Beans Glorious Beans & A Hip Girl Giveaway

This year is the year of the bean in our garden.  Our soil composition and amount of sun light limits the amount of tomatoes we can grow so I've planted them in other gardens and am replacing two beds of tomatoes with beans.

Since we're growing so many beans we're also building quite a few trelisises for them.  A few months back I was sent a copy of Kate Payne's The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking
 and have used the adorable instructions for guidance and inspiration while building my bean climbing structures.
I'll be giving away a copy of this fun, well illustrated book at the end of this post.


Here's a photographic list of our beans so far.  Don't worry, I know this is completely insane.

Stunning Poltschka Pole beans from the Populuxe seed bank.

Petaluma Goldrush from the Natural Gardening Company.  A gorgeous bush bean for drying that was originally brought to America from Peru in 1840.  These are the only bean I actually purchased, how could I resist?

Sunset Runner Beans from a trade with Julianna who I met years ago over on www.yougrowgirl.com.  These pole beans are jaw dropingly beautiful, light and dark purple markings on giant beans and the flowers will be salmon coloured setting it apart from the similar Scarlet runner bean.

Some Gold Rush snap beans I found in my seed stash.  Who knows where these came from. They're ancient too so I'm thinking they'll be a fairly low germination rate.

Mr Tung's from Kelly at the Populuxe seed bank.  These pole beans are a heirloom from originally from China with 100 years of history in British Columbia Canada. Almost extinct, some beans were discovered in an old shed on the deserted family farm & germinated after 50 years! If you are interested in growing these please contact Kelly to be a grower for her seed bank.

Monk Peas.  Not actually a bean I know.  An excellent soup pea from Fox Fire Farm and the Sister's of Providence Seed Sanctuary. 

 Rebecca found these Purple Peacocks in Almerida's shack. Described as a beautiful pole bean with dark purple pods, twinning stems, light purple flowers, dark leaves and white beans I'm very excited for them and will be planting them in the backyard bathtub this evening.

Dragon Langerie were a gift from Almerinda, also from Fox Fire Farm and the Sister's of Providence Seed Sanctuary.  These bush snap beans have purple striped pods, are Dutch in origin, have been documented since 1880, and are also known as Dragon Tongue beans.  They can be eaten right away or used for baked beans.

Slenderette Beans are a bush bean that make perfect 5' green long french snap beans in a relatively short season (45-55 days).

Vermont Cranberry.  I think I am most excited for these New England Heirloom beans.  A bush bean that dates back to 1797 know for its reliability and hardiness.

Musica are a from the seedbank and produce 9 inch pods on 9 foot plants or something crazy like that. I am not planting these in my yard but have tucked some into my friend Sarah's garden.  Surprise!

Orka beans.  A mexican heirloom, these are Almerinda's favourite.  Look closely, they look just like little whales.

Black turtle make a dwarf bush plant so I'm trying these in a container.  These pre 1832 beans are well suited to Northern regions.

Mystery bean.  hmmmm, this is why you need to label things right away.

Mayflower beans from Julianna.  A prolific pole bean perfect from soup that was brought to North America on the Mayflower.

Cannellino beans are the quintessential milestone soup bean,  another bush bean from Julianna that is growing in Sarah's yard.

Here's a happy Sunset runner seedling with true leaves.

The Chickpeas from Gayla are really growing now.

I've built numerous trellises, teepees and ladders for all these beans but they're really hard to photograph. Mine are also not as cute as Kate's book would like them to be.  See what I mean?

My rustic-ness vs the books tidiness aside, this is a nice addition to my DIY library.  With great green instructions on basic preserving, gardening and home repairs I will be sharing it with friends and I'd like to start by sharing a copy with one of my readers.

To win your own copy of the book The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking
 just leave a comment telling us what you're most excited to grow this year and a email or twitter address so I can contact you.  Rebecca will choose a winner at random one week from today on Wednesday June 8th and Harper Collins will send you a copy.