finally finished shelling and sorting
the soy beans and weighed them. 44lbs.

all told we grew about 80lbs of dry beans
last season. i don't think i'll grow soy
beans next season and use those spaces for
pinto beans and other beans.

a few dollar experiment turned out well
as the spaces where i grew most of the
dried beans were those i'd previously left
bare for the last half of the season. kept
the weeds down, soaked up extra moisture
when it happened to rain, provides some
nitrogen and protects the soil. a good deal
for the price. probably keeping the worms
and other soil critters happy too right
about now as they are slowly decaying.

i learned a lot about a dozen more kinds
of beans i'd not grown before and will likely
keep adding to the selection of varieties as
i get a chance.

should have better luck next year with
many of them as they won't be planted as
late and the ground will be higher (so they
won't flood) and also they won't be planted
with soy bean patches shading them as much.

as a cover crop to keep weeds down soy
beans were by far the best. they grow
big with wide leaves. the pinto beans
and pink beans grew as vining plants and
twisted around themselves. i didn't stake
any of them. the green peas were self
supporting and did well enough. only a
little rot where things got crowded (the
soy beans growing over the red beans in
one patch and the soy beans growing over
the dark red kidneys in another).

dark red kidneys should be picked as soon
as the pod is dry enough if there is a lot
of rain in the forecast. otherwise the
beans at the bottom of the pod can start
getting black mold on them and then the
mold will spread up the pod. pink beans
seemed similar. the light red kidneys did
not have that kind of trouble, but they
were also grown in a spot with better
air flow so that could have been the factor
there. next season should be better for
that as there won't be soybeans towering
and crowding.

blackeyed peas do not like any moisture
on the pods at the end of the drying of
the pods. i gave up and turned under the
last of the blackeyed peas because i didn't
like how they looked.

red beans split the pods easily so had
to be picked gently.

borlatti beans are huge when shelled
fresh. didn't actually cook and eat them
at this stage but should give it a try
next year. very productive plants.

butter beans take a long time to get
to harvest, but they are wonderful fresh
off the plant. if i'd planted these a
month earlier they'd have finished nicely.

for the fresh eating green and wax
beans the nice thing that happened was
that some of the green beans developed
pods that were much easier to shell
the dry seeds from. i put these in a
separate package for replanting hoping
to continue this effect. i sure hope
it does breed true as the shelling of
the green beans takes a long time as
those pods are very tough and hold the
seeds tightly.

for peas and pea pods i'll have four
to six varieties to play with next year.
not sure where i'm going to put them, but
it will get figured out. we like
peas and peapods so much that we could
easily not plant anything else.

when i was digging up many of these
patches this fall i was able to observe
the root structure of many of these beans
and again by far the soy beans seemed to
be the biggest improver of the soil if
you base that upon how many roots and how
big the root clump was. unfortunately
it was not a fair and controlled experiment
as the soy beans crowded out many of the
surrounding bean patches. next season i
will have a much better spacing set up
because i won't have soy beans at all and
i have the experiences with the other beans
from this season to use in my plantings.

for next spring and early summer i'll
have several tulip patches that had beans
planted over them to monitor to see if the
beans added organic matter and nutrients
increase diseases. already i was able to
tell from leveling two different gardens
this fall that the beans made the bulbs
under them quite happy in comparison to
a garden that did not have beans planted
over them. how that will carry through
is a question to be answered, but i have
my planting maps and notes ready for
the spring tulip season. if things
look to be going ok then i will have
yet another garden to put beans over for
the summer.


songbird