2024 Little Easy Bean Network - Growing Heirloom Beans Of Today And Tomorrow

[Neen5MI]

I need some guidance from growers with experience harvesting greasy beans for fresh eating. I'm growing 2 varieties for the first time, Headricks Greasy Cutshort and Dean Family Greasy Cutshort. They are network beans, but so amazingly productive that I decided to pick and eat some. How does one decide when the beans are mature enough for cooking in the pod vs shelly stage vs too far gone and best left to dry completely? My green bean history is only with varieties that should be picked before the seed is noticeably enlarged.

Here's what I picked and cooked for dinner tonight (ready to serve any minute).

Deans Family. Greasy Cutshort has a very few pods close to dry and some show speckling of the pods. Is that consistent pattern at a particular stage of maturity, or is it a potential rouge vine?

 

[Hornad]

I haven't grown cut short beans, but my beans go from shelly to starting to mature when the pod turn from green to slightly yellow

 

[ruralmamma]

How does one decide when the beans are mature enough for cooking in the pod vs shelly stage vs too far gone and best left to dry completely?

I haven't grown either of those varieties yet but I have a couple of cut short varieties including one that I'm maintaining as a family heirloom. Basically when the pod starts getting tough, we shell it. So if you're snapping them and a pod feels a little tough or rubbery, it's time to shell them in my opinion. Also when they're starting to yellow as Hornad mentioned.

One thing I have noticed with my experimentation is that they generally are very flavorful when compared to the "normal" varieties of snap beans available.

 

[ruralmamma]

I didn't obtain network beans this year but an anxiously awaiting mature seed from two varieties that are network selections.

We have a chance of rain this weekend and I went out last evening and harvested mature pods for drying. Opened a few pods of a dry bean landrace mix I'd harvested earlier in the week and was in awe at the variety. This is why I get so excited (and obsessed) about beans!

Some of those blue beans will definitely get sorted out and grown separately next year.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Here's what I picked and cooked for dinner tonight (ready to serve any minute).

So by now you must have cooked an eaten these in this stage. So how was the eating quality. What was the eating texture and flavor?

I go to seed swaps in Kentucky and they tell me that these types of beans are tender hulled. They are boiled in water with bacon fat. Most of the water is boiled away but don't let the pods burn. Drain off the rest of the water once well cooked.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Summer Bean Show 2024 Vol. #22

Bean 57 looks a lot like North Pole. 58 reminds me of the segregation I've gotten from Andromeda I've been calleing Scorpio. 61 looks like a beautiful pink bean larger and more filled out than the more flattened Pink that I've grown.

5:20 am right now and we've been getting some nice steady very much needed rain so far the past hour and a half. August has been a terrifically dry month here.


Bean #57.................................................................Bean #58

Bean #59.................................................................Bean #60


Bean #61.................................................................Bean #62

 

[flowerbug]

I need some guidance from growers with experience harvesting greasy beans for fresh eating.

i don't have specific experience with those varieties, but greasy beans in general should be edible when cooked as fresh beans up until the pod has started drying down and gotten hard enough to no longer be able to be cooked into anything you'd want to eat. normally they are picked when the pod is full and still somewhat green - after that stage i'd say it's going to be dependent upon variety.

the greasy beans i grew for several years were edible some days past prime and of course thenafter you could shell them out and cook them as a shelly or then later as as dry bean but i didn't like them as much at that stage because to me they had what i would consider a fishy sort of flavor/note to them.

i stopped growing them because they were a pole bean but also not reliable enough (they needed a few week longer season than what i normally have).

 

[Neen5MI]

Basically when the pod starts getting tough, we shell it. So if you're snapping them and a pod feels a little tough or rubbery, it's time to shell them in my opinion. Also when they're starting to yellow as Hornad mentioned.

My plants have pods in every stage, from tiny slivers to crisply dried down. Do you mean the decision on how to cook occurs during food prep? Would a "mess of beans" end up a combination of whole beans and shelled beans? Or do the shelled beans get tossed in a separate bowl and held for use in a future meal? I was hoping to find a method to select during picking. Similarly, for making leather britches, ultimately the whole bean is cooked and consumed, and many don't snap the beans before suspending them for drying. How do families ensure they have beans that haven't passed into toughness? These functional details aren't included in discussions by people with long traditions, because the knowledge is acquired by osmosis over a lifetime. I may have to NC, TN, or KY to pick the brains of the matriarchs.

 

[Neen5MI]

So by now you must have cooked an eaten these in this stage. So how was the eating quality. What was the eating texture and flavor?

I cooked them with ham, garlic. onion, sweet peppers, and black pepper. Because the tradition is for long, slow cooking, I cheated and used a pressure cooker for 20 minutes. The pods and seeds were very tender, melt-in-your-mouth, and the dish was delicious, with ham being the central flavor. Since no evaporation takes place when pressure cooking, there was tons of broth. We slurped it up with homemade sourdough bread. My guinea pig S.O. had 3 helpings!

 

[Neen5MI]

greasy beans in general should be edible when cooked as fresh beans up until the pod has started drying down

Thank you.

i stopped growing them because they were a pole bean but also not reliable enough (they needed a few week longer season than what i normally have).

I have a preference for pole beans, but I agree (we're in a similar location) they are not as close to drying as I'd like at this point in the growing season for seed saving long term.