It was our first time. We were virgin bean shellers. And I’m afraid it showed. Our technique needs some work. Shelling these two pints of Dragon Tongue bush beans took us over an hour.
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Beans are amazing. They produce frantically and for an extended period of time. They can be harvest fresh, they are good frozen or canned, and they can be dried. That’s crazy versatility. I can completely comprehend the Dave Ramsey’s beans and rice economy diet in terms of production quantities. At least I can speak to the beans half of the equation. It would be interesting to plant a rice patty some day.
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I’ve read of gardeners slamming the entire bean plant with dried pods against the sides of a metal garbage can. The seeds presumably fall to the bottom, and I’m sure much of the chaff would too. I didn’t look very hard, but I couldn’t find any metal garbage cans lying around. And most of our beans are pole varieties, so pulling out the entire vine is not a great option. Shelling by hand, one bean at a time, was fine – just time intensive. It would have been nice to have an air compressor to spray the chaff off the seeds. That could work. Or maybe just a strong fan. The amount of beans we grow can certainly be done by hand in a few hours so I don’t plan on running out to buy an air compressor tomorrow. Then again, we did lose our tire pump the other day. What would Dave Ramsey say to that?
you must be proud of yourselves. two pints of dried beans sounds great, especially since you’ve grown them yourself. who is dave ramsey? i’d like to hear more.
Aren’t there simple bean & pea shelling machines?
My idea to feed the world is to cross zucchini & kudzu and we could feed the entire world. All fertilizer that kudzu needa would be some old crank cases and broken down cars. Kudzu is a southern thing introduced from Asia by some one in the US Agriculture dept. I hope Kudzu was planted on his grave site and that he sleeps with those many roots encircling him.