Topic: Borlotti beans

[Squash64]

I've grown Borlotti beans for the first time this year.  Nearly all the pods have turned
a lovely speckled red colour now, is this the time to pick them or are they supposed
to stay on till they go dry?

How do I store the beans once they are picked?

[alkanet]

I used to leave them as long as possible on the plant, and then dry them in the airing cupboard, but sometime the dried beans would start going mouldy in the late spring

now I leave them on the plant as long as possible, rehydrate the beans in water, blanch and freeze

[Jayb]

They are great cooked fresh and if I have room in the freezer, I like picking them once the beans are big and the pods just start to go leathery, but before the beans start to dry. I pod and freeze, when you want to use them there is no need to pre-soak but they still need the full cooking time as if they were fresh. If short of freezer space, similar to alkanet, leave on the vine as long as possible but then finish drying inside and then once fully dry put them in jam jars and store in a cupboard.

[chriscross1966]

ONce the pod starts to go leathery you can shell out the beans and freeze them , it saves a great deal of time cos they won't need rehydrating, I find if I give them 15 minutes fast boil then 30 minutes simmer they're generally ready to go in with whatever I'm cooking them with.... the same is true more or less for the massive array of beans that I grwo for shelling, though the bigger ones like Giganda and the pea-beans like Box and Egyptian pea-bean take a bit longer on both stages and some of the smaller ones and canellini like Impero Bianco and Blue Lake take a bit less.... the good thing with all the climbing french beans (nearly all the shelling beans are barring giganda and spagna which are runners and Lima beans which are a species unto themselves) internally fertilise so they generally stay true to type even if grown together...I can sned you a small mixed (labelled) pack of seeds if you like to try.... they all have basically the same habit (climbers) but a wide array of beans.....