Growing at the Speed of Life - A Year in the Life of My First Kitchen Garden

Beans

Phaseolus spp.

W

here in the earth shall we begin with a
vegetable that boasts more than 13,000
species? To start, beans come in two types: in
the pod and horticultural, or shell, beans.
In the pod describes beans such as bush and
pole green beans, snap, French, wax, Romano,
and stringless. They are mostly green but can be
yellow or purple and are always eaten fresh in
their pod.
Horticultural beans include fl ageolet, bor­
lotti, and cranberry. Usually all are dried, but
some are eaten fresh, directly from the pod,
such as fava and lima. Almost all of these came
from southern Mexico and Central America
and Peru, where they have been cultivated for
more than 7,000 years, but they didn’t make an
appearance in Europe until the 15th century.
I planted both types: an in-the-pod runner
called Blue Lake and a fava. They both did well,
with the fava coming in at a close second. I think
it could have won if I’d known to harvest the
beans earlier than I did. I waited until midsum­
mer, when the pods had swollen magnifi cently,
but the beans inside had developed a typical
blue-gray leathery jacket, which can be cut at the
flecked end and squeezed out (to reveal a bean

looking like a large lima). But this is really too

much fuss by far, so it is better to take them young

and tender (see “Fava Beans” on page 144.)

You can plant a new crop every 10 days for a

continual harvest, and you can plant in autumn

for a winter crop.

Very thin, green in-the-pod beans need only

enough steaming time to enhance their color

(2–3 minutes).

If you let the shell beans alone, they’ll grow

and eventually yellow, easily opening to spill

out their white good-size beans. These can be

sun-dried and stored away from light and

moisture in fabric bags, not in glass or plastic. I

always rinse and pick over and discard any bro­

ken, moldy, or discolored shell beans, and then

soak them overnight before cooking.

The Numbers

Red kidney beans per 100 g raw (3.5 oz ; ½ cup): 127

calories, 0.5 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 23 g carbohydrate,

9 g protein, 7 g dietary fiber, 1 mg sodium

Green beans per 100 g raw (3.5 oz ; ½ cup): 31 calo­

ries, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 7 g carbohydrate, 2 g

protein, 3 g dietary fiber, 6 mg sodium

80 • GROWING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE