You Tell Me: Yummy Looking!!

 Don't these little things to the left look good enough to eat?  They remind me of itty bitty Oreo cookies or those chocolate cake things with the white fluffy frosting in the middle, don't they?

They are seeds which produce something known as a Hyacinth Bean.  One of my friends refers to it as a Thomas Jefferson plant.  Apparently Jefferson grew them on his property in Virginia.

 
 As you can see, the flowers are almost shell-like and the vine climbs just about anything (in this case, the telephone pole located in front of the grape trellis).

As you will see in the next photo, pods form and once they are ready to be picked, the seeds that are inside look just those shown above...like itty bitty Oreo cookies!

They are not a perennial so each year you have to gather the pods and collect the seeds.  I start the seeds indoors a few weeks before I know it will be warm enough to place the seedlings in the ground.  However, this is the first year that I planted them at the base of the telepohone pole.  But, it worked out well.  So, I'll probably do the same next year.

Cool, huh?  Thanks, Mr Jefferson!