One of the edamame (soybean) varieties that we have been growing repeatedly in our garden is 'Fuuki' (富貴). Fuuki plants has white fur on its stems and bean pods as clearly seen in the first photo. Fuuki grows very easy in our tropical garden with not much attention given, love basking in full sun and relying on rain water only. They don't need to be watered everyday, they can thrive even 3 days without any shower from the rain. The seeds don't need much water to germinate, too much water only makes the seed rot. Don't soak the seeds in water overnight. Alternate days watering is already sufficient for germination with natural light.
Soybeen seedlings are more resistance to tiny critters compared to French bean or yard-long bean. I have grown several group of the edible beans closely together and observed that the pest will have a feast on the yard-long bean or French bean which left the other edible beans like soy bean and others safe. The Yard-long bean leaves are edible perhaps more palatable to the critters compared other. If you are growing your food organically, you can use the yard-long bean to be sacrifice so the other edible beans will be yours. Not to be confuse, the soy bean seedling example is circle with orange, the weed can be very persistent when the rain comes often. We need to cage them as not to be stampede by geese and ducks.
The Fuuki edamame flower is white and shape like a smaller version of pea flower. They are cousins after all. Fuuki edamame grows very fast usually in a month or so, the plant has already started to produce flowers. It actually takes only about 60 days from sowing to harvest. Good and fun for beginners as they are easy to grow.
The forming of the first batch of the bean pod. Don't worry it will still continuously produce flowers. Usually a single plants can produce at least 10 bean pods. But they only have a short life, less than 100days after all the pods produced mature, they will decline.
By the time the first batch of bean pods has gone fatter enough with the seeds inside are visible I started to harvest them. Leaving the younger ones to continue growing and fully matured for seeds-saving. The kids like to eat them as snack just boil with a bit of salt and the tender beans inside the pod taste very healthy delicious. It is quite challenging to leave some for seeds as it is so tempting not to harvest them all. We only have enough to repeat the cycle again and again. Sometime not enough for consumption that we only have the chance to save some seeds if nature does not permit it. Growing soy bean is not that difficult, safer to eat when you know it is not a GMO seeds.
Ferocious Fan of Edamame.
