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Kathy’s Garden Writing |
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MAKE THE GROUND SAY BEANS One of Thoreau’s goals at Walden Pond was to “make the ground say beans.” With the recent run-up in food prices, maybe we should all adopt Thoreau’s sage advice. Beans are already the second most popular vegetable grown in the home garden, after the tomato, and for good reason. These easy-to-raise nitrogen fixers add important nutrition to our diets, and can be readily preserved for year-round use. So let’s take a closer look at this legume. For thousands of years, people around the world have relied on beans as a source of vitamins and protein. Depending on where your ancestors lived, different varieties fed your clan. In fact, bean dishes still serve as significant cultural markers, even within this country – think Boston beans, Texas refried beans, and Pennsylvania Dutch dilly beans. For the home gardener, the green snap bean is most popular. Actually a cluster of immature seeds eaten in the pod, these beans have been improved over the years to remove the fibrous string from the pod’s seam. Bush beans have been another attempt at improvement, for those who don’t want to provide a support for climbing vines. The all-time favorite, ‘Blue Lake Bush’, is known for its mild nutty flavor. For a stronger “beany” taste, ‘Roma II’ fills the bill. Many gardeners continue to favor old-fashioned pole beans, however, despite their vertical challenges, because of higher yields and ease of harvest. Some mouth-watering varieties are ‘Emerite’ and the robust-flavored ‘Romano.’ But not all snap beans are green, so for visual interest consider the yellow ‘Kentucky Wonder Wax’, or the purple ‘Trionfo Violetto.’ Or mix it up a little with purple-spotted ‘Rattlesnake,’ or yellow and purple-striped ‘Dragon Tongue.’ If nutritional value is your main concern, let the immature bean pods fill out, and harvest the plump seeds for fresh shellouts, or let the pods dry on the vine and then harvest the dried beans for winter soups and casseroles. Fresh or dried, fully-developed beans are an excellent source of protein when combined with grains – indeed beans are the only food group to appear under both the vegetable and protein categories of the USDA food pyramid. Most any bush or pole bean can be shelled. But some particularly tasty choices for fresh shellouts are the limas, like ‘Speckled Calico’ with its rich buttery flavor. And for unbeatable dried storage beans, try ‘Jacob’s Cattle’ with its attractive speckles. Recently, this pedestrian vegetable has finally been given its due, with Ken Albala’s acclaimed Beans: A Brief History (Berg Publishers, 2007). If you get hooked, check out the 110 bean varieties offered at vermontbeanseedcompany.com. Who knew that this derided gut-buster could incite such interest? Thoreau of course was way ahead of us. Not only did he sustain himself at Walden by eating and selling his beans, but more importantly “I came to love my rows, my beans … They attached me to the earth.” In today’s complex world, maybe we all should “be determined to know beans,” as a way of living closer to the earth. And a supplement to the food budget wouldn’t hurt either! Kathleen Arcuri Published June1, 2008 -- The Danville Daily Item |