Processing Our Beans

The Story of A Storage bean

Planting beans is one of the easier things that we do. We weed them a couple of times, give them trellises, and then for the most part leave them alone. Most of the work comes later. After picking them and allowing them to dry in their pods for several weeks, the beans need to be shucked, in other words, separated from their pods. This way they can be stored long term.

In the past, we have had to do this by hand, however the last couple of years the Organic Farm School has graciously allowed us to come and use their bean thresher. A thresher is a machine that uses a combination of beaters, shakers, and fans to separate the beans from plant material. This is still quite an involved process as we must hand-weed out any chaff or compromised beans that make it through the thresher. 

Using a bean thresher usually involves two people, one loading the dried beans into the thresher and another sitting on the ground sorting the beans as they come out. Once this process is done, we have buckets of shiny, beautiful beans to use year-round. This year we came out with 85 pounds of corona beans, the chef’s favorite, and 65 pounds of Scarlet Runner beans.

To be the first to know about what’s happening on the farm and in the kitchen, sign up for our newsletter, here.

Anika loading bean pods into the threasher at the Organic Farm School. (2024)

Pat sorting beans as they come through the thresher.