OmManiPadmeOmelet wrote:
> In article >,
> Julia Altshuler > wrote:
>
>
>>The old beans can be planted. They make nice house plants, grow in any
>>sort of soil, grow quickly, and produce green beans.


> _Excellent_ suggestion!
> And if you let said green beans mature, you then have fresh beans for
> cooking. :-)


No one has ever accused me of being a great gardener, but here's my
experience for what it is worth.


Some beans are too old even to grow, but they
germinate so quickly that you'll know within a week, and you haven't
lost anything worse than some anticipation. Most grow. The green beans
I get from ordinary black beans and navy beans are edible but a tad more
stringy and fibrous than the ones grown from packets of seeds from the
hardware store. If you grow them in the house, you can keep an eye on
them and pick them when they're young and tender. I never get enough at
a time to make a side dish of them so I eat them raw, toss them in
salads or stir-fry them with other vegetables. As for letting them
mature to get fresh beans, it works in theory, but even when I plant a
whole row outside, I never get more than a handful at once, hardly
enough to eat and call a meal.


Growing beans, for me, is more of fun project because they grow so fast,
and something I like to do in the winter because I like having something
green and growing in the house.


--Lia