Long Bean Flowers
Harvesting the Bean
Red Noodle Beans (top) and Asparagus Beans (bottom) Ready to eat
Undisputed Champions By Raye Nilius,
Grayson County Master Gardener
Grandma Ruby raised chickens. I remember watching her gather the eggs from the henhouse, under the rabbit cage, in the tall ragweed next to the driveway, and from the old smoke house. She pumped well water and poured it, still cool, into a white enamel basin. The eggs were washed in that cool water, with a little dish soap, then packed into cardboard egg crates. They rode with us in the back seat on the way to Delno’s Grocery Store in Attica, Iowa, where she sold them to Delno himself. She was able to feed us all with those chickens and their eggs because chickens are the undisputed champions of farms and homesteads. Without chickens, what would we eat for breakfast and Sunday dinner? From a gardening perspective, there is one and only one vegetable that is hands-down the Champion. Tomatoes are a top contender, but in the heat of the summer, they will let you down and take a fall. Okra is second, simply because it is stoic, withstanding the rounds of misery during our endless Texas summers. Eggplant is a distant third, with a tendency to get seedy and bruised over time. After a trip to the Judges Scorecard, the winner, by a knockout, is long beans. Also known as asparagus bean, snake bean, yard long beans, and cowpea, long beans originated in Southeast Asia and have traveled the world for centuries. They are easy to start from seed (a bean, actually) and they produce beans all summer long from late May to first frost. Long beans are legumes like green beans but are more closely related to black-eyed peas. They can grow up to 30 inches long but are much better when harvested at 12-20 inches. The general rule of thumb is to harvest your long beans when they are the diameter of a pencil. Multiple varieties of long beans are available in seed catalogs and online. My personal favorite is the Red Noodle Bean. I have found them to be more heat tolerant than other varieties and prolific producers. Their pods grow rapidly on the vine to produce beefy, long, firm beans with a delicious nutty beany flavor. When I began growing long beans, I was gob smacked by the rapid development and growth of the beans. From flowers to beans it is only a matter of days before they are ready to harvest. Typically, two lavender flowers bloom side by side and produce two tiny bean threads. This couplet of beans grows quickly, elongating a few inches a day, plumping out to produce the 12-20” long Red Noodle Bean. Long bean vines can grow 12 feet or more, so a tall trellis is important. I have had the best results with an arched cattle panel that is anchored with two metal fence posts on either side. Lacking a tall trellis, the vines will spiral around one another, resulting in vine snarls that reduce bean production and choke off growth.
When long beans start producing, be prepared to pick handfuls every other day. Twenty long beans make a big pot of cooked beans, while twenty green beans is only going to give you a sampler. If you are short of time, you should know that long beans can be on the table in ten minutes flat. Just snip a little off both ends and cut the beans into two-inch pieces. Bring them to boil in water just enough to cover with salty ham chunks. After the water begins to boil, allow the beans to cook for 7-8 minutes, then take them off the heat and out of the water. We save the slightly seasoned water for soups or add it to our dog’s bowls. If we have too many to eat while they are fresh, we blanch and freeze them in freezer bags or cook and freeze them in plastic freezer containers. These two methods successfully extend our joy of eating long beans. Occasionally I forget to harvest my long beans. The next trip to the trellis reveals freakishly knobby, inedible pods hanging on the vine. That’s ok though. Just open the pod like a zipper and drop the beans into your prep bowl. You can add them to your next batch of cooked beans. A jumbo cube of cornbread wouldn’t hurt that meal. No matter the variety, long beans are eternal in the vegetable garden. If left on the vine until they turn brown and crispy, crack open the pods and remove the dried beans to plant again. The beans never go to waste and the dried-up pods go into the compost bin. They are also relatively pest free. Only two insects seem to enjoy long beans as much as I; ants and stink bugs. The ants creep up and down the vines continually. They are not fire ants, just little black ants that are not aggressive. When I harvest the beans, they drop onto my arms and hands, but are easily blown away. I like to think that they are pollinating the flowers just like the fat bumble bees that wedge their way into the blossoms. In years with adequate rain, stink bugs hung out on the beans with the ants. They leave their bite marks, which I do not appreciate. I don’t like to smush them because they STINK. Instead, I bring a pitcher of water with me and tap them into the water for a refreshing swim. In August I research the planting calendars to see what will pique my interest for the fall garden. While planning this year I noticed that the planting calendar identified July 30 to August 10 for fall pole beans. Knowing that there were some Lazy Wife Greasy Pole Bean seeds in my seed cabinet, I made plans to throw down a few rows. Lazy Wife Greasy Beans originated in the Appalachians of North Carolina. They were named “Lazy Wife” because the gardeners (typically women) were able to allow them to linger on the vine, growing bigger before the harvest. At the time of naming, it was not an insulting name, but a descriptive one. The pods are also free of the tiny hairs that many green beans possess, thus they are shiny (greasy). I have grown them twice before, but only in the spring and early summer. Having originated as an Appalachian Mountain variety, I questioned whether they would thrive in our late Texas summers. Even so, I gathered them up and boldly planted them in my raised beds.
When I ran out of the Greasy Bean seeds toward the end of the row, I finished out the row with long bean seeds that had dried up on my vines earlier this year. To my delight, both varieties emerged and began growing. Soon, however, the Greasy Beans revealed their cool, mountain origins and the heat claimed them. They just didn’t have what it took to be the undisputed champion of my Texas vegetable garden. The long beans that were used to plant out at the end of the row are thriving today and have sent healthy vines up the trellis. As I calculate it, two frost-free growing months remain this year (Sep-Oct) and I hope to have long beans from the newly planted row through the first week of November. Just as chickens were my Grandmother’s champions, long beans have been my Champions. Sadly, she never had a long bean trellis or a garden of any kind. The chickens ate every tiny sprout that emerged in the yard and coal dust from her Potbelly stove claimed the rest. We didn’t mind. Fragrant fields of corn enveloped her farm. We would duck under the fence into the shade of the stalks and run through the rows, under cover. In those days, before Round-Up Ready Corn, it wasn’t unusual to strip off a few ears of corn and eat them raw right there in the field. In my memories, the ears of corn were as big as a giant’s shoe. If my Grandmother were here today, I would prepare a savory pot of long beans with ham, she would boil some roasting ears, and we would pan-fry a chicken or two. Should it occur, you are all invited to that dinner. If you haven’t already grown long beans, now is the time to order your very own collection for spring planting. You can buy seeds for Asparagus Beans, Mosaic Beans, Taiwan Yard Long, Yu Long Yard Long, Oriental Yard Long, and many others. Last year I found Asparagus Beans at Walmart! Next spring, I will be out there in early April to prepare the cattle panel beds for long beans. Join me, my friends, and as always, happy gardening!