How Does Our Garden Grow, Part IV: First Harvest

Finally! The Dragon's Tongue heirloom snap beans have been growing like crazy, and many of them are finally big enough to pick. The kids searched through the rows for specimens that looked like they were just about right to harvest. My daughter referred to them as "green beans", but as you can see by the accompanying photo, they aren't really all that green—they're a pale yellow-green with deep purple streaks.

Not only do Dragon's Tongue beans look neat and have a cool name (they sound like something they'd serve up in the dining hall at Hogwarts), but they're absolutely delicious as well. Needless to say, these went into the steamer moments after they were picked from our garden. No real recipe here—I just steamed them until they were crisp-tender and then tossed them with a little butter, sea salt, and fresh ground pepper. We grew some more traditional green bush beans, another heirloom variety called Bountiful, and while they're good too, we all agreed that Dragon's Tongue were by far the tastier of the two. The Dragon's Tongue bushes still have plenty of little beans and beautiful little purple-and-white flowers on them, so it looks like we'll be enjoying them for some time yet.

We got the Dragon's Tongue seeds at Petaluma Seed Bank, an outpost of Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (www.rareseeds.com). We'll definitely be getting more there to plant in next year's garden. As for the other plants, they've been moving a little slowly due to the cold weather, but we should be dining on some nice Costata Romanesca zucchini pretty soon, and the tomato plants are all full of small green tomatoes.