When my friend, Alice Chooi, from Malaysia Gardeners group of FB wanted to help me germinate the soy bean seed that she wanted to gift me...I was so happy because I am not good at germinating seeds. When she handed me the plant it was about 5 inches tall. I met her in Sentral and she passed it to me...holding the plant dear to my heart. Today , I get to see the fruit of my labor. The process of growing it gives me so much pleasure...from tiny purple flowers to bunches of edamame bean. It doesn't need hand pollination at all.The ants did all the job and now you see bunches of edamame beans hanging on the plant. Edamame is actually immature soy bean :)
For a first timer, I would say I did quite well , though the beans are not that meaty as those served in Japanese restaurants. 1/2 cup of shelled edamame a day will punch up our fiber, protein and vitamin /mineral content in our diet.
Half cup of shelled edamame gives us .....
- 120 calories
- 9 grams fiber
- 2.5 grams fat
- 1.5 grams polyunsaturated fat (0.3 grams plant omega-3 fatty acids)
- 0.5 gram monounsaturated fat
- 11 grams protein
- 13 grams carbohydrate
- 15 mg sodium
- 10% of the Daily Value for vitamin C
- 10% Daily Value for iron
- 8% Daily Value for vitamin A
- 4% Daily Value for calcium
after a month and half, the flowers started to bloom
beautiful tiny flowers ..this is 2 times zoom using my close-up lens :)
then the flowers will drys up and slowly the beans grows
the bean is covered with white fine hairs
and another month the white hairs turned brownish and as the beans
grows longer, you can see the beans bulging out in the pods
it takes a bit of time before I can harvest them
another 2 weeks before I can see the bulge clearly :)
soon soon I can harvest and taste the first fruiting
I will keep some for the soy seed
this is one great experience of growing
soy beans :)
A Big Thank You To Alice Chooi
for the plant...giving me my first pleasure in
planting soy bean for my snack :)
No comments:
Post a comment