Week.... I Feel Week 17.... Beans, Beans, The Magical Fruit, The More You Eat The More You....

This post is dedicated to a plant, unlike the Monsterea Deliciosa, which has kept me alive since the start of the year: the humble bean.

Please pay particular attention to this manifold description. There are the small. slender lithe looking beans on the left. These are what we eat raw, stir fried etc. The other beans you can see are the romanticallly named Berlotti beans (the green with red striped ones on the left), and the aptly titled Purple Kings on the right. Both of the Berlotti and Purple Kings are examples of beans that are passed the slender and tender phase and have entered the tough as old nails phase. These will be shelled and the individual beans inside the pods will be used for dahl. Note the corn, Cucumber and chilli that will also go into the dahl.

The individual, shelled beans. Boil and blend or perhaps stirfry. 

There are lots of other great things about beans in the garden. As we all know, beans, along with lentils, peas and the like are legumes which have the nifty ability to put the element NItrogen back into the soil. NItrates are responsible for green leafy growth in plants and can also be found in comfrey tea, cowpoo and urine (people and animal). Growing beans is one way of producing food from the garden while putting something into the soil.


The other cool thing about beans is that you can grow them in among other plants that also produce fruit. I have tried growing them on corn plants and sunflowers with success. I have found though that the beans can fruit a bit late, well after the corn is done and when you might want to plant something else. In the future I think that they will be the first seedlings in the patch so that hey can get a head start.


Here of course is the weigh in:

I'm hoping that I can crack the 84 kg barrier soon so that I can get some rice into me. Lingering on the cusp is making me salivate!


Until then chaps and chapettes, toodles,

Showing Rib