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To grow large quantities of dry, winter-keeping beans, plant a variety that has been developed for the purpose, such as Jacob's Cattle or Black Turtle beans. All are hush beans that take about 100 days. Most mature all at once, and can be hand-threshed by beating them inside a feed sack, if you let the pods dry in the field. But monitor them. If you wait till pods are dry enough to split, you'll have to hand-retrieve a lot of beans that drop on the soil during harvest. At five beans a pod, perhaps ten pods per plant, 1,000 dry beans a pound and one plant per foot-row, you need to plant, cultivate, and harvest four 25-foot rows to raise a pound of beans. Recall that Henry Thoreau hand-hoed three acres and seven row-miles of beans to raise 12 bushels that earned him $23.44 before expenses, a little over $8.00 after. That was in 1847, but dry bean prices haven't gone up all that much in the interim. I'm dedicated to individual and community self-reliance, but, along with dentistry and a few other skills, dry-bean-raising is something I'll leave to the pros.

The better seed catalogs indicate in print or with a special symbol which varieties are best for freezing or canning. Some indicate the best for drying as well. By and large, good canning or freezing varieties are good for cold-cellar storage, drying, salting, or pickling as well.

Lacking advice from seedsmen, books, or other gardeners, you are normally best-off selecting the longest-season varieties you can grow to full maturity in your locale. The longer growing season will provide time for the plant to concentrate carbohydrates, to produce strengthening fiber, and to develop the tough skins needed to keep moisture in and damaging rot fungus and bacteria out during prolonged storage.

Potatoes

If you prefer less-than-optimum keepers, compensate in advance by varying your preserving expectations and methods. I usually plant reliable Maine-certified Kennebec potatoes for longest keeping. They are harvested in late-middle fall when the vines die down, let cure in the open air for a week, then brushed off and stored in boxes, packed loosely in dry straw. I overhaul the boxes any time I sense a spoiled spud odor in the cold cellar; if straw is kept loose, any taint gets out quickly. We prefer eating Green Mountains, but they don't keep long, so we eat them first. Simple, huh? This season I'm trying a new variety with anti-potato-bug BT genes built in. If eating it doesn't genetically transmogrify me into a beetle first, I'll check the boxes frequently and keep at least one box till next summer to see how long they keep. Stay tuned please.

Cole Crops

Having learned the hard way how rotten cabbage will taint the house with a stench that infuses all the fabric in clothing, drapes, and furniture, as well as the dog's coat, I keep all cole crops in outside storage.

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