[Apple Pan Dowdy]

Speaking of “snapping beans”…… have you ever made leather britches? You use a big needle and strong thread, and run the thread through the middle of whole string-beans. When you have a long string of them on the thread you tie it off and hang it in a dry place to let the beans dry. In the winter the Appalachian people would boil the beans to eat them. They taste like “leather britches”.

I did some to hang in our mountain log cabin just for fun and decoration. The grandkids thought it was fun and a good history lesson.

[ryderann]

My current fav green bean is Pride of Vermont...bush variety, but it really wants a 4ft. trellis. This year I’ll dehydrate some and see what kind of leather britches they make. So far, I’m getting lettuce and radishes...2 weeks more for fresh green beans, 4 weeks (fingers crossed) ‘til tomatoes ripen. I have a deer-proof garden, but raccoons make growing corn impossible.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I love that idea! I could see strings of those along with braided garlic. Useful and beautiful. :)

[SisterK]

My great-grandmother (from the Appalachian Mountains) made leather britches. They strung them around the wood stove.
I have a fine electric dehydrator and use it to dry green beans.

Dried green beans have a whole other flavor and texture of fresh/canned/frozen beans. The first time I ate them, it was like discovering an entirely new vegetable.

[reformedliberal]

They taste like “leather britches”.
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Did that one year. Ended up using a few in soups, but oveall, I was not impressed.

My bush beans are not doing all that great, this year. I’ve had about a 30% sprout rate. It could be all the rain we had just as I put them in, followed or preceded by really hot temps.

Everything else is doing fine and I have 3 Early Girls getting bigger and near breaking stage, plus one tiny Roma about the same. Something (wind? Blue Jays?) neatly sliced off a few flowers on both Early Girl and a Beefsteak I bought with flowers. And my Roma plant is showing some sort of bumpiness along the main stem (I prune lower leaves for about 18” and remove suckers as I see them). They are very sturdy, likely due to the winds we’ve had. The ones started from seed are getting taller, the peppers show tons of tiny pre-buds and the greens are doing very well.

4 seasons lettuce is more than we can use and I’m thinking of dehydrating some, but decided to wait until I see signs of bolt. I pick the largest leaves every few days and they keep well in paper towels inside Green Bags in the fridge for a week. Carrots are just showing the first feathery leaves. My first year having them since we moved and they like the raised beds (I planted Danvers Half Carrots). I noticed when I thinned them, the tiny little white root smelled like a carrot. I used the cornstarch gel method and it was successful, not fazed by an unexpected, unforecast 1/2” of rain 1 hr after planting. (Yes, I swore!)

Puzzling is that the carrots planted 2 1/2 weeks ago and the ones planted a week ago are at about the same stage. Again, I’m thinking heavy rains and varying temps. The weather has been all over the place the past 2 1/2 weeks.

The lilacs outdid themselves and I already miss their fragrance as they have faded. I had bees in them and in the ornamental cherry, but less than last year, when the cherry tree was filled with bees, but the lilacs didn’t do nearly as well as this year.

Zone 4b