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Monday, October 1, 2012

Chow / Life Goldy and the Magic Beanstalk

Posted by Goldy on Mon, Oct 1, 2012 at 2:23 PM

A single Blue Lake pole bean has grown into a tangled, productive mass.

Goldy | The Stranger
A single Blue Lake pole bean has grown into a tangled, productive mass.

Rummaging through my collection of seed packets early this summer, I found a handful of Blue Lake pole beans dated to the 2006 season. So I planted these relics in a row between my zucchinis and cucumbers, and figured what happened would happen. If the seeds came up I'd build them a trellis. If they didn't, so be it.

Only one bean sprouted, so I pretty much ignored the row as a cost-free failure.

This mornings pickings of green beans. Ill harvest another fistful for dinner.

Goldy | The Stranger
This morning's pickings of green beans. I'll harvest another fistful for dinner.

Four months later this one magic bean has grown into a tangled mass that has long since swallowed the cucumber cages, and has for weeks been producing daily, fistfuls of sweet, crunchy snap beans in return.

For those who have never tasted a fresh picked green bean—I mean a really fresh picked green bean—the experience is totally unlike the bland, limp, supermarket facsimile. Juicy and crunchy and surprisingly sweet, we eat 90 percent of our harvest raw. And as this one magic bean has demonstrated, my god can pole beans be productive. Bush beans have been developed for commercial harvest, ripening all of their fruit at once. Pole beans produce weeks of harvest, continuously flowering until the weather kills them back.

I've always had good luck with pole beans, but never anything quite as robust as this one magic beanstalk, so I'll certainly be saving seeds. Next year's rotation puts the beans along a south-facing fence—prime garden real estate. So if the saved seeds turn out half as productive as their parent, this time next year I'll be wondering why I planted all those goddamn beans!

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Comments (19) RSS

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Way to go, (insert first name)! My mother and father are even proud of you.

Posted by dnt trust me on October 1, 2012 at 2:38 PM

Well how very coincidental, Goldy. I did the same thing this year: found a forgotten seed packet, planted a mini-row of Blue Lakes, and have been gobbling them out of hand for several weeks now. I'd forgotten how good they are raw, hadn't grown 'em in several years.

Next year I'm going to try Fortex (gets rave reviews) and trial a couple of the yellow or purple varieties. My only beef (beef with beans!) is that the green beans are hard to see with my aging eyeballs against the green foliage, so maybe the colored species will be easier to harvest.

Posted by Lonesome Cowboy Burt on October 1, 2012 at 2:46 PM

You should make edamame,..

or pickle them with some peppers and use them in Bloody Marys to start your day since you don't drink Whiskey...

Posted by Merchant Seaman on October 1, 2012 at 2:51 PM

Lonesome Burp, you sound like you might be kind of tight with the Gman, if i may ask, what's his first name?

Posted by dnt trust me on October 1, 2012 at 2:56 PM

That's cool, silence is golden. Nicknames are fun to make up anyway. I'm thinking something retro, kind of like in the olden days when people, out of necessity and shitty wages, had to grow their own food. People who's children and grandchildren want none of that back-to-earth crap and gladly eat at Taco Bell, because "nature" and "green" reminds them of childhood, and having to suck on a lemon for a snack. Yeah, something retro, a name like Dick Van Patten or Dick Van Dyke... get it? Richard Goldy!

Posted by dnt trust me on October 1, 2012 at 3:37 PM

Chop them into a good vinaigrette. Yummy!

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 1, 2012 at 3:51 PM

@5 Goldy is my name. That's what most of my friends and family call me. But if you're looking for my legal name, I don't hide it.

Posted by Goldy on October 1, 2012 at 3:58 PM

@8 thanks. my friends don't call me by my real name 'dnt trust me' either. i usually go by 'Goliath.'

Posted by dnt trust me on October 1, 2012 at 4:10 PM

Really? A pole bean troll?

Posted by Lonesome Cowboy Burt on October 1, 2012 at 4:25 PM

@9 Yeah. Apparently. It's an awfully big Internet.

Posted by Goldy on October 1, 2012 at 4:29 PM

@10 this dude has been one of the oddest trolls on Slog lately, he's making SRotU and WiS seem like perfectly helpful commenters.

Posted by CbytheSea on October 1, 2012 at 4:37 PM

@10 It is truly an awesome and ever-expanding Internet. But the places where some folks seek fulfillment never cease to amaze.

Thanks for the garden posts. They're a nice break from our national quadrennial autumnal shouting festival.

Posted by Lonesome Cowboy Burt on October 1, 2012 at 5:05 PM

@11
believe me, we're all in this together, wanting The Stranger to be the best it can be. If some chaps can't take a little friendly fire, oh well (or folks like Paul Constant ignoring the friendly fire like a genuine pussy).

Posted by dnt trust me on October 1, 2012 at 5:08 PM

We need a new two block radius tag for Goldy's yard.

Posted by seattlebikeguy on October 1, 2012 at 5:40 PM

Goldy, I love your garden. It's funny, you seem to be running about a month or so behind Wisconsin. We're almost done here...

Posted by STJA on October 1, 2012 at 5:55 PM

@13 see, this is what I'm talking about. 'Friendly fire'? What on earth are you trying to say? Goldy's first name wasn't even some kind of secret, he's a pretty public person. If you had just clicked on his name, you could have learned it on your own.

Posted by CbytheSea on October 1, 2012 at 6:50 PM

16- I hear ya. I'm already more than a six-pack in for the night, Monday night football and all. I'll see ya in Slog another time, a more sober time.

Posted by dnt trust me on October 1, 2012 at 7:06 PM

my beans went wild this year in full sun--so many we couldn't keep up with them, and now we have ginormous foot-long beans hanging from the trellis. the hummingbirds loved them, which is a bonus with bean-growing.

Posted by gracey on October 1, 2012 at 7:30 PM

@15 We have a zone of temperate weather. It's the ocean. And we have large bodies of water all around us besides. Then there's the mountains that surround us on both sides. So even though we may have close latitudes, we have special circumstance. Or, in other words, weird seasons. And Wisconsin, if I recall correctly, has some awesome cold weather. Awesome cold and long.

Posted by Pope Peabrain on October 2, 2012 at 11:08 AM