Comparison of the Heirloom Beans I Grew 2012 Part 1

This year I decided to grow several different types of heirloom beans. What I wanted was to find at least one bean that I loved enough to plant every year and save my own seeds.

I grew Scarlet Runner beans, Mississippi Cream peas, Pink Eye Purple Hull peas, Lazy Wife beans, Good Mother Stallard beans, Ruth Bible beans, Louisiana Purple Pod Pole beans and Trail of Tears beans.

I am going to leave the Trail of Tears beans out of my evaluations, because I had to pull them and didn't get a good read of how they grow.

This will be divided into two posts so that the posts are not so long.

Scarlet Runner bean flower in my front yard

Scarlet Runner beans: These grow better in cooler soil than any of the other beans I planted. Biologically, they are not the same (and therefore won't cross) with common beans. I planted them early, because it warms so fast in the spring around here.

They grew really well in my yard, and made beautiful flowers. They attracted hummingbirds. They weren't bothered by any pests. My family and I just didn't like the taste. If I were growing these for their beauty only, I would grow them every year. But I am not. I am trying for beans we can eat. We were completely turned off by the taste.

Okra on the left, with Mississippi Cream peas and one
little Pink Eye Purple Hull pea (the one purple one). 

Mississippi Cream peas:  These peas like it HOT. The hotter the weather the better they like it. These plants are not going to do well until the soil is properly warmed, so wait until after all threat of frost is past to plant them.  They are not in the same family (and therefore, won't cross) with common beans. They grow in long, trailing vines. In my garden, they were very aggressive, running over other plants in their eager pursuit of sunshine.

They grew very well in my garden. I loved the way they took over everything in their path. My whole family enjoyed the taste. I found out after planting them that they are an heirloom of my husband's family.  We never tried them this way, because I only found out that you can eat the pods after the season was over, but they supposedly make great green beans, too.

I cannot praise these peas enough. We will definitely grow them again and I plan to devote much more space in the garden to these beauties.

From 40 plants, I harvested 413 pods.

Pink Eye Purple Hull peas (see the picture above):  These are in the same family as the Mississippi Cream peas. They will cross with Mississippi Cream peas, but not with common beans. They grow as little bushy plants, sometimes throwing off a runner or two. These are a staple in the Southern US. I have eaten them all my life. They are available everywhere in the summer time.

I didn't enjoy growing these very much. The plants didn't do very well for me. They were covered in aphids. The fact that they grew in bushes rather than vines means that I would have to have more space to be able to get a proper harvest. The purple pods are really striking, but none of the purple pods got as long in my garden as the Mississippi Cream peas.

We will not be planting these next year. I am going to devote all that space to the Mississippi Cream peas.

Out of 100 plants we harvested 100 pods.

Left to right: Lazy Wife Beans, Ruth Bible Beans and Trail of Tears
Beans

Lazy Wife beans (also called Lazy Housewife beans): These are common beans. They will cross with any other common bean variety, but not with runner beans or cowpeas. I planted these because I liked the name and the story behind them. They were described as heavily producing beans and completely stringless. These beans are supposed to be the wide and flat variety, not the ones like haricot verts.

The bean seed I bought must have been contaminated somehow, because the beans had strings. I don't have a scale, but I carefully counted each bean pod we brought into the house in order to try to get a good idea how much production we were getting from different types of beans.

Of the beans I planted, I ended up with 35 plants. I harvested 596 pods. They were in the garden the same amount of time as the Ruth Bible beans and yet they didn't produce as many pods as the Ruth Bible beans.

Ruth Bible beans: (see the picture above, center bean)  These are common beans. They will cross with any other common beans, but not with runner beans or cowpeas. I planted these because I like the name. They are becoming very scarce.

These beans produced like "a house afire"! Oh my. They outproduced everything in my garden this year. I stared out eating them as green beans, and they have the old fashioned green bean flavor when cooked that way. I didn't like stringing the beans, and they produced so much that I had a hard time keeping up with the green bean picking, so I started eating them as "shelly" beans. Our family enjoyed the flavor much better that way.

As for numbers, they were in the ground the same amount of time as the Lazy Wife beans. I had 20 plants that grew. I harvested 901 pods. Yes. That is right. If you look at the number of plants I had in the ground, I harvested more pods off of less plants with the Ruth Bible beans. This is important for my family, because we have only a small plot of ground to work. If I can get 901 pods off of 20 plants, and only 596 pods off of 35 plants, I am going to choose the one that I can harvest more for less plants.

You Can Always Cheat

If your seeds, little packages full of promise, don't live up to their promise, you can cheat. You can buy plants and plant them.

My spring seeds did great. My fall seeds--not so much. I planted broccoli twice. All of them died.

My cheat (please realize that I am joking. I don't really think it's cheating. I just wish the seeds had done well.)

Broccoli seedlings from the store. I am fighting a little bit of
purpling of the leaves, which is supposedly caused by a
need of bone meal (phosphorus, specifically). I have applied
bone meal. Do I need more?
 

I planted 100 onion seeds. All but 3 of them died. I bought sets at the store. (And forgot to photograph it.)

I planted Swiss chard twice. Only 2 came up. My "cheat".

Swiss chard by the Lincoln English peas. I have 7 more planted.
I hope they do well. I really want these this year. 

A couple years ago, I planted milkweed for the monarch butterflies. All of it died.
My "cheat."

Yellow flowers flopping over with the weight of their seedpods are
milkweed. Watch, I bet the seeds will have me overloaded
with volunteers. But the seedpods are so cool! I will have
to post pictures of them. Do you know that they gave children
money for collecting seed pods during World War 2? The seed
pods are so light that they used them to stuff life jackets for flyers, so they
paid children to collect them. Cool trivia, in my opinion.

Beans for Spring Planting

Good Mother Stallard beans saved for seed

Well, I have pulled most of the Good Mother Stallard bean plants from the garden. The ones that remain are really dead. I just haven't untangled them from the invisible trellis.

I didn't have as good a harvest as I would have liked, but I have tasted the beans (because I ordered and ate some from Rancho Gordo). I know that I want them in the garden, so I saved every single bean that the garden produced.

I ended up with about 170 seeds. That should be enough to plant a good many in the spring and still have some seed set aside. (Seed Savers Exchange always advises their members to save some of their seed in case something happens to the ones they have planted. You don't want to have a rare heirloom seed and lose it all.)

Passion Fruit Vine and the Story Behind It

Passion Fruit flower showing the styles, stamens and filaments. The
tendrils are just above and below the flower.

side view of a passion fruit vine flower showing the ten petals

a frittilary caterpillar on the lobed leaf of a purple passion fruit vine

Early missionaries to South America used the Passion Fruit Vine's flower to tell the story of the Passion of Jesus Christ. There are ten petals on the flower. Each petal represents one of the disciples that was present. (Peter and Judas Iscariot were not counted because the first denied his Lord and the second was the traitor who turned Jesus over to His enemies.)

The spiky-looking filaments represent the crown of thorns Jesus wore.

The five stamens represent Christ's wounds (two hands, two feet and his side).

The three styles represent the three nails of the cross.

The vine tendrils represent the cords used to bind Christ.

The lobed leaves represent the hands of the tormentors. (Though I don't know what this says about the red variety, because the leaves on it are single.)

The above information was obtained through the following book:

I would add that the frittilary butterfly uses the Passion Fruit Vine for every stage of its life cycle, which to me indicates the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Amazing Recipe for Salsa From Alabama Cooperative Extension System

I posted about comparing home-canned salsa recipes here and here. 

Surprisingly, I discovered that my favorite flavor of salsa was not the most beautiful. Several blog readers asked for a recipe. Here it is. (And thank you for reading my blog.)

Just to recap my opinions about this recipe, I found that of the three I made it had the best flavor. It is very loose and juicy, perhaps even runny. It is not thick. 

I followed the recipe as written, except that I doubled it after I made it the first time. This is the doubled recipe. 

Tomato Salsa (using slicing tomatoes) 

This recipe is from printed recipes I received from our local Alabama Cooperative Extension System when I requested them.

8 cups peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes

4 cups seeded, chopped green peppers

1 cup chopped jalapeno peppers (with seeds makes it hotter, without makes it milder)

1 1/2 cups chopped onions

8 to 9 cloves garlic, finely chopped

4 cups vinegar

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 tablesppons oregano leaves

2 tablespoons fresh cilantro

3 teaspoons salt

Combine all ingredients in a large non-reactive saucepan and bring mixture to a boil, stirring frequently. Reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot into hot pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Adjust lids and process in boiling water canner for 20 minutes. 

Yield: 8 pints. 

Enjoy. Try not to eat it all the first week. :) 

Pear Relish Recipe

This recipe is from an old church cook book. It is not a new recipe. If this bothers or concerns you, please feel free to choose another recipe. I have made this recipe 2 years in a row. It is my mother-in-law's favorite thing and she is very good to us. It is the least I can do.

I like to eat it over beans, and peas. Served over rice, it reminds me of a Thai sweet and sour sauce that I have eaten at local Thai restaurants.

Ingredients:

4 quarts pears--peeled, cored, chopped
2 1/2 green peppers (or 2 large) (Take out the seeds and white veins inside the peppers and rough chop.)
2 1/2 red peppers (Take out the seeds and white veins inside the peppers and rough chop.)
2 to 3 hot peppers (with seeds makes it hotter. without makes it milder)
2 1/2 large onions (rough chopped)
2 1/2 cups cider vinegar
2 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Grind pears through food processor.

Grind all peppers, and onions through the food processor.

You are looking for a very fine chop on all the vegetables.

Put all ingredients together into a non reactive pot and boil 20 minutes.

Fill pint jars. Leave 1/2 inch headspace.

Process in water bath canner 10 minutes.

Makes 5 pints. (Most of the time. One time, it made 7 for me. I don't know what I did differently.) 

Update to the Canned Salsa Taste Test

The original post on this topic can be found here.

My husband and I decided that the only way to definitively decide which was our favorite salsa was to do a side-by-side taste test for comparison. Individually, we liked each one.

I made the family quesadillas, using my normal recipe. We divided our quesadillas into four triangles and tried one salsa on each triangle, saving the last triangle for our favorite.

The results were surprising. Both of us were in unison about our choices. We liked number one the best. This is the one I had said was soupy, and not very eye-appealing. But, oh, the flavor! Wow! It is definitely the one I will use to make the last of my tomatoes into salsa.

Our second choice was number three. It is the spiciest, and the simplest to make. It was second best tasting.

In a side-by-side comparison, number two was our decidedly least favorite. I hasten to say that we like it when we don't have the others to compare with it, but with the others there, I almost don't like it at all.

As I said, the results surprised us.

Since number one recipe is something I obtained from our local county cooperative extension, I will post a recipe when I have time. (I know that I owe y'all a recipe for pear relish, too.)

Note: Those jars of salsa were not full when we started. They were the little bits left over after canning the others.