These protein-rich legumes come in all shapes and sizes.  Green, yellow and purple are the most common (sadly, the purple turns to green when cooked…serve raw to maximize it’s striking visual effect!).  Beans plants are either ‘bush’ or ‘pole’ variety.  Pole beans can climb to 12’ tall and need sturdy trellises to support them; bush beans just grow as little bushes, about 2-3’ from the ground. 

If you ever get the chance to harvest beans, you’ll notice how hard it is to tell the beans apart from the stalks!  (Another reason to plant yellow or purple varieties, they are much easier to harvest.)  Fun fact: the leaves of bean plants act like Velcro on fabric, so you can decorate yourself as you go.

Legumes are best known on organic farms for their nitrogen-fixing properties.  While many plants take nitrogen from the soil (some, like broccoli and tomatoes, take a LOT), legumes actually put nitrogen back.  This happens in little nodules on the roots, where a symbiotic relationship between the plant and a bacteria basically sucks nitrogen out of the air and turns it into a solid form in the soil.  When rotating crops to ensure soil health, planting beans the season before and after a planting of heavy-feeding crops, is a great trick.