Recipes Collection

Grandma Nellies Yellow Mushroom Beans Woods Early Prolific Scallop Squash

Here are two very unusual vegetables, and an advertisement for growing your own. You are very unlikely to find these for sale!



Grandma Nellies Yellow Mushroom Beans:



Grandma Nellies Yellow Mushroom Beans (hereinafter refered to as "Grandma Nellies") were brought to Saskatchewan from Russia in the early 20th century. In 1952, seeds were given to Nellie Chernoff, who grew them until 1988, when her granddaughter took over growing them. (information is from Heritage Harvest). Ive been seeing them listed around a few places in the last couple of years and they sounded intriguing enough to try.



These are a pole bean, and like all our other pole beans they have grown long and tall, and produced like billy-o. They are the only pole bean where we are NOT crying, "Hold! Enough!", but that is only because we didnt get a lot of seeds to plant. They are just as prolific as any of our pole beans. They are also very popular around here, and why wouldnt they be? They remain tender until they are quite large, they are an attractive shade of yellow with green spots glowing through, even more so when cooked, and finally they really and truly have a flavour reminiscent of both beans and mushrooms! Theyre delicious!



Like all pole beans, Grandma Nellies must be planted once the soil warms up towards the end of May or early June and they need good support. They begin to produce in about 75 days. After that you just pick, and pick and pick... until frost, probably, although they do seem to produce beans in waves every few days.



Theyve been pretty tolerant of the yellow bean mosaic virus weve had in the garden this year, although they are starting to show a few signs of being stressed by it. They arent the best for resistance to it, but they are not the worst either. We cant complain. Theyve produced a lot of truly unique and wonderful beans. We will grow them again next year for sure.



Woods Early (Prolific) Pattypan or Scallop Squash:



There are a fair number of pattypan squash around, but many of the ones for sale now are hybrids. I dont know why; none have been quite as good as this one, in my opinion. Woods Early, or Prolific, as Ive also seen it listed, was introduced in 1899 by T. W. Woods & Sons of Richmond, Virginia.



This has been a great squash for us. Ive seen this one listed as both Woods Early and Woods Prolific, but whatever you want to call it, its as easy and trouble-free as any other summer squash and starts producing in about 50 days.



These squash are best fairly young and tender, but weve been letting them get up to 4" or 5" across, and theyve still been delicate and not seedy. They have a lovely mild flavour, and excellent texture. They are very attractive, with their space-ship shape and light greeny-white colour. Keep them picked, and they should keep going until frost.



They do need to be cut with scissors. The bushes are a little prickly, and the shape makes them not too easy to get at. Mind you, the same can be said about zucchini in general.