I checked my dry bean crop the other day and found that a few pods were at the end of their growing period.
Regular green beans that we like to eat… well… green, in the OTHER sense of the word, look like this:
This one is a little too big for great eating, but it was the youngest one on my plants right now.
The kind of beans for drying take a different journey.
You just leave them on the vine until the pods dry up and the beans inside get mature and harden.
Here's a couple of pods in that process:
They don't all ripen at the same time of course, so you wait until late fall to pick the dry pods. They stay just fine on the vine even through a few rains.
Here are the two varieties that I planted:
The one on the left is Hidatsa Shield Figure and the one on the right is called Turkey Craw. The turkey ones aren't quite dry yet, and will turn a darker brown later on.
I bought these seeds here if you want to give them a try sometime...
http://www.seedsavers.org/
When I do pick the dry pods, I usually put them in a large tub of some sort and stomp around on them to pop them out of the shell. The pods turn very brittle when they are ready to harvest. And the beans are hard, so you don't hurt them by stomping.
I am letting Dory take care of the ones I picked until they can join the rest when harvest day comes. I could not bear to throw them out. This variety didn't grow as vigorously as the Turkey Craw ones. In their defense, they were in the corner of the garden that got the least water. I haven't tasted either one yet, so I don't know which will come out on top in that way. We shall see. But I AM ready for a nice pot of home grown beans.
Very ready.
This one is a little too big for great eating, but it was the youngest one on my plants right now.
The kind of beans for drying take a different journey.
You just leave them on the vine until the pods dry up and the beans inside get mature and harden.
Here's a couple of pods in that process:
They don't all ripen at the same time of course, so you wait until late fall to pick the dry pods. They stay just fine on the vine even through a few rains.
Here are the two varieties that I planted:
The one on the left is Hidatsa Shield Figure and the one on the right is called Turkey Craw. The turkey ones aren't quite dry yet, and will turn a darker brown later on.
I bought these seeds here if you want to give them a try sometime...
http://www.seedsavers.org/
When I do pick the dry pods, I usually put them in a large tub of some sort and stomp around on them to pop them out of the shell. The pods turn very brittle when they are ready to harvest. And the beans are hard, so you don't hurt them by stomping.
I am letting Dory take care of the ones I picked until they can join the rest when harvest day comes. I could not bear to throw them out. This variety didn't grow as vigorously as the Turkey Craw ones. In their defense, they were in the corner of the garden that got the least water. I haven't tasted either one yet, so I don't know which will come out on top in that way. We shall see. But I AM ready for a nice pot of home grown beans.
Very ready.