Gabby's mysterious bean plant...

you might remember this interesting bean plant that we grew in our garden this year...

Gabrielle brought it home at the end of the school year, last year (1st grade)...it wasn't labeled - she was just told it was a "bean stalk" ;0)

we planted it in our garden, & were very surprised when the beautiful pink/purple vines & flowers appeared! when the flowers fell off, they'd be replaced by these dark purple bean pods...

some of the beans inside the pods would get fat (they were also dark purple), but most pods stayed empty...still not sure what it was, or if it was even edible - i showed the beans to my mom...she wasn't sure either, which surprised me...we didn't exactly have enough to eat anyway, so i just kind of forgot about em...we enjoyed that they helped make our garden pretty, & that seemed like enough

then one day, Ma calls me at work...she'd just spotted the exact same kind of plant - only it was growing up the base of a bird feeder...as some sort of decorative vine

so, i did what i always do when i have questions about something...i turned to Google! ;0) i searched for "decorative bean plant" & got tons of image hits...leading me to the Hyacinth Bean!

not only can you eat these beans, but the leaves too! (not dry seeds tho...u gotta boil em first, or they're actually poisonous) of course, most folks don't grown them for the beans - but as decorative vines...especially along fence & trellises - because they're just so pretty, & grow FAST!

(photo courtesy of The Kudzu Files)

i can actually attest to that - by the time we finally pulled up our garden & cleared everything out, we had these bean vines growing up some of our stalks of corn, winding in & out of the squash, climbing in every direction in the garden - all from one tiny little plant!

so now, our plan is to harvest all the little beans, & plant them along our fence next year...i hope it's nice & full & pretty by the end of next summer! :0)

anyone else have these where u live? or better yet...grown them urself?