22 Sep 2023
This term, students at Chisholm found a clever way to combine their Book Week celebrations with their garden project!
Using the theme of Read, Grow, Inspire, some special bean seeds were created by the team at Live Love Bean
Each seed was printed with one of the words and a picture to match. Students planted them in the weeks leading up to Book Week, and as you can see, were very pleased with the result!
These beans are called Jack Beans, which are a climbing bean that will produce pink/purple flowers. The bean pods that are produced can be up to 36cm long. They contain 1-2cm long beans which are the same as the beans we planted. You may be lucky to harvest as many as 12 beans per pod.
The young, immature pods and seeds can cooked and consumed as a vegetable, whilst the whole plant is also used for animal food. Those who love this bean claim you can just boil them or fry in a little butter just like you would any other bean. Don’t eat the pods though as they can be quite stringy.
Once fully ripe, the beans are too hard and too old and are not fit to be consumed. Like the pinto bean, this is one bean that must not be consumed raw. It must be cooked.
In many Asian countries, the young flowers and leaves are steamed and used as flavourings in many foods. You’ll also find that the beans are used in Chinese Medicine.
We look forward to hearing more from our gardeners about their plants after the holidays. Catholic Schools Parramatta Diocese