Thursday, August 26, 2010

Random plant event: Glycine max pods

In the continuing story of our backyard soybean field (check out the earlier post to see the flowers), we now have the beginnings of the soybean pods. This part, at least, was a little bit familiar to me, since I've seen the mature pods before, and these are pretty similar.


Not the most shining examples of nature's beauty. I mean, it's no sun-setting-over-a-wildflower-ringed-serene-lake-while-a-V-of-geese-fly-south-for-the-winter-overhead.

But, you know, they're soybeans. Only so much I can do. Maybe they get prettier as the season progresses. I doubt it, of course. But maybe.


5 comments:

Liza said...

Haha, you crack me up, mr_s! Soybeans.

Anonymous said...

those are some tasty looking edamame-to-be...

Mae said...

I'm pretty sure they only get uglier because they dry down a lot before harvest. So you're going to have a field full of half-dried out, dying looking leaves with those ugly, fuzzy pods.

At least that's what chick-pea fields look like and they're related and have very similar morphology.

And I find corn a whole lot LESS picturesque now that I've had to work in its fields. The edges of the leaves all have microscopic silca platelets that scratch the skin like pieces of broken glass. I hurt just remembering that summer...

Kenneth Moore said...

Oh, they look MUCH better than the ones I grew in pots on my windowsill. You'll have a nice appetizer. Check out Maangchi if they do dry down and you need ways to cook 'em other than fresh steamed edamame!

mr_subjunctive said...

Kenneth Moore:

Well, technically, these aren't mine to eat; these are being farmed by someone else, in a field which happens to abut our property. So they're convenient for photos, but I'm not going to be eating them. Just watching.