It was our first time. We were virgin bean shellers. And I’m afraid it showed. Our technique needs some work. Shelling these two pints of Dragon Tongue bush beans took us over an hour.

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Beans are amazing. They produce frantically and for an extended period of time. They can be harvest fresh, they are good frozen or canned, and they can be dried. That’s crazy versatility. I can completely comprehend the Dave Ramsey’s beans and rice economy diet in terms of production quantities. At least I can speak to the beans half of the equation.  It would be interesting to plant a rice patty some day.

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I’ve read of gardeners slamming the entire bean plant with dried pods against the sides of a metal garbage can. The seeds presumably fall to the bottom, and I’m sure much of the chaff would too.  I didn’t look very hard, but I couldn’t find any metal garbage cans lying around.  And most of our beans are pole varieties, so pulling out the entire vine is not a great option.  Shelling by hand, one bean at a time, was fine – just time intensive. It would have been nice to have an air compressor to spray the chaff off the seeds. That could work. Or maybe just a strong fan. The amount of beans we grow can certainly be done by hand in a few hours so I don’t plan on running out to buy an air compressor tomorrow. Then again, we did lose our tire pump the other day. What would Dave Ramsey say to that?

It’s no wonder that Jack’s magic seeds were beans. The way the vines twist and grow and climb lend themselves to fantasy and imagination. And they produce beaucoup amounts of beans too. Something I am not sure Jack was ever too aware of. Or perhaps his grew so fast and then he had to chop down the stalk so soon after planting that he was never able to harvest anything.

I like to think the beans of the Jack’s plant would also be magical. Maybe a few seeds have survived and have been past down through the generations. And maybe one day I will trade those seeds for a cow. I’ll need a cow first.

I knew I would be spending a little time today picking beans. I actually spent quite a bit of time searching for the stealthy little legumes. What is a legume? I mean, what constitutes legumeness?  I’ll have to look that up later.

We planted quite a few beans this year. I had somehow found myself with four different varieties and thought I ought to try them all and before I knew what happened, I had planted just about all of them. Anne announced she likes beans at some point, so I felt justified. The variety above is Dragon Tongue – a bush variety with purple and yellow/white splotches. It’s a good one.

The seed catalog also enticed me to spend my dollars on some attractive eggplant varieties. The most unique is the Turkish Orange. We grew Bambini eggplant a few years ago, another small variety. I didn’t much care for it. This Turkish Orange is a little bigger, more orange and just great. We’ve enjoyed a few eggplant parmesan already.

And then there are cucumbers. You can’t really tell from the photo below, but the basket on the right is full of cucumbers. Why in the world did I need to plant so many cucumbers? Once again, I am a sucker for varieties. The burpless is a favorite, so I had to have some of those. Anne wanted some of the lemon variety we planted last year, and then I thought it would great to plant some for pickles. The pickling variety is pictured below next to the lavender touch eggplant (also very good). I ought to be picking these cucs a bit younger. Their size and abundance was a surprise this morning.

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I never managed to create the obelisk for growing beans this year. Instead, I planted beans and cucumbers in various places around the garden near to climbing structures. The first spot was next to the shed, just behind the hollyhocks. It faces east, so it doesn’t get quite as much sun as the rest of the garden, so it’s been progressing a little slower. It’s looking great now. The cucumber (larger leaves in the middle) is especially strong here.

The pea plastic mesh fencing is also holding a collection of beans and cucumbers. These cucumbers were some of the first and have just begun swelling up all over the place. We cut into the first one two days ago and it was good. I think it might have been a bit over-ripe, but still really good and fresh. 

Some of my favorite, although a bit crowded, are the beans climbing the tomato cages. It’s tricky to spot the beans in all the greenery, so it makes it extra special when I see one – or several.