Final Tally: Bean Tunnel

 Harvesting dry beans is relaxing. They take their time to dehydrate and even if their shells mold or discolor, bean seeds inside turn ever more brilliant. Frost typically kills late bloomers and seeds in later pods don't fully develop. This year's bean tunnel produced a little over two pounds of immature fruit that chickens and Guinea fowl heartily devoured. Some years we don't get around to pick the drying bean pods until December but I was anxious to quantify this year's production a bit earlier. Shelling them took about three hours.

Scarlet Runner and Purple Pod Beans Hanging to Dry

The two dozen purple pole bean plants produced around 30 pounds of fresh string beans but we let most of them mature and dry so that we now have two pounds of seeds for years to come. Any that don't get planted will become soup.

Purple Pod Pole Bean Seeds

Scarlet runner beans we grow primarily for show because the fresh large pods are tough to eat. The beans inside are beautiful and the four dozen plants produced five pounds of these shiny gems.

Scarlet Runner Bean Seeds

The real champions in producing food this year were the Italian Zucchino Rampicante squash (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds). Not only did they produce immature fruit from early August through October totaling over 200 pounds, the four squash allowed to mature for seeds together weighed over 25 pounds! These now are the color of butternut squash and will probably cook up like winter squash. Maybe we'll make a pie with a small piece of one for Thanksgiving dinner!

Mature Italian Zucchini, Formerly a Pale, Splotchy Green

We did plant some cucumbers but they produced little edible fruit. Opposite the cukes were beautifully red yard-long beans but we didn't know when to pick them nor did we have recipes for preparing them. We fed seeds that birds didn't steal to our fowl. In another part of the garden we had planted sweet potato squash and they taste exceptional and are quite beautiful. They earned a section in next year's bean tunnel.

Sweet Potato Squash: Some Are Dirty From Growing on the Ground

Bean Tunnel: Growing Four Months

By July, bean and squash seeds planted along the edges of the bean tunnel had grown a foot tall with some flowers. This first week of autumn has already given us two light frosts, killing tender ground hugging squash leaves. In the meantime we've harvested a few hundred pounds of squash and many meals of fresh string beans. We are letting most of the beans dry for use as seeds and soup.

 One very neat aspect of the Italian Zucchini variety we tried is that they become a winter squash with a hard shell when they mature. We're letting a few turn butternut squash color so that we can harvest their seeds when we try them mid winter. This variety has been remarkably productive, way beyond any other we've tried. Now, in late September, a dozen plants are still producing more than 50 pounds per week. A few vines have wilted leaves from insect/viral damage but most are still healthy with vines growing longer. They have avoided frost damage by climbing high on the trellis that raises them above the coldest air near the ground. 

Tender Young Squash Leaves Shriveled by Frost: September 23

July 11: Beans and Squash Starting to Flower

August: Vines Reaching the Top 

Purple Pole Beans Producing a Bumper Crop!

Most of the Chinese Yard Long Beans Hang Low Outside

One Week's Production of Zucchino Rampicante

Italian Zucchini Hanging Down, Making It Difficult to Drive the Tractor Through

Squash Behind Purple Beans

More Italian Zucchinis

Italian Squash Fruito Becoming a Hard Shelled Winter Squash

Vine Trellis or Bean Tunnel

Every week we have the pleasure of entertaining twins, now three-years old, who like to pick and immediately eat fruit and veggies from the garden. Images of different trellises with horizontal sections that have beans hanging down look attractive and very functional. How neat would it be to have a long tunnel that was tall enough so hanging beans along the center would not hit your head? If in the shape of an arch, kids can readily choose their favorite colors and pick beans along the sides hanging at their level.

Bean Tunnel: Under Construction

Setup for Bending Arches Over Wood Form

Tools and Fasteners Needed  to Bend and Connect the Aluminum Extrusions Together

I have a lot of aluminum extrusions left over from building solar collectors. One type, 13 feet long, is especially easy to both bend and join together. Trials arrived at arches that use one and a half lengths that are bent to be 80 inches high at the center and eight feet wide at the base, with  each end 8 inches below ground. The tunnel is 51 feet long with 27 arches. To support trellis netting, string and cable lash six members of the same material perpendicular to the arches and run the length of the tunnel.

Early View Looking South

Four kinds of beans, along with some cucumbers and fancy squash, grow on both sides of the arches. To minimize planting effort, only a narrow strip of soil on each side was prepared and heavily mulched. For easy maintenance, both ends of the tunnel have gates so that grass inside the tunnel can be mowed. A knee-high rabbit proof fence around the facility keeps critters from eating the plants. Experience shows that any vine that winds into the fencing has to be rerouted to prevent it from being nibbled off. They must be very tasty.

North End Showing Squash and Trellis Netting

It will be awhile before the various vines climb over the top of the trellis netting, flower and hang their fruit inside!

Inside View Looking North

Gate Prevents Critters from Eating Plants Inside

Saving Food: Apples, Cabbages, Peppers and Beans

It's November 17 and we still have a few dozen bushels of great tasting apples on four Granny Smith trees. 

One of Four Granny Smith Apple Tree Without Leaves But with Hundreds of Apples

We've given away many bushels, dehydrated more and have quite a few bushels waiting for processing. The few heavy frosts we've had haven't touched them. It's hard for me to see them go to waste, though they do help deer and other wildlife thrive. We have a year's supply of applesauce canned and 30 gallons of cider brewing or bottled but have run out of brewing vessels. Every few days I slice and dehydrate 40 or so apples into two gallons of chips. I'll probably pick another ten bushels before they freeze and store them under cover in the garage where I dehydrate them. When it gets way below freezing, they and the dehydrator will need to be transferred to the basement. 

Gallon Bags of Dehydrated Apple Slices and Other Drying Experiments

Three 5-gallon Carboys & Two 6-gallon Pails of Juice Fermenting 

Cabbages did not fair as well as the apples. I had to trim off the top leaves that were damaged by frost. The rest of the heads were still very crisp and hopefully will turn into great sauerkraut (white cabbage) and kimchi (red cabbage). The kimchi also has a few pounds each of garlic and sweet and jalapeño peppers mixed in for flavor. We have a total of seven gallons of these raw veggies slowing fermenting in the garage to extend their time to maturity while we eat more than a dozen fresh cabbage heads and pounds of peppers.

A Few Red Cabbages with Top Leaves Trimmed Off

Cross Section of A Red Cabbage

Five and Three Gallon Crocks Filled with Fermenting Cabbage and Other Veggies. Tops Are Weighing Down Plates That Keep Veggies Submerged in Brine.

Beans are easier to preserve than fruits and vegetables that have to be cut, shredded or squeezed. They simply have to be shelled and spread out to dry. Peppers, too, can be hung out to dry, and look good in one corner of the kitchen. Need a little heat in a dish? Pull one off and crumble it into the pot!

Scarlet Runner Beans in Various States of Drying

A Ristra of Alice's Favorite Hot Pepper (from a fellow seed saver) Hanging Out to Dry

Bean and Pepper Harvest

We grow pole or runner beans because they climb up on fences, poles or other structures created to keep them up in the air. We like the colorful flowers of Scarlet Runner Beans but their seeds are pretty tough and take many hours of simmering to soften. So we also plant a white-colored bean that cooks more quickly.

Scarlet Runner Beans with Flowers, Immature Beans and Tan Dry Pods

Woodchucks and rabbits seem to ignore the tough stems near the ground and the tender tendrils, flowers and developing beans are out of their reach. Some birds like cutting off tender pods or teasing out mature seeds - but not enough to diminish harvests too much.
The pods of bush beans often lie directly on the soil and deteriorate it they remain wet for very long. Because we mulch quite heavily, the soil is usually moist that leads to the pods and the seeds inside molding before they dry. Slugs and snails also attack fruit near the ground much more than those high up in the air. 

Second Harvest of Dry Scarlet Runners: 4.5 Pounds of Shelled Beans.

We eat quite a few meals of the tender green beans but most we let mature and dry. When their pods become brown, we periodically pick and shell them, letting the fancy beans dry completely in shallow baskets store against the ceiling above the wood stove. We like to harvest the dry beans every two weeks, or so, to prevent a flock of birds from stealing them. When a single bird figures out that there are nutritious beans inside the innocuous pods, it takes only hour or days for them to shred them all. We're lucky that most years they don't figure it out.

Third Harvest of Scarlet Runners: Six Pounds of Dry Beans

Sweet peppers mature much faster than hot peppers. Of the five types of sweet peppers, we like the large orange and red types the most because they are meaty and sweet. The purple ones are thin and even when mature, taste very much like mild immature green peppers. Small bright yellow ones son't have much taste and this year they are spongy. Other years these small yellow peppers were our favorite because they mature very early and continue producing into October when other varieties crashed. And critters seem to leave them alone. Many of our larger peppers are nibbled by rabbits, mice and voles, often making holes to access the seeds inside the fruit. Daily harvesting catches damaged fruit so to minimize waste we simply trim away nibble marks and eat them in the next salad or stir fry.

Variety of Peppers, Tomatoes, Squash and Eggplant Waiting to Be Eaten. When the Stove Is Not Being Used for Heat, It Makes a Great Table!