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| Photo Credit: Mary Moore |
| When the bean pods have dried completely on the vine, take them out and spread them on a paper towel to dry for another day or two. |
If you want an easy veggie to grow, try beans. Sure, green beans, pole beans and white Northern beans are all familiar to home gardeners, but let’s not forget the wonderful black bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). Sometimes known as black turtle beans, these legumes are very easy to grow in a well-prepared garden, and they’re a fiber-packed, heart-healthy staple in many ethnic dishes.
You can buy black bean seeds from many seed companies. Like other beans, they’re larger seeds, and they benefit from soaking for two hours before planting (to rehydrate them and encourage germination). They also grow better when planted with inoculants (which can also be purchased from many mail-order seed companies). Like most beans, black beans grow quickly in soil that’s been amended and fertilized. The trick is to plant it later than many other varieties. While bush beans profit from being planted early so the beans will mature before the insect population is at its worst, black beans grow best when planted later in spring. In fact, warm weather helps these beans grow faster, and the rains of early summer strengthen the plant. And as summer builds, the hot, dry conditions are great for drying black beans in their pods on the plant. When it comes to planting, black beans need to be 1 inch deep and 4 inches apart. Rather than digging a series of small holes in the soil, just take your hand trowel and gently scrape a straight line in the soil that’s 1 inch deep. Then take your presoaked seed, coat them in an inoculant before planting, and place your first seed at the edge of the line. Place your next seed in the soil about 4 inches over from the first. Continue this pattern until your row is complete, then cover the seeds with soil. Repeat the process in another trough just 4 inches away (and continue until all your bean seeds have been planted).
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