Harvest time

When you have a modest harvest of beans, the shelling-out is easy.

"I like to break them open," says Lucia.  "Very zen."

In years past, I would wait for a rainy afternoon and then queue up a bunch of dumb movies to watch while I shelled beans and peas.  It is, in fact, very zen.

HOWEVER, if you planted--and picked--a lot of beans, it will take a long time to remove all those pods.  

Who has that much attention span?  Not me!

Patty and I needed a more efficient process.

The Wisdom of the Internet suggested "the pillowcase method", in which the (very) dry pods are dumped into a pillowcase and stomped on, preferably by children.

We didn't have a handy pillowcase, but we found an old feed sack to put the pods into.

We also didn't have a child handy, so we borrowed one from a friend.

The "pillowcase method" resulted in a large amount of mostly-smashed-open pods inside the feed sack, with a pile of bean seeds at the bottom.

We went out into the garden to winnow.  

We didn't want to make this mess near the house

In theory, we could have used a box fan, or a leaf-blower, or even a blow-dryer to blow the lightweight pods and chaff off of the seeds, but we figured that the wind would be sufficient and accidentally dropping bean seeds into garden soil would result in nothing worse than bean plants next spring.

The wind was not sufficient, but we were able to twist and scrunch (most of) the seeds out of the pods, and let the dry stuff fall onto the dirt.

Yield:  2200 grams/4.85 pounds of dry beans, or the equivalent
of about 20 cans of beans!

At my house, bean processing happened on a rainy day when I did NOT want to be standing out in the garden getting soggy.

I also lacked a pillowcase and a child.

Solution: an oversized flexible trub on the kitchen floor, big enough for me to stomp into.

The dogs did not volunteer to stomp.  They did cheer me on while I stomped, though.

I poured enough dry pods into the bucket to cover the bottom, and then stomped to break them open.

Then I dumped everything into the sieve-over-bowl.

About 80% of the released beans tumbled through the holes into the bowl.

Working in small batches, I scrunched and squoze the pods, letting bean seeds fall through the sieve into the bowl.  

It was very zen.

I loaded all of the dry pods into this biodegradable feed sack and threw the
whole thing into the compost heap when it was full

Yield:  1700 grams/3 pounds 12 oz.

I set aside one full jar (about a pound) of beans to eat, and put some seeds into packets to plant at home next year.  

The remainder will go to the Seed Library to be planted in somebody else's garden next summer!

Coming soon:  season wrap-up and recipe exchange!