Where I live people tell me it's a waste of space to grow them, but once I tried them, I can't go back. The ones at the stores are so old where I live, they take forever to cook and don't have much flavor. After growing my own and tasting how delicious they are, I don't want to buy them anymore. I don't know why I was so surprised the flavor was better, everything else homegrown and fresh tastes better. I don't think I'll be able to grow all my needs, but I want to grow some from now on.
@@heron6462 I can imagine things must taste amazing when it's grown in great soil. Do you know anything about biochar? I have thought about trying to use it, I've heard it can help with my soil. If you can call it soil, I grow everything in sand. I have not found anyone that has used it before though.
@@howdyEB There are a lot of opinions around biochar. My best recommendation would be to test it for yourself in your situation. The single most important element in any experiment with using biochar is to actually begin with proper "biochar", not normal charcoal and not biochar suitable charcoal that has not been properly inoculated. I would recommend searching for Geoff Lawton and biochar. He has some excellent information on youtube.
I've grown runner beans for a few years now here in Wisconsin. It's satisfying and therapeutic to watch the bees and hummingbirds do their thing. Yield is acceptable to continue with this crop.
Runners may also be perennial, if the plant manages to store enough energy in its tuberous roots. I saw a hummingbird for the first time in my garden this past year, because of my runner plants.
@ziptiefighter Yes, it depends. I'm growing them in USDA zone 7b, which is continental climate. We still get deep freezes in the winter, but even with my inexperience growing runners, I still had a couple of them perennialize. I think my climate zone is actually one grade colder than the temperate region where this video is filmed. Anything equivalent of USDA zone 7 or higher should work.
@@FrozEnbyWolf150-b9t 👍 My neck of the woods used to be zone 4, now 5 with the zones re-do. The only edibles I've had act like perennials are Brussels sprouts...very hardy.
Harvesting before the pod dries and freezing them preserves more nutritional value and is easier to cook. Also the yield is greater because the longer the pods stay on the vine the more chance for a pest to find a home. Also I think you can find a variety like scarlet runner or hutterite. Also the higher or wider the space the better but always try to overseed the planting space. Kind of an oxymoron but once you get it it seems intuitive.
That is an interesting option! I'll have to try that. Do you have any info about the levels of protein at that stage? Is it the same as the dried bean stage? Thanks for the recommendation.
That's a really good calorie yield for the amount of space taken, the runner beans outside would work out to 2000kcal per meter of row. Or the equivalent of about 6.5kg of fresh beans
Borlotti beans are a “must grow” for us every year. Lancashire Uk. Instead of aiming for them to fully dry, I let the pods fully mature but then store them frozen in net bags. Works very well
Thanks for the video and I'm excited for the 2025 changes in your work. Czar, Hidatsa shield figure and District Nurse are all beans I'm excited about trying to grow 4 drying in UK & Ireland climate. Czar is a runner, others french. I've also been deep diving into Edmund a dwarf bean with potential to be a UK field scale baked bean, but it failed commercially in the 80s. I've also meant to say for ages you should try Cherokee trail of tears for outdoor french beans, it's the best and good for dried and fresh. It's a black bean dried and black beans have the highest nutritional content. Also maybe dried beans have bonus points for being able to vary and boost what we can offer in a locally grown diet in the winter, low volume & easy to store when properly dried. My big takeaway from 2024 is don't try and fit this stuff in as an extra. Eg the work you put into courgettes to get them going early is also worth doing for outdoor dried beans for the best quality crop. Cheers, Ben in Leeds
For my small Maine garden I consult a database listing all the crops and how many lbs. of protein and carbs per acre each can be expected to produce. I have no idea what the location of this data was derived from, but it shows good relative comparisons. Dry beans produce 651 lbs./acre, 143 lbs. of protein and 374 lbs. of carbohydrates. Compare with potatoes which produce 15,409 lbs./acre, 308 lbs. of protein and 2,692 lbs. of carbs. So I grow mostly potatoes, as did most of the Irish. As for beans, I have successional plantings of bush and pole beans and harvest them fresh until I get sick of them, let the rest go and harvest them as dry beans.
Hi all, I'm embarrassed to admit that I have no idea where I found this excel spreadsheet but I will look for it on the net and get back. I doubt it would relate to Ireland since the climate is very different from most of the US. I could at the very least put the spreadsheet up on my google drive but would I be able to put the link to it in this forum or would youtube blot it out?
i grew a big patch of Barlotto beans for the first time last year, and I picked them as shell beans rather than letting them dry out. I vacuum packed them and froze a couple of gallons worth and they've been amazing. I can just thaw them and cook them for a half hour and they're ready to eat and delicious. Dry beans are just too cheap to make it worth growing and harvesting IMO.
Great seeing all these beans in one video. Have grown them all , although my borlotii were bush types, thanks for the tip about a vining version. I like that scarlet runners have a tuber! Enjoyed your year of content , thanks!
Glad you enjoyed the content! It is cool that runner beans have a tuber. I have regrown plants for a few years from them before, but find it easier to just replant when needed.
The beautiful thing about corn, beans, and squash (the Native American 3 sisters) is that they are high-calorie foods that are easily threshable and storable by the home gardener. Wheat and other grains require a larger community effort and a large grain mill of some kind. Here in California I like to grow Greek Gigante beans (runner beans, phaseolus coccineus), Pole Borlotti beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and fava beans, (those I don't dry, rather I freeze the large green beans within their blanched inner skins). I love the fresh roma, filet, and wax beans as well, which I either freeze or pickle. These are all delicious, and I wish I had more room to grow more dry beans - we eat many more dry beans than I can grow, but I grow them at home in the hopes of keeping seeds that are best adapted to my area. And who knows, maybe some years I will travel so often that I will just plan on planting the whole garden up in beans to harvest when I get back, and leave the cucumbers and tomatoes to someone else somewhere else. I will say that the yields on beans vary tremendously from year to year, and I think it really depends most on temperature and humidity than anything else. I regularly shake all my bean flowers just to optimize pollination, but I think weather has a much greater effect on yield.
Consider "shelly beans" for market and a semi-fresh product. I grew dried beans for market. Typically, bush beans are grown for dry beans. They mature at the same time and the plant dries down quicker. They are also bred for dry beans. Look for those that have a short growing season. They don't need to dry down fully on the plant. Wait until the pod starts to loose its bulk and get crinkly. The pole beans you are harvesting are beyond what they need to look like. Harvest the entire plant by cutting at ground level (pulling will introduce soil into the process). Pile the whole plant onto tarp/sheets to haul inside. Pull the pods off the plants and let them dry down fully. Fold the tarp/sheet over and walk on top of the pods to pop them open. Winnow the pods in the breeze by pouring the mix from a flat sided bin (😊 as you are doing). You can plant any dry bean from bags you buy from the grocery store. Find ones you like and grow them out. Stay away from the climbers. Seek short season varieties (like high altitude new mexican beans). Carole Deppe was a wonderful resource when I started growing 67 varieties of beans 15 years ago. Trialed them down to about 10 varieties. My favorite were the blue speckled tepary.
Hsl has em sometimes but not this year. I got them via an allotment seed swap. Also just noticed them on Wales seed hub site. Carole deppe mentions them specifically for use as a shelly and have a unique flavor used like that I think she says.
Happy New Year! I really enjoyed watching you go through this process. I'm trying to UP my bean production, and this year was a fail for me, as I have deer that decided the plants were the most delicious thing in the garden. I ended my summer with a batch of beans that I planted between daikon radishes and they actually survived, the deer didn't eat them! :) So, I just have to be sneaky about it was my take away. Thank you for this video!
I eat beans almost every day, mostly in the form of mashed, fermented beans, largely pintos. One way that I grow them is alongside corn, the theory being that the beans climb the corn, and the corn uses the nutrients (nitrogen) provided by the beans. This mutually beneficial, double duty use of the land seems to work pretty well, although it does tend to become a tangled mess by the end of the season. NH USA
Happy new year! I’ve been deep in a research hole recently trying to work out the answer to this question as well, so pleased you’ve made this video! Thank you, as always, for sharing your knowledge and wishing you the best for 2025!
Bruce, those moldy beans are from letting them dry on the vine. NEVER do that! The time to harvest is when the pods start to turn brown on the edges and sides, green is A-OK as it is the ripe bean inside that you are looking for. Pick the pods and then dry them under supervision to keep the mold away. As for the varieties you are growing, pole beans are not very productive for dry beans. Get a black or red bean that is of the bush type, you'll get a lot more a lot quicker and all at the same time as they ripen at the same time for the most part. The hairy pod varieties do not make good green beans but the smooth pod varieties are great for that. BUT the hairy pods give a large yield of dry beans as that's what they were bred for. I grow both for those reasons. Pole beans... I don't bother with them anymore, even though my favorite green bean is a pole, they are just to much space and not enough yield for my limited garden space. I know many say that beans don't need to be pollinated, but the reality is the yield will be full pods of seeds vs. the one or two seeds you'll get from unpollinated. Happy new year to you and yours! Spring is just a few more miserable months away!!
Beans is one thing I've never tried. For one big reason, no one in the family enjoys them. Makes little sense taking up my space for them. I may do an experiment, tho, to try and change minds. They've only recently taken to chili.
Happy new year! I think dried beans are one of those things where the effort/yield/cost to grow in a garden are like, inverse to how they farmed at scale. Same for potatoes and especially grain, the other cheap high-calorie crops that store well. But in a scenario where you have to be self-sustaining, the math works out a lot more favourably for growing dried beans when measuring yield by *calories* per area. Dried beans have like 10x the calories of green beans (from a quick nutrition facts lookup), for the same unit weight. Green beans are full of water after all. I'm preparing to grow beans for dried beans in 2025 here in Ontario, Canada, after doing a small test in 2024. Planning to devote a fair space to them like 10 m^2 or even more. I hear home-grown dried beans taste significantly better so I hope I get some nice beans!
@@janericvelure6883 No, honestly I don't think I've even ever cooked with any beans other than chickpeas, lentils, and P. vulgaris. I'll try to remember to pick up a seed pack for 2026 though--might as well try something new!
@@winrawrisyou eleonora and karmazyn are two god ones, but i dont think they are the most cold hardy ones, some vareietys you probebly could get away with atum planting. p coccineus unnerbeans also like it a bit colder then a p vulgaris
@@janericvelure6883 Thanks for the recommendations, but since I live in the warm part of Ontario, there's no need for me to be overly concerned about growing season length or warmth! I did already pick up runner bean seeds too though.
Yeah, it really depends on the situation. if you are relying on your garden for self-sustaining, and need the protein and calories, then beans make sense - assuming you have the space. But for many people higher value fresh vegetables are often a better thing to focus on. But fresh dried beans do taste great!
For the past two seasons, I've grown Black Doulting runner beans for the fat black dried seeds and got a decent crop both times. I feel it is a worthwhile crop, but partly because I cannot buy these beans. In the coming season, I will be growing Carole Deppe's 'Beefy Resilient Grex' dwarf beans. They are said to be especially tasty and very productive. We'll see!
@@REDGardens I got Black Doulting from "Beans and Herbs" a couple of years ago. Beefy Resilient Grex is much more difficult and not available in the UK. If it turns out to be as good as they say, I will be looking to donate some to individuals or organisations who can build up the supply here and spread it around.
Great info. I only grow outside and mainly for green beans. 2024 was not a good bean year here. Hoping for a better year this year and will be growing some butter beans for the first time.
Happy new year! I grew pinto and Spanish butterbeans in my pollytunnel last year. Was disappointed with the size of the harvest but the butter beans were the nicest I've ever had. Thanks for your videos, I appreciate them greatly 🙏 So excited for this coming growing season. All the very best to you and yours
@@REDGardens real seeds have some intresting runners, heard only god stuff about the czar, migth be an alternativ. i was looking for greek gigantes but ended up geting some bags of every vareiety:) the plan is to see if i end up with some hybrids, with god local adaption
Very interesting video. In your pursuit of a double purpose bean, do a search of greasy beans. Heirloom varieties still in use predominately in the Appalachian area of the US. A lot of variety there to choose from. And Happy New Year to you and yours as well.
It may take a lot of space to get enough to store away, but I have a long growing season and use them as a cover crop. They are nitrogen fixing, so I grow them after the spring crops are done, then harvest what I get and turn the plants under to add more organic material in the process.
@ perhaps that is true. I cannot say how much of the nitrogen they fixed is released by as I in the soil as it decays but I know my soil has greatly improved in the few years I have done this. Whether is it just from the added organic material or the nitrogen left over in the nodules, I don’t know. I still see the benefits considering how much my soil has improved and I don’t have to rebuy cover crop seeds yearly, and a get a few meals out of it too. I save enough beans to replant the next year and eat the rest. I used to try and get a second crop of corn but even though I would hit it hard with fertilizers they always seemed to struggle. Same with my fall brassicas. Couldn’t seem to replenish enough nutrients in season for a second crop. Everything seems happier now and I only started with $40 worth of different bean seeds and the water it takes to grow them. Worth it to me.
That is cool you are seeing an improvement in the soil. I also wonder how much nitrogen gets passed onto other crops or the next season. But growing anything like that will have a benefit.
Happy New Year! Your videos really help me think about my own garden. Here in the PNW of the US, I'm down to growing peas, fava beans; and scarlet runners- - nothing else seems to produce well; so, I'll stick with what works. Enjoy your yummy produce!
Yep, focus on what works, and keep trying with the other stuff! So many people, including myself, eventually discover how to grow those things that previously were too difficult.
Happy New Year and Thank you Bruce, your videos all provide food for thought! Gives an interesting perspective when thinking of what to grow where and when🤓
Where I live at 58N we get all our veg from the store. I really appreciate your dedication to telling us about how hard it is to actually get our veg from the land
I think it comes down to prioritising growing what grows well enough and what is hard to get in your area, or perhaps staying away from the stuff you can easily get, if space/time/resources are scarce.
I live in Texas so for me growing beans is a snap, no pun intended. But even with the right crop and the space I have it's still not worth the effort to grow beans for dry storage. The beans I've grown don't taste any better than the dry bag beans I buy that the grocer, and there's not the inconvenience of picking and shelling. The one variety I would grow again is borlotti. Really liked them. and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I think it makes sense to focus on growing what is hard to get elsewhere. In an ideal world we would be much more self sufficient, but with scarce space/time/resources beans may not be so useful, even if they grow really well.
I had the same experince as you in our Panonian climate. But I did manage a year where I could get 500g dried per m^2, however Inhave not been able to replicate that success. It was in low quality clay soil that's never seen compost or fertilizer.
Happy New Year. Last year was so difficult weatherwise. I ended up with a good result by planting three consecutive broad bean beds at monthly intervals. The runner beans tried their best and gave a 10% result. Late broad beans might not be so productive but they are large and have a nice bite when eating. In Ireland I gave up on all but broad and runner beans long ago. Broad beans are now my most reliable bet. and every couple pf years I get a runner bean jackpot crop. There is a runner bean variety called Czar you might consider.
@ interesting I suppose it’s dependant on environment we did not have a good sunny summer last year. I plan to grow them again this year so I’m hoping for better weather and better results
I grew Black Turtle beans in MA, USA this year and I got a lot more than that per plant. You should try some of the dry bush bean varieties. They should mature faster too.
2024 was not the best year for growing dried beans here in NW Wales. Seemed to start well in the polytunnel, but humidity was high, so ended up with a lot of mould problems. So, feeble amount of Borlotti & Gigantes for the effort and space. Runners can work well in the poly, go for a self-pollinating variety like Firestorm or Moonlight. Incidentally, I believe runners are often pollinated by flies. The original plants in S America were pollinated by humming birds, or so I read. My outdoor runners failed (it's a challenge growing here as we're very exposed and up on a hillside) but the Cobra French Beans were productive in the tunnel - although not as well as 2023. I'm not going to bother with growing dried beans again, but if we were in the south I'd probably grow them
Happy New Year Bruce! (all the way from Ontario). Been watching your channel for a long time now and I still get excited to see a new RED Gardens episode in my feed. Looking forward to the next year's episodes. I'd love to see how you plan out your garden during the winter months, how you choose or research seeds, etc...
Using broad beans, a mini tractor, n a decent patch of land, you could have plenty of beans. Less work than climbing beans. Less tasty too though, pros n cons. Happy new year!
Love my dried beans. Don't work every year but when they do, they are brilliant! My favourites are greek gigantis, borlotti, butter beans and cannolini.
For efficient protein production in a cool wet climate (I am near Manchester, UK) I believe (without having tested it) that fenugreek leaf is the better option. Fresh fenugreek leaf (methi) is about 6% protein. Production is fast, doesn't need pollinators, is not so dependent on warm weather and dry periods near harvest, harvest is simpler and it is able to be harvested successionally as needed. The younger the leaf, the higher the protein content. It can be dried and powdered for storage with that powder being between 20 and 30% protein. I am going to be trying the blue fenugreek this year, which apparently has a milder flavour. I do love my beans and lentils but my garden is only 5 metres by 5 metres with high walls. I am tempted to try a couple of plants of the Yin Yang beans Chiltern Seeds have this year, mottled black and white. I would love to find an Afghan chickpea to try as well, they should be quite hardy. Happy New Year!
Instead of growing inside, along with your sweet corn, why not try a "3 sisters" plot outside? Space the corn a bit farther apart than you do inside, then when almost knee high plant a couple of "pole" bean seed. They'll climb the corn. If you allow vines to grow across rows it might even help stabilize the corn stalks in your Irish winds. Biological cross bracing 😊 Once the beans send out the first runner, plant pumpkin/vining squash for every 8-10 corn plants. Happy New Year and best wishes for all
I have been growing runner beans for the dried beans here in South Wales for the last 4 years as my wife and I really like them in Chilli con carne. I agree that drying at the end of the year can be a bit of a problem if the end of the year is wet. Maybe I should grow some in the polytunnel.
From my middle/east european experience, runner beans has been always grofn on infrastruktury. 6m high ideally. They really disliked hot weather. Above 28°C they stall. I wouldnt mind to send you few seeds.
Interesting. How do you pick from 6m tall infrastructure? And what infrastructure is that? The side of a house? With a net hanging from the rafters or something?
I love growing beans, but my efforts to grow beans for storage have had limited success. There is no great way to let them dry on the plant here because they are always subjected to humidity and/or rain during the summer. Mostly better to eat them when they are green and delicious. I will say though that, if you can get some to the dry storage stage, they germinate amazingly well. That is basically my plan going forward. Eat the delicious beans when they are young, maybe have one or two meals of some nice borlottis if I can get enough and use the rest for planting. Happy New Year, Mr.
they don't need to dry down completely on the plant. just let them loose most of the water weight in the pod. give them a shake. then cut the plant at soil level, load all of the plants onto a sheet/tarp and finish the drying inside. after a few days, pull the pods off to dry further. fold the sheet over and walk on the pods to pop the rest open. then winnow the pods in the breeze.
I love growing beans for drying and usually focus on the following varieties: Borlotti, Czar runner beans (white beans inside) Greek Gigantes, Jacobs Cattle Gold and Beefy Resilient Grex (both bush beans). I'm on the south coast of England, so possibly a bit warmer but still plenty of wind/rain too... I've found it better not to leave pods on the plant too long, as there's a good chance they'll get manky or something will start nibbling at them. Regular harvesting once ripe, and drying the pods somewhere without touching one another too much seems to work best - not sure how feasible that would be if growing in such large amounts though. The nice thing about growing your own, is you can choose varieties you'll never see in the shops - and there are lots to choose from!
Great video and Happy New Year Bruce. Alan Titchmarch said don't bother growing peas, you've got to sit for hours shelling them all and the ones in the Supermarkets are cheap and such good quality you won't grow any better. I still grow them, but he does have a point! Fun fact for you; beans always spiral the same way around the poles or string and this doesn't change globally either 🙂
I tried this this year in my polytunnel (I'm in west Cumbria) & TBH the harvest wasn't worth the space. I grow early & late climbing bean varieties for 'French beans' for fresh & freezing in the polytunnel & using more space which could grow tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, chillies, melons. Happy New year to you too.
Happy new year, Bruce! I wish you all the best for 2025 🧑🌾 My first thought was that pollination was the issue in the polytunnel. I've noticed that beans require good insect pollination for a good crop, or the result is just a few of beans per pod. Humidity is also clearly an issue in a polytunnel compared to outside. (On second thought, you're in humid Ireland where it's the same outside 😉)
We can buy 20-ounce packs of Hurst's 15-bean Hambeen mix for $3.50 but they go for as high as $9 depending on the store and they are criminally underrated! Don't know how I could compete with that, but I still want to do French green beans someday. Might have good luck with that. ✌
Have you thought about doing some nutrition calculations comparing the green beans (frozen) against the dried ones? For green beans the best cropper I have found are fine green beans, a local bush variety, whilst the pods are 'fine' the quantity per bush was incredible. Looking forward to hearing about the changes you're mulling over in response to world events, something for us all to consider (if I'm not reading too much into it). Thanks Bruce.
That would be interesting to do. I generally stay away from that kind of comparison in the past as I would need to rely on generic data, which is based on conventional mass produced food. Not all beans are the same, and I know the nutrition of my vegetables can be a lot better, but not consistently. In an ideal world I would have the resources to send samples to the lab regularly for analysis, but that woudl start to get really expensive very fast!
I grew borlotti beans and runner beans back to back to each other for two or three years. I got a good harvest of borlotti beans but despite lots of flowers very few runner beans each year. I think the bees go for the borrlotti beans flowers in preferance to the runner bean flowers. I never had problems setting runner beans before! I grew them in different places this year and got a good set on the runner beans. Not conclusive evidence, but highly suggestive.
That seems to be an issue with bees, they definitely do prefer some flowers over others. I had this issue with comfrey flowers distracting the bees away from my crops.
another great video! thru my "non scientific" experimentation, I only grow the the cranberry beans to dry. I tried over the years about 15 or so varieties and came down to the same thing, my space fo is more valuable to grow something thats more expensive. I also always dry on the vine which maybe does cause more mold but they are coming on right when my canning season is really in full tilt so i dont have the time to do otherwise. Love your videos Brother and how much time and effort you put into the process! Thanks!
Even setting aside your climate disadvantage for dried beans, it's often not worth the trouble unless you want a variety that you can't easily buy. The cost of a 10 or 20 lb bag of dried beans is so (relatively) low that I can't justify the investment. Here in Colorado we have a decent climate for them, but I still only bother with something like Goucho beans that I really like but can't find in the store.
Hello, this is the first video of yours I've seen. I'm US Z6. We're in an ideal location for beans, so I'm not sure how well this will apply to you. I grow a lot of beans, mostly for dried. I grow runners mostly for the bees and hummingbirds and only devote a few feet to them. I have a few varieties I love so I grow those no matter what (True Red Cranberry and Christmas Lima). If you want to devote a small area to either of these, do so. You'll fall in love. Two varieties are my production powerhouses: Cherokee Trail of Tears and Rattlesnake. Both are pole beans. TOT is a black bean and is wildly prolific. The seeds are end-to-end in the pod and I get 7-10 per pod. The pods are narrow but full. It's a black bean and longer and narrower than a turtle bean with a great flavor and texture. These are my first to mature to dried beans, perhaps because of the smaller size? They dry cleanly on the vine. I get over a gallon from one 12' bed, planted closely. Rattlesnake is a beautiful snap bean-green with purple streaks. True bean flavor. Long, thin and stay tender even if they fill out a bit. If allowed to dry they make a striped tan seed from decently filled pods. A nice dried bean. I have others I like better but this is the best confluence of productivity and taste in a tan dried bean. My favorite green snap bean. One thing I do is I plant intensively. I do three rows for each trellis with a distance of 3-4 inches between seeds in each direction. I don't thin or trim. I fertilize once when I plant and I ignore them until harvest time. I use cattle panel arches and the plants get to well over 8'. It's an absolute jungle. I know it's against the rules but it works beautifully for me. Again, I don't know how this would translate for you. I'm outdoors with a warm summer and despite the solid wall of foliage I have no disease issues. Perhaps a more naturally prolific variety and intensive planting would help. I don't mean to tell you what you already know so apologies if it comes across that way.
Glad you have found my videos! 😁 Thanks for the recommendations, I will keep an eye out for those varieties. Hopefully they will do well over here. Sounds like you are in an ideal climate for dried beans, and thanks for sharing your experience. I can imagine that if you have decent heat, and not to humid, that kind of density would work well. I'm still learning, but one of my concerns is having enough airflow and sunlight to properly dry the pods. Things can stay pretty damp around here.
Many of those beans that didn't mature were probably not pollinated/sufficiently pollinated. How long is your growing season? If you mention it, I apologize for missing it.
Our grown season is quite long, for frost tolerant plants, but quite cool, so things grow a lot slower than in other places, so the long season doesn't help much.
It's always fun to hear about the contrast in climate. I struggle to get anything with broad beans and runner beans, as it always either too hot or too cold here. Common beans work ok, but it's a bit warm for them at the height of summer. Lima beans do much better. Cowpeas would work even better, but I don't like them and mostly grow them just as a hot weather cover crop. Purely in terms of economics, I don't think they work well at all. They're cheap like grains, and I grow grains. However, grains are more productive and unlike grains I won't eat more beans just because I grew them.
@@BlackJesus8463 Lol. I said I wouldn't eat them. I didn't say I couldn't. The idea I was attempting to express was that before I started growing my own grains, I went through about ten pounds of flour a year. Now I go through more like fifty, so my diet has changed in a way that utilizes more grains because I'm growing them. That has replaced other foods that would be more expensive in the store than the grains themselves. That wouldn't happen with beans. I have beans a couple of times a week, and that's plenty.
Interesting - they are cheap like grains but they are far easier to thresh and cook up than grains for the home grower. My Dad is diabetic, so we eat a lot more beans than grains (beans have been really helpful for his blood sugar) so I have been trying every kind of bean under the sun to keep the variety up, I am so tired of beans! That said, our garden is small anyway, and I just focus on the tastiest varieties that are expensive in stores (Borlotti pole and Greek Gigante are great examples, I also grow fava/broad beans becasue they are great for off-season growing in my small garden). I'm in northerm California, and cowpeas and limas don't do well right here.
@@VagabondAnne The difficulty of threshing varies quite a bit according to the grain. Corn is really no more difficult than beans. It's probably easier pound for pound, actually. Sorghum is the one that I would say is next easiest. Free threshing modern versions of wheat, barley, and oats are definitely more difficult than beans, but well within reach of a home grower willing to put in the effort. Anything with a hull that won't let go is aspirational for gardeners who really, really want a challenge. I'm considering rice this year. Current thinking is that I can parboil it to release the hulls.
So I'd be interested to know if you were to plant a full row of each plant what might have been your yields then? Would they fall within your green bean stage taste choice as well? Interesting test and results. You always seem to entertain at any stage. Here's to another New Year's, cheers and happy planting.
I’m in a similar climate (south eastern ontario, canada) and we have damp summers. i find that if i leave the pods on longer than i think, but get them before the wet winter comes, it’s a success. my favourites have been indigenous varieties - cranberry bean, cattle bean etc. I’d suggest seeing what folks grew years ago in your region, you may be able to find them at a seed swap?
I come from Ontario, and the summers we have over here in Ireland are a lot cooler. Typical daytime high in the summer is about 17-19º. So beans are really tough to grow with the damp and the cold, and they are a crop that no-one use to grow around here. Apparently people use to grow lentils and a few other types of legumes a long time ago, but those crops were all lost to the potato and the oppression of colonialism more than a century ago, not a trace remains. So no varieties or experience to collect from other people, only stuff that is imported from elsewhere.
Being in Ireland 6 years now, I've tried to grow my favourite black eye beans both outside and in the polytunnel every single season, different types of soil, normal or reduced watering, seeds sourced from different suppliers each year, I haven't managed to get one single pod. Best I've managed was some flowers. Any tips welcome, I'm desperate to enjoy my favourite dish from my home country Cyprus!
if you are talking about black eyed peas or cowpea from Africa Vigna unguiculata (not the bean from the Americas Phaseolus vulgaris,), you've got to have heat. They are completely different and need different growing conditions. is this what you are talking about? In Cyprus (φρέσκο λουβί (fresko luvi)), Greece (μαυρομάτικα) and Turkey (börülce salatası), blanched black-eyed peas are eaten as salad with a dressing of olive oil, salt, lemon juice, onions and garlic.
im on the west coast of norway\bergen, i used tarp 2x10 meters(the type that lets water tru) melted(welding pen) slits in the tarp and planted lots of different bush\dvarfs. blue lake and ferrari did best, black eye peas didnt make any pods but i think i transplanted them to early, same with snap dragon and borlottis, got some adzuki to ripe! i always start my beans in trays and transplant, couse slugs and low soil temp. im sure the tarp helpt a lot on bringing up the temp\production. and i grew candy roasters and galux.d.elyse in betwen the beans:) a cheap drip\sweating hose, made life easyer this seson, didnt need to use it mutch tho
@@BlackJesus8463I wish it was, but like I said I rarely got any flowers to begin with😢. And in the same polytunnel with same soil I've had great success with tomatoes and cucumbers
@RED Gardens Bruce, you are growing the wrong variety for this, you need to be growing Czar, they are a large white bean optimised for large seed, and are not suitable for green beans, but they yield heavily. We are in mid wales, so a very similar climate to you in Ireland. We grow them outside, and produce a massive yield, yr in yr out
@@gailthornbury291 happy to send you some of ours, im not dure that they will clear customs, due to the uk, been an anti social european hating shit hole. but im sure we can make an attempt to screw the tory infliced barriers if you want. if yuor in the uk anytime before may, ill put them in your hand. otherwise we will need to hope that they get through without a photo syn cert
@@gailthornbury291 My previous reply appears to have disappeared for some reason. Im happy to let you have some of our seed as long as we can find a way to get them to you
Beans don't need to be dried - you can harvest them toward the end of the season in wet weather, still somewhat green in their pods, parboil, and freeze them. They can be cooked from frozen in less time, too, as they don't need to be soaked. Happy gardening in 2025, Bruce!
Hey Red, this is off topic but where do you buy/squire your seeds from? and does you or anyone else here know some good value or selection seed sellers for Canada/Ontario? Maybe I just need to make friends with some farmers and visit more seed libraries hahaha
A bunch of different places, but Bingenheimer in Germany has become my main supplier since Brexit. Before that I had access to good suppliers in England, but can't import those seeds into the EU now.
You don't garden to produce staple crops with high shelf life, like grains and beans. Those can be imported for cheap from all around the world in better climates and will be too cheap to bother growing them yourself.
From my middle/east european experience, runner beans has been always grofn on infrastruktury. 6m high ideally. They really disliked hot weather. Above 28°C they stall. I wouldnt mind to send you few seeds.
I think in all the decades I have lived here we have, I have only seen a few days above 28º! The only varieties that grow well here are ones that can really handle the cool conditions.
Where I live people tell me it's a waste of space to grow them, but once I tried them, I can't go back. The ones at the stores are so old where I live, they take forever to cook and don't have much flavor. After growing my own and tasting how delicious they are, I don't want to buy them anymore. I don't know why I was so surprised the flavor was better, everything else homegrown and fresh tastes better. I don't think I'll be able to grow all my needs, but I want to grow some from now on.
Oh yeah, fresh dry beans taste so much better!
@@charlespalmer3595 Especially when you add a little rock dust to the soil - it provides a really noticeable step up in flavour.
@@heron6462 I can imagine things must taste amazing when it's grown in great soil. Do you know anything about biochar? I have thought about trying to use it, I've heard it can help with my soil. If you can call it soil, I grow everything in sand. I have not found anyone that has used it before though.
@@howdyEB There are a lot of opinions around biochar. My best recommendation would be to test it for yourself in your situation. The single most important element in any experiment with using biochar is to actually begin with proper "biochar", not normal charcoal and not biochar suitable charcoal that has not been properly inoculated. I would recommend searching for Geoff Lawton and biochar. He has some excellent information on youtube.
@@peterellis4262 Thank you, I will begin my information search! 😁
I've grown runner beans for a few years now here in Wisconsin. It's satisfying and therapeutic to watch the bees and hummingbirds do their thing. Yield is acceptable to continue with this crop.
Runners may also be perennial, if the plant manages to store enough energy in its tuberous roots. I saw a hummingbird for the first time in my garden this past year, because of my runner plants.
@FrozEnbyWolf150-b9t Perhaps perennial in warmer climes. Definitely not here.
@ziptiefighter Yes, it depends. I'm growing them in USDA zone 7b, which is continental climate. We still get deep freezes in the winter, but even with my inexperience growing runners, I still had a couple of them perennialize. I think my climate zone is actually one grade colder than the temperate region where this video is filmed. Anything equivalent of USDA zone 7 or higher should work.
@@FrozEnbyWolf150-b9t 👍 My neck of the woods used to be zone 4, now 5 with the zones re-do. The only edibles I've had act like perennials are Brussels sprouts...very hardy.
@@ziptiefighter If brassicas can survive your winters, perennial brassicas might do well. I'm growing perennial kale here.
Kenearly yellow eye dry beans are a real winner for me. They make the most delicious soup you can imagine.
Harvesting before the pod dries and freezing them preserves more nutritional value and is easier to cook. Also the yield is greater because the longer the pods stay on the vine the more chance for a pest to find a home. Also I think you can find a variety like scarlet runner or hutterite. Also the higher or wider the space the better but always try to overseed the planting space. Kind of an oxymoron but once you get it it seems intuitive.
That is an interesting option! I'll have to try that. Do you have any info about the levels of protein at that stage? Is it the same as the dried bean stage? Thanks for the recommendation.
That's a really good calorie yield for the amount of space taken, the runner beans outside would work out to 2000kcal per meter of row. Or the equivalent of about 6.5kg of fresh beans
I didn't think of evaluating the calorie yield for them. Thanks.
Borlotti beans are a “must grow” for us every year. Lancashire Uk. Instead of aiming for them to fully dry, I let the pods fully mature but then store them frozen in net bags. Works very well
They're delicious either dried or fresh, such a delight to see their colourful pods
Do you eat the skin lol
@@nygardenguru no. I shell them from the pods
I should try that, thanks. I wonder if they have the same amount of protein before the fully dried stage. I haven't been able to find info about that.
Surely the answer is yes! Happy new year from Leeds🎉
Thanks for the video and I'm excited for the 2025 changes in your work. Czar, Hidatsa shield figure and District Nurse are all beans I'm excited about trying to grow 4 drying in UK & Ireland climate. Czar is a runner, others french. I've also been deep diving into Edmund a dwarf bean with potential to be a UK field scale baked bean, but it failed commercially in the 80s. I've also meant to say for ages you should try Cherokee trail of tears for outdoor french beans, it's the best and good for dried and fresh. It's a black bean dried and black beans have the highest nutritional content. Also maybe dried beans have bonus points for being able to vary and boost what we can offer in a locally grown diet in the winter, low volume & easy to store when properly dried. My big takeaway from 2024 is don't try and fit this stuff in as an extra. Eg the work you put into courgettes to get them going early is also worth doing for outdoor dried beans for the best quality crop. Cheers, Ben in Leeds
This is not that dumbass kind of channel
@@benm9910 Thanks for the recommendations. And Happy New Year!
For my small Maine garden I consult a database listing all the crops and how many lbs. of protein and carbs per acre each can be expected to produce. I have no idea what the location of this data was derived from, but it shows good relative comparisons. Dry beans produce 651 lbs./acre, 143 lbs. of protein and 374 lbs. of carbohydrates. Compare with potatoes which produce 15,409 lbs./acre, 308 lbs. of protein and 2,692 lbs. of carbs. So I grow mostly potatoes, as did most of the Irish. As for beans, I have successional plantings of bush and pole beans and harvest them fresh until I get sick of them, let the rest go and harvest them as dry beans.
I would love to have data like that for the midlands of Ireland. Potatoes do make a lot of sense!
@@REDGardens until you go T2D, then you'll regret ever seeing one.
Which database please? I am looking for such database for comparison. Could you post a link to aforementioned database? Thank You!
I'm also interested in this database, please let me know if you have a link :)
Hi all,
I'm embarrassed to admit that I have no idea where I found this excel spreadsheet but I will look for it on the net and get back. I doubt it would relate to Ireland since the climate is very different from most of the US. I could at the very least put the spreadsheet up on my google drive but would I be able to put the link to it in this forum or would youtube blot it out?
i grew a big patch of Barlotto beans for the first time last year, and I picked them as shell beans rather than letting them dry out. I vacuum packed them and froze a couple of gallons worth and they've been amazing. I can just thaw them and cook them for a half hour and they're ready to eat and delicious. Dry beans are just too cheap to make it worth growing and harvesting IMO.
I should try freezing the plump shell beans! Thanks for the idea!
Great seeing all these beans in one video. Have grown them all , although my borlotii were bush types, thanks for the tip about a vining version. I like that scarlet runners have a tuber! Enjoyed your year of content , thanks!
Glad you enjoyed the content! It is cool that runner beans have a tuber. I have regrown plants for a few years from them before, but find it easier to just replant when needed.
The beautiful thing about corn, beans, and squash (the Native American 3 sisters) is that they are high-calorie foods that are easily threshable and storable by the home gardener. Wheat and other grains require a larger community effort and a large grain mill of some kind. Here in California I like to grow Greek Gigante beans (runner beans, phaseolus coccineus), Pole Borlotti beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) and fava beans, (those I don't dry, rather I freeze the large green beans within their blanched inner skins). I love the fresh roma, filet, and wax beans as well, which I either freeze or pickle. These are all delicious, and I wish I had more room to grow more dry beans - we eat many more dry beans than I can grow, but I grow them at home in the hopes of keeping seeds that are best adapted to my area. And who knows, maybe some years I will travel so often that I will just plan on planting the whole garden up in beans to harvest when I get back, and leave the cucumbers and tomatoes to someone else somewhere else. I will say that the yields on beans vary tremendously from year to year, and I think it really depends most on temperature and humidity than anything else. I regularly shake all my bean flowers just to optimize pollination, but I think weather has a much greater effect on yield.
I wish I could grow the three sisters here, just too cold for this crops.
Consider "shelly beans" for market and a semi-fresh product.
I grew dried beans for market. Typically, bush beans are grown for dry beans. They mature at the same time and the plant dries down quicker. They are also bred for dry beans. Look for those that have a short growing season.
They don't need to dry down fully on the plant. Wait until the pod starts to loose its bulk and get crinkly. The pole beans you are harvesting are beyond what they need to look like.
Harvest the entire plant by cutting at ground level (pulling will introduce soil into the process). Pile the whole plant onto tarp/sheets to haul inside. Pull the pods off the plants and let them dry down fully. Fold the tarp/sheet over and walk on top of the pods to pop them open. Winnow the pods in the breeze by pouring the mix from a flat sided bin (😊 as you are doing).
You can plant any dry bean from bags you buy from the grocery store. Find ones you like and grow them out.
Stay away from the climbers. Seek short season varieties (like high altitude new mexican beans).
Carole Deppe was a wonderful resource when I started growing 67 varieties of beans 15 years ago. Trialed them down to about 10 varieties. My favorite were the blue speckled tepary.
Vermont cranberry for a dwarf shelly
thanks guys!
@@benm9910 yes! and dried. so prolific and fast to dry down. i'm not sure they can get them over there, though.
Hsl has em sometimes but not this year. I got them via an allotment seed swap. Also just noticed them on Wales seed hub site. Carole deppe mentions them specifically for use as a shelly and have a unique flavor used like that I think she says.
I think I will try something like that this coming year, growing bush beans outside and bringing them under cover on a tarp to dry then thresh. Thanks
Happy New Year! I really enjoyed watching you go through this process. I'm trying to UP my bean production, and this year was a fail for me, as I have deer that decided the plants were the most delicious thing in the garden. I ended my summer with a batch of beans that I planted between daikon radishes and they actually survived, the deer didn't eat them! :) So, I just have to be sneaky about it was my take away. Thank you for this video!
Glad I don't have to deal with deer! Interesting that the daikon kept them away 😁
I eat beans almost every day, mostly in the form of mashed, fermented beans, largely pintos. One way that I grow them is alongside corn, the theory being that the beans climb the corn, and the corn uses the nutrients (nitrogen) provided by the beans. This mutually beneficial, double duty use of the land seems to work pretty well, although it does tend to become a tangled mess by the end of the season. NH USA
I would love to have the climate to grow like that!
That's encouraging, I grew some in a metre high raised bed last year in the Sligo area. I'm keen to see the next year. Enjoy your New Year.
Birdy
happy new year Bruce, look forward to your knowledge in the year ( and years ) to come.
😁 Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you and yours. Thanks for all your work. Always very interesting.
😁 Happy New Year to you too!
Very interesting. Thanks for the information
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Happy new year! I’ve been deep in a research hole recently trying to work out the answer to this question as well, so pleased you’ve made this video! Thank you, as always, for sharing your knowledge and wishing you the best for 2025!
Happy New Year! Glad there are a few of us looking for these answers! Best wishes of the 2025 growing season!
Thank you Bruce for a year of great videos. Best wishes to you and your family for 2025.
Thanks, and best wishes to you and everyone you care about.
Thank you for another great year of food growing exploration, Bruce. May 2025 be kind to you and all those you love.
Thank you! And same to you and all those who are important to you!
Bruce, those moldy beans are from letting them dry on the vine. NEVER do that! The time to harvest is when the pods start to turn brown on the edges and sides, green is A-OK as it is the ripe bean inside that you are looking for. Pick the pods and then dry them under supervision to keep the mold away.
As for the varieties you are growing, pole beans are not very productive for dry beans. Get a black or red bean that is of the bush type, you'll get a lot more a lot quicker and all at the same time as they ripen at the same time for the most part. The hairy pod varieties do not make good green beans but the smooth pod varieties are great for that. BUT the hairy pods give a large yield of dry beans as that's what they were bred for. I grow both for those reasons. Pole beans... I don't bother with them anymore, even though my favorite green bean is a pole, they are just to much space and not enough yield for my limited garden space.
I know many say that beans don't need to be pollinated, but the reality is the yield will be full pods of seeds vs. the one or two seeds you'll get from unpollinated.
Happy new year to you and yours! Spring is just a few more miserable months away!!
Yeah, it was a chaotic autumn, including a long bout of Covid, so didn't get there earlier.
Happy New Year to you too
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excellent information as usual ,many thanks
😁
Beans is one thing I've never tried. For one big reason, no one in the family enjoys them. Makes little sense taking up my space for them. I may do an experiment, tho, to try and change minds. They've only recently taken to chili.
Happy New Year, and love your content. Cheers, from across the big pond, in New England.
Thanks. Happy New Year!
Yeah, not worth growing things that people won't eat, but if you can get them to change ...
Happy new year!
I think dried beans are one of those things where the effort/yield/cost to grow in a garden are like, inverse to how they farmed at scale. Same for potatoes and especially grain, the other cheap high-calorie crops that store well. But in a scenario where you have to be self-sustaining, the math works out a lot more favourably for growing dried beans when measuring yield by *calories* per area. Dried beans have like 10x the calories of green beans (from a quick nutrition facts lookup), for the same unit weight. Green beans are full of water after all.
I'm preparing to grow beans for dried beans in 2025 here in Ontario, Canada, after doing a small test in 2024. Planning to devote a fair space to them like 10 m^2 or even more. I hear home-grown dried beans taste significantly better so I hope I get some nice beans!
have you tried vica fabia\broad beans, migth be somthing for your area
@@janericvelure6883 No, honestly I don't think I've even ever cooked with any beans other than chickpeas, lentils, and P. vulgaris. I'll try to remember to pick up a seed pack for 2026 though--might as well try something new!
@@winrawrisyou eleonora and karmazyn are two god ones, but i dont think they are the most cold hardy ones, some vareietys you probebly could get away with atum planting. p coccineus
unnerbeans also like it a bit colder then a p vulgaris
@@janericvelure6883 Thanks for the recommendations, but since I live in the warm part of Ontario, there's no need for me to be overly concerned about growing season length or warmth! I did already pick up runner bean seeds too though.
Yeah, it really depends on the situation. if you are relying on your garden for self-sustaining, and need the protein and calories, then beans make sense - assuming you have the space. But for many people higher value fresh vegetables are often a better thing to focus on.
But fresh dried beans do taste great!
Happy new year and looking forward to your videos!🙂
😁 Happy New Year!
For the past two seasons, I've grown Black Doulting runner beans for the fat black dried seeds and got a decent crop both times. I feel it is a worthwhile crop, but partly because I cannot buy these beans. In the coming season, I will be growing Carole Deppe's 'Beefy Resilient Grex' dwarf beans. They are said to be especially tasty and very productive. We'll see!
That sounds like an interesting variety!
@@REDGardens I got Black Doulting from "Beans and Herbs" a couple of years ago. Beefy Resilient Grex is much more difficult and not available in the UK. If it turns out to be as good as they say, I will be looking to donate some to individuals or organisations who can build up the supply here and spread it around.
Great info. I only grow outside and mainly for green beans. 2024 was not a good bean year here. Hoping for a better year this year and will be growing some butter beans for the first time.
Hope you get a good crop. I want to try butter beans!
I always enjoy your video. Blessings for the new year.
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Happy new year!
I grew pinto and Spanish butterbeans in my pollytunnel last year. Was disappointed with the size of the harvest but the butter beans were the nicest I've ever had.
Thanks for your videos, I appreciate them greatly 🙏
So excited for this coming growing season.
All the very best to you and yours
I wonder if butter beans will grow well here, I'd like to try them.
@@REDGardens real seeds have some intresting runners, heard only god stuff about the czar, migth be an alternativ. i was looking for greek gigantes but ended up geting some bags of every vareiety:) the plan is to see if i end up with some hybrids, with god local adaption
Great video. 😊 We are in a kind of similar climate and i noticed that the low bean varieties actually give us a better yield than the climbing types..
others are saying the same
Team bush all the way!!
Very interesting video. In your pursuit of a double purpose bean, do a search of greasy beans. Heirloom varieties still in use predominately in the Appalachian area of the US. A lot of variety there to choose from. And Happy New Year to you and yours as well.
It may take a lot of space to get enough to store away, but I have a long growing season and use them as a cover crop. They are nitrogen fixing, so I grow them after the spring crops are done, then harvest what I get and turn the plants under to add more organic material in the process.
Heard they use the nitrogen stores to produce the beans, so if your harvesting them they may not be increasing nitrogen in the soil.
@ perhaps that is true. I cannot say how much of the nitrogen they fixed is released by as I in the soil as it decays but I know my soil has greatly improved in the few years I have done this. Whether is it just from the added organic material or the nitrogen left over in the nodules, I don’t know. I still see the benefits considering how much my soil has improved and I don’t have to rebuy cover crop seeds yearly, and a get a few meals out of it too. I save enough beans to replant the next year and eat the rest.
I used to try and get a second crop of corn but even though I would hit it hard with fertilizers they always seemed to struggle. Same with my fall brassicas. Couldn’t seem to replenish enough nutrients in season for a second crop. Everything seems happier now and I only started with $40 worth of different bean seeds and the water it takes to grow them. Worth it to me.
That is cool you are seeing an improvement in the soil. I also wonder how much nitrogen gets passed onto other crops or the next season. But growing anything like that will have a benefit.
Happy New Year! Your videos really help me think about my own garden. Here in the PNW of the US, I'm down to growing peas, fava beans; and scarlet runners- - nothing else seems to produce well; so, I'll stick with what works. Enjoy your yummy produce!
Dragon tongue does well for me near pdx
Yep, focus on what works, and keep trying with the other stuff! So many people, including myself, eventually discover how to grow those things that previously were too difficult.
Happy New Year and Thank you Bruce, your videos all provide food for thought! Gives an interesting perspective when thinking of what to grow where and when🤓
Happy New Year! Glad people like you are getting sorting out of my videos 🙂
Thanks so much for this year of understanding by your side. Happy 2025!! ❤
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Again! Answering the burning questions in my mind... Thank you 👍
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Where I live at 58N we get all our veg from the store. I really appreciate your dedication to telling us about how hard it is to actually get our veg from the land
I think it comes down to prioritising growing what grows well enough and what is hard to get in your area, or perhaps staying away from the stuff you can easily get, if space/time/resources are scarce.
I live in Texas so for me growing beans is a snap, no pun intended. But even with the right crop and the space I have it's still not worth the effort to grow beans for dry storage. The beans I've grown don't taste any better than the dry bag beans I buy that the grocer, and there's not the inconvenience of picking and shelling. The one variety I would grow again is borlotti. Really liked them.
and HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Not eating pesticides would be the advantage.
I think it makes sense to focus on growing what is hard to get elsewhere. In an ideal world we would be much more self sufficient, but with scarce space/time/resources beans may not be so useful, even if they grow really well.
I had the same experince as you in our Panonian climate. But I did manage a year where I could get 500g dried per m^2, however Inhave not been able to replicate that success. It was in low quality clay soil that's never seen compost or fertilizer.
I wonder how much better it would be if there was better soil conditions.
Happy New Year. Last year was so difficult weatherwise. I ended up with a good result by planting three consecutive broad bean beds at monthly intervals. The runner beans tried their best and gave a 10% result. Late broad beans might not be so productive but they are large and have a nice bite when eating. In Ireland I gave up on all but broad and runner beans long ago. Broad beans are now my most reliable bet. and every couple pf years I get a runner bean jackpot crop. There is a runner bean variety called Czar you might consider.
That does sound like a tough year. Our Sumer was ok for the cooler tolerant crops, but anything needing a lot of warmth struggled.
Happy New Year!
Borlotti beans are profuse producers from my experience but they dry better when peeled. They tend to rot when left in pod to try
That is interesting, thanks.
I find they may get mould if removed fresh, I’ve had much more success letting them dry in the pod until the pod almost breaks apart.
@ interesting I suppose it’s dependant on environment we did not have a good sunny summer last year. I plan to grow them again this year so I’m hoping for better weather and better results
Happy New Year to you and yours. Thanks for all your work and sharing with us.
😁
I grew Black Turtle beans in MA, USA this year and I got a lot more than that per plant. You should try some of the dry bush bean varieties. They should mature faster too.
I need to try bush beans, outside next year probably.
ThankQ
I love watching your videos. They’re so informative. Thank you. God bless.
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Happy New Year. Great videos.
Sorry, forgot to say - Happy New Year!
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It's a viable crop when supermarkets close, when seeds are unavailable, when hunger becomes a real thing. Prob viable😅
Indeed! A lot of things change when that happens.
2024 was not the best year for growing dried beans here in NW Wales. Seemed to start well in the polytunnel, but humidity was high, so ended up with a lot of mould problems. So, feeble amount of Borlotti & Gigantes for the effort and space. Runners can work well in the poly, go for a self-pollinating variety like Firestorm or Moonlight. Incidentally, I believe runners are often pollinated by flies. The original plants in S America were pollinated by humming birds, or so I read.
My outdoor runners failed (it's a challenge growing here as we're very exposed and up on a hillside) but the Cobra French Beans were productive in the tunnel - although not as well as 2023.
I'm not going to bother with growing dried beans again, but if we were in the south I'd probably grow them
I would like to try the Firestorm variety again. I think that is the one that is a cross with the common climbing bean, so doesn't need pollination.
Happy New Year Bruce! (all the way from Ontario).
Been watching your channel for a long time now and I still get excited to see a new RED Gardens episode in my feed. Looking forward to the next year's episodes. I'd love to see how you plan out your garden during the winter months, how you choose or research seeds, etc...
Happy New Year to you too. Ill be over in Ontario visiting my family in a few weeks, and hope to do a lot of planning while there.
Using broad beans, a mini tractor, n a decent patch of land, you could have plenty of beans. Less work than climbing beans. Less tasty too though, pros n cons.
Happy new year!
Yeah, I haven't got into cooking with broad beans.
Love my dried beans. Don't work every year but when they do, they are brilliant! My favourites are greek gigantis, borlotti, butter beans and cannolini.
I made some bean chilli last night, from the 6 varieties I grew, and it was fantastic!
For efficient protein production in a cool wet climate (I am near Manchester, UK) I believe (without having tested it) that fenugreek leaf is the better option. Fresh fenugreek leaf (methi) is about 6% protein. Production is fast, doesn't need pollinators, is not so dependent on warm weather and dry periods near harvest, harvest is simpler and it is able to be harvested successionally as needed. The younger the leaf, the higher the protein content. It can be dried and powdered for storage with that powder being between 20 and 30% protein. I am going to be trying the blue fenugreek this year, which apparently has a milder flavour. I do love my beans and lentils but my garden is only 5 metres by 5 metres with high walls. I am tempted to try a couple of plants of the Yin Yang beans Chiltern Seeds have this year, mottled black and white. I would love to find an Afghan chickpea to try as well, they should be quite hardy. Happy New Year!
That is interesting! Haven't tried growing that yet.
Happy new year to you too!
Instead of growing inside, along with your sweet corn, why not try a "3 sisters" plot outside?
Space the corn a bit farther apart than you do inside, then when almost knee high plant a couple of "pole" bean seed. They'll climb the corn. If you allow vines to grow across rows it might even help stabilize the corn stalks in your Irish winds. Biological cross bracing 😊
Once the beans send out the first runner, plant pumpkin/vining squash for every 8-10 corn plants.
Happy New Year and best wishes for all
I have tried three sisters a few times, and we just don't have a warm enough climate to grow any of the three very well.
I have been growing runner beans for the dried beans here in South Wales for the last 4 years as my wife and I really like them in Chilli con carne. I agree that drying at the end of the year can be a bit of a problem if the end of the year is wet. Maybe I should grow some in the polytunnel.
Happy new year!
I really like your glasses! Happy New Year and thanks for your content!
Thanks! I only recently got them, and started to wear them on camera. Bit of a change 😁
Happy New Year to you!
From my middle/east european experience, runner beans has been always grofn on infrastruktury. 6m high ideally. They really disliked hot weather. Above 28°C they stall. I wouldnt mind to send you few seeds.
Interesting. How do you pick from 6m tall infrastructure? And what infrastructure is that? The side of a house? With a net hanging from the rafters or something?
Happy New year! 👍
I love growing beans, but my efforts to grow beans for storage have had limited success. There is no great way to let them dry on the plant here because they are always subjected to humidity and/or rain during the summer. Mostly better to eat them when they are green and delicious. I will say though that, if you can get some to the dry storage stage, they germinate amazingly well. That is basically my plan going forward. Eat the delicious beans when they are young, maybe have one or two meals of some nice borlottis if I can get enough and use the rest for planting. Happy New Year, Mr.
I want to get some to adapt as well. Thanks and good luck!
they don't need to dry down completely on the plant. just let them loose most of the water weight in the pod. give them a shake. then cut the plant at soil level, load all of the plants onto a sheet/tarp and finish the drying inside. after a few days, pull the pods off to dry further. fold the sheet over and walk on the pods to pop the rest open. then winnow the pods in the breeze.
@@az55544 I do the same but I don't leave the pods on the vine, they dry faster and have less mold issues.
@@az55544 I can do that in winter, but in the summer, it is almost impossible.
Happy New Year!
Finding a way to keep them dry is key I think. I want to explore a few things next year.
I love growing beans for drying and usually focus on the following varieties: Borlotti, Czar runner beans (white beans inside) Greek Gigantes, Jacobs Cattle Gold and Beefy Resilient Grex (both bush beans). I'm on the south coast of England, so possibly a bit warmer but still plenty of wind/rain too... I've found it better not to leave pods on the plant too long, as there's a good chance they'll get manky or something will start nibbling at them. Regular harvesting once ripe, and drying the pods somewhere without touching one another too much seems to work best - not sure how feasible that would be if growing in such large amounts though. The nice thing about growing your own, is you can choose varieties you'll never see in the shops - and there are lots to choose from!
Great video and Happy New Year Bruce.
Alan Titchmarch said don't bother growing peas, you've got to sit for hours shelling them all and the ones in the Supermarkets are cheap and such good quality you won't grow any better. I still grow them, but he does have a point!
Fun fact for you; beans always spiral the same way around the poles or string and this doesn't change globally either 🙂
Yeah, he does have a point. The same could be said for potatoes and onions, and other crops.
Happy new year ❤
Happy New year 😘
Like your explaination thank you for all your vidéo
😁
I tried this this year in my polytunnel (I'm in west Cumbria) & TBH the harvest wasn't worth the space.
I grow early & late climbing bean varieties for 'French beans' for fresh & freezing in the polytunnel & using more space which could grow tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, chillies, melons.
Happy New year to you too.
Green beans might be it for cool climates. thanks
@@BlackJesus8463 I don't think we saw more than a couple of days over 70°F/21°C in 2024.
I agree, not worth the space of the polytunnel
Happy new year, Bruce! I wish you all the best for 2025 🧑🌾
My first thought was that pollination was the issue in the polytunnel. I've noticed that beans require good insect pollination for a good crop, or the result is just a few of beans per pod. Humidity is also clearly an issue in a polytunnel compared to outside. (On second thought, you're in humid Ireland where it's the same outside 😉)
Happy New Year!
Yeah, I was wondering if humidity was an issue.
We can buy 20-ounce packs of Hurst's 15-bean Hambeen mix for $3.50 but they go for as high as $9 depending on the store and they are criminally underrated! Don't know how I could compete with that, but I still want to do French green beans someday. Might have good luck with that. ✌
Yeah, it is hard to compete with that. Bu the taste of home grown beans can be a lot better!
Have you thought about doing some nutrition calculations comparing the green beans (frozen) against the dried ones? For green beans the best cropper I have found are fine green beans, a local bush variety, whilst the pods are 'fine' the quantity per bush was incredible. Looking forward to hearing about the changes you're mulling over in response to world events, something for us all to consider (if I'm not reading too much into it). Thanks Bruce.
That would be interesting to do. I generally stay away from that kind of comparison in the past as I would need to rely on generic data, which is based on conventional mass produced food. Not all beans are the same, and I know the nutrition of my vegetables can be a lot better, but not consistently. In an ideal world I would have the resources to send samples to the lab regularly for analysis, but that woudl start to get really expensive very fast!
I grew borlotti beans and runner beans back to back to each other for two or three years. I got a good harvest of borlotti beans but despite lots of flowers very few runner beans each year. I think the bees go for the borrlotti beans flowers in preferance to the runner bean flowers. I never had problems setting runner beans before! I grew them in different places this year and got a good set on the runner beans. Not conclusive evidence, but highly suggestive.
That seems to be an issue with bees, they definitely do prefer some flowers over others. I had this issue with comfrey flowers distracting the bees away from my crops.
another great video! thru my "non scientific" experimentation, I only grow the the cranberry beans to dry. I tried over the years about 15 or so varieties and came down to the same thing, my space fo is more valuable to grow something thats more expensive. I also always dry on the vine which maybe does cause more mold but they are coming on right when my canning season is really in full tilt so i dont have the time to do otherwise. Love your videos Brother and how much time and effort you put into the process! Thanks!
Yeah, I think I need more space and time, in this climate at least, to make it a really worthwhile crop.
Even setting aside your climate disadvantage for dried beans, it's often not worth the trouble unless you want a variety that you can't easily buy. The cost of a 10 or 20 lb bag of dried beans is so (relatively) low that I can't justify the investment. Here in Colorado we have a decent climate for them, but I still only bother with something like Goucho beans that I really like but can't find in the store.
The flavor is noticeably better home grown in my opinion.
Colorado born and raised!
Unless you are interested in greater self sufficiency, I think the main reason to grow them is for the better taste.
One big benefit of pole/runner beans is that they grow vertically, and have a very small ground-space footprint.
Yeah, they aan produce a lot for a small area. But they can also overshadow other crops a lot.
Hello, this is the first video of yours I've seen. I'm US Z6. We're in an ideal location for beans, so I'm not sure how well this will apply to you. I grow a lot of beans, mostly for dried. I grow runners mostly for the bees and hummingbirds and only devote a few feet to them. I have a few varieties I love so I grow those no matter what (True Red Cranberry and Christmas Lima). If you want to devote a small area to either of these, do so. You'll fall in love. Two varieties are my production powerhouses: Cherokee Trail of Tears and Rattlesnake. Both are pole beans.
TOT is a black bean and is wildly prolific. The seeds are end-to-end in the pod and I get 7-10 per pod. The pods are narrow but full. It's a black bean and longer and narrower than a turtle bean with a great flavor and texture. These are my first to mature to dried beans, perhaps because of the smaller size? They dry cleanly on the vine. I get over a gallon from one 12' bed, planted closely.
Rattlesnake is a beautiful snap bean-green with purple streaks. True bean flavor. Long, thin and stay tender even if they fill out a bit. If allowed to dry they make a striped tan seed from decently filled pods. A nice dried bean. I have others I like better but this is the best confluence of productivity and taste in a tan dried bean. My favorite green snap bean.
One thing I do is I plant intensively. I do three rows for each trellis with a distance of 3-4 inches between seeds in each direction. I don't thin or trim. I fertilize once when I plant and I ignore them until harvest time. I use cattle panel arches and the plants get to well over 8'. It's an absolute jungle. I know it's against the rules but it works beautifully for me.
Again, I don't know how this would translate for you. I'm outdoors with a warm summer and despite the solid wall of foliage I have no disease issues. Perhaps a more naturally prolific variety and intensive planting would help. I don't mean to tell you what you already know so apologies if it comes across that way.
Glad you have found my videos! 😁
Thanks for the recommendations, I will keep an eye out for those varieties. Hopefully they will do well over here.
Sounds like you are in an ideal climate for dried beans, and thanks for sharing your experience.
I can imagine that if you have decent heat, and not to humid, that kind of density would work well. I'm still learning, but one of my concerns is having enough airflow and sunlight to properly dry the pods. Things can stay pretty damp around here.
happy new year
😁
Many of those beans that didn't mature were probably not pollinated/sufficiently pollinated. How long is your growing season? If you mention it, I apologize for missing it.
Our grown season is quite long, for frost tolerant plants, but quite cool, so things grow a lot slower than in other places, so the long season doesn't help much.
It's always fun to hear about the contrast in climate. I struggle to get anything with broad beans and runner beans, as it always either too hot or too cold here. Common beans work ok, but it's a bit warm for them at the height of summer. Lima beans do much better. Cowpeas would work even better, but I don't like them and mostly grow them just as a hot weather cover crop.
Purely in terms of economics, I don't think they work well at all. They're cheap like grains, and I grow grains. However, grains are more productive and unlike grains I won't eat more beans just because I grew them.
No way you grow more beans than you could eat.
@@BlackJesus8463 Lol. I said I wouldn't eat them. I didn't say I couldn't.
The idea I was attempting to express was that before I started growing my own grains, I went through about ten pounds of flour a year. Now I go through more like fifty, so my diet has changed in a way that utilizes more grains because I'm growing them. That has replaced other foods that would be more expensive in the store than the grains themselves. That wouldn't happen with beans. I have beans a couple of times a week, and that's plenty.
Interesting - they are cheap like grains but they are far easier to thresh and cook up than grains for the home grower. My Dad is diabetic, so we eat a lot more beans than grains (beans have been really helpful for his blood sugar) so I have been trying every kind of bean under the sun to keep the variety up, I am so tired of beans! That said, our garden is small anyway, and I just focus on the tastiest varieties that are expensive in stores (Borlotti pole and Greek Gigante are great examples, I also grow fava/broad beans becasue they are great for off-season growing in my small garden). I'm in northerm California, and cowpeas and limas don't do well right here.
@@VagabondAnne The difficulty of threshing varies quite a bit according to the grain. Corn is really no more difficult than beans. It's probably easier pound for pound, actually. Sorghum is the one that I would say is next easiest. Free threshing modern versions of wheat, barley, and oats are definitely more difficult than beans, but well within reach of a home grower willing to put in the effort. Anything with a hull that won't let go is aspirational for gardeners who really, really want a challenge. I'm considering rice this year. Current thinking is that I can parboil it to release the hulls.
Yeah, from an economic perspective, they are not a great crop.
So I'd be interested to know if you were to plant a full row of each plant what might have been your yields then? Would they fall within your green bean stage taste choice as well? Interesting test and results. You always seem to entertain at any stage. Here's to another New Year's, cheers and happy planting.
Maybe you should try Lima beans ,those are breed for dry seeds
I think they need a lot more warmth than what we typically get.
I’m in a similar climate (south eastern ontario, canada) and we have damp summers. i find that if i leave the pods on longer than i think, but get them before the wet winter comes, it’s a success. my favourites have been indigenous varieties - cranberry bean, cattle bean etc. I’d suggest seeing what folks grew years ago in your region, you may be able to find them at a seed swap?
I come from Ontario, and the summers we have over here in Ireland are a lot cooler. Typical daytime high in the summer is about 17-19º. So beans are really tough to grow with the damp and the cold, and they are a crop that no-one use to grow around here. Apparently people use to grow lentils and a few other types of legumes a long time ago, but those crops were all lost to the potato and the oppression of colonialism more than a century ago, not a trace remains. So no varieties or experience to collect from other people, only stuff that is imported from elsewhere.
Good mother stallard are great producers
👍
Being in Ireland 6 years now, I've tried to grow my favourite black eye beans both outside and in the polytunnel every single season, different types of soil, normal or reduced watering, seeds sourced from different suppliers each year, I haven't managed to get one single pod. Best I've managed was some flowers. Any tips welcome, I'm desperate to enjoy my favourite dish from my home country Cyprus!
might have a pollination problem? have to tried vibrating them?
if you are talking about black eyed peas or cowpea from Africa Vigna unguiculata (not the bean from the Americas Phaseolus vulgaris,), you've got to have heat. They are completely different and need different growing conditions.
is this what you are talking about? In Cyprus (φρέσκο λουβί (fresko luvi)), Greece (μαυρομάτικα) and Turkey (börülce salatası), blanched black-eyed peas are eaten as salad with a dressing of olive oil, salt, lemon juice, onions and garlic.
im on the west coast of norway\bergen, i used tarp 2x10 meters(the type that lets water tru) melted(welding pen) slits in the tarp and planted lots of different bush\dvarfs. blue lake and ferrari did best, black eye peas didnt make any pods but i think i transplanted them to early, same with snap dragon and borlottis, got some adzuki to ripe! i always start my beans in trays and transplant, couse slugs and low soil temp. im sure the tarp helpt a lot on bringing up the temp\production. and i grew candy roasters and galux.d.elyse in betwen the beans:) a cheap drip\sweating hose, made life easyer this seson, didnt need to use it mutch tho
@az55544 yes, I know they are very heat loving that's why I try it in the polytunnel every year
@@BlackJesus8463I wish it was, but like I said I rarely got any flowers to begin with😢. And in the same polytunnel with same soil I've had great success with tomatoes and cucumbers
I find broad beans much easier to grow and better yield than other types, they are the only beans I plant now.
I wish I liked cooking with them more.
👌😊
😁
Do soup peas (or whatever dry peas are called) grow well where you are?
Edit: and happy new year!
I want to try those.
I grow white gigantes - this year i got 1.9kg from six plants. I'm in zone 6a, new england USA. Perhaps my climate is uniquely suited to them.
Cool, that is a good yield! Yeah, I think you are quite a bit warmer and drier over there, than we are.
@RED Gardens Bruce, you are growing the wrong variety for this, you need to be growing Czar, they are a large white bean optimised for large seed, and are not suitable for green beans, but they yield heavily. We are in mid wales, so a very similar climate to you in Ireland. We grow them outside, and produce a massive yield, yr in yr out
I’m in Ireland and have been looking for czar seeds with no luck so far.
@@gailthornbury291 happy to send you some of ours, im not dure that they will clear customs, due to the uk, been an anti social european hating shit hole. but im sure we can make an attempt to screw the tory infliced barriers if you want. if yuor in the uk anytime before may, ill put them in your hand. otherwise we will need to hope that they get through without a photo syn cert
Haha "an anti social european hating shit hole", I like that!
It has been tough getting seeds since that Brexit thing, such a stupid thing to happen!
I'll keep an eye out, thanks for the recommendation!
@@gailthornbury291 My previous reply appears to have disappeared for some reason. Im happy to let you have some of our seed as long as we can find a way to get them to you
Beans don't need to be dried - you can harvest them toward the end of the season in wet weather, still somewhat green in their pods, parboil, and freeze them. They can be cooked from frozen in less time, too, as they don't need to be soaked. Happy gardening in 2025, Bruce!
yes, but they're called (in the US) "shelly" beans at that point. they can't be dried at that stage, once harvested immature.
@@az55544 My point is that you can freeze 'shelly' beans instead of hoping that they will dry on the vine as you go into a wet autumn.
Interesting idea, thanks.
Hey Red, this is off topic but where do you buy/squire your seeds from?
and does you or anyone else here know some good value or selection seed sellers for Canada/Ontario?
Maybe I just need to make friends with some farmers and visit more seed libraries hahaha
A bunch of different places, but Bingenheimer in Germany has become my main supplier since Brexit. Before that I had access to good suppliers in England, but can't import those seeds into the EU now.
Runner beans do not like high humidity or temperature.
interesting, I didn't know that
Runner beans off trees is a recipe for too many beans
You don't garden to produce staple crops with high shelf life, like grains and beans. Those can be imported for cheap from all around the world in better climates and will be too cheap to bother growing them yourself.
What? Is growing the cheapest, most common survival food worth it? What?
In this climate, when space is scarce, and when I can still buy loads in bulk really cheaply, not really viable.
...
From my middle/east european experience, runner beans has been always grofn on infrastruktury. 6m high ideally. They really disliked hot weather. Above 28°C they stall. I wouldnt mind to send you few seeds.
I think in all the decades I have lived here we have, I have only seen a few days above 28º! The only varieties that grow well here are ones that can really handle the cool conditions.
Happy new year!