Legume Love

  Many gardeners consider tomatoes to be the consummate summer vegetable. They spend hours picking the right seeds from catalogs during the winter, carefully tending the seedlings in early spring, and watering and pruning the vines in July and August.  I like tomatoes, and grow several from seed, but they are not the summer favorites in my garden. 
  We like legumes, all of them. Legumes are members of the bean and pea family. This year I am growing three kinds of peas, four kinds of bush beans, and one each of pole beans, lima beans and fava beans, all in quantity.  My husband and I would be perfectly happy to eat beans or peas every night from June 21 (tomorrow, the start of summer) to frost. Even the dog is a bean fiend, often climbing the garden fences to steal them off the vines.  I have not yet grown soybeans or the foot long Chinese beans, but I look forward to trying them in a year or two when I build more beds in my garden.
  Beans are easier to grow than tomatoes. They don't need to be started inside; they are seeded directly into the garden.  However, gardeners who want a good crop of either peas or beans need to add a  special powder called 'Bean Inocculant', which contains the bacteria that helps their roots pull nitrogen out of soil.  This powder only needs to be added the first year beans or peas are planted in a garden, and   can be bought from most seed companies. 
   The peas went in first this spring, on St Patricks day, and then at about one week intervals for two more weeks. Next were the fava beas, which also like to grow in cool soil.  After the last frost ( in mid May) I began planting bush beans as early crops like lettuce, radishes, spinach and and arugula were either eaten, or pulled up because they were bolting to seed.
 Finally, in early June I planted the legumes that love hot weather- the pole beans and Lima beans. This is the first time I have grown Lima beans.  The variety I planted is 'King Of the Garden', a vigorous vining Lima that can grow to ten feet tall.  Many people think they don't like Limas  beans, but I think that is because no one eats them fresh, largely because they are a lot of work to shell.  Having bought and shelled Limas grown by 'Four Town Farm', a local grower, I know that fresh Lima's are delicate, tender and sublime. I can't wait to share the 'King of The Garden' with both my husband and dog, who I'm certain will agree.