Beans 101 (Return of Bean Friday!)

...tart from scratch. Now on to the how-to. How to Make Yourself a Big Pot of Beans Beans after an overnight soak It’s easy to make a pot of beans, and while it takes time to make beans, it doesn’t take effort, or even brains. Prep time probably totals around 5 minutes, and add to that whatever time it takes to keep half an eye on the pot. What it does require is a small amount of pre-planning. You need to remember to soak beans. That’s the tricky pa...

Read…

Tolosna Bean

The beautiful beans pictured above are some sort of Spanish bean called “Tolosna”. Our occasional houseguest, Nance Klehm, gave us these beans from her personal seed archive, along with a few other remarkable seeds we’ll profile as we plant them over the next few months. We’ve promised to save some of the seeds we harvest to return to her archive. Unfortunately we’ve been unable to find any information on this variety of bean other than a brief m...

Read…

Looking for the Union Label

...d a highly catchy ad jingle from the roller disco era, “Look for the Union Label” (youngsters can watch it on youtube here). We looked for the union label and we were surprised to find it via a company called Union House which carries a functional, if unexciting line of apparel. Unless hipsters take to golf shirts in an ironic fashion judo move, these offerings will never be cool like the domestically made clothes made by the union busting folks o...

Read…

Borlotto Bean Lingua di Fuoco

...en you cook them. The plant comes in both pole and bush versions. Borlotto beans are basically the Italian version of kidney beans, hailing originally from the New World. Italian folks traditionally use them in soups. We’re considering growing an edible wall of beans along the south side of our house this spring in order to see if we can grow enough to collect dried beans and make some soup. For cultivation and harvesting details for dry beans cli...

Read…

095 Bean Holes and Deep Fried Turkeys with Eric Rochow of Garden Fork

...rlic with Eric Rochow of Garden Fork. Eric’s got some great how-to videos: Bean Hole Baked Beans 10 Tips on How to Fry Turkey Cooking Steak on Charcoal How to Plant Garlic Source for garlic: Filaree Farm Build it Better Yourself (Rodale) Make sure to subscribe to the Garden Fork Youtube channel! If you’d like to leave a question for the Root Simple Podcast please call (213) 537-2591 or send an email to [email protected]. You can subscribe to ou...

Read…