One Seed

The beans are getting green, it's time to taste some!   Julie's beans!  (south Everett) Carly's beans are growing slowly but check out the sunflowers! (Lake Stevens) Orca beans are generally grown as shelly (soup) beans, but it's hard to resist those green beauties.  Go ahead and pick some to enjoy now! Anne's beans!  (P-patch, Shoreline) I usually stand in the garden and eat green beans raw*, or haul them up to the kitchen and steam them for a few minutes before serving with a scattering of salt and pepper.   Orca beans are delicious to eat green when very young and flat.  Once the bean seeds begin to develop, the pods become stringy. Betsey's beans are starting to fatten up! (Everett) If you want to try something a little different, consider  PICKLED BEANS -- great to serve on salads, in drinks like a Bloody Mary, or even just as a snack right out of the jar. PICKLED BEANS (and other veg) - Oregon State University Extension Service Make you...

There is plenty of online chatter about "companion planting" and "trap cropping" in the vegetable garden.  But what does that mean? Basically:  some plants are (possibly) helpful to other plants. Beans (and also marigolds) at Haiku Farm Digging a little deeper: A common companion-planting scheme is the  Three Sisters Garden,  in which the three crops of squash, beans, and corn are interplanted on the same plot of ground.   The theory is that bean plants enrich the soil to feed the corn and squash.  Squash plants sprawl over the ground, shade the soil and choke out weeds around beans and corn.  Corn plants grow tall and provide a trellis for beans to climb. Typical Three Sisters planting plan This is often touted as a "Native American practice" without citing which of the 1000+ tribes, bands and family groups scattered over 3.8 million square miles use(d) the method--a bright flashing light to alert us that important details are being overlooked. T...