According to Native Seeds/SEARCH store manager J.P. everyone is buying beans for Christmas, picking up four bags of their favorite kinds of heirloom beans.  When I stopped by last week for beans to sell at the farmers market the shelves were almost bean bare. He can’t keep them in stock and is having a hard time getting enough beans from growers as they are in such demand.

Luckily Bean Queen ethno botanist Martha Burgess was able to fix me up with a bunch of the 14 Bean Southwest Heirloom Soup (called Tom’s Mix) that she created as well as with brown and white tepary beans raised by San Xavier Co-op Farm.

Tepary beans were once a staple in the Sonoran Desert and commonly grown up to 70 years ago.  The native peoples domesticated wild tepary beans about 8,000 years ago and their name comes from the Papago word “t-pawi.” After being largely forgotten and nearly lost, these beans are enjoying a renaissance, owing to their unique nutty flavor, nutrition and extreme drought tolerance.

Teparies mature quickly and can take desert heat, drought and alkaline soil, producing flowers and fruit in searing temperature that make other beans wither and die.  They were typically dry land farmed with collected floodwaters and can produce a harvest of beans with a single rain. As water shortages increase in the Southwest and around the world, teparies will again play an important role in dryland agriculture.

Tepary beans also have higher protein content than common beans as well as higher levels of oil, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, phosphorus, and potassium. They are a good food for people prone to diabetes because the beans’ high fiber level makes them a “slow-release food.” Many reservations in southern Arizona have re-embraced the tepary bean and now cultivate the beans for sale and to feed their people.

Continue the work of the native people and pioneers who grew and passed on these antique beans by saving some to plant in your garden next summer.

Bisbee Farmers Market

Grand Finale Celebration will include music by Vince Robel & Friends and the Raffle Drawing at noon.  Prizes include a humongous basket of market goodies donated by vendors, a $100 gift certificate to Café Roka and four $50 gift certificates for grass fed meats from San Ysidro Farm and the 47 Ranch.  Tickets are available at the market’s information booth and from manager Laura Smith (236-8409.) Great home-style Mexican food from Elvia’s Kitchen for breakfast and lunch or to-go.

Hot coffee brewed from locally roasted, fair-trade Just Coffee will be sold with home made muffins under the music tree.  Take home bags of Just Coffee which make attractive gifts.

Beatty’s Apple Orchard will offer its Mutsu, Chieftain, Fuji, Newton Pippin and Granny Smith apples and freshly dug carrots at both markets.

The Monkey Tree Market will have organic ruby grapefruits as well as Pink Lady and Sundowner apples. New this week are Bonita Bean company’s 2008 crop of pinto beans in attractive 3 lb. canvas bags. Try several flavors of local pistachios, pecans or organic Chandler walnuts. Organic produce includes seedless watermelons, cucumbers, spaghetti, butternut and acorn squash, tomatoes, zucchini, garlic and lemons. Bags of mixed salad greens picked that day. Spices include Ochoa’s chile powder, granulated garlic and pungent powdered oregano. (Also at SVFM.)

For the person that has everything, how about a gift certificate for grass-fed and pastured meats from San Ysidro Farm?  The Watkins family will be back with lots of smoked ham roasts and ham steaks and legs of lamb for a holiday dining.  Pick up agave nectar in table sized squeeze bottles for a low glycemic natural sugar substitute and for holiday baking. (Also at SVFM.)

Decorate the table with festive Jalapeno Apple Jelly (naturally red & green peppers) or beeswax candles in tapers, pillars and holiday figurines all made by Simmons Honey. Honey stix make great stocking stuffers.  The desert honeys come in attractive containers for gifts. Honey Mustard is good for glazing a holiday ham. Bread & Butter Pickles, Stuffed Olives, Spiced Garlic and Marinated Mushrooms can add taste and flair to holiday relish trays. Try new Blueberry Lemon Marmalade and the family’s relishes including Chow Chow, Sweet Relish and Sweet Onion Relish. Please call ahead (364-2745) to reserve gallons and large quart orders. (Also at SVFM.)

Try very low fat yak meat great in hamburgers and chili from the Circle T Emu Ranch which raises the Tibetan cattle it comes from.  Other products include low fat emu meat, emu oil capsules to strengthen the immune system and pure emu oil, emu eggs for fluffy omelet’s as well as emu oil shampoo, conditioner, hand cream, soap and lip balm.  

Bounty of the Desert has gluten-free mesquite crunchers as well as a rice based, gluten-free flour that is light enough for pastries, mesquite flour and 5 Star Beef Jerky made from top sirloin in garlic, teriyaki, habanero and peppered flavors.

Last chance to get Shumard Oak, Texas Red Oak, Chinquapin Oak, Bur Oak, Mexican Blue Oak, Silver Leaf Oak, Emory Oak from Gary Foss of Oaks of the Wild West. 

Conifers will include Incense Cedar, Italian Stone Pine, Aleppo Pine and Italian Cypress.