Hurrah, or possibly phew... gigandas....

[chriscross1966]

Had a chance today to have a good look through my giganda beans in daylight (as opposed to early morni9ng or evening) and found a bunch of pods well on their way to dryying out and a quite large amount of pods that were well filled but still green;....trhe dried ones will be used for seed next year and will maqke appearance in the swaps. I've tried a few of the beans from green pods and they're huge and they taste good... so now my new freezer is here I can just wait for the weather to kill off the plants then harvest everything I can and freeze them.... next year I'll have a stand outside but I'll try to grow some in the GH......

chrisc

[chriscross1966]

[goodlife]

Are you going to freeze the actual beans or the "green beans"?...I've bought frozen kidney beans before, but never frozen any of my own..I suppose they need blanching first?..I don't normally have much to freeze anyway.. ::)..any shelled beans get eaten or saved for seed ;D
How's Gigandas as a plant..do they grow any bigger than other beans? Is the growth more like broanbean?

[chriscross1966]

I'll freeze the beans out of the pods, blanched first.

The plants are huige, 8ft+ tall if they could (they're on an 8 foot bamboo wigwam and they're well over the top of that) They grow like a runner bean (hardly surprising, they are a runner bean after all) and nothing at all like a normal lunatus  butter bean. The crop looks pretty heavy, more so when you consider how big the beans are, one giganda is about 4x as much bean as even the bigger things I've grown this year, Ernies Big-Eye, Soldier or mennonite Stripe....

Swap you some seed for a bit of comfrey root?

chrisc

[Bugloss2009]

mine blew down in the gales........ ???

[1066]

some of mine have just started to dry on the plants  ;D But still have loads that are very green. Was hoping for more for seed saving......

[artichoke]

Chriscross, why do you freeze the gigandes beans instead of simply podding and drying them and keeping in a jar for adding to casseroles and soups and so on? Just interested. I dry them, put the biggest aside for sowing next year, and eat the rest over the winter.

[goodlife]

Code Select Expand

Swap you some seed for a bit of comfrey root?

;D ;D..OK... ;D ;D

Shall get back to that bit later on... ;)..and you let me know when yours are ready..

[meg_gordon]

The plants are huige, 8ft+ tall if they could (they're on an 8 foot bamboo wigwam and they're well over the top of that)

Our Greek friend (who lives on mainland Greece) grows his gigantes over a sort of pergola - so they can keep growing and provide shade.  They dry all of theirs and store to have during the winter (cooked in tomato, onion and oregano - yum) and the rest used for seeds for the following year.  Got a couple of kilos brought over from Greece this summer.  Might put some by and bring on next spring. 

Well done Chriscross.

Meg

[Bugloss2009]

Chriscross, why do you freeze the gigandes beans instead of simply podding and drying them and keeping in a jar for adding to casseroles and soups and so on? Just interested. I dry them, put the biggest aside for sowing next year, and eat the rest over the winter.

i used to dry them but sometimes they went mouldy in the late spring, and they took ages to cook. Blanching is much better, and they keep their shape when you thaw and cook them.

I still dry the french beans. I like the way they look in jars  :)

[chriscross1966]

Chriscross, why do you freeze the gigandes beans instead of simply podding and drying them and keeping in a jar for adding to casseroles and soups and so on? Just interested. I dry them, put the biggest aside for sowing next year, and eat the rest over the winter.

I've had mixed results with trying to dry beans out of the pod if they're not well down the dessication route before I pod them.... I doubt the Gigandas will have started to dry out when the weather catches up with them so ATM all the dried ones will be for seed. For me frozen fresh will be easier to deal with too, I'll be picking a load of Borlottis and San Antonion later this week to also freeze, now I've got the freezer space I might as well use it to make my life easier. Dried beans are fine but fresh frozen cook a lot faster and don't need an overnight soaking....

chrisc

[chriscross1966]

I've had a thought.... if Giganda's are (as theorised) a P. coccineus then it should be possible to overwinter the roots and get them going early next year...... hmm...

chrisc