Sunday, February 16, 2014

Green Bean Uses

As I stated in the introduction on page/tab plants, I am writing first about the plants I already have seed for.  Being grateful for what I have.  First on my list is Green Beans.  I hope to provide you with many uses of this plant so that you can better plan how much of it you want to plant.  Every one has done a post on how to grow plants so I really just want to talk about the uses of the plant it it's self.   You can look on just about any seed provider's website for planting instructions but many of them don't provide any clue as to how MUCH to plant. I hope that by knowing all the uses that are relevant to you, you can better know how much to obtain and plant and then by looking at the planting directions you will know how much space you need.

Uses:
For the land:
Tilling in the unused part of the plant will add some nitrogen back into your soil.  This reduces the need and dependency on fertilizers.  I am pro natural fertilization.  Which if you make the most use of the nutrients already in your garden by tilling them under allowing them to reabsorb naturally, it saves you much more money than if you were to purchase expensive natural or organic fertilizers.  Even most manure's take the cost of time and treatment (bunny poo being the exception).  I want you to feel empowered and know that you have abundance.
If you have an old chain link fence that is looking kind of poor you can always give it a fresher look in the summer by planting pole style green beans along it.  They flower prior to making the beans so I would imagine it would be a very pretty decoration for an old fence.  Not to mention the fence would give the pole beans the support they need.  You could weave them in and out of it as you wish, or you can just let them naturally climb as they wish.

For Kids:
To get your kids involved in the garden you can always relate the green beans to the Jack and the Bean Stalk story.  This will get your kids and possibly even you imagining and feeling like the garden is a magical story book kind of place.  This should definitely help when you are struggling with it because it feels like a chore.  Get the kids out there to help you pick "magical" beans.  LOL

For pets:
Many varieties of green or string beans can be given to dogs.  You can use the whole pod or cut it up into small pieces.  Giving green beans to dogs may help lower their blood cholesterol and glucose levels, resulting in better over all heart health.   This is because green beans are high in fiber, folic acid, vitamin B6 giving them an antioxidant effect. Messonnier recommends that if your dog is fed processed natural dog food that organics only make up 20-25% of it's diet.  If you give your dog a natural home made diet organics make up 40-50% of it's diets.  You can try it with other animals but the author only recommended dogs and says cats are a bit more finicky about vegies.
Bunnies love green beans!

For the body:

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Eating:
The recommended serving size is 1 cup and only has 44 calories (for those of you who may be on a diet).  They are packed full of vitamins.:

Remedy:
Antioxidant (Vitamin C)
Anti-inflammatory
Cancer reducing (Lutein, zeaxanthin, Neoxanthin, Violaxanthin)

Because the content of vitamins and minerals such as vitamin C can lessen from preparation, storage, and cooking it is best to eat green beans fresh picked and raw.  If you must cook them the method that causes the least nutrition loss is steaming.

To read more on the health benefits of these vitamins and others I recommend the following resources in which I used for this article:

Spirituality:
I know many of you are wondering what possible link there is between spirit and the green bean but hey "as above so below" right.  There are galaxies named after the green bean because of their unusual color and appearance.  This has to account for something.  I don't think much research has been done on the topic of green beans connection to the spiritual or supernatural but I thought the galaxy thing was worth noting in this section.

So how much should I plan to plant?  Well the recommended serving size is 1cup.  There are 3 of us.  This won't be the only veggie in my garden though.  So I am going to go with 1 meal per week where green beans would be served so that would be 3cups or 1.5 pints (for canning/freezing purposes) per week times 52 weeks equals 78pints of green beans.  So 78 pints of green beans is the absolute minimum I need for my family.  I have bunnies too though and if I can reduce or eliminate their pellet consumption that would be great.  So I am going to double the amount allowing room for any number of issues plus feeding the bunnies now 156.  I read a forum on idigmygarden.com that said you can expect about 1/2 lb of beans per plant if you keep picking them, they also said it takes approximately 1lb of beans per pint jar.  So 2 plants per pint so for a 1 year supply equals 312 plants I need to plan to plant.  Yea…I definitely do not have enough seed.  See I now know in February instead of May that I need to buy more seed….LOL 

Other resources:

Stay tuned I am working on a couple of paintings of green beans.
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