriantly than
the equally edible purple-podded kind sold in flower seed racks. If you don’t
have a Filipino neighbor who can share seeds with you, look for them on-line or
in the seed display in an Asian market. Lovely on a chain link fence, bedecked
with flowers reminiscent of wisterias, Hyacinth Beans cover my henhouse each
summer to provide “my girls” with shade and nutritious leaves they love to peck
at and nibble. By summer you can pick the flat green pods and shuck out flat
green beans that when lightly cooked taste much like edamame’ soybeans. Allowed
to ripen and dry on the vines, the tan pods can be shattered to release
beautiful black seeds, each with a white spot, that can be cooked like any
dried bean. All summer long I treat myself to petite bouquets of the
long-stemmed lavender blooms yet still end up with numbers of beans for stir
fry and soups.
All are easy to grow....just scatter dog
food nuggets all along a fence (a 20 lb.
bag will do 20 feet of fence, turn them under, plant one seed every 2 feet or
so, and water deeply weekly till the summer rains kick in. Then jump back out
of their way!
Got beans?
SOURCES:
ECHONET 239-543-3246 fax 239-543-5317 www.echonet.org
EVERGREEN SEEDS 714-637-5769 www.evergreenseeds.com
John Starnes JohnAStarnes@msn.com
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