Gutsy Nomad: Growing Asian long beans

This was my first attempt to grow those pretty long beans. On the package it said that they would grow from seed to crop within 50 days. Well, it took double than that in my case until I harvested my first bean. I did not mind the delay and enjoyed the simple fact that the plant produced something that I love eating.

The flowers were really beautiful, but lasted only two days or so. The first ones I didn't even notice. Strange enough, my three plants did not grow many leafs but still were able to produce a number of beans.

Furthermore, they were pestered by a crowd of spider mites that I battled with a mix of water with a splash of natural dish soap and a little bit of olive oil. As far as I can see today, two treatments took care of the mites but nevertheless most of the leafs were beyond repair.

I probably will put in another few seeds in order to keep growing these beans until autumn. At this point I think I will leave the current bean plants in the pot since they started growing some new fresh leafs and add some more sprouts to fill in the free space.

The few fully grown beans that I used in stir-fry dishes were very tasty.
Since they are quite thin, they cook fast and I also did not notice any "strings".

Overall, I think I will grow them again.

23 April 2012