Vegetable Gardening (43 page)

‘Cannellini':
This famous white, kidney-shaped bean is often used in minestrone soups. Large plants produce beans that are best when eaten at the shelling stage, which is 80 days from seeding.

‘French Horticultural':
An old-time favorite, this tan-colored bean matures in 90 days. You also can eat this variety earlier as a shelling bean.

‘Jacob's Cattle':
This bean gets its name from the cattle that Jacob, the biblical character, tended. It's white with splashes of maroon. This bean is best adapted to cooler weather. You'll find ‘Jacob's Cattle' great in baked bean dishes.

‘Navy':
This small, semi-vining plant produces white, oval beans 85 days from seeding. These beans are excellent baked.

‘Pinto':
A vining plant produces buff-colored, brown-speckled, dried beans 90 days from seeding; these beans are widely used in Mexican dishes. You also can grow this variety as a pole bean.

‘Red Kidney':
This bushy plant produces large, red, kidney-shaped beans 100 days from seeding. These beans are used in many baked dishes. ‘Red Kidney' also comes as a white-seeded variety.

‘Soldier':
This white, kidney-shaped bean with red markings produces 6 beans per pod 85 days from seeding. This bean is great baked and in stews.

‘Tongue of Fire':
These 6- to 7-inch, red-streaked pods can be eaten shelled or dried. They mature to the shell stage 70 days from seeding.

‘Vermont Cranberry':
This red, brown-speckled, New England classic dried bean is one of the most popular beans to grow. It matures 90 days from seeding and is
widely adapted
(can grow in a variety of geographic regions under a variety of weather conditions).

Miscellaneous beans not to be forgotten

Some variations on the common bean are exotic and fun to grow. The beans in this section are grown similarly to bush or pole beans but come in different shapes and flavors. Some of these beans aren't even in the same species as bush and pole beans, but they're grown the same way. The following sections show you a few of the best ones to try.

Asparagus bean

The asparagus bean (
Vigna unguiculata sesquipedalis,
or Yard-Long bean) is a pole bean that grows more than 10 feet tall and produces extremely long beans (up to 3 feet tall!). This variety is popular in Europe and Asia and is catching on in the United States. The asparagus bean takes a longer growing season to mature than traditional pole bean varieties, however. Most mature within 80 days from seeding. Some good varieties to look for include ‘Chinese Green Noodle' and ‘Red Noodle'. ‘Chinese Green Noodle' features long, thin green beans. The ‘Red Noodle' variety features burgundy-colored pods that hold and deepen their color to purple when cooked.

Edamame

Edamame (
Glycine max
), or Green Vegetable soybean, started as a novelty bean from Japan and has turned into a favorite in many home gardens and kitchens. Unlike the commercial soybean that's grown for animal feed, oil, and so on, this soybean is meant to be eaten at the green shell stage; it has a buttery, lima-bean flavor. Some varieties have green seeds and others black.

‘Envy' is the earliest maturing of the edamame varieties (75 days from seeding). ‘Black Pearl' is smaller than other soybean seeds and has a rich and distinctive flavor. Maturing in 85 days, it grows up to 3 feet tall and wide, so it needs more room than other varieties. ‘Butterbean', which matures in 90 days, is a high-yielding soybean with a sweet and buttery flavor and well-branched plants. ‘Sayamusume', which is a Pacific Northwest favorite, produces high yields of large soybeans with 3 to 4 soybeans per pod. This variety matures in 85 days.

Edamame beans are a kid-sized treat. Children of all ages love to pop these buttery-flavored beans in their mouths after they're steamed.

Fava bean

The fava bean (
Vigna acontifolia,
or English Broad bean or Horse bean) is a popular English bean that grows on plants that are 2 to 3 feet tall; unlike other beans, the fava bean likes cold weather. You can harvest the 7-inch pods as snap or shell beans; they mature 85 days from seeding. Fava beans are a good alternative to lima beans in cold climates. ‘Windsor' is a good variety that produces 3 to 5 green seeds per pod 75 days after seeding.