Last night I harvested a few mayflower beans. These beans have “said to have been brought to North America on the Mayflower by Ann Hutchinson in 1620.”
Originally I was planing on eating these beans when they were young and green, but somehow along the way I got side tracked. And so now, we are going to harvest them as dried beans this year.
How do you harvest dried beans? Well, it’s pretty easy actually.
- Dried beans are ready to harvest when they rattle in the pod and their skins are papery thin.
- Open pods, and remove the beans, and add the dried pods to your compost pile.
- Freeze beans overnight before storing them to kill any tiny bugs.
- Store beans in an airtight container, in a cool dark place, away from sunlight.
Beans can be used for planting next years crop, or you can do what I’m going to do, eat them this winter in soup. Yee- Haw! This pilgrim has her beans, and she’s gonna eat them too!
Weeeeee!
Have YOU ever saved dried beans before? What did you do with them? Do you have any favorite dried bean recipes you want to share? I do love soup you know.
~ Mavis
If you are looking for more information on the topic of seed saving…
Seed to Seed is a complete seed-saving guide that describes specific techniques for saving the seeds of 160 different vegetables. This book contains detailed information about each vegetable, including its botanical classification, flower structure and means of pollination, required population size, isolation distance, techniques for caging or hand-pollination, and also the proper methods for harvesting, drying, cleaning, and storing the seeds. ~ Amazon
Sarah says
This bean is going on my “Seeds to Order for next year” list. Thanks! They’re beautiful. I can’t wait to see the soups you make with yours.
Sarah says
I love learning about the history of the food we eat, too. That’s so neat to be able to grow a bean that was brought over on the Mayflower!
Mavis says
I know, I love it too. It’s so interesting to find out where the seeds came from. 🙂
Desi says
I had not heard about the freezing thing before. Thanks! I wonder if you can wash them, redry them, then store them. The field behind our house is small red beans, and because of a hail storm a lot of the beans fell out of the pod and are on the dirt. We plan on “Gleaning” them once the farmer has done his harvest.
Zoe says
I love/hate growing dried beans. I’m not a fan of picking them and shelling but I do love having them on hand! I’ve grown kidney, navy, black, and Nicaraguan red (from Jennifer Jo!).
Desi, I wash my beans before storing them so they are all clean and ready to use when I need them. I rinse them several times, fresh water each time, and then spread them out on my dehydrator trays. They dry in a few hours. Just don’t let them sit in the rinse water or they’ll start to soak it up.