There are likely 50-60 different types of beans that are generically called "limas", they come in both both and pole varieties, and there are at least 25 different colors. Vermont Bean and Seed Company is a good online source of info and pics as is Cook's Thesaurus (linked below) of many of the varieties. To further complicate the problem, many refer to the southern peas, field peas, and butter beans as "limas". So, without knowing the actual name on the seed packet of the variety you planted it will be difficult to pin them down. The 2 most common home garden varieties are Henderson and Fordhooks but neither of them turn purple when cooked. They go green. But they will interact with aluminum pans (Revere ware and the like) and take on a lavender cast to them. I suspect that is what you are seeing. If you cook in stainless steel, they should go green. If they don't then you have some other variety. Hope this helps. Dave

Hello! All I have are a few Nero Toscana kale that I just bought off the shelf (organic seed), and some Sungold (shelf, couple years old), and some I. alba moonflower (from my plant, a year old). Once the dust settles, if you get a chance, I'd love to SASE for the Canterbury bells cup and saucer, which are not on the rack anywhere near me. (And those that are, are mislabeled and are C. medium, not C. calycanthema.) The rest of your list looks great but I can't handle too much more right now. And no worries if you run out, I can mail order. This is just way more fun!

Most of the veggies now coming off - snap peas, broccoli, choys, onions, beets, spinach - cool weather stuff - are being eaten fresh - but if we can't eat all of it, I'm making soup bases and veggie type soups for the freezer. I recently ground up enough sausage for 12 lbs worth, but had some nice bones with lots of meat left over on them - so tried browning the meat and put into a crock pot with whatever veggies I had left that missed the stir fry pot. This pork meat - as Ken mentioned in one of his posts, happened to have a couple of bones in it - so didn't get quite as much grindings - but salvaged anyway as a lot of tender meats came off the bones. I browned those bones in the oven and added to the stock pot. Every time I walk past that stock pot, it gets "addings" and it is beginning to smell and taste pretty great. Some of the addings - A few potatoes that were beginning to sprout. Ditto for carrots. Handful of snap peas - that didn't make the stir fry. A couple of small hot sauces from the take-out burritos we had for lunch. A few garlic cloves that were getting a bit soft - the rest were sprouting - so planted them. Multiplier onions that were thinned out a bit - straight from the garden. Some chopped cabbage leaves from thinnings, and a few beets that missed last week's soup. To that, I seasoned with the left over spices that I ground up last year - my own blend of - I think - dill, thyme, oregano, basil and some lemon/pepper salt - that was also home dried this past summer. I may add some dried cherry tomatoes - from last year's harvest, and vowed to do preserve a few more this year (and started a few more cherry type seedlings with high hopes). The pepper seedlings that I need for the dried pepper powders are all doing well - in their little seedling cups - and the window sill is doing the job just fine, so retired the grow light in the pantry. (Saves a little electricity maybe - and works quite well - so long as the sun isn't too high yet. But need to watch it, as weather is warming up and they might cook otherwise). Most of my tomato starts are hardened and planted - doing well. We had one of our Santa Ana conditions yesterday. I kind of like those warm easterly winds off the desert, but they dry the plants and soil very quickly - so they need extra watering early in the day. Along with the warm weather, of course, comes bugs. I caught the aphis moving in on my cabbages - so made some hot pepper/soap spray and gave them "what for." That seemed to clean them out well. (Hot pepper spray - same as that we get from the burrito place in those little take-out cups - doing double duty -grin). The new compost pile is almost finished - will need some for the cukes and cantaloupes I want to have ready for April plantings - as they need direct seeding. Hopefully, the seeds I planted last year will still be fresh enough - so need to try a few in damp towels. Just my 2 c's. Bejay

Christine, the 4 jicama I planted became a huge green monster that buried 20 feet of a 25 foot fence. It was covered with large stems of purple flowers which gave way to large stems of big seed pods. I'm wondering now if I should have allowed such prolific seed production, because in digging up the root, there were only two that were big enough to use - and were in fact, on the verge of becoming woody. I cooked part of the larger root out of curiosity. And, like my son said, the taste was 'interesting'. Very slightly sweet as when raw, but otherwise tasteless. The salt, pepper, butter and garlic just didn't help that much. So - raw it shall be from now on. cora