Since it doesn't appear it is ever going to stop raining and the wife used my buckets of dried beans (still in the pods) as yet another excuse to nag at me this weekend. I decided to start shelling them.
Soon I should have a fairly accurate count on yields for this year and be able to figure out if my average number of plants per person figure is still holding good from previous years.
Not much else I can do right now anyway. Work has been extremely slow the last few weeks. In fact it has been down right dead and the constant rains we been getting for over a week now has left the ground like a sponge in a bucket of water. Standing water and mud is everywhere. I parked my truck alongside the barn last week and I am not sure I can get it out if I wanted to without making some serious ruts.
So far 1 five gallon bucket full of dried pods is roughly coming out to 2 full quarts of dried beans once I have em all removed from their pods. A very time consuming process but on days like this it gives me something to do. I can't help wondering though if there is a simple old time contraption that didn't make this process a bit speedier than doing it by hand.
Perhaps Sf or Winston or one of the other old machinery gurus knows of a bean podding machine or something?
Right now I would estimate that it is taking me about five hours of casually de-podding to complete a full five gallon bucket. Of course that's while watching a movie and frequently getting up or reading etc. However with the yield of two quarts which would would make one person about eight meals (1 cup per meal) we are looking at roughly eight buckets per person per month. I am rounding it off here obviously and I had some left over anyway. A numbers this size better to round up regardless.
Whatever the case I think it's pretty safe to say you would be de-podding beans a LOT all Winter.
Oh well back to work. I am almost done with the Blackeyed Peas now.
Keep Prepping Everyone!!!
I know your area and Arkansas got hit real bad, it is headed my way supposed to get here overnight , and still packing a Punch. We are already under a tornado watch and it is still about 4 hours away... Hope you all made it through okay
ReplyDeleteJuGM - This has been some wicked storms we have had the passed couple fo weeks. Haven't seen the sun much at all lately. Sad that it is hitting us like this in the Fall and not Spring like it should be. I mean we always get a smaller wet period each Fall but this is outrageous.
DeleteAround here we are under a tornado watch like every 9 days out of 10. I don't even pay attention to em anymore.
How I shell beans. I put them in an old pillow case, place it on a workbench and, with a two foot long piece of closet rod, proceed to massage the beans from their shells.
ReplyDeleteMassage sounds so much nicer than beating the daylights out of them.
Allan in St.Chuck
Allan - That might be a decent method. I know the shellers you can buy seem to be all made for peas and will work on beans but not the dried ones very well. The big combine type machines are well cost more than my 25 acre spread does on the open market. I was reading a while back where a university was doing a study for midrange dried bean production and a machine to do it but they never came up with a design for anything.
DeleteI will give your method a try. I am assuming you willow out the beat up dried pod pieces?
PP,
ReplyDeleteIs the cat helping you shell your beans?
We had some bad rain and winds Sunday through Monday.
Sandy - Yes he is back this year stealing my pods, both empty and not empty. He is not doing it as much as he did last year though so instead of locking him up in a cage I just stop working for a minute of so and he gets bored and moves on.
DeleteThe last few weeks have just been constant storms rolling off the rockies from Texas to Idaho I think. I think it's rained everyday a little bit for over 2 weeks now.
I am finally going to take the plunge into bee keeping. I have been reading websites, books, and forums as well as watching YouTube videos. I am going to attend the area beekeepers society meeting in two weeks, but I also plan on trying to pick your brain down to the bone ;) I plan on starting with two hives, what mail-order source would you recommend. I plan on buying from two different suppliers just to compare. Also where do you buy your supplies? Do you have a favorite place or do you just shop all the majors for the best deal?
ReplyDeleteSwampdog - I buy almost everything from Mann Lake. They have a bee bucks reward program and do a lot of free shipping over 100 bucks specials. I make all my own bottom boards now and switch hives older than a year over to a migratory style top with a top entrance I make myself. I order supers, frames (either plastic or parts to put together myself sometimes) and inner covers from Mann Lake.
DeleteI use entrance or boardman feeders but place them inside the hives now surrounded by medium supers.
I order feeders and Winter inner covers (which are deep for feeding dry sugar in the Winter) from a place called Brushy Mountain.
Those are the only two places I have ordered stuff from. I found it was cheaper to just order supers unassembled than trying to make em myself. If I was better witha router though I might try making them as well.
I will make some supers this winter, but I thought the same thing regarding frames. I COULD make them with a table saw and dado blades or a router, but it would be arduous and time consuming. What about the bees themselves? Have you ordered any bees by mail or do you only get them locally, split your hives, and catch swarms?
DeleteSD - I don't order bees. I have not been impressed with the survival rates on package bees I have seen from others who got them and generally speaking they have to come from way South where you can get mixed African genetics. I will order queens and have but I always order mine from Iowa. There is a blog on the right called Adam Eberts bees who I order queens from.
DeleteMostly I capture swarms. I have done several posts on building and using swarm traps but I will do another one before Spring or I can always email ya a copy.
I always use plastic foundation or plastic frames. The bees don't like it as much but they are more durable and won't collapse in the heat.
I think people have run the beans through the rubber rollers from a wringer washer. Of course you would have to find one and then put it horizontal over a bucket.
ReplyDeleteAnyway some such device where the bean doesn't get crushed but the shell which is dried out wild fall apart.
Got nasty weather to the south of us tonight.
Sf - Those little ones you can buy use rubber rollers but I thought they really only worked for ripe but not dried beans. They kinda squish em out like toothpaste.
DeleteI am ready to see the sun again I hope it comes out tomorrow.
I believe the traditional way to shell out the beans was to send the children out to the porch with a bucket of beans and a bowl in which to place the beans, plus a bucket for the shells. That's how it worked at my gandma's house.
ReplyDeleteMarivene - Well that's kinda how it works here right now only with no kids. Only me and a cat trying to steal my pods.
DeleteBy looking around I am not sure there is really an easier or faster way without spending some a large number of Benjamins.
It shows how much of any staple we'd need to grow to produce our own food.
ReplyDeleteOur staples are potatoes (which I might be able to manage to grow), rice (there's zero chance of growing that here), and qheat for flour and cous vous. Have you experimented with growing wheat to make your own flour? Have you got a grain mill?
I have grown beans for the dried pods but we didn't eat with them too much. I should start again as its a good easy to atore staple. How many plants did you have in this year? Do you pick any green beans from them first? Sorry about all the questions.
Kev
Kev - I have been growing a specific type of pole bean for years now. Been picking the best seeds each year. I plant 100 of them and then test the yields to get an approximation of how many I would need per person for a year at 1 cup dried beans per day.
DeleteWheat does well around here but I have not grown it myself. I plan on expanding out another few acres into grain production as I am able but haven't made it that far yet.
I also started growing blackeyed peas to add into the staples production this year. We also put in a few rows of green beans for fresh consumption. We have a grain mill and I have experimented with making some wild flours like from Acorns but put that aside a few years back.
The barnyard is a field of poop-soup. Where was all this rain two months ago?
ReplyDeleteI'm picking green beans today, globe zucchini & the tomatoes (which are going gangbusters now with the rain...too bad they'll be dead soon because of the cold). Didn't plant any dry beans this year (again). Maybe next year. What types do best up by you?
Carolyn - My tomato plants are full of blooms still but most of them are just sprawled across the ground now. I got so tired of messing with em and actually started taking the trellis down. I been growing the same type of Pole beans for years now which was some type of crossbred mistake that grew from some bush beans once. I just been breeding em and selecting the best for next years crop.
DeleteI have no clue why we are getting this mega rain right now. Haven't seen rain like this in years.