Isn’t this a wonderful time of year? So many delightful, delicious foods to enjoy from the garden or garden pots. You might be lucky enough to have your own produce, but if not, you can find locally-grown produce at the Yorkton Gardeners’ Market every Saturday from 9 a.m. till noon at Melrose and Simpson streets in Yorkton (north parking lot of the Prairie Harvest Christian Life Centre). To register as a seller, email [email protected] or [email protected] or call Glen at (306) 783-7040.
Sit down with me for a moment and let’s have a cup of tea and talk about beans. I know we’ve chatted about the beautiful, productive, and unique beans that we’ve enjoyed growing the last few years. We got these bean seeds from Warren Crossman, and while the seeds were selected at first because they were so beautiful, we continued to grow them because of the great results.
This year we added another bean experiment: borlotti beans. These beans were a last-minute addition to our garden, planted in an arid and desolate-looking corner where we had just cut down a dying spruce. The beans were planted in an attempt to restore some nutrients to that poor soil. We didn’t expect them to actually produce anything. But lo and behold, they came up beautifully, gifting us with the red and white freckled pods that aptly earn the name “cranberry bean”.
As we can guess, this bean originally comes from Italy, and is used in Italian cuisine. But many cultures enjoy the benefits of this beefy bean. It is low in fat and very high in fibre. This was our first time growing them, and they like the full sun and well-drained soil of any bean variety. But these are called “drying” beans, so you can enjoy them shelled and fresh, or let them mature and dry out on the vine, then shell them and use them in a hearty soup or stew on a blustery winter day to remind you of hot summer days!
Still in the same branch of the bean family, I did some homework about a bean cousin, the broad bean. We were talking with a dear friend and avid gardener who told us about her broad bean crop. It made me think of the broad beans Mom used to grow, and how delicious they were simply steamed, then dotted with butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper. Mmm! That and a couple of Mom’s homemade buns made it a meal fit for a king!
I read that broad beans are one of the oldest cultivated plants, going back thousands of years and providing not only food but nitrogen for the soil and a solid plant to help ease soil erosion. While other beans are softer in growing habit and perhaps climbers, the broad bean plant is strong and upright, with the beans forming along the sturdy stalk. The plant is hardy, but it is sometimes a victim of various fungus diseases. No matter — it is a bean worth growing! It likes full sun and well-drained soil, but can do well in poor soils, too.
Like the borlotti bean, you can eat this bean at various stages: the tender, very young pods can be eaten, or wait until the beans mature and then shell them and enjoy! And here’s some bean trivia: why are they called broad beans? Because of their wide, flat shape!
Whatever variety you choose, beans are wonderful friends to the garden, bringing valuable nitrogen to the soil. And they are easy to grow and seem to keep producing as long as we keep picking!
Visit the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society at www.yorktonhort.ca, and see what’s coming up (pardon the pun!). Have a great week and be sure to wear a hat!
