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The butter bean of grocer's shops is the
lima bean of the U.S.A. which is not hardy in Britain. There are a
number of crosses with the runner bean that are fast enough to ripen
and dry in Britain, and the best is 'The Czar', which can be grown up a
house on strings like a runner bean and is especially recommended for
screw-eyes screwed in behind the eaves of a bungalow. Sow them in May
as a rest for part of the tomato border, and leave them to hang and die
off, cutting the strings about October.
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Compost the haulm, string and all, and
shell the pods as if they were haricots to store in the same way.
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They are smaller than bought butter beans
but very much nicer and need less soaking before cooking, for our
climate does not get them dead dry. Though they can be grown on bamboos
like runner beans, they are best as an easy screen for a garage or
shed, with white flowers in profusion and a mass of pods that can be
picked to eat as runners if required early in the season. When either
butter or runner beans are sown in a narrow bed against a house or
fence, they are going to need watering. Water them always at the root,
or with sun-warmed water, for (as we have seen) the shock of hosing
them straight from the mains with cold will make them drop their
blossom. Remember that all beans need potash and appreciate any comfrey
that can be spared, as well as wood ashes.
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Butter beans are a good source of
thiamine, 525 micrograms per 100grams, roughly the same as lentils with
300, hut higher in riboflavin with 700 against 315-400 micrograms for
lentils. Vegetarians and vegans rely largely on nut and bean protein,
and with 18 per cent, butter beans, which can be grown easily in any
garden, are a useful standby and an easy crop, since no picking is
involved till the final cut down. It is possible to run two years beans
and one year tomatoes in a narrow house-side border, but permanent bean
beds with metal posts in concrete can run into trouble.
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Though there have been many attempts to
breed a soya bean that is hardy in Britain, none are much better than
curiosities, with two seeds in a pod, a poor yield and no flavor to
speak of. However wonderful something may be in terms of nutrition, it
means a waste of space if no one likes it.
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