very cool! Is it common to blanch beans prior to freezing? I do not blanch my beans before freezing and have not noticed any off taste. Just an ice water rinse in the sink and into freezer bags.

I'm growing a different Romano-type bean variety called Helda. They are quite productive. I harvest about that much not every day but maybe every couple of days. I have 24 plants spaced one foot apart.

awesome job. i've been picking tons of snap peas and garden beans for weeks now i love it! enjoy!

Anney, don't freeze the corn... just give me directions to your house.... I can eat both ears :)
Nice job, lady.

Shot

JAG

I do blanch them before freezing, 7 minutes in re-boiling water, and 7 minutes in iced water. It helps straighten out the beans, which are often curved or twisted, and then I vacuum pack them with my FoodSaver. Saves freezer space!

I do, however, freeze corn on the cob without blanching. Just stick them unshucked into kitchen garbage bags, later take out only what we need, and shuck them just before cooking. Taste & texture are hard to tell from fresh!

tcstoehr

I have about 45 of these plants, so maybe that's why they're this productive daily! I go over the plants twice for each picking, from one direction and then the other. Usually find I missed as many as I picked on the first sweep.

watboy

I plan to plant some Telegraph peas at the end of August and get some garden peas to freeze as well. Haven't planted snap peas yet, but boy! are they good. When I have room, maybe in the spring...

Shot

You're welcome at any time!

haha...I volunteer myself to eat the tomato since the corn is already spoken for. ;-)

That's a tasty looking harvest. Aunt Gertie's Gold is on my short list of favorite tomatoes. That's a good looking one. Let us know how it tastes.

Jim

Jim

I had part of it for lunch, along with some chicken pasta salad. It is delicious, with a slightly different taste than other heirlooms (red and pink) I've grown. It's also very meaty inside with relatively few seeds and that gorgeous yellow-orange color. I already have some of the seeds from it percolating in water on the windowsill!

Bah I looked last night and still no beans on th pole variety. Bush are producing though, but not nearly that much.

As for blanching. I heard 30 seconds to 1 min in boiling water stops the sugar changing to starch. We always blanch corn for that reason. To each their own.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure

sinfonian

A 1 minute blanch might work for skinny beans, but these are whoppers, some as long as 10-11 inches, wide and thick to boot! I break them into pieces with my hands, and those that don't snap easily get shelled. As they process in the boiling water, I can hear the air escaping from them -- they softly pop.

Since they're partially cooked for 7 minutes, I'll cook them another 10 minutes or so when thawed.

And yes, each to his own. I discovered the corn-freezing thing years and years ago. I hurriedly bought a bushel of corn on my way home from a park with my kids and realized I just didn't have time to shuck and blanch it. So I dumped the whole basket into a garbage bag and put it in the freezer in the garage. I forgot about it until around Thanksgiving, and decided to see if the kids would eat it. It was actually delicious, tender, sweet, and crisp. Since then I've read that others do the same thing -- freeze it in the husks. It works for me and avoids that tedious job of husking everything all at the same time and then blanching it. Husking what you plan to eat that night isn't such a chore!

Nice. Isn't it great how productive beans are? Unless one is going for dry, in which case you need acres.........

My pole beans are still a goodly ways off, not even flowering yet.

pnbrown

I don't think I'll ever grow bush beans again, since I like the taste of pole beans better, and they're much easier to pick. I had a sudden onslaught of arthritis this Spring, to my surprise and much discomfort, thought I'd just pulled some muscles at first. So far only my shoulders and hands are affected. I was very glad I didn't have to do a lot of bending and stooping to harvest these beans.

Anyway, pole beans are certainly picker-friendly! They grow in nice pairs up the trellis.

May your beans flower soon!

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tn_veggie_gardner

You're too late! We'll finish off the AGG tomato tonight!

I'm with you, Anney. I grew bush beans this year for a little early gratification while I'm waiting for the pole beans to produce. It is nice to be able to harvest something, but their taste can't compare to my beloved Kentucky Wonders, and it is (literally) a pain to pick them.

Blanching stops the maturation process, killing the enzymes that will cause the beans to eventually get old and tasteless. It is, as Martha Stewart would say, a good thing.

Your photo is encouraging to those who wait. Thanks for sharing!

Anney, I found Aunt Gertie's Gold to be just loaded with flavor. Yes, it's a little differently flavored too. I like it. It seems not to have a reputation as a nicely shaped tomato, but mine were just like yours, picture perfect.

Pat, I thought my pole beans were late! My pole snap bean (Fortex) just started to bloom a couple of days ago. As you know, I'm in your growing area, so I hope you find that encouraging. My pole lima (King of the Garden) has grown over the top of its 8' trellis, but no bloom yet. The leaves are gigantic!

Jim

Anney, nice haul! I'm still waiting for pole beans. I thought I might have some this weekend, but I think I'm going to have to wait a little longer. My Mom loves Italian pole beans. They're her favorite all time vegetable. She bought some from a vegetable stand last weekend and gave me some.

Ironically, I use a similar basket for harvesting except mine is painted white!

Where do you buy the seeds for these beans? I bought some locally here and they are tasty!