Topic: A few bean questions????

[nilly71]

How do you know when Rattle Snake, Black Turtle and Butter beans are ready for picking?

The Butter beans are about 12" long and very small bumps inside.



Do Bolotti beans take longer to develope than most other beans?
Mine are growing like mad but have not produced anything.

This is one Bolotti plant that i have had to run extra supporting string and its still taking over the sunflowers and metal support pole. Next time i'll make sure to give it more room.



Neil

[manicscousers]

Hiya, Neil..we just take the beans as and when we want them, some we use when 'green' and some we let dry out..our barlotti have 1 flower on but it's been a long time coming  ;D
our yin/yang beans(orca I think), are dwarf and they are loaded with pods..just hope we get them before the slugs  :-\

[Digeroo]

Some of my climbing french are also very shy with the flowers.  Huge rambling plants and hardly a flower in sight.  While others are dripping in flowers.

our yin/yang beans(orca I think), are dwarf

Mine are non climbing but I would hardly call them dwarf, the plants are huge.  I thought they were climbers so put them in a row with poles unfortuneately I was expecting them to climb so they have not got enough sunlight being shadows with other types that did climb.   ;D ;D

[thifasmom]

i grew borlotti last year and they were dripping with flowers and lots of pods but there was very few beans, i assume it was a pollination problem a there was so few bees about last year.

this yea like you my borlotti is growing beautifully but has also produced very few flowers, but i have noticed this past week that more flowers and tiny pods are starting to show themselves, so hopefully I'll get a lovely crop of of them yet.

my ying yang are defo dwarf and also dripping with pods, with more flowers still developing and because i want to harvest the dried beans i have grown them in the tomato bed under my custom made rain cover, the plan is that the pods will remain dry during the crucial ripening period early autumn before harvest.

[nilly71]

Hiya, Neil..we just take the beans as and when we want them, some we use when 'green' and some we let dry out

Does this include the Butter beans?
I read somewhere that like kidney beans they are poisonous unless soaked overnight and cooked for a few hours ::)


Neil

[manicscousers]

never grown butter beans so can't tell you about that, we ate some haricot beans like runners last week as Ray did the picking  ::) ;D
just found this about butter beans, also called lima beans  :o

Raw lima beans and butter beans contain linamarin, a cyanogenic glucoside. The beans are rendered safe when cooked. Low-linamarin varieties are typically used for culinary purposes. It is possible for one handful of raw beans to make a person violently ill.
so, don't eat them raw