Back at the end of June I was pretty darned excited about the prospect of growing some hard beans in my back yard. I was excited about this for two reasons: first, new gardening experiment = fun; and second, the idea of being able to actually grow a source of protein within the confines of the land the city lets me claim as my own was just too exciting. Particularly as a vegetarian, the idea of growing a near complete meal (really I’d need a complex grain to accompany those pintos) just outside my kitchen window seemed like good fun. I’ve also been increasingly suspicious about how few varieties of beans I can actually lay my hands on at the grocery stores here in Vancouver. Over the years, as a diligent vegetarian and somewhat of a foodie, I’ve picked up my fair share of cookbooks on the topics of beans and I find that with many of the older ones (like pre 80s) or British editions there are very casual references to a whole host of beans that I just don’t see in the standard dried good isles of even bulk and specialty shops here. So, I figured, if I could successfully get these pintos going, then perhaps I could start searching out some heritage beans and growing and storing some crops of hard beans for our culinary pleasure.

pintosHow are the pintos doing? Pretty well I’d say. They’ve started to take over the hose and climb up it, which is fine by me. I planted nine beans which yeilded me nine plants, and they’re full of wee pods now. Really I should have planted these much earlier, but didn’t get them from my friend until the very edge of the season for planting. If the weather holds they should have enough time to mature for storing, if not, we may be eating some fresh pintos. But either way I’d say I feel pretty confident that I’ve got what it takes for some hard bean production for next year. So I may need to put in a few extra beds to grow enough for harvesting, but I definitely plan to do some research into getting some more unusual beans for growing/storing.