I have been asked recently “What are some plants that look good in an ornamental-type garden, but also produce something edible?”. Well, to be honest, there’s no reason a useful garden cant be designed for looks from scratch. Any plant can be planted in any design, as long as it suits the style. That’s a lot to do with personal aesthetic preference, anyway, and the main problem is that many plants look somewhat less attractive after harvest. There are, for example, some highly ornamental forms of vegetables like Broccoli, the ‘Romanesco’ variety is particularly striking, with its “chaos-theory” fractal spirals within spirals. But once you chop it off to eat it, the attractiveness drops off pretty drastically.
Romanesco Broccoli looks amazing in the garden. Until you want to eat it, of course.
But I guess it’s my penchant for perennials that wins over every time. Maybe I am just a bit lazy, but planting things over and over again seems like a lot of effort, and I usually look for things that can be planted once, and either keep growing, grow back, or self seed without my interference. One such plant I have grown in my garden is possibly one of the most productive and useful crops known to agricultural science. It has many names, the Lab Lab Bean, Hyacinth Bean or Dolichos Bean, but scientifically it is known as Lablab purpureus. It is a leguminous twining climber, with attractive purple or pink flowers, and large green or purple pods. It can yield up to 10 tons per hectare of fodder or green manure when grown as a field crop, and can be made used for silage, which improves nutrition for animals by fermenting the cut material. It can produce anywhere up to 4 tons per hectare of green beans, which are edible, and copious amounts of dried seed. The dried seeds is edible, too, though if it’s not cooked properly in a couple of changes of water, can be mildly toxic. Then again so are a lot of plant parts we avoid, like green potatoes, so lets not get hung up on that aspect. Humans can eat the foliage, too, though we can pretty much eat anything green and non-toxic, I guess it’s a matter of taste.
Huge yields of beans, this was a single week's harvest from one vine.
The plant itself is drought tolerant, though obviously yields better with adequate water supplies, and after picking every bean I could see on my plant, a week later I harvested 1.1kg of green beans for eating. The flavour is like green bean, the texture may take some getting used, to, though. They are a bit tougher and more rubbery than they appear, and unfortunately do not have the snapping quality of the Snow Peas they look so much like. But I have used them in stir fries, casseroles, curries, pretty much anything that calls for a mixture of vegetables. I usually string them, and chop them up crossways in strips or squares. There is so little work in growing them, they could even be worth planting even if you never use the beans.
I planted this seed late last summer, but most of the growth is from this year. It stretches at least twice as far as you can see from this, in both directions
The vine is attractive, and fast growing, usually grown from seed, and selected varieties have purple colouration in the leaves and stems, adding to the visual appeal, and they do have attractive white, pink or purple pea flowers, arranged in spikes, looking something like a Hyacinth, though without the fragrance. They also improve the soil, adding nitrogen, and cover a fence or support very quickly. While they are supposed to be perennial only in the subtropics or warmer, I have had no problems keeping mine alive over winter. In fact, the seeds I planted were collected from another vine not too far from where I live in the inner suburbs of Melbourne, so I know it is happy here. Whether you grow this vine as an emergency food supply, which may be more important in the future, or just as a quick growing cover for a fence, it’s a useful plant to have, and will, if nothing else, keep potential weeds at bay.
sophiecg said,
March 10, 2011 at 9:41 am
well i never knew. thanks Stu!
Need a climber! said,
March 10, 2011 at 1:21 pm
Perfect – I need a climber that will grow QUICKLY as I’ve got some privacy problems with a nosey neighbour. Was looking for something useful so maybe this is a good choice. Prefer orange or white flowers… though I think I saw white flowering versions on the web (does that sound right?) I don’t want anything that will bend or cause structural problems with my iron fence, though. Does it grow a heavy trunk? And do the beans need to be cooked really well to be edible? When I use snow peas in a stir-fry I hardly cook them at all… will I poison my family if I use these in the same way?!
The Garden Doctor said,
March 10, 2011 at 1:24 pm
Bear in mind, it will do most of it’s growing in the warmer weather, it may not grow much during winter. And yeah, there are definitely white flowered varieties around.
As for cooking, if you eat the green beans pod and all, there’s no issue with toxicity, it’s only when they are dried and ripe, when they turn black, that the toxicity eventuates. So if you’re using it as a fresh vegetable, like you would green beans, there’s nothing at all to worry about.
Scott said,
April 14, 2011 at 7:40 am
Hello, I just found this website and must say, I’m already glad I did. Your very informative. I love how you explain way more than users ask.
Now back to this topic, beans aren’t ripe when green? Does this go for any long bean? I was also unaware beans produced toxins in the later ripening stages.
Thank you, Scott.
The Garden Doctor said,
April 14, 2011 at 9:25 am
Hi Scott,
thanks for the feedback. I try to pre-empt any confusion by giving as much information as possible.
Now, as to your question, I think confusion may be arising from the differences between general use of words and their more scientific meanings.
First of all, when I used the word ripe in this context, I was referring to the actual maturity of the seeds contained in the pods, not their fitness to eat, which is how we use “ripeness” in every day speech. When the seeds of any beans are properly ripe, you wouldn’t eat them fresh as a vegetable, you’d cook them from a dry state. So, yes, they are edible fresh when they are green, but not when they are ripe, if that makes sense.
Secondly, while I call the pod from this plant a bean, it’s a completely different species to the so-called “French bean” we are used to eating as a green bean. The usual beans we are probably used to are Phaseolus vulgaris which includes pole and bush beans, and snake beans, or Runner Beans (P. coccineus). Neither of these produce any toxic compounds when they are ripe, though if you eat too many beans of any kind, your friends and family may dispute that. The Lablab bean is Dolichos lablab, and has quite a different life cycle to the more common beans we in the West may be used to, and the seeds produce some toxic compounds when they ripen. Even then, if they are cooked properly, boiling for at least an hour with a couple of changes of water, they are perfectly edible as I mentioned. If you’re still worried, feed them to your chickens instead! I did a whole post about beans a while ago, if you want more information, it’s here.
It’s not easy being green « The Garden Doctor said,
June 14, 2011 at 1:34 pm
[...] You can see his picture below, and by my guess, he had blown or fallen down from the gigantic LabLab BeanI have growing over the laundry. Everyone meet the imaginatively named Green Vegetable Bug. GVB, [...]