One of our experimental crops last year was black turtle beans. In a normal year we consume vast quantities of store-bought black beans to make burritos, so we decided to give growing them a try.
They grew wonderfully, and other than Japanese Beatles eating the upper foliage, we had no major issues. It all started with the harvesting - the day before Max was born, and needless to say the shelling process has been quite extended. With Max's birth (and his initial intolerance to mom's milk when she has eaten beans, which has thankfully gone away now) the shelling has been low priority. First the beans dried on screens in the living room. Then the screens moved to the downstairs bathroom, where they proceed to explosively toss dried beans all over the bathroom periodically. (Did you know that black bean pods open automatically and broadcast their seeds on their own? Its pretty cool actually, they twist as they dry and it breaks them open.) Then they were all dumped in the bathtub and covered with the screens. Now we've got them down to a small enough number that we've just have them stuffed in a cooler in the bathroom and I pick at them as time allows.
We also planted two Banana Pepper plants last year (purchased from Snells) and had a bumper crop from them! We canned the excess to see if we could reduce the amount that we have to purchase during the winter. Unfortunately they are decidedly not as good as store-bought, they are fairly mushy and mostly taste like vinegar. Looks like we'll have to experiment with them further.
Last year was also the second year that we made and canned our own salsa. It isn't like what you buy in the store, but we've come to love it! It has our own tomatoes, bell peppers, jalapenos, chilli peppers, cilantro, and garlic in it! The onions come from Snells and only the vinegar and lime juice come from away. We eat tons of salsa in a year normally and it feels really gratifying to be able to be able to provide an entire year's supply from the garden!
Black bean burrito filling
Homemade burritos, yay!
Homegrown and canned Banana Peppers
Beans still waiting to be shelled... in April.
Labels: cooking, gardening
