Black Beans

Earlier this summer, I sowed black beans as cover crop after the spring/summer harvest to control weeds and add nutrients to the soil.  As a bonus, the beans are maturing and ready for picking.  Black beans are one of my favorite legumes. I think they are the most versatile of the beans and quite a powerhouse.

Black beans are the most nutritious of the legumes.  They are a good source of protein as well as calcium, iron, folic acid, and potassium.  The beans are high in fiber content, too, and antioxidant.  If there was nothing else to eat, I would do very well with black beans  fresh from the garden.

The black beans are growing vigorously.  They are covering the surface of the garden plot, keeping the weeds at bay, withstanding the heat, and not needing much water.  The beans are beginning to mature, putting out long green pods.  They are ready to harvest when the pod seems to be dry, turning brownish.  Forget about picking green pods:  they are almost impossible to shell and the beans are not black.

Black beans are popular in Mexican and Cuban dishes.  They are popular in my kitchen, too.  I can mix them with corn kernels; I can add them in salads; and mash them up and use as fried beans.  Fried beans, huh?  I can also spice them up with onions, garlic, and cilantro.  I can add dried oregano and ground cumin to a pot of black beans.  How about a bit of sugar and white vinegar?  The black beans are indeed versatile legumes.

Dried black beans from any grocery store are rather inexpensive.  I usually soak them overnight but the cooking time is still two hours.  Some say that half an hour will suffice.  Hmm?  It's best to check from time to time.  To thicken the bean liquid, mash some beans and keep simmering.  Black beans along with some of the thickened liquid served over white rice and topped with chives makes a most nutritious meal by itself.

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Cover Crop or Green Manure

I have it on good authority that a cover crop or green manure is a plant that is grown in the garden and then turned over into the soil.  It is often a legume from the bean family such as garden peas, snap beans, and butter beans.  These plants are known as "nitrogen-fixing" plants.  To me, in a most simple term, it means that these plants restore nitrogen to the soil.  I am not sure that I would be patient enough to hear a biologist's explanation for this term, nor fully understand it.  There is, however, plenty of information on this subject on the Internet.

The UF IFAS Extension scientists, the ones with "Solution for Your Life," begin their explanation of nitrogen-fixing plants by stating that "Much of the topsoil in Florida is very sandy and has very little organic matter."  Tell me something that I don't already know.  This soil condition is one important reason for adding green manure to the garden.

This is the time of the year when vegetable production is coming to a close for summer here on the Back Forty in Northern Florida.  It is getting too hot for the vegetables to grow and too hot for me to plant them and harvest them.

I have just turned over all of the greenery after harvesting the last of the snap beans.  The remnants of the bean plants will decompose in the soil adding organic matter, biomass, and providing nitrogen-fixing elements.

For the last few years, we have planted various kinds of field peas in the garden plots.  This year, we are planting black crowder beans.  In addition to providing the nitrogen-fixing properties and providing us with wholesome food, the black bean plants will control topsoil erosion, reduce weed, pests, and disease.

This is the first time we have planted black beans and it will be interesting to see the result.  I spaded the dirt, smoothed it out with a garden rake, and made a furrow a few inches deep and sowed the seeds about 2 - 3 inches apart.  It will take 63 days for the beans to mature according to information above the bean bin at the seed store.

Letting the cover crop do its work should give us plenty of time to enjoy the summer before we start gardening in the fall again.

Source:  University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences