There are, without any doubt, some vegetables that you fall in love with as a gardener. Beans are one of those incredibly diverse and exceptionally productive vines and bushes that never fail to impress the cultivator.
Beans are probably the most important type of food on Earth. They are not only packed with protein but also offer lots of fibre, calcium, iron and potassium. Eat them fresh or store them as dry beans. These are part of all cuisines around the world and are cooked in myriad ways.
I myself consider it one of my favorite foods – one that I eat every day. I also prefer growing this wonderful vegetable when working with children at school as their first crop. Beans are perfect for encouraging kids to take up gardening, especially because they are super easy to grow, with no failures and disappointments. I also find beans add a very romantic feel to my home garden and make the school garden a bit more filled with fantasy. The delicate vines wrap around the poles and continue to grow throughout the season, producing stunning flowers in clusters that turn to beans quickly and transform the very look of the vine. At this stage when the contrasting flowers have faded, colourful and patterned beans emerge and create a very eye-catching and satisfying display of colours in the garden.
A harvest of green beans
Some bean flowers spread their enchanting scents in the garden at night. I still remember the first time that I discovered this in my container garden
Some bean flowers spread their enchanting scents in the garden at night. I still remember the first time that I discovered this in my container garden. It was a moonlit night – the kind that automatically draws me to the terrace for meditation, reading or simply adoring the moon. I sensed a delightful scent in the garden and traced it to the clusters of white flowers of Siam beans growing in a pot.
Picture it. The moon shinning in the sky and scents wafting through the garden – what more can a gardener wish for?
Long Beans
I have grown some beautiful Long Bean vines in the past 10 years, that added much charm to my little terrace garden. These love warmer weather and are usually used as snap beans. However, if you let them mature and dry on the vines, they do yield small beans that can be stored for a long time. The best thing about long beans is that they will continue to grow and produce in summer heat when other beans fail.
Some long beans grow as much as 3 feet tall, and others to 18 inches. I planted Purple Noodle beans in a pot. The vine was directed upwards to grow on an arch. When the violet flowers filled the vine and then turned to thin, long deep purple beans, the bamboo arch looked quite stunning.
You can chose from green, purple, red and lavender coloured beans with contrasting and complimentary colours.
The Common Bean
This type includes beans like pinto, green beans and kidney beans and grows as a bush or as pole beans. There are so many varieties that these lovely seed pods offer. Some of the colours include tan, brown, blood-red, pink, green, blue-black, yellow, purple, beige and even a combination of two colours in the form of specks and stripes.
Mature Fava bean plants
Fava Beans
These are extremely delightful and rewarding to have in a vegetable garden. Fava beans, unlike long beans, prefer cold weather and wither in the heat. They produce medium to large pods which can be stored well as dried beans. These also like to grow in partial sun or shade.
How to grow beans at home
All beans, except fava, like to grow in full sun. Prepare your soil that is well drained and sow the seeds 1 inch deep. Adding soil bacteria to the seeds will enable the nitrogen fixation process. Although many beans can tolerate drought, it is still better to keep the soil watered. Weeds need to be kept under control.
Beans draw nitrogen from the air to fertilise themselves and the soil around them. Consequently, the soil need not be highly fertilised before planting beans. Beneficial bacteria help this process along.
It is important to devise means of supporting the beans as they grow
You will need to provide support for the climbing type with trellises or by having a fence on which they can climb.
You can also be creative about the kind of support that you want for these plants. Make a teepee trellis with three or four stakes. Plant 3 to 4 seeds at the base of each pole.
If you are aiming to use fresh pods, then harvest beans when they are four to eight inches big. Waiting too long will make them go stringy and tough. However, long beans can be harvested as soon as they reach their full size. For dry beans, let the pods remain on the plant until they are fully dried. If there is frost or rain expected, you can pick the semi dried pods and let them dry completely indoors.
Saving seeds
The bean itself is a seed that can be replanted but some varieties will need to be isolated for avoiding cross pollination. Common beans, long beans and soy beans are self-pollinating while fava, Lima, hyacinth and runner beans are pollinated by insects.
The ones that can be cross pollinated ought to be planted at a distance of half a mile to avoid that process. Another way to avoid the process of cross pollination could be planting other flowers nearby. These attract bees and pollinators and allow the plants to pollinate themselves.
I love everything about growing beans – from sprouting seeds to the harvest and then storage and cooking. I am always fascinated by the beauty and diversity of this incredible crop. Beans are definitely one vegetable that I look forward to grow in all gardens every season.
Open up your pantry, find a dry bean and give it a go.
Zahra Ali is a sustainability educator, writer and environmentalist. She blogs at cropsinpots.pk. Send in questions about gardening to Zahra@cropsinpots.pk
