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Little River Cooperative

Winged Bean, Day Neutral

$10.00 USD
$10.00 USD
Sale Sold out

days to maturity: 75 days
plant spacing: 2 plants per square foot
sunlight requirements: 6-14 hours
look out for: mites and aphids in growing tips
harvest notes: harvest tubers 120-200 days after planting
perennial

While its hard to pick a "favorite legume" we for sure know that ours is the frilly and delicious Winged Bean. While this 4 sided ruffled bean may look too crazy to be food, its known commonly as "asparagus bean" because its flavor is so similar to the revered asparagus shoot. This tropical perennial does more than just make crazy lookin' beans.... every part of this fast growing legume is edible. Its tuberous root is eaten as a starch cooked or raw, its leaves are eaten like spinach, the periwinkle flowers are sweet and edible, and the bean is edible raw or cooked as a green pod, or cooked as a shelled bean. 

Native to New Guinea this bean is quite popular in Southeast Asia and all parts of the plant are rich in protein, the root tubers being some of the most protein rich starches grown for food (20% by volume). Despite its comfort in the tropics winged bean has become quite popular with American veggie gardeners and is being grown in all zones including the northern ones like Washington, Colorado and New Jersey. The key to growing winged bean as an annual during the summer is choosing the "day neutral" variety. "Day neutral" winged beans will produce flowers and beans despite the long days of summer, while the non-day neutral types will produce only vegetative growth during the summer and wait for the shorter days of fall and winter to make flowers and fruit. 

Our Day Neutral winged beans planted at our farm are 2 months old and already making fruit. Allow the plant to get quite large on a trellis and it will produce hundreds of bean pods for you! Expect this bean plant to get quite large as it matures, so either give it a track of fence to grow on, or a substantial trellis. Allow a few pods to dry on the plant and they can be cracked open for next years seed stock.

 



Materials

All of our plants are produced using OMRI certified organic materials (potting mix, fertilizer & pesticides) however our nursery is not certified organic. Plants are shipped in compostable peat moss pots and we use heirloom & organic seeds whenever possible.

Shipping & Returns

We ship plant orders every Monday. Due to the nature of shipping plants we only offer expedited shipping for our live plant orders. Our returns & exchanges policy is also quite strict since its hard to control the quality of a plant once it leaves our facility, however we do our very best to make sure that each and every customer is satisfied with their plants. Read more about our policies here. 

Size

All of our plants are potted in 4" pots and their foliage size varies based on how large the plant is naturally when its root ball is the correct size for the pot. If a plant is too tall for our shipping box we may prune it to fit (bonus: many plants do better after being pruned since they make bushier growth). We do our very best to ship all of our plants in the "sweet spot" of maturity however so long as the roots have colonized the pot we will consider a plant mature enough to ship.

Care Instructions

When you receive your plant its critical to get it out of its box and into the light the day it arrives. It will also want to be removed from its compostable plastic wrapping and given fresh water to drink. Keep in mind, this plant was grown in the tropical humid climate of South Florida, so if it's terribly cold or dry where you are it'll need to be hardened off before planting outdoors. Visit our care instructions page for more thorough info about caring for your new plant friend.

  • What Our Customers Have to Say:

    This is a great, local organization with really knowledgeable & friendly staff. They make gardening easy and accessible, and I've purchased many high quality plants and equipment from them.
    -Kate Black (5 star google review)

  • And Another One:

    How lucky we are to have a resource like Little River Cooperative here in Miami, not only for the access they offer to a great selection of plants and produce, but also for the knowledge they provide and the sense of community they foster!
    -Nick Vagnoni (5 star google review)