In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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August 1, 2007

Beans gone wild

Green beans are the Jekyll and Hyde of the garden. The start out as slim, tender young pods that taste as sweet as they look. But give them an extra day or two or three on the vine, and they’ll morph into distorted, tough pods unfit for the dinner table. Of course, you can split them open and rescue the beans inside for a tasty dish.

I speak from experience. I missed a few days picking the beans since I was away on vacation, and when I returned, I searched through the thick tangle of bean vines and picked all the oversized beans I could find, and then thought I’d give the plant a few days to recover.

Wrong decision.

I checked this morning, and was amazed to find a whole new crop of huge bean pods. Yikes!

I’ve said it before--beans need to be picked every day--and failed to follow my own advice. The reason is actually twofold: The thin, young, tender green beans are best for cooking. They have a sweet, nutty taste, and are delicious steamed with nothing on them. Secondly, if you keep picking the beans the plant will continue to produce them. The bean plant wants nothing more than to produce ripe (i.e. overgrown, tough, full of fat beans) pods with mature seeds in order to ensure there will be a crop for next year. We want the young beans, so interrupt the process by picking the beans.

Each time I let the vines to too long and let the beans get bigger and closer to ripe, the plants have a harder time starting over with new flowers and beans. The only reason to let the beans grow big as they please, to let the pods remain on the vines until they turn dry and brittle, is for seed for next year, or for dry beans. My goal is the opposite. I want tender, pencil-thin beans to cook.

So tonight when I get home, I’m checking those vines again.

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