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Making your life greener - one bite at a time.

Beans are such easy plants to grow. They are a great plant to encourage your kids or grandkids into the garden. They taste great fresh off the vine too.

The ancestor of the modern French Bean originated in South and Central America. The beans have been cultivated in that part of the world since ancient times and were brought over to Europe after the Spanish conquest.

Because they come from a tropical climate, French Beans need a warm soil in which to germinate and grow: beans planted too early in the year either fail to germinate or else produce very weak plants.

The plants need good soil, free of weeds and plenty of water. They then grow very rapidly and produce a large crop of delicious beans.

It is a good idea to mulch round the young plants with grass cuttings (providing the lawn has never been sprayed with chemicals): this keeps down the weeds and stops the soil from drying out.

There are many different kinds of French Beans but the easiest to grow are the bush varieties (as opposed to ones that need sticks to climb up). Most people grow varieties that have green pods, but you can also get ones with yellow pods, purple pods and variegated pods. It is best to grow stringless varieties so that the whole pod to be picked and eaten when young.

The smaller the beans when picked, the better the taste: the pods start to dry out as soon as they are picked and become limp and bendy within a few hours. This means that unless you grow French beans for yourself, you never get a chance to taste them the way that they really are.

Add to salads or soups, steam or saute... steam tied in bundles top with a tasty cheese sauce. Saute in virgin organic coconut oil and add almonds, tomato, red onion and garlic.

Beans – both fresh and dried green beans are rich in the B vitamins and potassium. They may have even more antioxidants than blueberries and as much cholesterol-lowering fibre as oats (another super-food). They also are an excellent source of lean protein.

Climbing beans originate from the warm / temperate to tropical regions of the Americas. There are 36 species, some being annual and some perennial.

Most grow on twining climbing plants, with bright green trifoliate leaves. There are many bush varieties available now that don’t require staking. Flowers can be purple, red, white or yellow, followed by round, long or flat seed pods.

Some plants are grown for the beans inside the pods, and others are eaten pods and all.

Beans will do best with a long, warm to hot growing season. They should be grown in full sun and need ample amounts of water to grow vigorously. Beans will thrive in a light, well-drained soil that is rich in humus (well rotted compost).

Wait until the last frost and the ground has warmed before planting seed in it’s permanent position, sowing from mid-spring to early summer.

Watch for snails and slugs in the early growing period.

Beans are heavy feeders, so make sure to add compost at the time of planting and give additional feeds of organic fertilizer every three to four weeks. They will take between 60 and 90 days to mature – depending on what variety you are growing.

Select the healthiest looking plant and let the beans mature and dry on the vine to save the seed for next spring.

A tip is to keep picking your beans just a tiny bit before mature. That way you’ll enjoy tender baby beans and your plants will keep producing more beans so you’ll end up with a higher yield.

To make sure you have a long supply of fresh, health promoting beans, plant a succession of plants and varieties to last you well into autumn (fall).

Beans also enrich the soil with nitrogen. They will grow quite happily with companions of cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, squash, strawberries (with Bush Beans), and tomatoes, but should not be grown with any of the onion family or fennel.