bush beans and runner beans

 But not only is it beautiful, it’s a fabulous way for grow-your-owners to actually get a huge harvest from a relatively small area…..there could even be enough to freeze for winter!!

Unlike the green and yellow beans I’ve grown that have white and yellow flowers, these purple beans have purple flowers.  They’re so pretty, I use them in flower arrangements….the little maturing beans are nice in bouquets too.  They’re also lovely edible flowers in salads.   And check it out!  Before they open up and bloom the flower buds look like bean seeds.

Teeny tiny beans forming on the bushes….it won’t be long ’til they grow bigger and turn purple.

Look at them beans!!

The climbing beans are green with a kind of purple marbling.  They’re producing piles and it never seems to stop.  Like the purple beans and purple flowers, they’re interesting and nice to look at in the garden, and also just like the purple beans, they turn green when you cook them.  Their colour on the plant makes them easy to spot when picking which is very helpful….altho’ I love eating beans, I really do hate picking them.  One of my least favourite harvesting jobs ever because as soon as you try to use one hand while the other is holding something else, you’re ripping off entire vines….grrrrr…they insist on your engagement and care when picking…no distractions!….not only that, all the bending over when picking from the bushes can get back-breaking.  Bean-picking time is always a time for me to remember those yoga poses while I accomplish my task.  Sometimes I create new ones.  It actually can turn it into some kind of fun.   I especially like my Wide Leg Forward Bend when picking beans : )

These are really a fast food in the summertime. (well, ok, I mean after you do all the work to grow them and pick them, of course!) Anyway, so easy to snip into pieces, so fast to steam and so delicious (very colourful and beautiful too) when mixed with quickly chopped tomatoes of different colors, peppers of different colours too and just pulled onions with some chopped up homegrown garlic, thrown all together, it needs nothing else, (hmmmm….maybe some butter) the flavours are so darned fresh and amazing…perfect for an al fresco supper.  Maybe if more people knew how much better this good fresh grub tasted, more people would grow it?  Makes me think of that front yard garden again.  Three tepees or trellis circles in a front yard (or anywhere!) with climbing and bush beans would provide a huge bounty, maybe some for the neighbours and some for the freezer for holiday dinners in the wintertime too!