Build a Bean Teepee for Kids

My favorite way to grow climbing beans is on a teepee, that is, on four poles stuck in the ground and lashed together at the top. Each summer I have 2 or 3 growing in my front yard. But I've had a fantasy of making a big one someday, big enough for a couple of kids (and me!) to crawl inside. So recently, when I designed my friend Margie's gardens for her new home I included bean teepee for her son, my bean-buddy Alexander .

Building a Kid-Sized Bean Teepee
If you do a web search for bean teepees you can find a lot of versions on how to build one. Here's one I liked on YouTube made by Sustainable Midlands and City Roots. 

It's simple, and a lot like the smaller versions I put up in my garden, but with a few extras. Watch the video then read my steps below for more details and my modifications for building the structure so it's kid-friendly:

• Use 6 very long bamboo poles; I'm estimating about 12 - 15 feet high, such that when you lean them together the space at the base of the teepee will be about  6 feet, or enough room for kids to sit inside.
• Space the poles apart evenly, but leave enough room between two of them for the entry, or "door". Set the poles about 4 inches into the soil so that they are sturdy.
• Lash the poles together with twine at the top. 
• Prepare the base (floor) of the teepee by laying down sheets of cardboard in about 3 layers to suppress weeds and to form a level base. Cover the cardboard with 3- 4 inches of minbark or clean straw (not hay- it has weed seeds) to make a comfy seating area.
• Take the twine and wind a few strands between the poles (see video) so that the beans will climb on them for support and eventually cover the sides of the teepee, but leave the door open and free of twine for easy entry (they forgot this part in the video).
• Plant beans seeds along the outer edge of the teepee's sides, except the entry. Plant the beans about 1/2 inch deep, 4 inches apart in soil that you've prepared with some mature compost mixed with a small amount of organic vegetable fertilizer. Beans don't need a lot of fertilization, but they do appreciate nice loose soil with organic matter in order to grow strong roots.
• Water the planted seeds and keep the soil evenly moist while they germinate (about 7 to 10 days). Note: beans like warm weather, so they won't germinate (sprout) unless the nighttime temperatures are staying in the mid-fifty degrees (F) at least, and the soil has had a chance to warm up.

Now for the really fun part, choosing which beans to grow. Since I have lots of favorite beans, I have to chime in.

Beans with a Bonus
You can't go wrong with runner beans (P. coccineus), such as Scarlet Runner or the lovely Painted Lady bean, both of which have showy flowers. You can eat them at any stage: flowers, pods, fresh shell beans and dry beans. A huge bonus is that in mild winter climates as we have here in the San Francisco Bay Area, runner beans die back with frost but will reemerge in spring, unlike like so called "common beans" (P. vugaris- pintos, black beans, cranberry, etc. see my post for more). 

Scarlet Runner and Painted Lady beans - ornamental and edible!

Colorful and Prolific Snap Beans 
My top pick for kids would be to grow some snap beans (aka: green beans, or string beans), and my hands-down-must-have snap bean is Emerite, an old French variety with pencil-thin tender beans that produce over several weeks. I discovered these through Rene's Garden, an heirloom and gourmet seed supplier, and I grow them every summer. You can also order a tricolor bean seed packet from Rene's that has yellow, green and purple beans for extra fun. Make sure you get pole beans and not the bush type!

Tricolor Snap beans form Rene's Garden seeds

Of Bees and Beans
Beans don't need to be pollinated to produce pods, but bees sure like bean flowers anyway. In my garden it's mostly large but docile carpenter bees that visit my beans. If you have bees in your garden and you're worried about kids getting stung by accident, then a bean teepee may not be a good idea. Or you might try fastening a barrier of cloth on the inside of the teepee up to about 4 feet or so. You'll have to decide if it's risky or not.

Acrobatic Carpenter bees love bean flowers!

Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

Cooking Dry Beans 101

Clockwise from left: Hidatsa Shield Figure, Good Mother Stallard, Hutterite Soup, Tiger's Eye

Why cook your own beans rather than buying them in a can? Let me count the "whys": flavor, texture, and variety. Once you taste beans the way they are meant to be eaten, you'll realize that canned beans are waterlogged and over-salted to make up for lack of flavor. And the types of beans available in a can are limited. So don't miss out on a whole world of culinary exploration, and get in the habit of cooking beans and enjoying the many types available for your eating pleasure. Who knows, you may end up growing your own too, as I do (see photo below).

 Simple cooking method for dry beans:
I recommend you start with a cup of dry beans to get a feel for cooking them.

1. Wash the beans with cold water and examine them to make sure there are no stones or other debris.

2. Soak beans overnight in plenty of water at room temperature (you want them to remain covered even after they double in size)
or
Quick soak: put beans in a pot (preferably a heavy pot for better heat distribution) with about 2 inches of water over the beans, bring them to a boil then turn off the heat. Cover with the lid and let them soak for 1-3 hours.

3. To cook, drain the soaking water, add fresh water to cover the beans by an inch or two. I like to add a bay leaf to lightly flavor the water. Bring them to a boil then turn down the heat to a simmer. Note: do NOT add salt at this point. Salt will cause the beans to be tough and take a very long time to cook (or so it's believed).

Italian Butter beans with fresh tarragon and asparagus

4. Check the water level in half an hour. You want the beans to be covered at all times or they won't cook evenly. Cooking time can vary from only an hour for fresh beans, or up to 2 hours for older beans. After an hour check to see if the beans are tender or need more cooking time, and make sure there is enough water in the pot to cover the beans (if not add some and bring it back to a simmer).

4. When the beans are beginning to get tender add salt. The beans will absorb the salt from the cooking water. When they are tender and have the texture you want, they are ready to eat or use in a recipe. You can let them cool and store them in the refrigerator in their cooking water, or drain them and toss in a bit of olive oil so that they don't dry out.

The age of the beans:  Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo, points out in his lovely book on cooking with heirloom beans that the bags of beans on your grocery store shelf might be a couple of years old or more. The age of the beans will dictate how long they take to cook. Old beans take longer. Beans from a quality supplier, such as Rancho Gordo, or your local farmer's market vendor are sold within a year of being grown. Indeed, these beans are so fresh that I've planted and grown and eaten several varieties of them!

Here is something delicious to make with your fresh pot of beans: my recipe for gigante beans with salsa verde- enjoy!

Photos: Urban Artichoke

Lima Beans- Not Your Ordinary Phaseolus vulgaris

Hopi Red Lima (Pala Hakito)

Which would you rather eat, a dish made with lima beans or butter beans? Most people would agree that “butter bean” has a delicious ring to it, and that lima beans are notoriously yucky. In fact for many people lima beans conjure up images of pasty, horrible beans that were part of a frozen vegetable medley served in school cafeterias; or worse yet, something bland and tasteless that was just poured out of a can.

And you may have guessed what I’m going to tell you next: butter beans are lima beans. Unless you are from the southern USA, this may surprise you. And in case you think beans are all alike and interchangeable, lima beans, or Phaseolus lunatus, are a separate species from the common bean, P. vulgaris, and were named after the capital of Peru, Lima. They have their origins in the New World as common beans do, but they were domesticated far earlier. Similar to common beans, limas were (and are) also cultivated by Native Americans before the colonists arrived and were eventually introduced into Europe.

These details are important for seed savers: you can grow common beans and limas (and runners) side by side and they won't cross pollinate, because they are different species.

This is great news for those of us with small gardens!

The beautiful and unusual Christmas Lima

The term “butter bean” usually refers to baby lima beans (especially in the South) that are often eaten fresh as shell beans. But there are exceptions, for example, the Italian Butter bean is actually a runner bean species Phaseolus coccineus, and not a lima at all.

Lima beans are finally shaking-off their undeserved bad reputation and are being showcased as key ingredients of delicious and sophisticated dishes. The stunningly beautiful and unusual Christmas Lima Bean has risen in popularity due to its subtle chestnut-like flavor and texture. It was first cultivated in the U.S. around 1840, according to Seed Savers Exchange. It works well in many dishes; try them with sautéed mushrooms and garlic. You can buy the Christmas Lima from specialty suppliers and growers, or you can grow your own by ordering seeds from heirloom vegetable growers.

Hopi Red Lima in a vegetable stew

Even chef and author Alice Waters, renowned for her use of fresh local ingredients to create delicious meals, offers up a succotash recipe in The Art of Simple Food that includes freshly shelled baby lima beans. It may be time to give lima beans a second chance and restore them to their well-earned place in our gardens, on our plates and in our food heritages.

References:

Beans, A History, K. Abala, Berg Publishers (September 4, 2007)

Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Grower’s Guide, S. Sando, Timber Press (May 17, 2011)

Photos: Urban Artichoke