Growing and eating butter beans

January and February are exciting times in the garden! Each day when we are home I like to steam some fresh veggies for lunch. Today we had butter beans, baby carrots thinned from a row, purple king beans, scarlet runner beans, and a patty pan squash.

We have a lot of bush beans in the inner section of our garden. We grew butter beans because we remembered how much we enjoyed them last year. Butter beans gain their name from their colour, and perhaps also their creamy texture. You eat them like a stringless green bean.

This year, however, ours do not look like the beans in the picture! They have curled a lot, and have not formed many beans in the pod. Many young bean pods have shriveled and died, even though we have been picking the mature beans in order to promote the growth of the younger. Do any of you know about the causes or treatment for this problem?

As well as steaming the beans to go with our meals, we have enjoyed them in risotto. Last week Dave made a garden risotto with green beans, butter beans, peas, a carrot, and the usual base risotto ingredients (oil, onion, garlic, short grained rice, wine and stock). We loved it! It was unexpectedly tasty.