Suffering With Joy

The Asparagus Bean Surprise III

July 21, 2010

This is the hottest, most unrelenting summer heat we’ve known since arriving in southern Missouri in 1993, but the asparagus beans love it.  They are living up to their reputation of being disease resistant, but have attracted the weirdest looking beetles I’ve ever seen. Beetles gross me out, but after spraying with Neem for several weeks, hardly any are left.

These guys are about 1 1/2 inch long, black, with legs that are hair-thin.  The right front leg has something like a fin attached.  They line up 4-5 in a row down the length of the bean and darned if I can figure out what they’re doing.  I’ll spare you a photo because I can’t bring myself to look at them long enough to focus a camera.  I can’t find anything on the internet about these bugs so I don’t know if they’re good or bad, but something has been chewing holes in the older leaves. The newer growth seems fine.  If anybody out there thinks you know what these beetles are, let me know because I’d like to find out more about them. At one point there were so many of them they were crawling on the tomatoes, too.

This morning I went out and clipped quite a few beans to go with the ones I harvested the past two days.  The two gallon bowl was full with beans draping over the sides so it was time to chop and steam them for freezing. They taste delicious in stir fry, Italian food, egg fritatas, or as a side dish.  Over the past few days the vines have been flowering prolifically.  The color is gorgeous so I wanted to share it with readers and took this photo this morning.  We are going to have a huge new harvest very soon.  I highly recommend these beans for simple gardeners like me.

Some things I’ve learned about growing and harvesting these beans:

1. They like full sun.  The second batch of beans I planted by the east gate didn’t get as many hours of light as the 5 I put elsewhere, so they were slower to produce.  However, they are doing well and covered with blossoms like the first batch.  They are just a little behind the others in production.
   
2. What is really weird is that the ugly beetles that got on the full sun batch didn’t bother the shadier batch even though they are planted not far from each other.  I can’t figure that one out.
3. Clipping the beans with scissors is the easiest way to harvest them.  If you clip them just at the top of the bean and below the nodule of the flower, you will get more flowers and more beans.
4. Every flower produces two beans.  Sometimes one bean is ready to harvest before its twin.
5. If you harvest when the beans are 15-18 inches long they cook faster than if you wait until they are 24 inches long.  Beans that are 12 inches long or less are so tender and delicious you can eat them raw.
6. The beans seem to hide behind the leaves.  I have to look at the plants from different angles and move the leaves to make sure I haven’t missed any that are ready to harvest.  Several times I missed beans and let them mature and dry out.  I’ve collected the beans inside the pods and will use them to start new bean plants next year.

Outside of the yucky beetles, I have to say that this vegetable is as easy to grow as the tomatoes.  Spraying with Neem has kept pests off everything.  For people who don’t want to exert too much physical effort and still provide healthy organic food for the table, and especially if you have a bunch of kids to feed, these beans really are an excellent crop. You get so much produce from a very small space it’s amazing.

From Wikipedia here is the nutritional breakdown of the beans:

They are a good source of protein, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, iron, phosphorus, and potassium, and a very good source for vitamin C, folate, magnesium, and manganese.

In a serving size of 100 grams (3.5 oz.) of yardlong beans there are 47 calories, 0 grams of total fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 4 mg sodium (0% daily value), 8 grams of total carbohydrates (2% daily value), and 3 grams of protein (5% daily value). There is also 17% DV vitamin A, 2% DV iron, 31% DV vitamin C, and 5% DV calcium. (Percent daily values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Individual daily values may be higher or lower depending on individual calorie needs.)

If you’ve missed them and are interested, you might like to read my two other postings about asparagus beans:

The Asparagus Bean Surprise

The Asparagus Bean Surprise II

Tags: health, wellness