Red Runner Beans

    This year is the first that we have grown red runner beans. I picked them specifically because they are pretty. I'm not completely sure why they are called red when they are actually purple and black. Maybe because the flowers are red? Either way, they take longer to mature than I thought they would. About a month and a half ago we had a lot of big green pods that looked great and Matt begged me to pull them off and make something out of them. I was very disappointed when I opened the pods only to find very tiny pink beans that looked nothing like the ones I planted.

 

     Although the pink beans are cute I knew they were not ready to eat and all the big green pods I harvested only yielded a pitifully small handful of beans. So after that sad harvest I kind of forgot about them for a little while. Besides, the cucumbers and tomatoes were giving us plenty to eat. But today I took a second look at those beans. Some of the pods had started to turn yellow and dry up. 

      Can you see that the one in my hand is more yellow than the green one still on the vine. And that one is not even completely yellow. The beans that came out of that greenish yellow pod look like this: 

     Closer but not quite there yet. I have to wait until the pods are completely yellow and dry before you get beans like this:

    Now those are some gorgeous beans! The plan is now to let all the beans dry in their pods and to then shell and save them for the winter...or a full dinner. And the moral of this story? Don't let your husband talk you into picking something that you don't think is ripe yet! Or at the very least pick one and look inside before you pick them all and find out they are not mature.