With summer well and truly over and winter on the horizon, my thoughts start to turn to the 2018 growing season. I won’t be buying seeds for a while yet (although I plant my peppers and chillies as early as January, so that job is not too far away), but today I have been ensuring I have seeds for at least one crop next year.
One of this year’s big successes was climbing French beans. The original plants were destroyed by strong winds, and one of my friends came to the rescue with some spare plants that were just ready for transplanting (thank you Ann). I have completely forgotten what variety they are, but they produced delicious tender beans in abundance over a long season. Knowing how much we enjoyed them, I left some beans on the plants to mature and today I collected some of the drier pods from which to take the seeds to be saved:
pods collected before they get washed away or rotted!
Over morning coffee, Mr Snail and I extracted the seeds and now they just need to be spread out to dry. So, that’s the first of next year’s bounty sorted… and not a penny spent.
bean futures
What’s more, there are still quite a lot of pods to harvest, so I think tomorrow we will have Boston beans made, unusually, with freshly shelled beans (no soaking required).
The Snail of Happiness 
Laurie Graves
/ October 24, 2017And how lovely they are, too.
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coppicelearner
/ October 24, 2017Great minds think alike! I have cines of peas and beans (broad, dwarf and climbing) hanging in the shed and will save the seeds but like you I think I have left more than enough so there will be bean stews to come as well. I love saving as much of my own seed as I can – it saves money and hopefully I am selecting for syitability for the conditions here.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 24, 2017I just wish I could remember the name of the variety!!
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nanacathy2
/ October 24, 2017Beans just keep on giving.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 24, 2017And these have been so generous!
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Ann Owen
/ October 24, 2017I’m glad you liked them, they’re my absolute favourite beans! The only thing better about these beans than their flavour and texture is their name: Borlotti Lingua di Fuoco or Fire tongue! They are lovely to eat as green beans, better still as shelled beans and best of all in a warming chilli spiced stew on a cold winter’s day when the wind is howling outside. And open pollinated, so will come true from saved seed.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 24, 2017Thank you for the name… and for the original plants 🙂
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thecontentedcrafter
/ October 24, 2017There is nothing to beat the perfect variety of bean! I remember from my childhood that’s what was done with everything in the vegetable garden – beans and peas left on the frames and one or two plants left to seed, the seed gathered, spread to dry and carefully labelled and packaged up in brown paper until it was time to plant out again. I love that you and so many others are gardening this way again!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 24, 2017And now, thanks to Ann, I know the name!
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Murtagh's Meadow
/ October 24, 2017Nothing like harvesting your own seed:-)
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 24, 2017I just hope I get an equally good crop next year.
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Murtagh's Meadow
/ October 25, 2017This year seems to have been an exceptionally good bean year. We had lots, especially runner beans.
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MrsCraft
/ October 24, 2017We did the same with our runner beans. My 3 year old was delighted when I let her remove all of the beans from the pods!
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yarnandpencil
/ October 24, 2017We’ve been collecting runner bean seeds every year since we’ve lived here; they just keep on giving 🙂
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arlingwoman
/ October 25, 2017These sound perfect and are lovely to look at as well.
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katechiconi
/ October 25, 2017I wish our climate was more bean friendly. I used to grow loads of canellini beans when I lived in NSW, and I miss both the tender young pods and the dried beans.
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 25, 2017Ah, but mangos and custard apples…! Seriously, though, I think |I would miss being able to grow this sort of thing.
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katechiconi
/ October 25, 2017You can’t live on exotic fruit, sadly, but beans, peas, spuds and cabbage, that’s another matter. One day we’ll be back down in NSW, and then I can grow beans and peas again!
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ October 25, 2017Mmmmm, delicious! I do love French beans – and now that I know the name of the variety, I might try to make sure these end up in my parents’ veggie garden next year! Thanks! 😀
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 25, 2017Would you like some seeds? I’ll happily send you some.
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ October 25, 2017Really?! Oh wow, yes please! I think I have your email address from earlier in the year, so I’ll drop you a line later on. Thank you!! 😀
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 25, 2017No problem – I’ll let them dry a bit before sending so they don’t go mouldy or get squished in the post.
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crawcraftsbeasties
/ October 25, 2017Perfect, I’m emailing you now! Thanks again 😀
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painterwrite
/ October 25, 2017Although my garden struggled through the hot and dry summer, I did finally have a terrific crop of green beans (normally there’s barely enough for one serving). Unfortunately I was so excited to have enough for a few meals, I forgot to let them mature to the seed-saving stage. Oops. Guess it’s back to the seed catalog for me next year!
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The Snail of Happiness
/ October 25, 2017Fingers crossed for another bumper year next year and remembering to save a few.
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Emma
/ October 27, 2017Those beans look so pretty!
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