Dry beans -- worth it or not?

Last week, when I covered the harvest from the garden this past year, I made some quasi-disparaging remarks about the volume of dried beans and whether growing dried beans is worth the garden space. I’d like to add to that.

What I said was this:

Prepper gardeners are almost obsessively focused on dried beans, with good reason. They pack a mighty punch in term of protein and nutrition. But they’re not without their drawbacks.

Dried beans have a low yield when compared to other crops. From one tire, I can harvest 30 ears of corn, or 15 lbs. of potatoes, or 15 lbs. of carrots. But I’ll only get eight ounces of dried beans.

For us, dried beans will only ever be an “overflow” crop, something to plant if I have spare room. That’s because we have other protein sources — chickens, eggs, beef, and eventually nuts. If beans are your only source of protein in a prepper-gardening situation, then yes, plant a lot. Just be aware of their low yield.

They’re also labor-intensive. Sure, you can stuff the dried pods in a pillowcase and stomp around on it (highly recommended), but don’t think for a minute that technique will dislodge every last bean. In fact, I’ve discovered it only dislodges about half the beans. There’s no getting around the need to hand-pick through the stomped pods to maximize the harvest.

Our attitude toward beans is this: Beans are a field crop for a reason, since they take a bit of room to grown and have low yield. They’re also cheap and easy to store, so buying is better than growing. Yet for a long-term (prepper) solution, this wasn’t necessarily what people wanted to hear.

So here’s my experience. I spent several days shelling the dried beans.

It was laborious, but not unpleasant. Kinda like doing puzzles, which I love doing. The thing is, I had no idea what my final yield would be.

As it turned out, I ended up with 13.25 lbs. of dried beans from 20 tires, or 0.66 lb. of beans (a bit over 10 ounces) per tire.

This came out to two gallons.

When compared to the 15 pounds of carrots or potatoes I can get from a tire, this quantity seems pathetically small.

Yet I can’t forget, dried beans swell to three times their volume when cooked. So now, I can see those two gallons of dried beans and envision six gallons of cooked beans. That’s a lot of beans.

So I’m officially revising my prepper gardening recommendations. Growing dried beans on a small scale is, indeed, worth it. We have a lot of horizontal space but not much vertical space, so bush beans are our choice. Those with space constraints have the option to grow pole beans. Either way, they’re a worthwhile contribution for every prepper garden, but only a part. Like anything else, beans should be part of a balanced whole.