Austin can be a tough place to grow vegetables. But little by little I have been picking up on techniques that led to this past year being my most productive vegetable garden in Texas yet.
Of course, the first thing that I had to learn about is Austin’s split garden season, with most crops grown either in the fall or the early spring. This is pretty much the only way to grow crops like brassicas and sugar snap peas. And honestly, it’s pretty awesome to still be harvesting the fall garden in January as I am planting the early crops of the spring garden.
But does that really mean that I have to take the hot summers off from gardening and just assume that everything planted will wilt under the intense central Texas sun and 100 degree days? No, in fact there are a variety of crops that can prosper even in the heat.
Chinese Red Noodle Beans (Vigna Unguiculata) are one of these crops. It’s July 9 and I have enjoyed multiple harvests of these tasty treats. Admittedly we haven’t hit the 100 degree days yet this year (only upper 90s) but often more typically grown green beans have already finished producing by this time of year.
Chinese Red Noodle Beans
I got my Noodle Bean seeds, also known as Yard Long Beans from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds . My sister, Anneliese, got me a funky piece of copper wire garden art a few years back. I really didn’t know what to do with it. I found a small patch of an already planted bed that had opened up after I yanked out some broccoli raab that just wasn’t tolerating Austin’s late spring heat. In went the art and the beans.
I find that the beans do not need to be cooked long at all. Even when they are starting to bulge from the formation of the bean seed within the pod I still find them not only edible, but tasty. I typically eat them for breakfast sautéed with some eggs, but they also work well stir fried with garlic.
