Lima beans have a good texture and a delicious flavor. Of all the different vegetables grown in the garden, lima beans are almost the last to mature. At first, you might think this is a drawback, but it is not. They grow after the peas have finished, and while they cannot take their place, they, nevertheless, have a place of their own.
It is delightful to have something as good as limas appear on the table at the end of summer and know that they can be picked up to the first frost. They are not resistant to cold, and the first frost means a lot of limas. At Candlewood, at least lima beans are free of diseases and pests and are easy to grow.
We have tried Fordhook Bush 242 and the Ideal Pole variety with excellent results. The Fordhook 242 is a bush lima with small, pale-green beans of top quality, which are very attractive when served at the table. Ideal is a pole lima of the same quality maturing seven days later than Ford-hook 242 with very high yields.
The beaus are large, perhaps slightly more extensive than you would like, but their flavor and texture are so good that a tiny fault is easily overlooked. Generally, frozen vegetables are not as good as they are in their new state, but these varieties are the nearest to the latest state of all the types of frozen vegetables that we have tried.
In late Winter and Spring, frozen limas are delicious. It would be hard to find a better vegetable; we grow two rows just for freezing. Lima beans should be picked while still young; old ones are not worth eating.
Simple Pest Control
Difficulties are but few. DDT destroys cutworms, and Endo-Pest controls Mexican bean beetles. Rabbits are very fond of young limas and can eat the tops off a whole row of young plants in one night. Chicken wire, 30″ inches high around the entire garden, is the only cure I know.
The seed is treated with a fungicide. Put a half-pound seed and a one-sixth teaspoon of a Mancozeb fungicide in a glass bottle; shake thoroughly until the grains are coated. We have lost satisfactory germination by following this procedure, and hardly a seed fails to grow.
Plant the Seed
For the Fordhook 242 variety, a trench is made four inches wide and two inches deep, V shape. The seed is sown 8″ inches apart, covered with soil, and firmed down.
When we plant snap beans, we wet the trench with water, but we have learned that the lima seeds did miter without water. Suppose the seeds are planted closer, there is apt to be so much leaf growth that the sun can’t get in, and consequently, tire beans are delayed in maturing, and the yield is inferior.
Seeds of the Ideal variety are planted in hills, about eight seeds to a hill mid-thinned to the four best with the mountains 30″ inches apart in the row. We space the rows for the bush and climb for ns three feet apart. Three pipes one inch in diameter and eight feet long are set between two rows at each end and in the middle.
The pipes are set two feet deep not to fall over easily. A wire is then strung along the tops of the three tubes. Bamboo poles are stuck in the ground at each hill and then tied to the wire at the top of the pole. This makes a solid three-point suspension that will withstand gales even with the vines in the whole leaf.
As the vines grow, they should be tied to the stakes until they are at least three feet high. If not secured, they will run over the ground into adjoining rows and make a frightful mess.
When the plants start to leaf out, we dust with Diatomaceous Earth to kill the Mexican bean beetles. The plants are relatively rigid, so they suffer minor damage from the beetles.
After spraying, the ground is mulched four incites deep with salt marsh straw when the plants are about 6″ inches high. If this is not available, salt marsh’ hay or peat moss can be used.
Lima beans are particularly adapted for quick freezing. The process developed by Clarence Birdseye has resulted in one of the best-frozen products on the market.
They are so good and keep so well that you will have to be very skillful to equal them. The great difficulty in freezing limas is straightforward: they are hard to shell.
An Ideal Cooking Method
In cooking limas, we use the Mystery Chef Method, which is as follows: Wash the lima beans. Boil rapidly with enough water to cover the beans in a four-quart enamel pot. Add one teaspoon of baking soda, then the lima beans.
Cook for one minute uncovered; it is essential to leave them exposed. If water foams, skim off the foam and reduce heat. Strain off the water and return the beans to the pot. Bring water to the boiling point in another four-quart pot, metal or enamel.
Add three tablespoons of salt. While boiling, saltwater, and add the beans. For young beans, cook for eight minutes uncovered. After cooking, strain the beans, return to the pot and add butter and salt. The hotter they are served, the better.
44659 by Albert C. Burrage