I feel like I’m on a roll with my fall clean up. I better be – frost is on the way. As part of my clean up, I had pulled all my beans off the trellis. I did this a few weeks back after four or five really sunny days when I knew they’d be dry. That’s pretty much the only challenge in saving dry beans – making sure they are completely dry.  Any moisture at all could lead to mold and rotting.

This pile of bean pods is from 8-10 silver cloud cannellini bean plants. I put them in the ground in August as I was taking out some of my lower producing pole beans. I let them pretty much do their thing until the weekend of Halloween.  Then my 7.5 year old and I spent about 20 minutes taking them down off the trellis.

I laid them out to dry for another few days on this cookie sheet as a bit more insurance against any mold issues. Then I spent just a few moments each day popping the beans out of the shells. It was relaxing oddly enough. 

And easy as that, 2 cups of dryer beans (plus a mysterious visitor – my kids make me laugh) for some winter soups.  I’ll definitely be planting more of these again next year!