@The Prepper Project: Eating Insects For Protein?

Okay... this one was too much fun.

http://theprepperproject.com/eating-insects-for-protein/

@The Prepper Project: The Pros and Cons of Deep Mulch Gardening

In the deep tropics, I'd be dropping mulch like crazy. But for everywhere else? It really depends on what your goals are and how much area you're working.

This week I take a deeper look at deep mulch over at The Prepper Project.

Vintage science video: "Journey of Life"

I remember seeing this video as a kid and becoming totally fascinated with seeds:


I'm a sucker for documentaries, particularly ones on plants. I love YouTube - finding this again was quite nostalgic.

Book Review: "Beautiful Corn" by Anthony Boutard

As you all know by now, I'm a book junkie. I tend to read for at least 2-3 hours a day, and much of what I read is non-fiction.

Over the years, I've packed so much gardening knowledge into my head that it has become harder and harder to find a book on plants that surprises me or makes me think differently.

This book does.

Over the last few years, I've gotten rather obsessed with corn. I know it's the Great Big Evil Monoculture RoundUp-Ready Gen-Mod High-Fructose Devil Grass From Hell, but that's not really corn's fault. That's our fault for letting scientists, corporations and politicians gain control of the food supply.

As a kid, I once planted popcorn kernels and was amazed to see the corn plants that resulted. As an adult, I skipped right over sweet corn and bought Hickory King dent corn to try in my Tennessee garden. The huge stalks, amazing ears and incredible grits that resulted cemented my love for this versatile grain. This year, I grew four different varieties in four different locations.

Anthony Boutard caught the same fever over a decade ago when he grew his first patch of heirloom corn on his organic farm. Beautiful Corn is a look at his experiences, plus a lot on the history and cultivation of this most precious of New World grains. Boutard delves into corn varieties, the rise of mechanization and the loss of America's once-great seed-saving heritage. For those interested in history and agriculture, this book hits the spot.

Yet, beyond that, this is also a book on growing corn. As the subtitle proclaims, Boutard shares how corn can be taken "from seed to plate" through the process of planting, growing, culling, harvesting, shucking, storage, shelling, milling and cooking.

An interesting sub-plot on the intersection of Mexican and US culture flows through Beautiful Corn. Boutard's farm workers are mostly immigrants from south of the border, and he shares their insight and experiments with corn throughout.

A section I found quite interesting was his overview of popcorn and flint corn in chapter 6, followed by dent corn and flour corn in chapter 7.

(Confession: Chapter 14, "Onto the Plate," mostly covers recipes... so I skipped it.)

Overall, this is an engaging and entertaining book. Portions fly overhead into the realm of hard science... other portions delve into the earthy stories of the uneducated farmers and gardeners who saved seed and bred corn varieties through trial and error.

The verdict? This is a great book for those rainy afternoons or sizzling summer days when you can't make it out to work your patch of earth. Boutard's love for corn is infectious - read Beautiful Corn and you'll likely find yourself impulse buying some heirloom corn for next year's garden.

(Buy a copy of Beautiful Corn here and you'll send a few pennies to Florida Survival Gardening!)

Rating: Five Spuds!

Trying to find soapberry trees

Do any of you know where I can find some soapberry trees or seeds? My friend Cathy asked me about them the other day - it would be great to find some.

This is what I'm looking for:

http://www.floridata.com/ref/s/sapi_sap.cfm

It's apparently carried at a nursery in Jacksonville, but a source for seed would be even cooler.

Any ideas?

A Farmer and His Corn

This is cool:



Anthony Boutard, the farmer in this video, is the author of Beautiful Corn which I just finished reading.

I'll post a review tomorrow.

An interesting hugelkultur experiment

Check this out:

http://lowcostvegetablegarden.blogspot.com/2013/03/vertical-hugelkultur-wood-chips-vs.html

This gardener tried two different methods of burying wood and there was a remarkable difference between them.

Home experimenters = my kind of folks.

(This also reminds me: I need to go to the local organic food market and get a couple bags of fava beans from the bulk bins to plant this fall...)

The potato harvest

Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry...

Or, in my case, the half-baked plans of one survival gardener.

You saw my giant potato bed in a previous post:

Out of all that space, I was awarded a measly 39lbs of spuds. (My complete potato harvest, however, was roughly 100lbs, since I had potatoes planted here and there in my raised beds and in a double-dug bed.)

Here's the post-harvest shot:

Here are the three reasons I think this bed failed to give me an awesome yield:

1. Spuds were planted too late.

As I feared, we got spuds in the ground too late and they were struggling in the heat. Even though that was the case, we still got some - and for that I'm thankful.

2. Spuds were planted too far apart.

Yeah... I could've gone a lot closer with these puppies and the yield would've been greater. 12" squares is about the way to go on potatoes.

3. Spuds were planted on really hard ground.

I told you in my other post that this used to be a driveway leading up to the barn/garage. The ground, even though it's sand, is viciously compacted. The bottoms of the trenches I dug were like sandstone. I believe the potatoes' root systems would have greatly benefited from looser soil.

According to my best guess, this bed should have netted me about 200lbs of spuds. I'm going to address these problems and see what happens. A much smaller double-dug bed in the same hard ground did significantly better in per-foot yield, so I have hope.

After picking all the potatoes and throwing the stalks in the compost, we used our Meadow Creature broadfork (review coming soon) to tear up the ground. That took some work and some blisters, but it was remarkably fast compared to double-digging. It also made it easy to remove weeds. Once the ground was perforated and loosened, the weeds came right out.

After weeding, it was time to plant with a cover crop for the heat of summer. I chose mung beans, since they're a bean I haven't grown in a while - and because I really like the way they look. Mung beans, like their cousins the snake bean and the southern pea, are tough, drought-tolerant, heat-withstanding little dudes. These are the beans most commonly sprouted and marketed as bean sprouts in the grocery store. You can buy a bag of them from your local oriental market for next to nothing - and I've never had germination problems doing it that way. Half of my beds are now planted with mung beans - and the other ones are planted with experimental and staple crops like the Fast Lady Northern Southern Pea, a variety of Indian corn from the USDA, and sweet potatoes. It's not that mung beans have a great yield - they don't - but they do take some really high temperatures, keep the ground covered, and fix nitrogen. That means you're not just growing a bean - you're growing your soil's fertility too. (More on growing mung beans as a crop can be found here.)

And maybe... just maybe... that fertility will help me get a much bigger batch of 'taters next spring.

@The Prepper Project: Snake Beans: Easy, Tough, Prolific, Delicious

I can't get enough of these babies - I just wrote a new post on them over at The Prepper Project that goes beyond the quick glance provided by my original survival plant profile.

BTW, I noticed there are quite a few varieties of snake bean available here. Anybody buy from these folks before?

UPDATE: Arisia and Jean pointed me to this site as a good source. Check it out.

@The Prepper Project: Is Growing Grains a Good Survival Strategy?

I love growing most plants, including grains... but harvesting? Grains are a pain. (Say it again, so it's plain!)

In my latest post for The Prepper Project, I cover the pros and cons of cereals and pseudo-cereals, plus suggest a few good small-scale grains. Check it out!

An attractive spurge

I saw this plant growing in Hollywood and didn't know what it was:

I could tell by the flowers, stems, leaf structure, white sap and tri-lobed fruit that it was in the Euphorbiaceae family... but I didn't know the specific plant name.


Since I couldn't leave it alone, and because I have a love for cassava, chaya, and a few other members of the spurge family, I nabbed a bunch of seeds and took a few cuttings. When I got home and did a little searching, I discovered it was called the "Coral plant," known more specifically as Jatropha multifida. (See more here.)

Other than being pretty, it's apparently a useless and toxic plant. (Of course - we know better than that!  Pretty much every plant does something worthwhile... it's just that some of those uses haven't been discovered yet.)

These are only supposed to grow in USDA zone 10, but I'm going to try them in my home food forest anyhow. What do I have to lose? The seeds were free.

The Great South Florida Food Forest Project: June 2013 update

As I've written before, I've got something cool going on down south.

I visited last week and got some new photos. It's amazing how fast tropical plants grow - everything is looking pretty darn good. I need to get some nitrogen-fixers going, though. Maybe I should mail Dad some pigeon peas...

Check out what's going on - the 6th Street Mulberry I got from the Edible Plant Project and gave to Dad has almost doubled in size. Crazy.

 

Below is a look at the food forest from the back fence side. Here you can see Senna alata (with the yellow blooms), Tithonia diversifolia to the left, malanga near the bottom, some cassava, a glimpse of moringa trunk and a bit of banana tree.

 

The next shot shows a giant papaya on the top left. I grew that thing from seed. In the lower middle is a chaya plant, also known as "Mexican spinach."

 

And now, take a look at the little grumichama we planted earlier this year. See the sign? That's so Dad doesn't forget what it is. He's not quite the plant nut I am.

 

And here's a shot from the house side. Look at that cassava coming along!

Next, here's my little tropical avocado seedling. It's about 4' tall now. Not as amazing as Eddy's, but it's gonna get there.

Remember my previous story about cutting down the scheffelera tree? The acerola cherry we planted to replace it is doing wonderfully... and it's bearing fruit already. Dad's been sharing them with visitors. Look!

And... here's one last shot for the road. I may not be able to grow the tropical subsistence plot I want up here, but at least I get to play around every few months ago in my parents' backyard.

Not bad at all. Mom and Dad have already been harvesting fruit, beans and even the occasional self-seeded tomato from this little patch of jungle.

What Knockout Roses Teach Us About Survival

Just posted at The Prepper Project:

http://theprepperproject.com/what-knockout-roses-teach-us-about-survival/

From seed to loaf

This pair of videos give you an idea of what it takes to grow and harvest wheat on a small scale:



Now try doing this without all the modern tools and imagine what would go into feeding yourself a grain-based diet. Sure... I like to grow grains, just because I'm a plant lover... but in terms of feeding myself, forget it.

The only reason we can eat as much grain as we do is because modern agriculture has turned grain production into a science... and their efforts are heavily subsidized by government.

On a small scale, and for optimal health - primal/paleo is the way to go.

@The Prepper Project: Gardening Without Electricity

Yeah... I like NBC's Revolution. Scratch that: I love it, despite its shortcomings. The program has made me think more about life without electricity. Could you bathe without it? Cook? Garden? Will your water supply work? Will you be able to preserve your harvest?

Find out... in my new article over at The Prepper Project on gardening without electricity:

"I like to brag to people, in a passive-aggressive SWPL way, that I don’t have a TV.

RANDOM PERSON #1: “What the heck? You made a bust of Nebuchadnezzar from broken glass, cheerios and string? You have too much time on your hands!”

ME: “I don’t have a TV.”

RANDOM PERSON #2: “How in the world do you find time to garden?”
ME: “I don’t have a TV.”

RANDOM PERSON #3: “Omigosh… what, do you have, like a half-dozen kids? You must not have a TV!”

ME: “Bingo! High five!”

Anyhow, despite not having a TV, I have managed to get addicted to the new NBC series Revolution. (Thanks, Internet, for making me a total hypocrite.)

Revolution imagines a world where the power has been shut off and various factions have redrawn the borders of the United States. Can the power be turned back on? Will the bad guys win? Is Charley going to give up her virginity to that shifty guy that keeps hanging around and showing up at odd times? (Don’t do it, Charley! Wait for a ring!) Is the former militia leader uncle actually trustworthy?" (Read the rest HERE)

Can anyone ID this tree?

I took this picture in Hollywood, Florida:

The fruit reminds me of an Ackee tree, but I'm pretty sure it's not that. I've seen this plant multiple times down south, but have no idea what it is.

Any guesses?

Does Invasive Always Equal Evil?

What do invasives, RoundUp and hashbrowns have in common? Find out in my latest post for Mother Earth News:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/invasive-wild-yam-zbcz1306.aspx#axzz2W3YuZOa0

Dissection

 

 

 

Growing food with less water

The key to getting more out of your garden while watering less seems to be adding extra space for each plant's root system. We live in the Age Of The Raised Bed, so this sound nuts... but there are solid reasons to grow in rows with wide spacings. Check out what Steve Solomon, author of Gardening When It Counts, has to say:

As recently as the 1930s, most American country folk still did not have running water. With water being hand-pumped and carried in buckets, and precious, their vegetable gardens had to be grown with a minimum of irrigation. In the otherwise well-watered East, one could routinely expect several consecutive weeks every summer without rain. In some drought years a hot, rainless month or longer could go by. So vegetable varieties were bred to grow through dry spells without loss, and traditional American vegetable gardens were designed to help them do so.

    I began gardening in the early 1970s, just as the raised-bed method was being popularized. The latest books and magazine articles all agreed that raising vegetables in widely separated single rows was a foolish imitation of commercial farming, that commercial vegetables were arranged that way for ease of mechanical cultivation. Closely planted raised beds requiring hand cultivation were alleged to be far more productive and far more efficient users of irrigation because water wasn't evaporating from bare soil.

    I think this is more likely to be the truth: Old-fashioned gardens used low plant densities to survive inevitable spells of rainlessness. Looked at this way, widely separated vegetables in widely separated rows may be considered the more efficient users of water because they consume soil moisture that nature freely puts there. Only after, and if, these reserves are significantly depleted does the gardener have to irrigate. The end result is surprisingly more abundant than a modern gardener educated on intensive, raised-bed propaganda would think (read the rest)

Until I did more research, I had always assumed the wide row spacing of traditional gardens had more to do with the need for using tractors and mechanized equipment than anything else. Apparently, I was wrong.

Check out the wide spacing. Original here: http://irwinvillega.wordpress.com/category/irwinville-farming/

This spring, to test the idea that plants need much less water when spaced further apart, I planted a big patch of corn at 6" spacing in 3' rows. I haven't watered it (except for the liquid fertilizer mix I poured along the roots every week or two) and it's doing excellently thus far on nothing but rain. I also planted bush beans spaced 6" apart in rows spaced 18" wide. Though they're not as happy as the corn, only some have kicked off.

I'll keep you all posted on my results. I'm going to do further tests on gardening without irrigation, since one of the biggest drawbacks of modern gardening is the time it takes to water, not to mention the water itself.

A nice look at azolla

Chrissy takes a look at the imminently useful azolla:

http://oldescrubland.blogspot.com/2013/06/azolla-azolla-spp.html?showComment=1370747093809

I need to get some of this stuff. I've been acquiring aquatic plants and haven't nailed down any azolla yet. I'd love to try it as chicken feed.

GMOs leading to higher pesticide use?

This isn't going to end well:


Rootworms, which have cost corn farmers excessive crop losses, are showing resistance to genetically modified Bt corn, leading to a rise in pesticide use and not the decline promised by biotech companies (...)  (A)fter Bt corn began hitting the market, pesticide use initially decreased. “Bt crops reduced insecticide use by 10-12 million pounds annually in the period from 1996 to 2011.” But for Bt corn farmers today, things have changed...(READ MORE)

Black nightshade: a deliciously dangerous fruit

Ah, nightshades... you are so delightfully scary.

I had to do some research, but two years ago I identified the strange pepper-like plants growing in my yard as “Solanum americanum.”

THE BLACK NIGHTSHADE!

This picture is blurry because I was whacked out on solanine when I took it.

So, of course, once I discovered that the plant was filled with toxic solanine and not at all good for goats to eat... and that the berries, when ripe, are apparently edible by humans (this is good, because I caught the two-year-old with a mouthful and almost had a heart attack)... I became overwhelmed with the desire to eat them.

Tentatively, after watching the plants for a while to make sure they wouldn’t bite me, I ate the first few ripe berries. No nausea, no dilation of my pupils, no burning in my mouth or throat, and no visions of 40-foot-tall vampire bats. So far, so good. Plus, they tasted like a cross between a berry and a tomato. Really nice.

A day or two later, I ate some more. No problem.

Then, since I was still alive and knew the berries actually tasted good, I did what any good survivalist with a daredevil personality, a distinct Betty Crocker gene, and a predilection for toxic plants would do: I made jam. You can too. Just don't get this plant mixed up with deadly nightshade or you'll totally die. Heck, you might die doing this.

NOTE: Don't blame me if you die. This post is for entertainment purposes only. Any resemblance to anything scientific or safe is purely coincidental. 

FURTHER NOTE: If you go ahead and eat these, despite my warnings, watch out for bitter berries. If you pick some fully ripe ones off a plant and they taste bitter, instead of pleasant, don't eat them and don't harvest from that plant.

Here’s how to make nightshade jam:

1. Pick 1.5 lbs of dangerous nightshade berries.

2. Boil them with about 1/3 cup sugar and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Mash the berries as you go.

3. When the jam sets nicely on the end of a chilled spoon, you’re ready to jar them. Follow whatever canning directions you have for jam, and boiling-water can the tasty purple stuff.

If you’ve got more berries, make more jam. It’s delicious.

I wouldn’t eat too much, though, because of death. Fortunately, solanine poisoning generally exhibits itself with nausea long before you reach a fatal dose. And boiling doesn’t destroy solanine, so just bear that in mind.

Announcement: Florida Food Forests is OPEN for business!

What is this "Florida Food Forests?" It's my brand-new plant nursery!

For the last year I've considered jumping into growing some of the hard-to-get edibles I love so much. People are always asking me about cassava, goumi berries, coffee plants, Florida cranberry, chaya, moringa and other cool and rare plants. I love building food forests... but getting the pieces is sometimes painful.

I've gathered some interesting varieties over the last few years, bit by bit, and learned to propagate them. A few different people told me I should make the jump and get licensed as a nursery.

That was easier said than done. I needed a new corporation, a nursery license, a sales-tax certificate from the state, a business checking account, checks, office supplies and an accountant to put everything together. Beyond that, I needed dirt, pots, labels, a propagation area, irrigation and all kinds of other fun stuff.

In the middle of unloading a trailer of potting soil... and loving every minute of it.

But now - it's almost all together. And though I'm starting at the bottom of a hole, I think there's enough demand for some of these plants that it will all be worthwhile. Even if I only break even, I'll be happy. I know how hard I found it to get these species to begin with... having a place that sells the tough-to-find stuff is totally needed. And, since I couldn't find anyone else doing it, I'm doing it myself.

Right now you can get in contact via e-mail if you're looking for something hard-to-find. You can also make an appointment to visit my nursery space. Soon I'll post a list of shows I'm going to attend - and we'll probably be opening a booth at the Ocala Farmer's Market this fall.

Here are a few plants I have in stock right now:

Cassava (potted): $6.00

Cassava (cuttings): $3.00 or 10 for $25.00

Aloe Vera (large pot): $15.00

Loquat, 3': $10.00

Naranjilla: a strange edible.

Solanum quitoense (the naranjilla), small pot: $5.00

Sago palms (which are actually cycads), 2' tall, large pot: $10.00

Pinecone ginger (edible and useful as lotion), large pot: $10.00

I've also put a little website together here: www.floridafoodforests.com

Let me know if you're looking for something tough-to-find and I'll put out feelers. As I grow the nursery, I'm going to add a lot more plants to my stock. Things are really simple right now - but more is coming, so stay tuned!

My first trial of the "Meadow Creature" broadfork

For years, I've wanted to try out a broadfork. While doing research, the one model I kept coming back to was the "Meadow Creature" version. (Find it here.)

Why? Because the reviews I read said it was basically indestructible.

That's my kind of tool - and, thanks to the generosity of Margot at Meadow Creature, I'm now the proud owner of a viciously toothed all-steel 14"-tined broadfork. This model was recommended by Mother Earth News - we shall see how it does in Florida.

The broadfork is a rather esoteric garden tool that's almost unknown to most modern growers. If what I've read is true, it can also be a great alternative to tilling and double-digging. In a time when fossil fuels are getting expensive, supply lines are tenuous and the economy is tanking, having hard-core hand tools is very important. I want to be able to farm off my own labor - and have tools that won't break on me when I need them most.

Now that I have a broadfork, I'm going to run it through a bunch of tests and give it a total all-around review. There are a few things I want to know.

1. How does broadforking compare to tilling?

2. Does using a broadfork in our sandy loam actually help plant growth?

3. Can broadforking replace double-digging?

4. Will this broadfork bust up un-worked ground enough to oversow a cover crop?

5. What kind of effort does it take to broadfork a large area?

6. How does this particular broadfork do in the field?

For now, though, here's a quick video I shot right after the new broadfork arrived:

@The Prepper Project: The Winged Yam

Do you like giant roots? Scary invasives? No-care plants?

Then you'll love this edible "air potato."

http://theprepperproject.com/the-winged-yam-perfect-prepper-plant-for-the-deep-south/

@The Prepper Project: How Much Land Does It Take To Feed Yourself: A Tropical Suburban Case Study

This was a fun article to write - it should encourage those of you hoping to feed yourselves on a tiny lot in South Florida:



Imagine a 1200 square foot suburban 3/2 home in Hollywood, Florida. 

The complete footprint of the land is about 7000 square feet, and the zoning is residential. You have neighbors on both sides and in the back, with a street in front of your house. Once the driveway, back patio, sidewalk and footprint of the home are accounted for, you’re left with a little over 4000 square feet of growing space.

Can you feed yourself completely? Or, to go more extreme: could you feed yourself, plus your wife, plus three children? (Read the rest)

Survival Plant Profile: Bush Beans

Green beans!

Other than radishes, they're probably the most basic veggie you can grow. Reliable, productive, tolerant of poor soil and tasty, they are one of the first crops any new gardener should try.

Of course, there are many, many beans that fall into the "green bean" category. If it's called a "green bean," that basically just means it's a bean with an edible pod you eat while the beans are still unripe. If it's a variety you let hang on the plant until the beans are basically ripe, it's a "shell bean." Some varieties of shell beans are eaten while still soft, others are allowed to dry completely until you have "dry beans."

Beyond the "shell" or "green" varieties, beans also come in "bush" and "pole" varieties. Bush beans are usually small, squat plants that can stand without support. Pole beans are climbers and need trellises to do well. (A profile on my favorite pole bean, the snake bean, is here.)

Today I'm focusing on bush green beans since they're drop-dead easy. No trellises, no drying, no shelling. Plus, quite a few can be grown in a small space.

Let me show you the Bean That Got Me Gardening:

I was six and went to the store with Dad to buy some seeds. The yellow beans caught my eye... we bought them... and they went into my very first garden. Burpee's "Brittle Wax" beans.
I'm still growing them today (I like the big seed packages so I can plant successive crops - you can buy those here and I'll make like, $0.09 if you do! Yeeeehaw!) because they're consistent, productive and taste good. They're not the most flavorful bean we grow, but they look cool.

And speaking of cool - we grew these beans a few years ago in Tennessee. They're incredible:

Those are called Purple Romano beans. The purple color makes them really easy to see and pick on the plants, even though they turn green when cooked. I originally bought seed at a big box store... and never saw them for sale since, except online. Territorial carries them, and that's also where I stole the above image from: http://www.territorialseed.com/product/513/bush_beans

Beyond varieties - let's talk about culture. Beans like warm weather and will not stand freezing temperatures. Bush beans do not have the strong root system of pole beans, so they need a bit more water to stay happy. Plant your beans 1" deep and about 6" apart in rows roughly 12" apart and you'll do fine. In a week or less, they'll pop up and it's off to the races.

This little bed produces enough beans that you could serve them a few times a week.

Beans usually start producing pods in less than two months - and once pods start getting to picking size, keep them picked. If you don't, the plant will give up producing new pods. We planted a few small beds of beans this year and we're getting baskets of beans right now. Enough to eat every day, share at church and probably freeze as well.

Bush beans can be sown multiple times through the warm season and you'll get more beans that way. Plant a new bed every three weeks or so and you'll be rolling in tasty pods.

As for pests, you'll get stink bugs and maybe bean beetles later as the summer progresses. I don't worry about them unless we get a total plague. One year the bean beetles totally chewed through a bed I'd planted. Fortunately, we'd already harvested plenty of beans. It was my own fault they went nuts, though - I had planted the bean bed in a monoculture. Nice, even rows for the beetles to feast upon... nothing but beans for miles, man.

A voracious bean beetle.

If you get problems like that, I'd just just bury the plants 12" or deeper under some other crop area, bugs and all, wait a bit, and start over again. Or burn them. Or chuck them over the fence for your chickens to mangle. No big deal. Seed is cheap and beans grow fast. Beans are also a nitrogen-fixer, so planting them in front of demanding crops and on new ground is a great way to give your garden a boost of fertility. I throw beans into empty corners during the warm season, just as I do with peas during the cool season. They're tough enough to thrive without much care... and they feed the ground? Yep. All aboard the bean train!

But... the best thing about green beans? Letting your kids eat them right out of the garden, sweet and sun-warmed. When I pick a basket, I always acquire little "helpers" who wish to eat the beans. And since the pods are pesticide-free, nutritious and abundant... who am I to say no?

SPUDOMETER RATING:

4 Spuds!
 
Name: Bush green beans
Latin Name: Phaseolus vulgaris
Type: Annual
Size: 12 - 16"
Nitrogen Fixer: Yes
Medicinal: No
Cold-hardy: No
Exposure: Full sun
Part Used: Pods
Propagation: Seed
Taste: Very good
Method of preparation: Raw, cooked, pickled
Storability: Poor. Freeze or can to preserve.
Ease of growing: Very easy
Nutrition: Good
Recognizability: High
Availability: High