Growing mung beans

I always buy dried mung beans in order to sprout them during winter.  Just having those to munch on prevents withdrawals of crispy fresh produce during the colder months of the year.

This year I wanted to grow some more chick peas.

But, I accidentally grabbed a handful of Mung beans from the pantry.  My brain was obviously elsewhere - thank goodness I went to the right cupboard though lol

It was only once I had chucked them in the ground of the one raised bed, and had just covered them with soil, that I realized I had sown the wrong crop lol

Never mind.  I thought I'd let them grow and see what happened.

What a stroke of fortune.

A fortuitous, accidental crop of mung beans is
growing in one of my raised veggie beds

The mung bean plant is roughly 40 - 50cms (15 - 20") high and wide.  Given it's compact shape and size, it would be an ideal plant to grow in pots on a balcony too.  Perfect for using as a companion plant with next summers chard, eggplant, raddish and tomatoes, it will also provide some important shade for the ground at the base of those pants.

It is quite a bushy and compact plant.  I planted these quite late in the season, and the plants didn't send out runners and therefore didn't require bean supports and just got on with what they do best - grow mung beans.

Fresh mung beans in a pod

The pods are about 7 - 8cms long and 3 - 4 mm wide.  

Inside, the fresh mung beans sit snugly in their pod.  They are roughly twice the size of a dried mung bean.

And the taste...?

Almost ethereal lol  They are very delicate tasting and different to rehydrated / sprouted beans.

Fresh mung beans compared to dried beans

Honestly, it is quite fiddly to remove the beans from the small, tight green pod, but is well worth the effort.  The dry, dark brown pods 'crack' open quite easily though.

The beauty is, each mung bean plant grown from a single seed will provide 30 - 40 pods per plant or roughly 150 - 250 individual fresh, or future dried mung beans.  The pods form 4 pods together on the plant.  The mung bean plant can hold both fresh green pods, and dark brown pods (which encase the dried mung bean).

(Don't forget to freeze the shelled, harvested dried beans for 24 hours before storing in an air tight jar in your pantry. This helps to prevent weevils infesting your dried beans.)

Apart from providing that necessary crunch factor, mung beans are good for you too.  Check out their health benefits here.

One less thing to cross off my future shopping lists :)