Cool Beans!

We like to grow some strange stuff in the garden sometimes.  This year was no exception.  In an earlier post I showed you how we were planting Chinese Mosaic Long beans.  Well, it is time to harvest a few of them.  True to their name, they are LONG!

Chinese Mosaic Long beans

According to the information I have on them, they are supposed to grow to a length of around 18 inches!  Wow.  They are a pole bean, meaning they vine and climb.  I have a section of concrete reinforcement fencing that they are climbing on and some of the vines are 10 feet tall.  The pod of the beans themselves are a pinkish color.

Chinese Mosaic Long Bean flowers



Pinkish-hued pods

So, we harvested a few of the beans that were ripened.  It was funny to say, "I'm going to go and harvest five beans for supper tonight," but that's what we did.  We also picked some other bean varieties as well.  When we picked them, I wanted to see just how long the beans were to see if they were indeed 18 inches long.



How Long?

They weren't.  They were longer!  18 1/2 inches long, to be exact.
 

The tale of the tape

So I coiled them up in a pot mixed with other varieties of green beans and some new potatoes that we harvested and started them steaming with some butter, salt and pepper.   

Fresh pot of flavor!

All of the beans were very good.  The Chinese Mosaic Long beans lose their color when they cook.  When done, they are green just like the others.  They tasted similar to regular green beans.  I might cut them up next time as Tricia said putting an 18 inch long bean on your plate sort of looks like a long worm.