they are the most prolific bean I have ever planted, hardy and willing and tremendously rewarding. read recently that they were planted widely in Iron Age Britain! and they generate a lot of biomass in the form of stem and leaf, as well. a real wompom...
but you probably knew all that already :-) sorry if I am preaching to the choir The difference between theory and practise in practise ...
Every bit as good as DeAnander says!
Not common in Finland. Don't know why.
As a cook I love all pulses, but I always have to look up soaking and/or cooking times for the less common ones. After cooking for a few decades you get a feel for almost anything in terms of cooking times and methods - but pulses still often defy common wisdom. It depends on the recipe - overcooking is not necessarily bad if you are going to zap them for a soup or sauce. But to get that nice al dente crunch for some dishes you need to work from wiki or google ;-) You can't be me, I'm taken
I don't know what the hell the previous occupants were doing here but it seemed to include a breeding programme for crustaceans.
Slugs, hmm. Catch and destroy. Hours of fun.
The worst bean critter we had was a neighbouring rooster who we saw finishing off the last beans of two rows just when the beans were swollen and sprouting. A jab into the ground with his beak, up came a bean like a plum from a pie, gobble gobble, no more beans. Aarrgghh!
