Beans are easy to grow, easy to cook, delicious, nourishing and beneficial for us and the planet.
Growing your own beans not only helps you build healthy soil in your garden, it also provides you with a nutrient-rich diet. Beans can play a role in reducing the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer – they are good sources of protein, fibre, folate, iron and potassium – and they can reduce your carbon footprint and food miles as well!
This fascinating book brings together Susan Young’s 10 years of experimentation with multiple varieties of beans. She clearly explains how to sow, grow, harvest, dry, store and cook them, and shares her six ‘must grow’ varieties.
Go on a tasty culinary journey around the world and discover a range of colourful and historic beans, from the pink ‘Fagiolo di Lamon’ of Italy to the black and white ‘Bosnian Pole’ bean. Learn which varieties are best for eating fresh from the pod and those that are best for drying and storing for later use.
Beans offer year-round nutritious meals, and dried beans can be the star of the show with their fabulous diversity of flavours, colours and textures.
Retirement from a career of teaching in schools and universities allowed Susan Young to devote more time to gardening, and growing vegetables. She has lived for the last 20 years on two acres in the Wye Valley, on the English-Welsh border, part of which she gardens and the rest maintains as a wildflower meadow. But it was the pandemic and lockdown, a time to reassess and reconnect, that prompted her to write a book based on a passion for searching out and growing beans.
Originally trained as a pianist she has spent many years as a music educator and university lecturer, with degrees in music, education and biological anthropology. She has written many books and articles about music education. From writing about education to writing about growing beans may seem to be a wide leap, but there is a connecting thread, one of hoping to motivate change for the better – whether it’s for improved education, care for the environment or healthy lifestyles.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SueYoung351
