More beans

For those of you who were interested in my blip two days ago about growing beans to maturity and then saving them for winter, here is a photo showing four stages of bean maturity.

Lurking in the back of the shot are two beans which I can still eat as green pods. 

Centre of the photo is a bean which has passed the edible-as-is stage. 

The reddish pod on the left is getting drier, and the beans inside can be extracted and eaten now, although they won't dry sufficiently to be stored over winter. 

The pale pod on the right is completely mature and the beans within will keep for months, if not years in an airtight container.

I shall leave all the pods on the plants and remove them in one go in April/May when the plants have started to die down. Until then the leaves will protect most of the pods from any light frosts. 

All the pods will be laid on newspaper on the shelf above the truck cab to dry out completely and finally I will weed out any beans with fungal growth on them, or other damage, and put the rest into containers in the pantry.

In other news, I have made a couple of Castle Blue cheeses today. They are similar to Camembleu: a runny mould-covered blue cheese. 

And I have collected two big buckets of eating apples from a friend's orchard, which will be dehydrated in batches over the next few days.