Dragon l'angerie

on Wednesday, August 25, 2010

I have good news! See the image below?


There's three patches of beans growing there. The bed on the left is 3'x12', and has two different varieties of beans growing in it - one in the foreground, an empty gap where I'm trying to get some swiss chard growing, and then a patch of green beans in the background. (Plus there's more green beans in the back half of the bed on the right)

Anyhow, that roughly 3'x4' spot of beans in the left foreground? Check it out:


Those are Dragon Tongue beans. Those of you who were in the parking lot for pick up a couple weeks ago got to sample a few of those. I first found out about Dragon Tongue/langerie beans years ago on Farmgirl's blog, and decided to give them a try out in my rental plot.


WOW - she's not kidding. Don't grow these to full size and let them dry out for shelling beans - instead you want these small, young and tender - and eat 'em raw! I really like them washed, tipped-and-tailed, and then maybe cut into about 1" pieces and added to a salad. Yummy!

The picture below shows blooms where we'll soon have beans. And if you look close, you'll see a grass hopper butt.


Here's someone over at GardenNerd posting recipes to use the Dragon Tongue beans in (yes, even though I said eat 'em raw, this might be a good cooked bean recipe to try!). And I see the person is also working with Maxibel beans - I LOVE these French fillet beans because they're skinnier and more tender than your average bean, but Brett feels they don't taste "beany" enough, so I didn't bother growing them this year.

Mmmmm....beans! One of the best things about homegrown gardening!

Now I don't expect a ton of these Dragon tongue beans to all come on at once, so that everyone gets them the same week. Most likely I'll have to do the same thing that I did with the sugar snap/snow peas, and randomize the list of what order you guys get them.


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