This season if you are growing your own lettuce, squash, carrots and other vegetables in your backyard garden, be sure to also plant a few varieties of beans. Growing your own protein and have nutritionally well-balanced meals entirely from your edible garden is easy with legumes.

Legumes not only feed and sustain us, they also feed the earth by their near-magical ability to fix nitrogen into the soil, (in partnership with bacteria). The diverse legume family includes beans, peas, lima and fava beans, and also clovers, which are invaluable cover crops and often used as green manure.