Last spring when I was looking through the seed catalogues I happened upon a section called “Dry Beans.” They are beans that are not harvested and eaten green, but let to dry out on the plant, then harvested. Since 2016 was declared by the UN the “Year of Pulses” (dry beans) and the fact that I love beans, I ordered 3 varieties to plant in my garden.
I have never grown dry beans before so wasn’t sure how well they would work out in our rather short growing season in the interior of BC, but I planted them and waited.
“Black Turtle,” one of the varieties I planted, failed to germinate. The second type, which I no longer remember the name of, grew and started to mature, but the beans were small and, probably due to the fact that they didn’t mature enough to dry on the plant, they are terribly hard to get out of the pod.
Their pod is like leather and really tough. I have to fight to free every single bean. I don’t plan to save any of those beans to grow again. They are the darker narrow beans in the photo.
The third variety I grew was called “Taylor.” They are the larger, round, white and red beans you can see. They are a lot easier to get out of the pod and they grew really well so I harvested a lot of them. I will probably save some of those to plant again.
Of course, I really haven’t eaten any of the beans yet, so I am only assuming that they will pass the taste test. I do like the colorful way all of my dry beans look.
I paint, check out my works at: www.davidmarchant.ca
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