Has anyone else grown these? They're nice looking, seem pretty vigorous and are producing well early on. The write up on them say they taste really good - we shall see tonite!
Flip
Dragon's Tongue Snap Beans
Hi Flip! Talking to you from Homestead FWD Suites - Plantation but in Davie off 595. Don't know why they say Plantation when we are in Davie? Anyway the beans look good and even better steamed with S&P and drizzled in butter. I sure miss my garden! I was tempted to buy those seeds and give them a try but after you give an evaluation of taste I'll then decide. Regards to all...
Hey TP - glad you're settled in. Hopefully you won't be there too long and you can move back in to your relocated home! I know you miss the gardening activities and I know you'll fire up your eb's as soon as you can.
The beans above tasted great. In fact, they're one of the better tasting beans I've grown. (These were the beans that almost died during the cold snap we had that did you in - but they came back and are now producing well.)
Flip
Those really look yummy. Where did you get the seed?
They were! I got them at Baker CreekHeairloom Seeds.
Thanks, I'll add them to my list........LOL
They are my favorite and friends I have introduced them to consider them their favorites as well.
Tplant:
Are they snap or shell beans or both?
BB
BB - TPlant didn't grow them, I did lol. They can be used as either type but I just steam them up as snap beans and add S,P and butter and they're really good. They have just become my favorite yellow bean and are right at the top with a couple other of my favorites.
Flip
Hey Flip
I don't know why I always mix you guys up. Sorry
Sounds good. It's a bush bean right?
BB
BB - definitely a bush bean. Actually, to me the plants appear to be a little more compact than many of the other bush beans I've grown. It's a definite keeper - you oughta give a try!
Flip
I think I will
Here's another set of beans I'm doing - Uncle Walt's Vermont Cranberry pole beans. I've grown these for 3 years now, the original seeds courtesy of Big Red. This pic shows them green with the red striping beginning to show - almost time to start picking!
Flip
Just saw this post.
Dragon's Tongue Beans are our favorites ! Delicious and tender even when they get on the large size. Since we've grown these, nothing else taste as good to us and it's now the only bean we grow.
We have never used them as a dry bean, so can't comment on them for that use.
I agree with you. Really nice tasting beans!
My plants are now in the seed producing stage - I let the pods dry out and have saved about 75 seeds so far with more to come. I'll use them next season.
I grow those every year and love them. I think they are so pretty. Last year, the other gardeners in my community garden loved them as well and hit me up for most of my seeds. One of the downers of being in a community garden.
This message was edited Mar 13, 2008 7:59 AM
Hi Kanita - nice to hear from you. How's your vegetable garden stacking up for this year?I remember how well you did last year.
Flip
ps - those Trinidad Perfumem and Kung Pao peppers I grew from your seed are still putting out peppers. Both nice plants with nice fruit.
This message was edited Mar 13, 2008 11:05 AM
Hey Flip! So happy to hear about the peppers, do like the taste of them?
I have been so busy this past year I haven't been able to post much. The garden is doing . Right now its mostly cabbage, sierra lettuce (which you have to try in hot weather, its Batavian and retain a really strong crunch and had good heat tolerance), chinese red mustards, fennel (which reseeded and had taken over the garden, it is even growing along my plots border), one tomato, serrano and thai dragon peppers and snow peas.
I am preparing my seeds now, off to a late start.
In honor of Big Red, I am growing Uncle Walt's Uncle Walt's pole bean as well this year.
I am curious if, like Dragon Tongue, it can be served as a snap bean by picking it somewhat underripe?
I did not realize until after sowing that Uncle Walt's really is intended as a shell bean. I guess I can find some soup recipes. ;)
where do you find that lettuce?
Yes, Dragons Tongue can be used and a regular green bean if picked young.
Feldon - I always pick my Uncle Walt's fairly early and eat them as snap beans. Steamed, w/butter, salt and pepper. They're quite the tasty. I've never even tried them as a shell bean.
Flip
So, at the risk of sounding like a compete bean idiot, what are the different types of beans? I know there's wax, green, snap, and shelling, but I'm not sure what the differences are? Pole and bush I've got figured out as growth habits, but the rest I'm a little murky on. I'm interested in growing some of the local beans I can get through Native Seeds/SEARCH, but can't tell from their descriptions just what I'd be getting.
Those Dragon's Tongue beans sure look neat!
Thanks for your patience in educating a newbie to beans. :)
A check of the dictionary confirms my suspicion that wax beans are just what you call a green bean that turns some other color like yellow, purple, etc. :) So yellow wax beans can be used the same way as green beans. Although I will say I think they taste better in my opinion. They seem to need a lot less butter. Dragon Tongue can actually be considered a wax bean if it is eaten whole.
I also like French filet beans which are simply green beans bred to grow to their final length before they start thickening up. You pick them when they are about half the thickness of a pencil. They are VERY tender at this stage and because of the size, you need a lot of them. :) Triomphe de Farcy has done well for me and is widely available.
Snap vs. Shelling refers to how you use the beans.
Snap beans just means you pick them off the plant, throw them in your steamer pot, and eat them whole -- pods, beans and all.
Shell beans means you let the pods completely mature, until the shells are starting to get dried and papery (depends on variety how long you let it dry out) and then scoop the individual beans out of each pod into, say, a glass jar. Shell beans are great for storage since they are dry beans. They are great in soup or other cooking.
Check out all the great pictures of Uncle Walt's Vermont Cranberry pole bean grown by the late Big Red at this PlantFiles entry http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/39067/
Thanks for helping get me sorted out, feldon30! So, can any bean be eaten "green", or not fully ripe, it's just that some taste better than others? And what's a string bean? (Other than my tall skinny daughter, of course ☺ )
Those Uncle Walt's Vermont Cranberry beans are gorgeous! If I hadn't already planted more than I know what to do with, I'd give those a try too! Maybe next year... :)
Sierra lettuce; I just ordered some seed from the link below.
http://www.swallowtailgardenseeds.com/veggies/summercrisp.html
Am Growing Red Noodle pole beans Paul
In the olden days, all beans were string beans. There is a long fiber that runs the lenght of the pod on both sides. To use as a snap bean such beans have to be strung ( the string pull off) By the end of the 19th century, beans being developed for use as snap beans became "stringless" and most the early catalogs touted that fact as in "Giant Stringless", Burpees Stringless, etc. Most modern bush snapbeans are stringless. Lots of the older polebeans are still stringbeans tho.
By the way the purple pod types are still green beans, the purple dissipates with slight heat. Wax beans are yellow podded beans and remain yellow when heated.
I remember as a child sitting with my mother and helping her to unstring the fresh stringbeans. A lot of work but the taste was far superior compared to the water-logged canned stringbeans of that era. (That was long before the word "STRESS" was invented!)
Okay, I think I've got it--thanks, all! When you're used to just buying whatever is in the frozen foods section, you don't have any idea of all the different varieties there are out there. Growing my own veggies has been more of a learning experience, in ways I'd never dreamed! (And that's in a good way...☺)
I love sierra lettuce. It is the only lettuce I grow now.
How does it do in the heat, kanita? I always like to hear from someone who grows it, rather than just the advertising propaganda... I've got Jericho lettuce going right now, we're in the 80s and it's still holding up, but I don't yet know for how long. Tasty, though!
It does really well here. I grow it all throughout the summer. Although when it is really hot, I cut them while they are smaller, where as during our "winter" they get really big.