Behold The Hyacinth Bean

Back in early May of this year, I posted about the Hyacinth Bean.  You can click on that hyperlink, if you wish, and read about how we got this interesting, beautiful, and deadly (Gasp!) plant in a seed swap.  We grew the seeds and they grew, slowly at first, but then they spread out, competing with the vines of the luffa gourd to cover the 'tunnel' trellis we created with a fence we bent over.

This would have been a beautiful tunnel, but the goats had other ideas than an aesthetic addition to the garden and promptly stretched their long necks with their feet on the fence and ate the hyacinth bean vines that got close to them.  So a half tunnel trellis it will be.  Thank you, goats.

The purple stems of the hyacinth bean and the purple veins in the leaves make this plant a knockout in the garden.  But the flowers of this plant are stunning, and I'm not a flower guy.

Ain't that something?!  The honeybees buzz around them doing their thing.  I should have some seeds of this beautiful plant to share, just as they were shared with me.  If you are interested, just let me know and I'll send you some.  

But that's not the only pretty thing about this plant.  Once the flowers are done, they put on pods.  Pretty purple pods that contain beans.  The beans are edible, I've read, until they are dried, with a few caveats.  According to THIS POST:

Important Note: Uncooked seeds are poisonous as they contain high concentrations of cyanogenic glucosides. They can cause breathing problems, vomiting problems, and convulsions. They need to be boiled for a long time, changing the water twice, to make them edible. Better to leave the cooking to someone experienced with them and save your seed for planting.

That information makes me pause a little before trying to eat them, but I am curious about how they taste.  If they are that pretty, they must taste good, right?  Sometimes, you gotta take a measured risk.  I think about the guy or gal that ate the first raw oyster.  Or boiled the first crawfish?  What culinary delights we would have missed out on if we allowed fear to guide our decisions?

The jury's still out on if we'll try to eat them.  I'll let you know when/if we do.  Until then, it's a crazy world out there, ya'll HOLD ON!  These two hyacinth beans being entwined by the tendrils of a luffa gourd beautifully illustrate that:

That photo also reminds me of a song I used to like in high school by .38 Special whose lyrics went like this:

You see it all around you
Good lovin' gone bad
And usually it's too late when you
Realize what you had

And my mind goes back to a girl I left
Long years ago who told me

Just hold on loosely
But don't let go
If you cling too tightly
You're gonna lose control

Have a nice weekend, everyone!