This Year Feels Like a Bean Year / 今年は豆の年！？

The weather has been wonderfully sunny lately, and the temperatures have been perfect for cycling, so I've been visiting my garden quite often on my bike 😊

Among all the vegetables and flowers I planted for spring and summer, the beans are doing especially well. Broad beans, which I sow first every year in February and move outside after few weeks, have already started producing pods.

The various common beans I transplanted recently are also thriving. One of the varieties I'm particularly excited about this year is an heirloom bean called Magpie Bean. It got its name because its black-and-white pattern resembles the colors of a magpie. It's my first time growing it, and I can't wait to see how it develops. You can never have too many green beans, and since they freeze well, I've planted them in several places around the garden also to see which spot of the garden do they like.

Yesterday I also planted runner beans, which prefer even warmer conditions. I planted them around a tipi trellis and hope they will happily climb up it. While reading about them, I was surprised to learn that runner beans are actually related to common beans even both the flowers and the beans themselves look completely different.

Speaking of tipis, I built another, smaller one and planted lima beans around it. The seeds came from a bean collector in Spain.

Both runner beans and lima beans have beautiful patterns, which are well liked in my bean jewelry workshop. In the photo below, the bean at the top left is an Andromeda Lima Bean, and the one to its right is a Scarlet Runner Bean.

Tomorrow I'm hosting a bean necklace workshop at a handmade market, so I'm fully in a bean mood now. Then I revisited a graphic of my favorite lima bean that I originally drew about three years ago and recolored it to match my current taste. The new version is also available on @nftshowroom.

https://nftshowroom.com/gallery/akipponn_beautiful-beans_lima-2026

As I was working on it, I remembered thinking at the beginning of this year, "I have a feeling this is going to be a bean year." It's funny how things sometimes turn out that way.

So I wish everyone a beautiful weekend & happy gardening!

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このところ快晴が続いて、気温もサイクリングにばっちりということで足しげく庭に通っています。

あれこれ春夏の野菜や花を植えた中でも、豆がとても元気です。毎年一番に種をまいて外に出すそら豆はもう鞘をつけ始めています。

先日移植した各種インゲン豆も元気にしています。中でもエアルームのMagpie Bean（カササギという鳥と色の組み合わせが似ていることからこの名前らしい）という白黒の豆は今年初めて育てていてとても楽しみにしている豆の一つです。インゲンはいくらあっても食べられるし、冷凍してもよいので、そここに植っています。

インゲンよりもさらに暖かいのを好むランナービーンも昨日植えてきました。Tipiの周りを囲むように植えました。うまく登ってくれ流ことを願いつつ。調べていてびっくりしたのですが、このランナービーンってインゲンなんですね。たしかに和名はベニバナインゲン・・・見た目も豆の感じも全然違うのに。

Tipiといえばもう一つ小ぶりのものを作って、スペインの豆コレクターの方から購入したリマ豆をまわりに植えました。

ランナービーンもリマ豆も模様がとてもきれいなで、アクセサリーを作る時に人気です。下の写真の一番上の左側がアンドロメダ・リマというリマ豆、その右側がスカーレット・ランナービーンです。

明日は豆ネックレスのワークショップということもあって、気分は豆ムードで、3年ほど前に描いて @nftshowroom でミントしたグラフィックを今の気分似合う色に直しました。新しいものもNFT Show Roomに置いてあります。

https://nftshowroom.com/gallery/akipponn_beautiful-beans_lima-2026

実は今年の年初に「今年はなんだか豆な一年になる気がする」と思ったことを思い出し、なんともおもしろいですね。明日は豆のワークショップを楽しんできます！