How to Dry Beans for Winter: Harvesting, Shelling & Storing Borlotti, Haricot & Runner Beans

Somewhere in the first week of September the bean rows change character. The pods you have been picking green since July go leathery, then yellow, then papery, and the seeds inside rattle when you brush past. Most gardeners tidy those plants into the compost. That is a jar of borlotti, a winter of brown-bean soup and next year's seed going onto the heap — because drying beans is not a separate crop with separate skills, it is simply the same plant left alone for six more weeks and brought in before the autumn rain. Here is how to harvest, shell, dry and store beans from the garden so they keep until spring.

• Which beans Borlotti, haricot, brown Dutch, kidney types (Phaseolus vulgaris), runner beans, broad beans, grey peas
• Ready when pods papery and straw-coloured, seeds rattle — late Aug to Oct
• Drying 1–2 weeks on trays indoors, until a thumbnail won't dent the seed
• Storage 48 h in the freezer, then airtight jars, cool and dark — 1 year to eat, 3–4 as seed

Which beans are worth drying

Any French bean will dry, but the ones bred for it have large, meaty seeds and pods that ripen together. Borlotti such as Lingua di Fuoco (cream seed streaked with red), the Dutch brown bean, the speckled kievitsboon or lapwing bean, the black-and-white Yin Yang and kidney types such as Canadian Wonder are all Phaseolus vulgaris selected for the jar rather than the pod. The Netherlands grew drying beans as a field crop for centuries — brown-bean soup is still a winter dish in Zeeland and Groningen — which is why the Phaseolus vulgaris range here runs to dozens of varieties, split between dwarf beans and climbing beans.

Runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) dry to big, handsome purple-and-black seeds that need a long soak and a long simmer but make an excellent stew bean. Broad beans left to ripen give the dried fava of Mediterranean cooking. And the purple-flowered grey peas — the Dutch kapucijners — are dried in exactly the same way; our new guide to growing peas from seed covers them. Slender green-pod varieties such as Cobra or Purple Queen will dry too, but the seeds are small and the yield hardly worth the shelling: keep those for picking green and freezing.

When are beans ready to harvest for drying?

Stop picking the plants you intend to dry by the end of July, or dedicate a row from the start — a plant that is still being picked keeps flowering instead of ripening what it has. Borlotti and haricot types then need roughly 100–120 days from sowing to dry pods, so a May sowing is ready from late August into September, dwarf beans first, climbers a fortnight later. The pod tells you when: it turns from green to yellow to straw-brown, goes thin and papery, and the seeds inside rattle and show their full colour. A pod with green tinges still holds seed that will shrivel rather than dry, so leave it. The first light frost kills the leaves but does no harm to ripe pods — it is rain, not cold, that you are racing.

How to dry beans, step by step

1. Pick dry pods on a dry day Go along the row every few days and pick the pods that have gone papery, into a basket or paper sack — never plastic, which sweats. Pick after the dew has lifted.
2. When the rain comes, bring the whole plant in The moment a wet week is forecast, cut or pull the plants with the half-ripe pods still on them, shake off the soil and hang them upside down by the roots in a greenhouse, porch, shed or garage with the door open. The pods keep ripening from the plant's reserves for two or three weeks. Pods left out in autumn rain go mouldy, and the seed sprouts inside them.
3. Shell — or thresh A few hundred pods are quickly split by hand on a winter evening. For more, stuff the dry pods into a pillowcase or sack, tread on it or beat it with a stick, then tip the lot slowly from one bowl to another in front of a fan or a breeze so the chaff blows away.
4. Finish drying indoors for one to two weeks Spread the shelled beans one layer deep on trays or newspaper somewhere airy at room temperature, stirring every couple of days. Not on a radiator, in an oven or a sunny window: heat above about 35 °C cracks the seed coats and kills the embryo. A bean is dry when a thumbnail will not dent it and it shatters instead of squashing under a hammer.
5. Freeze for 48 hours Bean weevils lay their eggs in the pods on the plant, and the grubs hatch out in the jar months later, leaving neat round holes in every bean. Two days at −18 °C in a sealed bag kills them. Let the bag come to room temperature before opening so no condensation forms on the beans.
6. Jar, label, and keep cool and dark Airtight glass jars in a cupboard below about 15 °C. Label the variety and the year: this year's beans cook in half the time of shop-bought ones, and they are also seed — see below.

The third harvest: fresh shelling beans

Between green pods and dry beans there is a stage most gardeners never taste. When the pod has gone leathery and yellow but is not yet papery, the beans inside are full-sized, fully coloured and still soft: the fagioli freschi of Italian markets. Shelled and simmered for twenty to thirty minutes with no soaking at all, they are the creamiest bean you will ever eat, and a borlotti row picked at this stage for a fortnight before being left to dry gives you both.

Cooking home-dried beans safely

Raw Phaseolus beans — kidney types most of all, but every French and runner bean to some degree — contain the lectin phytohaemagglutinin, which causes violent stomach upset unless it is destroyed by heat. Soak dried beans for eight to twelve hours, throw the water away, boil them hard for a full ten minutes, then simmer until tender: forty minutes to an hour for this year's beans. A slow cooker on low never reaches a proper boil, so do the ten-minute boil on the hob first. Broad beans and peas are the exception and need only a normal simmer.

Dried beans are also next year's seed

Everything in the jar will grow. French beans pollinate themselves before the flower opens, so a dried Borlotto or Brown Dutch comes true from your own seed year after year and needs no isolation — you are saving seed simply by eating from the jar slowly. Set aside the plumpest, best-coloured beans from your healthiest plants; the rules on selection, labelling and storage are in our guides to seed saving and storing seeds. Runner beans are the one to watch: bees pollinate them, and two varieties within a hundred metres will cross. Bean seed keeps three to four years — check older jars with the germination test in how long do seeds last. Then cut the spent plants off at ground level, leaving the nitrogen-rich roots for the next crop in your rotation, and sow a green manure or the last of the September sowings in the gap.

Common mistakes

• Picking pods while they still show green. The seed inside is not finished; it shrivels and moulds instead of drying.
• Leaving the plants out through a wet September. Pods rot, seeds sprout in the pod, and mould spreads through the row. Cut and hang the plants indoors as soon as rain sets in.
• Jarring beans that are nearly dry. One damp batch moulds the whole jar. Wait for the thumbnail test to pass — another week costs nothing.
• Skipping the freezer. Bean weevil grubs are already inside the seed when you harvest it; two days at −18 °C is the only cure.
• Drying on a radiator or in the oven. Cracked seed coats, dead seed and beans that never soften in the pan.
• Cooking kidney-type beans without the ten-minute boil. Undercooked beans are more toxic than raw ones.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know when beans are ready to harvest for drying?
The pod is straw-coloured, thin and papery, and the seeds rattle inside and show their full colour when you open one. Any green on the pod means wait. If rain is forecast before that point, pull the whole plants and hang them indoors to finish.

Can I dry runner beans?
Yes. Leave the last pods on the plant until they are brown and dry, shell out the large purple-black seeds, dry and freeze them like any other bean, and give them a long soak and a full boil before a slow simmer. They are floury and rich rather than creamy — ideal for stews and chilli.

Do home-dried beans need soaking?
An overnight soak shortens cooking and helps the ten-minute boil do its job, so yes for kidney and borlotti types. Beans dried this season cook in roughly half the time of shop beans; fresh shelling beans at the leathery-pod stage need no soaking at all.

Can I use the dried beans as seed next year?
Yes, if they are an open-pollinated variety — and nearly all beans are. French beans come true without isolation; runner beans may cross with a neighbour's variety. Keep the best beans from the best plants, dry them fully, and store cool and dark; they stay viable for three to four years.

Drying beans asks for nothing but patience and a dry place to hang them, and repays it with the only vegetable you can harvest in September and still be eating in April. Choose next year's drying row from our French bean, dwarf bean and climbing bean collections, the botanical Phaseolus vulgaris and Phaseolus coccineus ranges, the organic beans, and the wider legume and organic legume collections — and read our companion piece on growing peas from seed for the other legume to sow before the year is out. Browse what to sow in September and October, plan the bean sowings from May, and explore the full vegetable seed collection or the organic range. For more, dig into our growing guides library or the beginner's guide to growing vegetables from seed, or browse all seeds.