I saved seeds from my green beans last year. It didn’t seem too complicated, not like carrots or beets. When the plants were reaching their peak production, I chose a few to stop picking from, letting the pods ripen until they turned tan. We had such a wet fall that they weren’t going to dry on the vine, so I picked the tan ones as they changed color and spread them out on newspaper to finish drying. When they were dry and brittle, I cracked the pods open and spread the seeds out for another week to make sure they were very dry, then packed in an old pill bottle with a dessicant pack.
(Actually, several pill bottles. After the plants died down there were a ton more that had ripened under the leaves out of sight, so I dried those for seed as well. I ended up with a nice pile of them!)
If you end up with too many green bean seeds, you can use them as dry shelling beans.
Interesting. I’m thinking of just starting small and saving some tomato seeds and maybe green beans.
Did you worry about cross-pollination? Not only do you have to be concerned about plants from the same species crossing but also neighbors’ plants and sometimes up to 3 miles away! That is so extreme. I don’t know how anyone could do it.
I always grow “Contender” green beans every year, and your saving technique sounds similar to mine. Has always worked well.