Harvesting the "shelling" beans

As most you will know, I have grown a few plants of several types of climbing bean this year. Harvest time has come now, and I have picked most of my beans. First to mature were the "Cherokee Trail of Tears", which I wrote about 10 days or so ago. Since then they have been in the airing-cupboard, on a "Drying cycle" if you get my meaning... Before shelling the beans, the pods should be thoroughly dry. You can actually tell when they are ready by the rustling sound they make when you run your hand through a pile of them.

Not a huge quantity of beans, I know (add in the few I picked to test their ripeness, a few days earlier), but not bad when you consider that this is the harvest from only two plants.

I have also picked all of my few "Selma Zebra" and some of the "Coco Blanc a Rames" and Borlotti.

This is about half of my crop of Borlotti. The rest are probably about a fortnight behind these. When harvesting them I look for mature pods that are cream with bright red splashes, rather than immature ones which are green with muted "wine-coloured" splashes. Also you should be able to identify individually each of the beans inside the pods. If you can't see/feel the beans they are probably not big enough to be worth harvesting.

These beans are edible now - they are at what the French call the "flageolet" stage. They are quite soft.

I shelled a few straight away just to see what they are like, though I plan to dry the rest for Winter use, just like the Cherokee ones.

The green ones at the top are Borlotti "Lingua di Fuoco"; the white ones are "Coco Blanc a Rames", and the speckled ons are "Selma Zebra".

I have still got one more treat to come - the Yin Yang beans. They're not ready for harvest yet. Oh, and by the way, the French beans and Runner beans are still continuing to produce pods at a steady rate which is just enough to provide sufficient for our use without being a glut. This is "Delinel", a dwarf French bean that produces very slender pods.