Flat Italian beans
I gave myself a little mental break and boost yesterday after I had completed 11 of the 42 items on my to-do list by gawking at vegetable seeds from Italy. I have developed a taste for the flat Italian style beans that you simmer long in butter and stock after sautéing a bit of pancetta or bacon, but have never grown them.
Last season I had Scarlett Runner beans and if I caught them before they started to get furry looking, they did pretty well, but they went from tender to tough overnight on the vine. I’m looking for a more foolproof variety. Are they the same thing in the seed catalogs as Broad Beans? Or is that yet another world of beans I’ve yet to experience?
I’m ready to break out of the rut with my Haricot Verts and Royal Burgundy Bush beans, although I’ll continue to plant those because they’re the most delicious bush beans I’ve ever eaten. So tell me my vegetable gardening friends/fiends: what are your favorite bean varieties and where do you buy them? Any tips for growing and harvesting?
Your comments will help me maintain my grip on reality as I trudge through the now 58 items on my to-do list at work today. Mwah!
"In summer we live out of doors, and have only impulses and feelings, which are all for action, and must wait commonly for the stillness and longer nights of autumn and winter before any thought will subside; we are sensible that behind the rustling leaves, and the stacks of grain, and the bare clusters of the grape, there is the field of a wholly new life, which no man has lived; that even this earth was made for more mysterious and nobler inhabitants than men and women. In the hues of October sunsets, we see the portals to other mansions than those which we occupy."
~Henry David Thoreau
January 10th, 2008 at 10:30 am
Broad beans = fava beans. Many people think they’re a lot of work because of the two-stage picking process, but, well, I grow two crops of them (spring and fall) and don’t really care that they’re more work and are aphid magnets because love is funny that way.
The two bush varieties of Italian beans I’ve reliably grown are Roma II (bush variety of flat-podded Roma) and Tongue of Fire, which has the triple great feature of being green, shell and dry beans. There are all types of Romano beans out there, though. My Roma IIs are great frozen, and, like the Haricot verts, tend to ripen all at once (which is of course ideal if you intend to freeze them).
I believe I grew 17 different kinds of beans last year, but that only proves that I am crazy. Are you looking more at bush or pole beans, Kelly?
January 11th, 2008 at 12:26 am
I love Romano, or Roma beans, the flat podded Italian ones. I’ll be growing a pole variety this year. My favorite bush beans are a purple variety “Purple Peacock”, that bear continuously until frost! (or melt in the autumn rain, in our climate) This bean also goes by other names, but the long season is what to look for. I order most of my veggies from Fedco. I think their prices are reasonable and that they vet their seed rigorously for any GMO contamination. I love Seed Savers but due to the amount of seed that we need, I find them to be pricey.
I grow Scarlet Runner as an ornamental, but to me they are just not a choice tasty bean.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:32 am
As for tips, last year I grew a row of basil right close to the beans and had no bug problems at all. The longer I garden, the more I find that bringing in flowers and herbs as companion plants solves a lot of problems.
As an aside, I seem to remember that you have a lot of violets. Would you consider harvesting and drying some for me this year? I could trade some dried herbs from my place.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Broad beans for sure. They are hearty, easy to grow and delicious. Haven’t you seen Silence of the Lambs? Fava beans with chianti?
January 12th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
This is a timely post as we (and everyone else) are in the middle of seed ordering season and have been thinking about adding some kind of broad bean to our repertoire. I’m interested in reading what others have to say about them. Lisa-in-the-comments, thanks for the tip on basil & beans. We also try to utilize as many companion planting groups as we can, but we haven’t yet tried that one.
January 13th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I’m chiming in in favor of broad beans too! I never have quite enough of them. So every year they get more and more space in my garden. I love them fresh shelled, mine didn’t freeze well, but I normally go through them so fast that there’s no need to preserve them.
I grew a Romano pole bean last year and the results were dismal. The ones I harvested had a wonderful flavor, but we got only a few small handfuls all season. I’m going to try again though since they are so good, but maybe I’ll try a few bush varieties instead.