Sunday, October 2, 2011

Bean Seeds

I saved some bean seeds for next year.    

I learned from Caleb Warnock's new book that beans breed true, even when you're growing a bunch of different kinds in the same garden.   [Not true of squash or corn or beets....].    I feel pretty confident that when we plant these next year, we'll get the same kinds of beans.  

This is what I learned from my experience.   Let the pods get crispy dry on the vine before you bring them in.    They'll finish drying inside, but they'll be most of the way done.   The soft pods have good seeds, too, but it will take a lot longer to get them completely dry.   Let Mother Nature do as much work for you as possible.

Here are the dragon tongue beans, striped just like the pods are.


And here are the red long beans and green beans.   I'll let you figure out which is which.


If I'd had a lot more space and patience and dry weather, we could have saved enough to use in soups.   However, since it's so hard to dry things at all here, we're only saving enough for next year's seed. 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...