Beans are the ultimate crop. They come in all sorts of sizes, colors, flavors, and there is a bean for every season. In Southern California we are able to grow all sorts of beans all year around. During the summer we can grow common beans, soy beans, lima beans, butter beans, and black eyed peas (yes I know its not exactly a bean but its found next to beans in the grocery store so lets call them beans for simplicity sake.)
Beans are great to plant in
gardens as they are able to work with bacteria in the soil to help fix
nitrogen in forms better absorbed by plants. After the bean grows it is
important to recycle the nitrogen by putting the dead plant matter back
into the soil. Of course this means that if the bacteria are not abundant in the
soil the plants will have a difficult time absorbing nitrogen so they
may not do well for a few years until the bacteria to becomes abundant
in the soil. Or one can help by adding an inoculate into the soil in
form of dried bacterial powder or amending the preexisting soil with
healthy soil from a neighboring organic farm or garden.
My search for beans happened when I began searching for the elusive purple fava beans and I came across some great sites. Here are some resources I found which has a great selection of beans:
http://shop.nativeseeds.org/
http://www.rareseeds.com/
http://www.farmdirectseed.com/
Anyways, the best part about beans is that there are many perennial beans so a poor farmer can save money on purchasing fresh seeds every year. Here is a great website I found that talks about perennial crops. They also make lots of great recommendations for tropical areas.
http://www.perennialsolutions.
http://www.seedsofchange.com/
