Some Very Pretty Beans
July 25th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Posted in garden
Marvel of Venice pole bean before turning yellow
With great trepidation I picked our first batch of pole beans this morning. I had been warned by certain members of the families not to plant any more pole beans because they were tired of gagging on the strings in the beans. I planted some anyway, and they’ve grown like gangbusters. But I wanted to be certain pick them before they developed strings.
The lovely beans you see here are the Marvel of Venice variety, an Italian flat bean that eventually turns yellow. Obviously, I couldn’t wait for it to turn yellow. In addition to being worried silly about strings, we are leaving on vacation. These beans are extraordinarily tender. After cooking in salted water, all they need is some olive oil (or butter) and salt. Try a little squeeze of lemon.
I read all your great posts. — barbara
My dad always planted romano pole beans, and we always had to deal with the strings. One year he planted romano bush beans, which had no strings, but because they’re bush beans, they’re a pain in the back to harvest. So he went back to the pole beans. I’ll have to give that variety a try next year. I have some romanos that are crossed with a rattlesnake bean that are pretty good and the rattlesnake bean seems to have lent its stringlessnes to the hybrid.