Cool Beans!

This is the time of year that gardening is so rewarding.  The weather is still relatively cool.  It is not oppressively hot and humid yet.  The healthy green of the leaves is truly something to behold.  I stagger my planting of green beans to spread out the yield throughout the year after learning a technique from a good friend who used to go to church at our church prior to moving.  He told me that his Dad would plant snap beans staggered so that he had a green been harvest from spring through the fall.  Good idea!

As you can see there are some nice blooms on these Blue Lake Variety green beans.  I have some Contender variety planted as well, but the Blue Lake (named after the region in California where they were developed) beans are further along.

Pulling back the foliage from this neighboring plant, you can see beans of various sizes.  These green beans are prolific and require picking, once they start producing, just about every day so that you get them while they are still young and tender.

And here is the point where the dividends in the garden start paying off.  I pulled out some fresh-picked green beans and, it just so happens, the finest accompaniment to green beans were just harvested and ready.  I'm talking about new potatoes.  I just harvested these last week.  I pulled out the small ones - those a little smaller than a golf ball, to cook with the green beans.  

Fresh green beans, new potatoes, butter and a little salt.  You've got yourself a delicious side dish!

As they keep coming in, we'll eat some, give some away, and blanch and freeze the rest.  I'll also get another row planted in order to keep the bountiful green bean harvests coming in.

It is Hard to Beat Fresh-Picked Green Beans

At some point in April is the time that we normally harvest our first mess of green beans.  I always look forward to this time.  The nights are still kind of cool and enjoyable and a respite from the sweltering days to come.  These nice temperatures are kind to the beans enabling them to not be as stressed from the overbearing heat that will cause them to fade and droop in months to come.

I come in from work and try harvest two rows of beans before the big ball of burning gas dips beneath the western horizon.  The hens cackle as they scurry to their appointed roosting spots for the night.  Soon I'll head to my roosting spot, too.

Healthy Green Beans

This year I planted my favorite varieties: Contenders, Blue Lake, and Italian Roma II.  In the photo below you can see the Romas.  They are a flat, tasty bean and are my favorite.

In a short time, I pick a bucket full of perfect, unmarred green beans (haricot verts).  Later in the season, I have to cut off bug damage from some of the beans.  Not so, today.  They are beautiful beans, crisp and fresh.  Since we're using wood chip mulch in the garden, the vegetables all stay so clean, but I still like to give them a good washing before snapping off the ends.

I like to pick most of the beans when they are young.  I like them tender.  Sometimes the bigger ones are tough and can be "woody."  A few were larger than I like, but after a rain, I find they grow so quickly.  It is important to pick every other night to keep on top of the harvest and not let them get too big.

This weekend we lit up the fire pit with a lot of live oak and pecan branches that we picked up in the yard after the recent storm.  The fire pit has a grill and we like to cook over a real wood fire.  We put plenty of butter in the bottom of a cast iron dutch oven, sliced some onions and let them saute for a bit.  Then we added the fresh snapped green beans.

In no time they were cooked to perfection.  We just added some salt, cracked black pepper and a little cayenne.

I like to space out and stagger the plantings of green beans, so that when these plants "play out," another planting of green beans will be blooming and I can soon harvest those.  I learned this from a good friend that moved to north Louisiana.  He told me one time that his Daddy aimed to keep green beans growing for months using the staggered planting model.

I like that technique.  I can eat green beans and never get tired of them.  I've asked Tricia to cook them soon using one of my other favorite green bean recipes - bacon wrapped green beans.  (Of course anything tastes good with bacon wrapped around it, right?)