Garden Wisdom Blog — beans

The bean is an annual plant of the family Fabaceae. This is a huge plant family, with over 19,000 species, so there are many interesting facts about beans. Only orchids and asters outnumber the members of this botanical group. Among the bean plant’s many close relatives are peas, runner beans, broad beans, soya beans, peanuts, alfalfa, clover, lupins, and sweet peas. All these plants are grouped botanically based on the common structure of their flowers and other characteristics. All of them can be considered “Legumes,” although most of them are inedible and many are even poisonous. The particular species we...