We decided to grow an heirloom variety of bean this year, the tiger eye bean. The plants have been very productive and easy to grow. Our problem was we didn't know when the pods were ready to be picked and the internet didn't give us much information. So, we picked our first crop when the bean pods were a light green and the skin of the pod felt rather thick. The result yielded beans that looked like this:
We thought this was great! We boiled the beans and they tasted fine. The colorful red part of the bean disappeared when cooked though and the beans turned a greyish color, not very appealing to the eye. But, they seemed to taste fine.
Then, for the next crop, we were not able to pick them as early as we had hoped. The result was bean pods that had turned almost white with a skin that seemed sort of dry and brittle. But, when you opened up the pods, the beans looked like this!
Ohhhh, we thought, that's more like it! The beans were yellow with a swirly red pattern that holds up when cooked. We learned our lesson, don't pick your tiger eye beans until the pods are white and look like this:
