finally finished shelling and sorting the soy beans and weighed them. 44lbs.
all told we grew about 80lbs of dry beans last season. i don't think i'll grow soy beans next season and use those spaces for pinto beans and other beans.
a few dollar experiment turned out well as the spaces where i grew most of the dried beans were those i'd previously left bare for the last half of the season. kept the weeds down, soaked up extra moisture when it happened to rain, provides some nitrogen and protects the soil. a good deal for the price. probably keeping the worms and other soil critters happy too right about now as they are slowly decaying.
i learned a lot about a dozen more kinds of beans i'd not grown before and will likely keep adding to the selection of varieties as i get a chance.
should have better luck next year with many of them as they won't be planted as late and the ground will be higher (so they won't flood) and also they won't be planted with soy bean patches shading them as much.
as a cover crop to keep weeds down soy beans were by far the best. they grow big with wide leaves. the pinto beans and pink beans grew as vining plants and twisted around themselves. i didn't stake any of them. the green peas were self supporting and did well enough. only a little rot where things got crowded (the soy beans growing over the red beans in one patch and the soy beans growing over the dark red kidneys in another).
dark red kidneys should be picked as soon as the pod is dry enough if there is a lot of rain in the forecast. otherwise the beans at the bottom of the pod can start getting black mold on them and then the mold will spread up the pod. pink beans seemed similar. the light red kidneys did not have that kind of trouble, but they were also grown in a spot with better air flow so that could have been the factor there. next season should be better for that as there won't be soybeans towering and crowding.
blackeyed peas do not like any moisture on the pods at the end of the drying of the pods. i gave up and turned under the last of the blackeyed peas because i didn't like how they looked.
red beans split the pods easily so had to be picked gently.
borlatti beans are huge when shelled fresh. didn't actually cook and eat them at this stage but should give it a try next year. very productive plants.
butter beans take a long time to get to harvest, but they are wonderful fresh off the plant. if i'd planted these a month earlier they'd have finished nicely.
for the fresh eating green and wax beans the nice thing that happened was that some of the green beans developed pods that were much easier to shell the dry seeds from. i put these in a separate package for replanting hoping to continue this effect. i sure hope it does breed true as the shelling of the green beans takes a long time as those pods are very tough and hold the seeds tightly.
for peas and pea pods i'll have four to six varieties to play with next year. not sure where i'm going to put them, but it will get figured out. :) we like peas and peapods so much that we could easily not plant anything else.
when i was digging up many of these patches this fall i was able to observe the root structure of many of these beans and again by far the soy beans seemed to be the biggest improver of the soil if you base that upon how many roots and how big the root clump was. unfortunately it was not a fair and controlled experiment as the soy beans crowded out many of the surrounding bean patches. next season i will have a much better spacing set up because i won't have soy beans at all and i have the experiences with the other beans from this season to use in my plantings.
for next spring and early summer i'll have several tulip patches that had beans planted over them to monitor to see if the beans added organic matter and nutrients increase diseases. already i was able to tell from leveling two different gardens this fall that the beans made the bulbs under them quite happy in comparison to a garden that did not have beans planted over them. how that will carry through is a question to be answered, but i have my planting maps and notes ready for the spring tulip season. :) if things look to be going ok then i will have yet another garden to put beans over for the summer.
songbird