Winged Bean in my Backyard

The Four-Angled Bean/Winged Bean

(Psophocarpus Tetragonolobus)

The plant is a creeper and will fruit abundantly within six months of propagation.

These are ready for the picking.

This bean ma

y look strange to many people, but it is a favourite in the 

tropics, both as a plant in the garden and as a vegetable for 

the plate.

As a garden plant, it can be easily propagated by seed. The 

first bean should be left on the plant to age and dry up. The 

old bean is then plucked and the seeds removed. One bean might 

yield up to 20 seeds. The seeds are planted in a hole about one 

inch deep.

The plant does not require much care apart from regular watering.

The blue flowers are petite and attractive. Once the flowers begin 

to appear, the gardener can expect to pick five or six beans daily. 

The beans grow approximately 2-3 inches daily.

To prepare a dish out of the beans, most people stir-fry them with 

garlic and onions and soya sauce for seasoning. To spice it up, we 

could add some pounded red chillies into the wok. I personally 

prefer to eat these beans raw, as one would eat cucumber. It goes 

well with a dip, or as part of a vegetable salad.

I always have a plant or two growing in my vegetable garden, and 

at the peak of the productive period, I can gather them by the 

baskets to be distributed to neighbours.

Note: It is said to have an amazing property of ridding gallstones. 

My sister-in-law heard about this and decided to see how true it was 

as she had been diagnosed to have some gallstones. After consuming 

these beans daily for a few months, a subsequent scan revealed that 

the gallstones were no longer there. Well, we don’t really know what 

scared the gallstones away, but the proteins in the beans would not 

have caused any harm, so it was worth the try for her.

e.