This vegetable plant occupies a very special place in the beds. It converts the horizontal plane of the garden into a vertical one, saves space and makes the garden even more decorative.
Despite the fact that the history of this culture has more than one thousand years, we met with asparagus beans relatively recently. I’m sure many people remember when it appeared on the shelves of stores in frozen form. Later, they began to sell seeds of climbing and Bush asparagus beans, and then you had to look for special varieties, and there were few of them (‘Saxa’, ‘Golden Saxa’) — without a parchment layer and fiber, which greatly slowed down the cleaning and cooking of dishes from it.
Today, the eyes run away from the abundance and variety of varieties. And almost everything-without this coarse fiber. But the main thing, of course, is not what the new varieties do not have, but what they are remarkable for.
Advantages-a lot of: delicate taste, precocity (for gardeners of the middle zone, this is especially important, because you can only plant beans here at the end of may), productivity, long fruiting and, of course, beauty. The beans are beautiful all: large carved dark green leaves (some with anthocyanin-colored cuttings and veins), and garlands of flowers — white, pink, red, lilac (and flowering is long, parallel with fruiting), and clusters of pods — rounded or flat, straight or curved, green, yellow, purple, variegated colors.
Bean pyramids on the beds (if planted with colored varieties) look very nice, and “dilute” them with a few lianas of sweet peas, Ipomoea or hyacinth beans (dolichos), you will get a smart and original corner.
Well-suited curly beans and for trellis planting, where it can serve as a screen and decoration.
Important: all varieties of asparagus beans are good not only in the stage of technical ripeness, until the blades are roughened, and the seeds are in the stage of milk-wax ripeness, but also in the biological stage, when the beans ripen, which also come in different colors and variegated colors
So what to choose?
If you are not chasing after external effects and first of all want to get a good harvest-pay attention to the variety ‘Green Giant’. This is a Liana (height up to 3 m), hung with long (up to 22 cm) and wide (2-3 cm) light green beans, which are distinguished by an impressive appearance and delicate taste. This fast-growing (technical ripeness in 55 days after emergence) and powerful plant needs a strong and stable support, which will not be felled by its own weight or strong gusts of wind.
The medium-early asparagus variety ‘Helda’ (from shoots to technical ripeness of beans 65-70 days) also deserves attention. Large curly beans (height up to 2-2.5 m) give juicy,fleshy and long (20-25 cm) light green beans. The variety is not only very productive, but also not capricious — it adapts well to growing conditions.
It is characterized by abundant fruiting and excellent taste and medium-ripened variety ‘Snow Queen’, the same qualities have the early variety ‘Blue lake’, only the beans are slightly longer (14-16 cm) and have a dark green color. The lianas of these plants grow no higher than 1.5 m, so the support for them can be made easier.
If you want to arrange a “fountain” of plants of cheerful bright colors in the garden, pay attention to the varieties of beans with yellow bean coloring. This ‘Golden necklace’ is a high-yielding, disease-resistant and delicious variety. Beautiful and productive ‘lace’ and ‘Marina’, but they Mature much later (from germination to technical ripeness takes about three months). Therefore, among the yellow beans, the championship in terms of timing is held not by a new, but very successful precocious (50 days from germination to fruiting) variety ‘Gerda’. The length of the shoots is 3 m, but the lower beans appear at a height of 45-50 cm. And they are very cute: straight, long (20-30 cm), rounded, 2-3 cm in diameter.
And that it was not boring — invite to the company ‘Matilda’, ‘Violetta’ or ‘Bluchilda’. Together they look great: the rich purple color of their beans is perfectly combined with yellow.
‘Bluechild’ — early-maturing hardy variety producing excellent yields in any region. The height of tall lianas reaches 3 m, juicy, flat-rounded beans grow up to 20-25 cm in length and 10-15 mm in width.
Important: purple beans retain their beautiful color only on shoots and in raw form, and when cooked they turn green, but yellow beans do not change color even after heat treatment.
The variegated color of ‘Lambada’ (green with purple spots), ‘Turchanka’ and ‘Fatima’ (light green, with faint red strokes) is not preserved during cooking, but the taste of these varieties of asparagus beans will not disappoint.
Decorate the garden and powerful lianas unpretentious variety ‘Jimenez’. The beans are very noticeable — large (22-25 cm long,2-2. 5 cm wide), flattened, green with dark red flecks and strokes. At the same time, they are juicy, soft and very tasty.