It’s the time of the year where your garden might start to look a little bedraggled, but that can be the perfect time to save some seeds. This month we’re focusing on beans and peas

Author: Jennifer Knoch

Bean (both bush and pole/runner) and pea seeds are some of the easiest seeds to save and make a great activity to do with kids. Make sure you’re growing open-pollinated (not hybrid/F1) seed to ensure your best chance at getting a seed that’s true to its parent. (Don’t know if it’s hybrid? Google the name and see what comes up.) It’s is still possible for open-pollinated beans to cross with other varieties (and for peas to cross with other pea varieties), so to strictly preserve the characteristics, plant different pea or bean varieties 3 metres apart. That said, I often grow different varieties side by side, and don’t find cross-pollination to be a big problem.

1. Seed production starts when the bean seeds start to swell within the pod. If you eat the fresh bean now, it’ll be tougher and more fibrous. At this point the bean looks a little pregnant but the seeds aren’t yet ready. Leave it on the vine.

2. The pod will start to dry out and become a paler colour. When the beans are totally dry, the colour will be fully faded and you’ll be able to hear the bean seeds rattling in the papery pod. Now it’s time to collect the pods.

3. Shuck the beans from the pod. For an extra dryness test, bite a bean gently: when it’s hard like a pebble, it’s ready. If they’re not quite there, let them dry in a place with good airflow for a few days. When totally dry, store them in a paper envelope. (I reuse ones from the mail.) Label them with the year and the variety.

4. Split those saved seeds into smaller envelopes (around eight beans each) to share in the library! Label each one with the year and the variety. (I put them in these origami seed packets, which I make while watching TV.)

Want more seed saving instruction? There are great guides at seeds.ca.

Jen Knoch is the keeper and originator of the Karma Seed Library, now in its second year. She makes sure it’s organized, and adds many of her own saved seeds (which you can identify by the atlas-page origami). You can find the library underneath the members’ table, near the Terracycle/Gillette recycling drop box. To use the library, take any seeds you need, and try to save seeds from that crop. (Watch the Chronicle for more tips on seed saving.) Then put the seeds in labelled packages with the variety and year harvested, so that others can grow them next year. 

You can follow Jennifer’s gardening adventures on Instagram at jkknoch, where you can see videos on her Seed Saving highlights about saving your bean seeds. And while you’re there, do remember to check out and subscribe to Karma Coop’s Instagram channel at karmacooptoronto