If You Don't Know Beans About Beans

Welcome to the Grow youw Self Podcast. Surprising stories about the food we eat and inspiring conversations about what it really takes to live the whole and happy life we're all craving. My name's Nicole John C. Burke, and I'm the owner of Rooted Garden and gardenary Incorporated and author of the upcoming book Garden Kitchen Garden Revival. Is it obvious I'm kind of obsessed with the kitchen garden. Each week here on the Grow youw Self Podcast, you're going to be shocked at the things you'll learn about foods you eat every single day. And you'll feel encouraged to take little steps in your own busy schedule to create a more whole and happy life for yourself. So turn up the volume and let's take a walk, go on a drive, or just hang out in the kitchen garden together. Every time you listen, I promise you'll learn something that will help you grow yourself in a new and exciting way. Sound good? I think so. Now let's dig in.

Welcome back to the Grow youw Self Podcast. I have such a treat in store for you guys today. I have one of my favorite Instagram friends. I like to call her my Instagram BFF because she is. She has an account that I check literally every time I get onto the platform. So Meg Cowden is the force behind Seed to Fork, and she is a force for sure. So today we are going to be digging into the fascinating subject of beans. Do you know beans? About beans? This is going to amount to a lot more than a hill of beans, whatever that means. I can't wait for you guys to meet Meg. So let's dig into the Grow youw Self Podcast. Welcome to the Grow youw Self podcast. Meg, I'm so excited you're here.

Hi, Nicole. Thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor.

Well, I think this was. It was about just this time last year that you did a takeover of my Instagram feed, and my entire account absolutely fell in love with you. Like, the whole week they were just like, oh, my gosh, that woman is amazing. In fact, I think to this date, when I look on my Instagram account, your drone photo of your garden space is still one of my most liked photos of all time.

So pretty awesome. Well, it's kind of hard not to love a shot, an aerial shot of a garden. I love that drone. It's a super fun way to capture.

You can have drone pictures of aerial shots of gardens, but when it's yours, it's a little bit literally. So tell everybody who you are, where you're from what you do, all that awesome stuff.

Yeah. So my name is Meg Cowden, and I live and grow in Minnesota. I'm in Twin Cities, Western Twin Cities of. Well, I guess Minneapolis, St. Paul area, for those who aren't familiar with that part of the world. And I am an organic gardener. I would kind of homesteading light. I don't know what you'd kind of call it, but my husband and I have been growing together since before we were married. It's kind of really at the core and the foundation of who we are as a couple. We love to grow things together, so it's very much a partnership with us. And we left the city about four years ago to really pursue growing our own food more intensely, as you've already noted, with the size and the scale at which we grow. And we've got about an eighth of an acre that we cultivate for food production. And then surrounding that, we have lots of native pollinator gardens, native prairies, and native edibles surrounding the garden. So it's. It's becoming. It's just been such a joy to watch a piece of land become itself more and more each year, and we're still very much in the throes of it, kind of becoming as we will be for years.

That's amazing. So an eighth of an acre, is that right? Yep.

I'm.

I'm like, you know, such a kitchen gardener and not a homesteader. So can you put that in square footage for me?

Oh, yeah, square footage. Five or six thousand square feet inside. So we protected that space with a deer fence because we knew. Well, we know from experience that deer will come through our food garden. There are people who say they can garden without protecting for the deer, but we just know that we would sleep better at night knowing it was protected. Of course, it is the size of our old city lot. So, like, in Minneapolis, city lots are about an eighth of an acre.

Okay. So it's like five or six thousand. So for those of you listening and you know what my kitchen garden looks like, I grow in 100 square feet of garden.

Do you really? Yeah. Wow.

So meg has got 80 times.

What did you say? I was gonna say 20 times. 20 times. 50 times.

You said 5,000. Okay, 5,000.

Yeah.

50. Somehow I went with the one 8 to 8,000. So she's growing on 50 times the amount of space now she's got. Yeah. It's crazy, right? Sounds like a lot of work. I know. Well, I. So I'm always telling my kids about you and the things you're growing and what you're doing. So even last night we were having strawberries, and I said, you know, I have this friend, and she says she grew 100 pounds of strawberries last year. And so they wanted to know all the math. How much space you had attributed to your strawberries to get £100? Because at dinner, Meg, no lie. My kids ate £4 of strawberries fresh.

Yeah, I believe it. We've got about 10 pounds frozen left from last year, so we're gonna just slide into strawberry season.

That's amazing. So how many square footage. I need to tell them how many square feet?

I think it's about 500 square feet. So you need about five of your.

Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. Yeah. Because they were like, do you think you would have to plant all of your kitchen gardens with strawberries to get as many as she got? I was like, yes, more than that. So crazy to see the scale. Right. Because I think oftentimes we forget or we don't even realize the food we eat, how much land it takes to grow that amount of food.

Yeah.

Because even with your 5,000 square feet, in terms of eating fresh from the garden versus bringing in things from the grocery store or outside sources, do you have a percentage breakdown? Like, I eat, like, about 30% of your food source comes from your garden or something like that.

I think it's closer maybe to 50% if you go, like, year round. Not so much in fruit, but in vegetables. Because we are already here. We are in June when. Well, we're not June. We're still May, but it feels like June.

We're ready to be June.

Yeah. Ready for heat. We are each starting to eat off the land, and it just is going to go up and up and up. And, you know, it was early May when we ate our last potatoes from last summer.

That's really cool.

We had carrots until March, so we supplement in the winter, but we really try to eat seasonally.

Okay, so that's neat. So 50%. 50% for a family of four off of 5,000 square feet. So that really gives you an idea. Right. Of even. And you, I would say, are one of those people I watch that truly is making the most of each little spot. And you're saving and preserving. You're doing all the things. I just think it's fascinating to watch someone like you work, and you really get an appreciation for these little bites we take all day long, you know, and how much work they take to make happen, whether we do it or a great farmer does it for us, Absolutely.

I think tomatoes have been the big eye opener for us. We wanted to grow enough tomatoes to satisfy our chili and our pasta sauce and all of those things. And I fell so far short of that goal last year. So now I'm trying different tomatoes this year. But they take up a lot of square footage. And so that question, it's a value question. Like, what is it that you value most about the food you eat? What food do you. You know, I try to prioritize, like what is most important to us to grow ourselves. Because I could certainly buy canned tomatoes. They're always available at the store.

Right.

But, you know, part of it's just a self imposed challenge, but it's really an intentional way of thinking, like how that, that's one of those gaps for us, like that we go hungry. If I could not get tomatoes at the store, we would be missing those in the winter. I mean, can you imagine not being able to make a chili when you wanted to make a chili?

Oh, my gosh. We. I joke with my kids that every meal is carbs, tomatoes, dairy, and some kind of meat. Literally, it's like tacos, spaghetti, hamburgers, pizza. Everything is like, that's all they want. I want to make something more creative. They just want carbs, tomatoes, and dairy. And for those of you guys listening who don't listen, eat those things. Just close your ears for a second. But yes, tomatoes are like. I mean, we have tomatoes as well as part of almost all of our meals in some form or fashion. So, yeah, I can totally relate to that. Well, I could talk to you all day long. In fact, I think we need to do another episode that's about the idea of just food production. Because I think it's fascinating to talk through, especially our two different spots where we are where you're producing so much and I'm doing just a little bit to kind of add in to my everyday meals. I would say I'm more like, you know, 10% max in terms of pulling from the garden for our food and stuff. Much more on the green side, the herb side, you know, that kind of thing versus heavy fruit production. If I could pull 100 pounds of strawberries from my yard, I would pretty much feel like I had died and gone to heaven. So. But today we're going to talk about something a little bit less sexy than tomatoes and berries. We're going to talk about beans. So exciting.

Let's do it.

So beans actually, I think, are one of the most practical things to grow in the garden. And I Talk a lot about my little gardenary path of, like, herbs to salad greens to root crops to fruiting crops. But I, you know, I have time. I would kind of mess up the clarity and the simple steps of my system. But a lot of times I'm like, I think I should just put beans right there in the center because they're, you know, maybe they're a little bit harder. Maybe not even. I've actually heard people had people comment on my posts and say, actually, beans are one of the easiest, simplest ways to get started. That's how I got. You know, they'll comment and say, that's how I got started in the garden. So I'm excited to dive into this topic today and hopefully encourage everybody listening to rethink the beans that they're eating, if they're eating any. Hopefully they are.

I really hope they are.

All right, well, let's do it. So first, let's talk about a little bit about the history. I know we both tried to do a little bit of research, but what do you know about the history of beans in terms of, like, humans consuming beans, you know, for dinner?

Yes. So the beans that I kind of think of as the one that we know, the green bean, I'm gonna botch the scientific name, but I think it's Faciolus. Faciolus is the genus, the Latin name. That bean has been found in archaeological sites in South America. I think it was in Peru. And what's really interesting to me about it is that it then went over to Europe and spent hundreds of years being developed back and forth. And we got things like beans that come out of Italy. Now we've got fancy French filet beans. And those beans found their way back to the States. And even as people emigrated across Europe and they came back, they brought beans with them that had started in the Americas, went over to Europe, spent time in family gardens, and then came back. And so we have this really very rich history of beans being cultivated in many, many cultures. And that's just one kind of bean. There's other beans that have originated in other parts, I think in Asia, I think.

Yeah. That's so cool.

Maybe.

Yeah. That's what I found. I found. I love the Americas one because I do associate beans so much with the Americas. I read that the first time they can find it is 9,000 years ago. They found them in Thailand, and those were fava beans, wild variants of broad beans. And then also in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. Afghanistan. I never say Afghanistan.

Right.

So I apologize for everyone from that area. And then this was cool, that beans were found in the tombs of the pharaohs in Egypt to carry with them to the afterlife. And then I also read that the first cultivated beans appeared about 4,000 years ago and in Iberia and transalpine Europe. But it does sound like maybe like the first ones were more the broad beans, like these large, large bean seeds. Pretty crazy.

That sounds about right. Yeah. You have to say, thank. Thank goodness those Egyptians adorned their burial sites. There's so much we learn from them. I mean, think about the food history that they've preserved for us to learn from. It's pretty incredible.

Yeah. What was I. I think it was on this podcast. Was it romaine? One of them was. There was, like, hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics of the lettuces, you know, and so, like, proof that. That these leaves, you know, fed these people. Yeah.

Pretty cool.

It kind of makes you think about us now and what are we recording and how. And, yeah, how it will be preserved. Makes me want to write down more stuff. I mean, obviously we're posting everything on these little squares, but it does show, like, I was watching a documentary, actually, of a landscape architect and all the hand drawings, and I was like, oh, I gotta make sure I'm putting everything on paper. Yeah, that's pretty fun because, you know, we're gonna be famous in, like, 5,000 years. They're gonna see all the beans you grew, Meg. Okay, so that's a little bit of the history. Now let's talk about which I think. What I think is one of the most important things for us to think about, especially for us in the US and for those of you listening in other parts to know this about your own place. But where do we get our beans in the United States right now?

Yeah. So I think. I kind of think of two main categories of the beans. We've got, like, the dried beans that we eat, Right. We've got, like, the pinto beans, the black beans, garbanzo beans. And bean production is, by and large, the largest majority is grown in kind of our neck of the woods up in North Dakota.

Yeah.

About a third of the dried beans are grown. And green beans. This was kind of funny. I sort of thought about this. So green beans. I think of green beans as being a Florida crop, because I think a lot of the times in winter, I see them listed in my local grocery stores, and their origin is usually Florida. Texas also has quite a bit of green beans. I mean, green beans, to me, are like, the bean. Like, I don't think, you know, there's dried beans and there's green beans. I love a fresh green bean. And Wisconsin actually are both of our neighboring states.

Yes.

I think they have the largest production of green beans. And you even can think about how that has actually been had an influence all the way into the NFL. Think about the Green Bay packers.

Right.

Canned green beans. Is that why I think. I think they're called the Packers? Because I think they're such a huge agricultural state. And it just makes me pause and be like, wow, like agriculture has an influence even on our professional sports. Kind of cool.

Yeah. I found this interesting too. So I was researching tomatoes. This episode hasn't aired yet. It'll air in a couple weeks. But Sarah was looking at production and it was really interesting to see that basically tomatoes are grown in different parts of the US Based on their use, if they're going to be processed and canned immediately or if they're going to be sold fresh. And that, you know, the where it's grown really depends on its usage. So it's interesting to think about that with beans too. Right. That probably the locations really vary based on how it's going to get put on our plates. I read something crazy. It said the global production of dried beans. This was back in 2005, around the world. It was like $11 billion. And the area harvested for that was 25 million hectares. What's a hectare? Is it the same? Hectare is like.

It's like over two acres. I kind of think about it as like a pound to a kilogram is 2.2. I think of a hectare is kind of similar. Double it and add a little more.

Okay, we'll double it and add a little more. So we'll say 55, 55. 8 million acres. I wish I could. Like, what size of the state would.

That be, I wonder.

Yeah, I should have done some more research. So it says about seven and a half pounds of beans are consumed per person in the US per year. So what do you think your family. Do you think you do more than seven and a half pounds a person?

Per person, yes. That would be a pound a week for our family. No, I think that's probably about right. I mean, I'm thinking dried beans, of course. I think maybe we do a little bit more, but not much. If we're a family of four.

Right.

That's £50 a week. 50 divided by 52. In the summer, we definitely eat more. This is where, again, the seasonal eating is really a big part of our life. And so we tend to eat seasonally. And if there's fresh green beans, well, guess what's for dinner, kids?

We had. So, you know, I spent two years in southwest China, and it was so fun to learn the names of foods there because, you know, they're so descriptive with their names and like, I guess it's kind of like here, like, you know, like if you knew the Latin or the roots, then the words make more sense. Like telephone, you know, is what, like far, far talk. Something like that. And so I was always. Everything I learned, you know, I knew the. The literal meaning of the word. So I was like, oh, my gosh, Computer means electric brain. This is so cool. Anyway, their green bean that we ate, Elise, that I associated with like the US Kind of like an American bean is called suji do, and it means four season bean. And anyway, to them it was like that bean was something that was available readily almost all parts of the year. And the way they served it, like, it was just this very quick stir fry with just a little bit of oil and, you know, seasoning. Oh, my gosh, it was like, right. You know, you knew they had harvested it, like very recently. It was just so delicious. So I can definitely eat more than seven pounds of it. Okay, so anything else that's interesting to you about beans? So we're talking about dry beans and then the fresh beans, mostly from probably Florida and Texas, I'm assuming. Probably a good bit from California too, I think.

California, yeah, for sure.

And then we'd be remiss to not talk about canned beans. Yeah.

Well, it's so funny you say that because I will buy a can of beans in a pinch, but I am a dry. I much prefer to soak and rehydrate my beans myself. Yeah, there's just something overcooked and slimy about a can of beans. I know they're convenient, and I know that the majority of the world opens can of beans and that's where they come from, But I am one of those sort of entrenched people who like, I like, I like, I like the feel of a dried bean. But. Yes. What about. Tell me what about canned beans? Because that really my radar.

Well, no, but I do think it's the way the majority of probably our country gets their beans. I think even for myself, like, if I'm looking up a recipe for, say, chili or taco soup or something like that, it's always written with cans. Have you noticed that? I mean, you may have all your recipes in your own homesteading wheelhouse, but for me, I'LL look it up and it'll be like two cans of pinto beans, three cans of black beans. So, yeah, I mean, I think, I wonder if I need to look this up if the production is in the same states, but from what I read about canning tomatoes, basically they have to get those, those pickings into the can very quickly. So, you know, we're talking like a very quick turnover from picking to getting them into the little metal can.

It's like hours or something, right? I think it's like hours. I think I've seen. Yeah.

And I think for the consumer, if we haven't been taught this way to soak dry beans and then cook them, it feels overwhelming. Because if you haven't grown up or watched someone else do that, it can feel overwhelming or time consuming. But if you're listening and you do buy canned beans, just know you're mostly paying for the can and for the production process rather than for the actual food. Food. I know when I started really, like being conscious of my grocery bill and I started buying more like bulk dried foods, it was crazy to see how you could get probably, I don't know, six to eight cans worth of beans out of one little package. That was probably two bucks. Right.

Well, so the thing.

Yes.

And the thing when you go back to the canning process, canning process for tomatoes looks probably very different than dried beans because they come out, you have to let them dry in the field.

Yeah.

And then someone has to come through and harvest them and they have to thresh them out of their pods and then they would have to go somewhere and be boiled and cooked. The canned beans are ready to go. They are cooked. Yeah. So there are many more steps involved in that than it would be say of like I even think fresh peas, corn must be blanched. I mean, the whole canning, you know.

Yeah.

This is the whole world.

Yeah. It's another conversation. So it's something to think about for you all listening if you do, if you're making some taco soup this summer or I don't know, a seven layer dip or something like that, to think through using dried beans, even if you're not growing them yourself, you know, maybe purchasing them from like a local farmer or at the farmer's market. And then would you quickly. We're going to get into the growing in just a second, but I think it'd be helpful. I would even love to hear tips and tricks on rehydrating dried beans and cooking them. I know for me, oftentimes I'm a fast, I'm A last minute cook. So things that take prep time aren't always my forte. So there have been times when I'll cook something that has, you know, say, beans in it or whatever. And Jason will take a bite and.

He'Ll be like, you didn't cook this.

Just needed a couple more hours of forethought, you know. So I would love to hear what tips you have for, for me and for the listeners. First we'll just talk about the preparation, then we'll go to the growing. But yeah, what's your go to in terms of rehydrating and cooking those?

Well, so it's, you know, you think about dinner in the morning as the kind of mindset for that.

It's.

I'm not always super organized, but when I do know that I'm going to be cooking with beans, I get them out. I usually do one to two cups dry. The two cups would be enough to like cook, batch, cook and then maybe throw in the freezer for another meal. So I try to bulk cook. If I'm going to take the effort, I will put them over, cover them with water, I bring them up to a boil and then I leave them on the stovetop covered, and I leave them like that for about an hour, depending on the bean. Some beans rehydrate. Pinto beans are like a couple of hours. If you do this method, they're really fast. Black beans take a little longer. Chickpeas are remarkably fast. So those are kind of the three beans we typically work with. So then after they sit for a little bit, I rinse them clean, rinse them with clean water, and then I throw fresh water in, maybe a little salt, maybe throw a whole onion, anything, depending on what the. If it's just going to be used in a dish like a chickpea, I use in a lot of like Indian cooking. I will probably just, just water, not even salt. But then you boil them just carefully and I continue to taste them as they go. You'll get a sense they're going to look, they're going to look like a canned bean. I mean, they're going to look ready when they're ready, right. They start out, they're going to continue to swell and absorb water. So I find it a really easy and enjoyable process in, say, a cold climate where there's long winters and you have time in the day where you are inside. I eat more fresh green beans in the summer and I eat more dried beans in the winter. So again, this whole seasonal thing. Nicole Right, like eating what's in season, I'm growing my dried beans in the summer, but I'm cooking with them in the winter, so I even wait to shell them until I'm stuck inside. So this whole idea of really embracing what the season is, what the season is giving you, you know, I love that.

And I love that this idea that, you know, it is a way to see the garden as a place you can eat from for a long period of time. Maybe not in the way you would think terms of like pick eat, pick eat, but this idea of enjoy right away the things that you can enjoy quickly and easily and then putting back the things that you can enjoy when, when time slows down and the sun isn't so bright in the sky. I love that. Okay, well, I'm gonna, I, I know that beans are so good. They're such a central part of a plant based diet. Right. Like, it's just, it's, we all know it's like such a good protein, so good for our bodies. And such a good grower in the kitchen garden too, or in the homestead garden in your case. Let's dig into some good tips on growing. I would be so excited to hear your thoughts and tips on getting set up and how to grow beans.

Yeah. And I do think that a lot of your five how you mentioned that your followers commented that they're easy to grow. I would definitely agree with that. I think one of the things I love about beans and things like squash is this. It's a big seed. You can see what you're doing, you know, you know that you've planted it. And I think there's something intrinsically strong about large seeded plants. I think they, you know, they, they start out with just more energy in their actual seed. And I think they just, they spring to life so quickly and it's so rewarding. I mean, I've got beans right now popping up in our garden and it's just fabulous to see. They've been in the ground for less than a week and they're already up. So it's that instant gratification that I know we all still love in this current day and age. I mean, I don't think that's going away. Who doesn't love instant gratification? I don't think that was ever. Not a thing.

Yeah. So you have the seed and I think it's important. So let's talk about. I do. I agree. I say beans are great for kids because they won't end up putting 50 in in one place because they can hold it it's just easier for their little hands. So how deep would you plant? Let's say a pinto bean seed.

Yeah. Yeah. So I. My general rule for seeds are the smaller the seed, the higher up they go to the top of the soil. The bigger the seed, the deeper they go. So I plant beans about an inch deep.

Yeah. Okay.

Maybe a little less. So I'll dig a little trough just to just take my shovel and I'll just draw a line. Yeah. My soil is loose enough that I can just push it down a little with my fingertip. But I typically line my seeds up, and then I can see the spacing, and they go about 2 inches apart, 2 to 3 inches. And then when I know they're all there, this is like new. I didn't used to do this, but, like, sometimes I'd have gaps. I'd be like, well, did I plant a seed there or didn't I? Yes.

I just. I just told my daughter. We were planting seeds the other day. I said, don't push them in. Don't push them in until we're done.

Right.

That's so fun. So I did. I should have started this way. There are actually two growing types of beans. So let's talk a little bit about that, because I think that's an important distinction, especially as we talk about spacing and setup. So there's pole variety and bean variety. I mean, obviously, and bush varieties. So help us kind of understand the distinction of those two.

Right. So pole beans go. Their lineage goes all the way back. That is, the original bean was a vining bean. A pole bean climbs. A pole bean needs structure. It grows from, you know, 6 to 8ft tall. And it will produce slowly but surely. You know, it'll continue to produce over a longer period of time until frost gets it or. Well, frost, really. Or you just get tired of. I mean, I have a thing with my pole beans where at some point in the summer, I walk away for a little bit. I don't know why. It's a psychological thing, but I do now.

Well, you know what happens in Houston, which is interesting with our pole beans, is it gets too hot, so they start producing. Yeah, well, they'll stay. They'll stay green as long as you keep them watered, but they'll stop flowering and fruiting. It's pretty funny. So it's actually. You have to do it in spring and in fall, but mid summer, they'll get super tough. The beans turn really, really tough. And. Yeah, isn't it funny? Because now that I'm in A new climate, you know, frost is the end of everything. But actually, in my previous climate, heat was the end of most things. So it's pretty fun.

That's very cool. You're lucky to have that experience as a grower to be able to offer that.

That's true. I guess I try to see it that way. Okay, so pole beans, so they're going to grow as long as they want to until the heat or the cold stops it. And then bush variety.

A bush variety grows. Well, it's a bush. It's compact, it has a kind of a set height. It will grow to about 2ft tall generally, and it will produce over a shorter range, but more so I am guessing if we go back to this agricultural thing, that they only grow bush beans because they can pull all the harvest out of their fields and they can can it all quickly. Right. Like a green bean canning facility. Right. They. I do not think a pole bean is being used in the agricultural industry because that's just not. This is where you get it like the functionality. Now, it is purported that pole beans have a better flavor. Right. But they might not. So for a home grower, you can have an enhanced flavor. And this is with a benefit of growing your own food because that is not what the industry standards are using because it's not a functional and easy way to. There's not an easy way to harvest. Right. This is where the flavor of industrial food is so different than what it can actually be if you're able to explore growing it in your own home or your own garden or on a patio.

Great point. Yeah. So bush beans, and this is generally true for you guys listening for most plants, like cucumbers are like this, tomatoes are like this, where there's the vining and then the bush variety. And with, with all of those, right. You get this with the vining, you're going to get a slow, continuous production and it will go on ad nauseam.

If you allow it.

And then with the bush, you're going to get all at once, boom. And then it's done for the most part. You'll get a little bit more after you pick the first round, but not much. So which one do you like? Which type do you prefer to grow?

Well, I grow them both and I do that to try and stagger our, our harvest. So I want to get harvest as soon as possible in our short growing season. So I will say I'm still not that this is not like brassicas are my thing. So beans, I'm still trying to get better at this. You know, we all have what, like, we tend to like, for some reason, Brassica is just like, we have this thing that we just know how to work together. So it.

Beans.

Like, I'm still learning how to time my beans. I'm growing three different kinds of bush beans this year, and then several different kinds of pole beans. Like three dried pole beans for shelling, and then I'm growing a couple of string beans. Pole beans. Now, I. Like I said, I did them, started them all at the same time, and they will start producing about a week apart from each other.

Okay, can you tell us the names of some of the varieties?

Sure. I'm growing. For my pole beans, I'm growing Seychelles pole bean and Carminat. One's a green and one's a purple, and they're both a rounded kind of. I don't know if that's called a filet bean. There's so many names of beans. I don't. I'm not so into the flat ones. Like, a lot of home growers like them. I do grow dragon tongue, which is a flat bean. There's just something I like, a real tender, snappy, crispy bean.

I've grown that dragon. I grew it for Instagram, to be honest, and didn't love the flavor. Do you like it?

That's fine.

I wanted it to be like, no.

I will tell you, my favorite, favorite flavored beans right now are the Maxibel. I don't know how to say this. I am not French, but haricot ver. Harico Verre. Yes, The Maxibel. And then the velour is a purple variety, a purple filet bean. And they're both bush, and they are like candy. They're so delicious, so good.

Eat them standing right there in the garden when you pick them.

Yes, yes. You know, and even though I want to say this, even though bush beans don't need, like, a trellis, I actually do support them because there will be, you know, hungry. I think slugs maybe take bites out of my beans. If they end up on. If I don't support my bush beans, they will end up flapping a little bit with the weight of the beans onto the bed, onto the soil, and anyone who's passing by in the middle of the night will have a bite when it does happen.

Yeah. Have you. I first studied about this. I talk about this a lot in my tendon classes about hilling the beans. Have you ever read about this? So I don't know how I stumbled upon it, but I was researching Supporting pole beans. Or maybe I don't remember bush or pole. But anyway, the picture that I saw was, like, the farmer had a row of beans, and he would come up with a hoe along the row, add a little bit of compost, and hill right along, and push up the compost to support the base of the bean. So what we started doing, I mean, obviously we're working in, like, raised beds and not going to hoe anything, but we will just take compost and put a little mound around the base of each bush bean. And then sometimes the plants are so heavy, we actually stake them and just do a little twine right through, like, the center of the plant to keep it tall, because we have the same situation happen where they'll just flop. What we have done, this is actually in my book, a couple in the gray steel garden, the bush beans, we grow them along the side of the bed, and they're just over. Yeah, that's perfect.

Yeah.

And it looks beautiful. Like, I would never think of a bush being big and ornamental, but on this particular garden, it's my twin steel garden. And it's got, like, even in the very. It's in one of the chapter openers. And it's just. I'll put it in the show notes. It's just these beans hanging over the side. And you're like, that looks like an ornamental, but it's beans.

Let's eat them.

But like you said, it keeps them. You know, I never would have thought of that as an edging kind of plant. But it keeps off the soil, which is really nice.

Yeah, that's a great idea. Yeah. I've seen the individual stakes. And I said to my husband a couple years ago, like, I think I'm gonna individually stake every bush bean plant. And then I'm like, I am not doing that at the scale. It sounds like a good idea. I take. Yeah. So I take like two by twos, and then I put screws into the end of them, and then I just run twine across and around, and I run a couple of layers of twine and it. Okay, so you did almost like a.

Florida weave, but with your beans, I guess.

Is that what it's called?

Do you know what Florida weave is? Okay, I'll put this in the show notes, too. So Florida weave is. It's, again, it's got its name because that's how Florida farmers do tomatoes. So it's just like what you just described. So it's stakes on either end of their farm row. Then they run the twine at the base and run it back and forth, back and forth.

Oh, you mean I didn't make this up? Someone else already did this. I'm just kidding.

You made it up for yourself. It's the human gene. We know how to grow food inside of our bodies. Right. It's like how we kept going. So. Yeah. And then they just come in and they weave the tomato in and out of the twine.

Cool.

I grew my tomatoes that way. I did them in rows in Houston about, I guess, three or four summers ago. It was so much production. It was so fun. Now I'm too into the aesthetics to do that. So.

I love. I actually love your trellis, the way you grow tomatoes. That is fun.

Well, so the challenge I have now, though, with beans is I actually love. So the first year I had those trellises, I grew purple pole beans on those and they were gorgeous and I think more attractive even. I mean, the tomatoes are really pretty, but the beans were very pretty too.

Because they hang down.

Yes. Nikki Jabbour does this too. So my challenge now is like, I actually need more trellises. Like, I just need more structures inside the garden for the pole beans. Because I personally, I prefer pole beans too. I prefer the taste, and they're just, they're so pretty. Like, I. If you're listening and you're looking for something that's simple, that's going to grow very quickly and that's going to add like a lot of foliage and color, pole beans are just a great. They just fill in so fast. Right.

Yeah, I definitely agree. There's definitely a speed to it. A couple of months from seeding to when you can start harvesting, which is fantastic. That's about as instant as you get. Besides, you know, a radish or some quick lettuces like you love to grow.

Yeah. And let's talk about care, because I do find, let's say compared to maybe cucumbers, where you got the pollination issue and all that kind of stuff, or tomatoes, where you need to prune and feed heavily with a pole bean or even a bush bean, what do you find is most important in terms of tending and keeping the plant going and.

Producing watering at the beginning, you want to make sure that they. They trellis, that they start to bind. So I would say that is probably the most critical thing in the first three to four weeks of life is to. I know that I have about a 6 inch gap on some of my. Where I've planted them, that they have to grow up to reach the bottom of the trellis. Yeah. So they will get partway there without my help, but I will be babysitting them until they reach their first tendrils up to one of the pieces of twine or the trellis. So but once they have a structure to climb onto and they've grabbed it, they're pretty maintenance free. My general rule with growing all food is just you give them what they need. You give them water, you know, not too much. But I definitely. If it doesn't rain every week here, we absolutely irrigate everything that is especially important during the germination phase. I think you really don't want to have the soil completely dry out when you're trying to get that bean to germinate. It's just like serving a half cooked bean. The bean needs to be fully saturated to wake up. Right. And so you really want to get that. Some people believe in soaking beans for a little bit before germinating. I only do it with peas and I only do it with peas because of Instagram.

It works.

But I haven't done it for beans because it's just, you know what, Like, I know that they will germinate just fine without soaking. Yeah. Because that's what time has told me.

And they don't necessarily need any kind of extra food to keep going as they start. Right. I don't do anything.

No, no, not really. I mean, we, we definitely. All of our soil is well amended and, you know, it doesn't matter what we're growing in our garden. That all kind of gets the same, except for blueberries. Everything else gets the same soil type and the same amount of nutrition. And, you know, they just do their thing. I will say that for me, anecdotally, in our garden we have Japanese beetles here in Minnesota, and I don't know if you have them in the Chicago area, but they absolutely love my vortex pole beans, which is why I'm not growing them this year. I'm trying a different variety of pole beans. They do not eat my purple pole beans, but they loved my vortex pole beans. And I've tried moving them to different locations. And this is one of the reasons that I make sure I grow enough bush beans. Because we love to ferment lacto, ferment our beans and eat them, you know, on the holidays, things like that. As a just, they're like crunchy. Lacto fermentation is like, oh, my gosh. It's the best way to eat beans if you have to. You can't eat them fresh. Lacto fermented is the next best thing. They're still crunchy. Anyway, so Japanese beetles, I've seen pressure, and that was. It's kind of disheartening, but. And they also would devour my edamame, which I'm not sure I'm even gonna grow this year because the edamame still produces. But it's sort of like I'm asking for more. This is this question of how do you work with pests? Do you continue to try and fight them or do you work to find foods that grow with less pest pressure? And I'm leaning more towards the latter just because it feels like an easier path.

I know. I feel the same way. I feel like pests is the number one issue. I get a question I get all the time, like, how do you have your stuff so pest free? Or, you know, I every. Something ate all my stuff. And I agree. I kind of have a more. You know, I talk about this in my book like that offense is. I'm all about staying on the offense and rarely, rarely going to the other side of the field. And so for me, oftentimes, honestly, it's like, oh, you want that?

Okay, cool.

I'm gonna go somewhere else. Like, I'm not in the. I fight enough with other things in my life. I'm not interested in going to battle with you.

Right.

Yeah. We had. I had Japanese beetles on my eggplant. That was my last year. That's the first time I've seen them. So I would pick them off by hand and stuff, but that was about it. Well, I want to. I don't want to keep you longer because I know you got to go hang out in your 5,000 square feet of garden. But before you go, I thought it'd be so fun. Speaking of edamame, I thought we could do a little food fight. I personally love edamame. I grew a lot of it in Houston. And so I thought we could do a little food fight between. We're going to narrow down and do black beans. Are you growing black beans right now?

I didn't grow any this year. I am growing.

I'm growing black beans.

I'm growing like a pinto kind of a bean this year called a tiger's eye. I am growing a beautiful bean, a dried bean, a Borlatti.

Oh, I do like Borlatti.

I love the Borlatti's. And then I'm growing one other. What other bean am I growing? I can't remember. Oh, the dapple gray. But that's a bush. So I have grown black beans. I grew them in a Three Sisters planting a few years ago.

Oh, cool.

They were bush. They were bush. And so they didn't, like, they didn't do the vining thing. I was like, oh, that was a design fail.

Well, I know. Let me tell you. So for those of you listening, Three Sisters Garden is supposedly, like, it's been around for ages or whatever. And it was supposed to be like, corn, and then corn's in the center, and then you, like, let your beans vine up and hang onto the corn, and then you have squash as kind of a ground cover underneath. Is that right? Is that what you did, Meg? Yes, I did.

And, yeah, I would say my first attempt at it was.

Well, let me just say, I think this. I mean, this is my personal opinion. I haven't seen that many successes in what I found online. I feel like everybody talks about starting it and doing it, but I haven't seen it. And I'll tell you my personal experience. I did do vining beans, and they choked my corn to death. So, yeah, so it's really interesting. But the beans, like, strangled the corn and got in the way. It just wasn't a great situation. So anyway, all that to say, maybe it was better that you had the bush beans.

Well, right. And my squash was shaded out by the corn, so I really didn't get any pumpkins. Yeah. I don't wonder.

I wonder if that story. Yeah, I think some of those things sound like, ooh, Three sisters. And then you do it because I did it because I have three girls. I was like, oh, this will be so meaningful. And then it was a total fail. So we should do another episode called Our Fails. Our Garden fails. Okay, so let's do a little food fight between edamame and black beans. I think it's silly to talk about calories when it comes to eating vegetables, but we'll do it just for the case, just for the sake of the argument. So from what I can find, edamame. For 100 grams of edamame, you get 121 calories. What did you find for black beans?

There are about 91 calories for 100 grams of black beans.

All right, so if you're going to. If you're watching your calorie intake, you're going to get 30 more if you eat edamame. So black beans, if you're on a calorie count, you're going to want black beans instead of edamame. Let's talk about dietary fiber. I have to say fiber. Is kind of at the top of people's thoughts, I think when you think about beans and not always in a good way. You know what I'm saying, Meg?

It wants to be in the bottom of the. Less fiber, maybe. No, I'm just kidding.

So edamame has 5 grams of fiber for 100 grams of edamame. How about for you?

Black beans have about seven. So a little more. A little more fibrous.

So so far, I would say, like, if you're looking nutritionally or just like, like you're going to have less calories and more fiber for your black beans. Let's talk about sugars. So for sugar for edamame, we got 2 grams for 100 grams. And what do you have for black beans?

Yikes. Well, that's probably why you have more calories, because I have just a fraction of a gram of sugar. It's 2/10 of a gram. So really low in sugar.

Oh, my gosh. That's like no sugar, basically. Right. So, yeah. So if you're, if you're on a, like, low sugar diet, then I think black beans are obviously your friend instead of edamame. Sorry to tell you. All right, so let's talk about protein. So far, I think black beans are kind of kicking edamame's tail here. For protein, edamame's got 11 grams of protein and 100 grams of edamame. How about for black beans? That's impressive.

Black beans only have about 6 grams of protein for that same amount.

All right, so if we're going on a protein diet, we're going to go for edamame. Now I'm just going to skip the fat because I just think that's dumb, don't you? Yeah. Let's go to calcium. Do you have that number under minerals?

I do.

Okay, so for edamame, I've got 63 milligrams of calcium and 100 grams. What do you have for black beans?

It's about 35. That's impressive that edamame is so high in calcium.

That is. I would not have thought that. Although actually I, you know, my kid, one of my kids have dairy allergies, so they do soy milk and there's like, it's always talking about how much calcium is in there.

I guess that makes sense.

Yep.

Yep.

I don't know if that's true, but for iron, I've got 2 milligrams of iron for 100 grams.

What do you have that's roughly the same?

Okay, so that's a tie and then let's see what else we should check out. How about potassium? I've got 436 milligrams for edamame.

I've got about 300, a little over 300 for the potassium of black beans.

Interesting. Okay, so it looks like calcium, iron and potassium. Edamame is winning. But I was just trying to check to see about some of the other vitamins. Let's see, for thiamine, riboflavin, it looks like edamame is kind of coming up on top. Is that what you're saying?

Except for the B, it looks like black beans are higher in B vitamins. Okay, is that what I'm seeing? I think so. But except for folate, which is. Edamame has quite a bit of that.

Interesting. All right, so it looks like basically if you're wanting to stay low in your sugar and you're wanting to have lower calories, more fiber, you're going to go for the black bean. And if you're going for more vitamins and more protein, then you're going to go for the edamame. But let's talk about growing ease. In your experience, do you think it's easier to grow edamame or to grow black beans?

Well, they're pretty similar. I think the nice thing about edamame is that they take less time because they're not a dried bean. So. And I think as far as a food for people growing with kids, I think edamame is a super fun food to grow with a young family. I mean, who doesn't love a bowl of like fresh steamed edamame? So I personally, even though it's maybe, you know, higher in sugar, I think that's probably why kids like it. But black beans are great to grow too, but you just have to let them hang out for a little while. You know, it's a little bit more of a waiting game.

So yeah, I do want to finish with that. So just tell us. So I actually have never grown for dried beans. I only just grow and like I'm gonna eat it and then I'm done with it. So if you are growing for something like it, for a dried bean, how long Once that pod, let's say for the black, once that pod forms, how long do you let that sit there.

Until it is dried?

So you're gonna see it turn brown, it'll be green. Okay.

I guess if you wanna try and eat one, you can. I usually leave them.

Yeah.

I don't have a lot of self control, but I do in this Case. But so you leave them and you let them fully dry. And so I'll leave them. I will forget about them. I put them in the ground in May or June and I don't touch them until September. I don't really. I check on them, but I'll be like, oh, there'. Beans. Oh, they're starting to go dry. They're starting to turn brown. Yeah. And then you should be able to rattle them.

Okay. Like 30 days from when they were green, maybe.

I never really think about the time frame, Nicole. But maybe if it takes like 60 days to flower, it's usually about, you know, an 80 to a 90 day cycle for a dried bean.

Yeah.

Instead of a 60 day. So that would make sense.

Yeah. Great point, too. About. So I have grown edamame. We grew it. That's one of the few things we could grow even in the heat in the summer there. And I agree, kids loved it. And we, my family, everybody loves some steamed edamame with some, like, little salt chunks on it. So good. So I agree, if you're listening and you want to go for something fun this summer and easy, maybe you should try some edamame. Well, I just have loved talking to you, obviously. I think we could have sent this conversation in, like, five different directions. This is probably my longest interview to date because I could literally talk to you all day long. I think what you do is so aspirational. I'm constantly, literally, like, telling. I wasn't exaggerating when I say always check your stories, see what you're doing. And from my perspective, where I grow just enough or just a little, it's really fun to watch you and see what you do. And even though I grow, like, obviously a fraction of what you do, I feel that passionate pull to the plant and learn so much from watching plants develop and grow and die even. And I hear that in your voice as you share online. And it's just really. It's really fun. So I'm so excited that we got to chat and that we get to share this with the gardenary community. So thank you for hanging out with me today.

Well, thank you so much. I have to say it's completely reciprocal. I think what you do and how you build a garden and literally put those seeds in the ground and the way you design them and implement it and how you share it and your passion is just absolutely contagious and fabulous. And the world needs more of this. And so it's just such an honor to call you a friend. You know, I just, I love Knowing you, I love sharing our passion together and hopefully continuing to change the world for the better. Nicole.

Yeah, I think we're on both. We're on different ends of the spectrum in terms of growing food, and I think both of us. I hope it's an inspiration to all of you guys listening. Go check out Meg's work. I'm gonna have her share where you can do that. But it's a great. I think it's a great picture of how a little bit or a lot or somewhere in the middle, like, as much as you can do where you are at the stage you are, it matters, right? And you can go all in and go 50% or more on your family's food, or you can go 5 or 10%, but every little seed you plant makes a difference and can change the way our food. The story of our food. Right. Like some of the story we told today about all those cans and that nasty, juicy stuff. We can make a difference, you know, even if it's just planting some beans. So I think that's pretty cool. Well, tell everybody how they can follow you, find you online and see your story and see that drone. Those drone pictures, too.

Yeah. Well, so I blog, and my Instagram account and YouTube, it's all the same namesake, which is my Instagram handle, which is seed to fork. So it's T o seed to fork seedtofork.com you can find me on YouTube if you Google it. I think it'll come up awesome.

You guys gotta go check her out. And we'll have all these directions, notes, tips, and tricks on the gardenary site at gardenary.com/blog or/ podcast. And, yeah, thank you so much for hanging out with me and taking time on a busy day. I'm sure you need to be outside planting something or maybe weeding. It's been a treat. We'll have to circle back and do this again.

I'd love that. I would really love that. Thank you so much, Nicole.

Thank you, Meg. Well, thank you guys so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. I hope you feel inspired and encouraged. I hope that we surprised you a little bit with some stories about something so simple that we hardly ever think about it. Beans. But believe it or not, every little bite you take, every seed you plant, really does make a difference. So don't forget to grow yourself in a new way this week. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next week, Sam.