View Single Post
Old February 7, 2017   #6
Zeedman
Tomatovillian™
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Wisconsin
Posts: 313
Default

In years past, I've grown several climbing cultivars of hyacinth bean, with purple pods, and green pods (the purple was my favorite for pods). Most cultivars brought from the tropics are day length sensitive, and will not bloom until day length approaches 12 hours... which in my climate, is only a couple weeks before frost. You would probably need a very long season to get mature seed from the Caribbean cultivar.

I've been told that some hyacinth bean varieties are grown for their seeds, and some for their immature pods. The seeds are eaten by many cultures, but must be prepared properly to remove their toxicity. Which is actually not that unusual for beans... the seeds of limas, runner beans, and common beans are also toxic to varying degrees when raw, and must be cooked to be eaten.

There are some bush hyacinth beans which were recently bred in India, with white flowers. At least one of those is day-neutral; it bloomed here 30 days after planting, during the long days of July.
Zeedman is offline   Reply With Quote