A New Crop For Us

We always like to try new crops that we haven't grown before.  Last year it was kohlrabi.  I was not really familiar with that, but we grew it and really enjoyed it.  We'll be planting more this year.  Sometimes, we like to plant new varieties that we've not tried.  This past spring we tried the Alabama Black Eyed Lima bean.  As the name suggests, it has the looks of a black eyed pea, but it's a lima bean.  I love black eyed peas and limas, so this has to be good, right?

I planted them in the spring and they promptly grew lush and filled up the trellis.  Then something weird happened.  They bloomed and produced pods, but the pods never filled out with beans in them.  Since this spring, we've not eaten a single one.  Here is the trellis full of Alabama Black Eyed Limas.

A curious thing happened this week though.  I began cleaning up the rows just to the west of the trellis to make room for transplanting the tomatoes.  The remnants of squash plants, purple hull peas and black beans needed to be cleared back.  Once it was all cleaned up, something caught my eye on the trellis.  Yep, you got it.  The black eyed lima beans decided to FINALLY start filling out the pods with beans!  The vines were full of them, too!

So I pulled one off and popped it open.  Sure enough!:

It's a black eyed lima bean.  We haven't eaten any yet, so I can't give a review.  This harvest was a long time coming.  I ALMOST chopped down the vines to make room for another crop.  I'm glad I didn't.  It looks like this fall we'll get some lima beans to eat.  Speaking of wanting something to eat, while I was shelling the lima bean pod to see if it really looked like black eyed peas, I was greeted by a beggar in the garden.  

That's Elsie.  Isn't that a face that you just can't say "no" to?  Wasn't long after that her cousin-sister (it's complicated) LuLu came to panhandle with her.

In just a week or two we'll be harvesting the sweet potatoes, so these two, along with Rosie, will be getting a ton of sweet potato vines to eat.  They love those things.  Be patient, girls.