the question on my mind in recent weeks was how much (percentage wise) nitrogen is supplied by the dry weight of bean stems and some leaves and then if you are returning a percentage of the bean harvest to the soil each time you grow them how much of that is also a supply of which nutrients? it looks like about 15% of the dry beans are crude protein which is not nitrogen percentage but at least useful edible food for beef cattle if not overused (2% or less). so roughly none of what i'm doing is going to waste.
and of course there is some percentage being supplied by the dry stems and leaves of the plants and also the roots and nodules left behind.
now does that mean that using large amounts of dry beans to feed the worms in the worm buckets was a great idea? well, based upon my own informal experiments it was not a great idea and so it is better if i don't do those experiments again in every bucket of worms. this year i'm returning to a more moderate diet plan and if i use things from the beans it will mostly be the dry bean pods and there will be some scattered dry beans in those but nothing like what i did by adding a lot of rejects and several lbs of dry beans that were bulk food sourced and given to us by a friend but they were so bad quality that i did not want to cook with them so i used them as worm food. the worms didn't really seem to like them either, but i think that is simply a matter of too much of one thing not really being the best approach. had they been cooked drained and mixed in with other vegetable materials they would probably have done much better.
of course i'm also interested in nitrogen fixation by beans in the nodules on their roots and and read articles about that. mixed reviews available as to if supplmental nitrogen is actually useful vs. what the plants can supply for themselves. some indications that lower pH inhibits nodulation so wood ash applications for those with more acidic soils may give a boost (be careful to not overdo it).
the garden i was putting up yesterday has been used for growing beans for most of the years i've been here. sometimes i find extra amendments of organic materials or grow some garlic and other things in that area but on the whole most of it is just used for beans (and weeds
). the soil is in pretty good condition other than the usual high clay content and poorer drainage than i'd like but i get good crops from it even with those limitations. i probably turn under 10-25% of the dry beans in the pods or rejects or what falls from shattering.
any places i do have beans (or peas) growing in gardens does make a big difference in the softness of that immediate area where they are planted so i also don't mind growing them as a cover crop and that was a part of the plan for the late plantings of beans. i didn't expect to get an extra month of growing season and i did not expect that the beans that were shut down due to the frosts we finally did get to be in decent shape, but my survey of shelling some of those out yesterday determined that they will be edible and appreciated by us - that means 5-10lbs of Purple Dove beans extra i wasn't expecting (which is likely going to help offset some of the losses i had from other beans due to groundhog feeding and some too dry weather spells we had).
ok, here is one reference i've been able to find which gives actual values of some terms that i've not been able to find using a general search for % of nitrogen by weight for dry beans and dry bean plants (if you happen to come across such references i would like to hear about it
).
