Magic Beans

It starts with the names:

Jacob's Cattle, Bumblebee, Black Turtle, Vermont Cranberry, Tiger's Eye, Ying Yang. So evocative and alluring.

And the pictures--blacks and whites, reds, swirls and dots. A visual feast.

Vermont Cranberry, several generations removed from the seed company.

Dry beans.

We don't eat a lot of beans. Chili, baked beans, and bean soup are the sum of the recipes we use. But every year, I'm sucked into dreaming about growing all of the different varieties.

And for a lazy gardener like me, dry beans are the perfect crop.

You plant them like any bean, chuck them in the ground after the soil is warm. They'll grow under the worse conditions and neglect. And repay that neglect by adding nitrogen to your soil.

Then you just wait. With dry beans there is no pressure to harvest young for continued production as there is with green beans. Dry beans you want to grow old and mature on the vine.

In New York State, it was late September until beans were ripe and dry on the vine. Here in Indiana, I just picked my first ever crop of Jacob's Cattle.

Jacob's Cattle is an old bean of unknown provenance. It is supposed to be especially good in baked beans which is why I decided to give it a try.

I planted 2 ounces on May 27, marked the plot and basically forgot about them for the summer. Yes, I did weed once or twice but that was it.


Harvesting dry beans couldn't be easier, just pull up the entire plant.


This is what I gathered today.

And this is what it looks like shelled--9 ounces. 

Not a great yield, but enough to save some for seed for next year and make a small batch of baked beans.

Which brings up two more benefits of dry beans: saving your own seed is as easy as picking the ripe pods and dry beans are ready for your larder-- you pick, pod, and that's it! Ok, clean up the debris a bit, but then you just pour them into a jar--no boiling, no peeling, no canning necessary. They will last for years and years, looking pretty on your shelf and ready to warm your tummy on those cold, winter days.

Make room in your garden next year for a variety of dry beans. Or two, or three...