Green bean is a generic term for immature bean pods that are harvested before the bean fattens up to become a viable seed, when the pod is still tender enough to eat. They are universally loved, and we would grow acres of them each season if we didn’t have to hand-pick every single one of them!

Last year, we switched the green bean variety that we grow. Several colleagues had highly recommended the Crockett variety because they put out a lot of fruit and they taste delicious.  They sounded a little too good to be true, but we kept hearing about Crocketts so we decided to give them a try and they lived up to the hype! The flavor is incredible. But they do have a down side–they take forevvvvvvvver to grow big enough to yield the weight we are hoping for at harvest time.

Currently, the plants are loaded with beans and we are checking on them daily.  We are hopeful that it will be just one more week until we can start picking handfuls at a time, filling 5 gallon buckets in just a few row feet–thousands of pounds in total.  If we pick too early, it will take too many beans to fill the ½ pound and 1 pound bags we plan on incorporating into several weeks of CSA shares.

Green beans are one of those summer treats that we indulge in generously in-season, and then wait, not-so-patiently, for them to come back around the next year.  Thanks for waiting it out with us for one more week. We promise that the Crocketts are worth it!

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