a simple pot of homegrown beans

I grew up eating beans and legumes nearly everyday, it’s what you do when you’re vegetarian. My parents experimented with growing our own on occasion and although I don’t remember back that far, mum has mentioned more than once the time she grew chickpeas herself (it’s on my list of things to grow!). As many of you know, I’ve had my own vegetable garden at home most of my adult life and whenever we’ve had the space, I’ve grown green beans, which are a firm summer favourite, but it was only just this year that I first tried my hand at growing one of the dried bean varieties. Borlotti specifically.

We’ve still not found the time or extra cash to set up more garden beds (we have plans to turn half our lawn into gardens and possibly start taking over our front paddock too) just yet, so I was somewhat limited when it came to space to grow beans en masse. So instead I grew just a few borlotti, amongst the green beans… not enough to dry for later use during the year, but just enough for a meal AND enough to ignite the fire in my belly and desire to grow ALL THE BEANS! I’m now searching online for heritage seeds and plotting that paddock takeover.

I love growing all vegetables, but to me there’s something extra special about growing vegetables that store. Think pumpkins, potatoes, kūmara (sweet potato) and dried beans. Pumpkins we’ve always had great success with. Potatoes, I never grow enough to store and kūmara… well lets just say I’ve not quite nailed them yet, but should I manage to rip up that paddock, I might have enough space to give them another go. Dried beans appear to me to be super easy to master, nothing seemed to eat them, I only fed them liquid fertiliser once or twice as they grew and other than water (which has been a bit patchy in the current drought we’re experiencing here in Raglan) they required very little input and we were rewarded with nutrient dense, high protein beans that were some of the tastiest I’ve ever eaten. Also, how pretty are they?

As there were only enough for a small meal for 4, I knew I just wanted to prepare them simply and without fuss. I’ll include the rough recipe below, but really nothing was measured- fresh shelled beans in a pot, a super generous glug of good olive oil, a sprig of thyme, a roughly chopped tomato, some garlic cloves and a handful of the dried celery leaves I always have in the pantry (fresh can be used if you have some! For the dried, I always pick off the celery leaves from our homegrown celery and dehydrate then store in glass jars for later use. It adds such an amazing flavour boost to all manner of soups and stews. You could always freeze them instead of drying too). Fresh filtered water to cover and then they gently simmer away until meltingly tender. A little salt is added only once the beans are soft and you can eat with a little of the broth, or not. So simple, so good.

In other garden news, our (late planted) tomatoes are finally ripening, my basil has gone crazy this year, I’ve managed to make about 8 jars of pesto from one little planter box, which I have frozen for later use throughout the year, our cucumbers haven’t like all the wind and no rain we’ve had, so sadly aren’t doing so well, ditto for our 3 courgette/zucchini plants, we have had a few, but nothing like previous years. The strawberries are just finishing up, my chillies are close to being ready and our pumpkins are growing nicely despite the lack of water. We’re just starting to pick the first of our Louisa plums, the golden peaches are not far off and I suppose it’s about time I started to think about the coming growing season. I’ve got so much on at the moment I think I might just buy seedlings this year though (I usually try to grow most of my own from seed), so I still have a little time up my sleeve.

I hope your summer has been great, or winter if you’re reading from the top of the world.