Shelly beans

[Diane Whitehead]

I grow beans to eat as pods.  A friend grows them to use dry. I've just been reading about "shelly" beans which seem to be between the two.

The bean pods get de-stringed and opened up so the mature but not dry yet beans can be removed and cooked.  Rather like old fashioned peas before Sugar Snap was developed, though peapods open easily and don't have strings.

The bean pods are apparently rather leathery when the beans inside are big enough to cook as shellies.

Would it be possible to have a bean without strings that can be cooked as a whole - pod and beans together?

[Cathy A]

Breeders realized that stringless pods would be popular many years ago, so they created varieties like Lazy Housewife. I have grown this variety, and it has good productivity.

Shelly beans are grown and harvested much like dry beans, but picked earlier after the beans have fully formed in the pod but not dried down. I tend to harvest shelly instead of dry, as my season is short, and store the shelly beans in the freezer.

Shellies don't need as much soaking before cooking.

While any dry bean could be harvested shelly or vice versa, some varieties were bred specifically for dry use and some for Shelly use. For example, Vermont Cranberry was bred as a shelly, and Jacob's Cattle as a dry.

[galina gardiner]

Ah I thought Greasy beans would fit the bill - until I read the requirement of no string.  Greasy beans certainly need string removing.

Any of the large seeded beans make good shelly beans.  Which I pick and freeze.  Saves all the soaking and long cooking times.  But I don't know many stringless varieties but Berner Landfrauen and Monstrance are.   

[Jeremy Weiss]

While we are on the subject, I was wondering if someone could give me a little harvest advice.

Due to certain circumstances, one of the things I am growing this year are a pair of outcrosses of a kind of flageolet bean (other parents unknown.) Unlike most times, I had enough of each to plant on a level where I might actually be able to contemplate picking some to EAT. I know that flageolet beans are traditionally picked as shellies, but does anyone know if they tend to make good snaps as well? If they do, I might harvest some that way, but if I know they don't, I might as well leave everything until shelly stage. 

[UnicornEmily]

I initially thought, "Shelly beans?  What's the point of those?  I'll get more harvest if I eat the pods, and I'll get better shelf life if I eat the dry beans!"

Then I tried some of my Fordhook 242 lima beans as shelly beans last year.

YUM!  So much better than dried and rehydrated!

The pods were too bitter to eat (and therefore probably inedible), so they wouldn't work as green beans.  So now I think shelly beans may be a great way to go for fresh beans that have inedible pods.