My favorite plant to grow are beans, which is odd because I don't much like them in food. I will eat them; they are just not my favorite! I love their diversity even within Phaseolus vulgaris (the common bean) but also thoughout the entire family of Fabaceae. I plant bush beans in the winter in containers as experiments and let the pole varieties grow outside (most of the time). They are somewhat drought tolerant, to! I think I like them so much because they have the power to restore your soil but they are also visually pleasing as well with their trifoliate leaves and charming blooms.

Sometimes they do present a challenge to cultivate. The seed can rot in the soil or can be raided by a small army of springtails. And if it does manage to sprout, a slater could stop by and gnaw at the stem like a minuscule beaver and then... timber!
Harvesting is exciting because then we get to shell them. The shells happily go in the compost of course! Opening up each pod is a surprise in itself! What will we get? A cool pattern? A crossed hybrid? A random mutant? I will never forget the time I filled the garden with pinto beans and harvested something almost completely different. I have many varieties of beans in my collection. So many I don't know which to plant every year!