I really like the color purple, and it’s evident in my choice of crops this season: purple-stemmed Japanese radish, purple-tinged radicchio, Purple of Romagna artichoke, Cosmic Purple carrot, purple-leaf mustard, and these Royal Burgundy bush beans (Phaseolus vulgaris).
They truly are the ideal plants: lovely to look at, easy to grow (with every single seed germinating within days). I just dug a little compost into the soil before sowing, and off they went.
The purple pods are easy to pick amidst all the deep green leaves (a fact that I appreciate moreso after spending the summer searching for green pole beans on green vines like it was an Easter egg hunt). The purple beans also turn bright green during cooking!
But I’ve found that the color is just too beautiful to cook away, so I add them raw to salads for a splash of color, or drop them into a stir-fry at the last minute to retain their pretty hue. They’re sweet, snappy, and pure eye candy for the kitchen.