The pole beans I grew for seed are dry so I picked them today before the rains starts tomorrow. I won’t have time to get them out of the pods for about 12 days, so I put them – pods and all – into my freezer to kill any weevils that might be in the seed. The book, “Seed to Seed”, says to leave them in the freezer to 5 days to insure it kills the weevils.
My question is, can I just leave them in the freezer for 12 days or so, until I can get a chance to get the seeds out of the pods?? How long can I leave them in the freezer? I have them tied shut in a large black plastic garbage bag. It’s the only thing I have that can handle the amount of dried beans I have.
I sure appreciate your help. This is my first time saving seeds, and this is my whole bean seed crop. I don’t want to destroy them because of something I did wrong.
Thanks! :)
Question re: freezing pole beans still in the pods. :)
Glenda_Michigan - You are smart to put your beans in the freezer, sorry I can't answer your question because I have never done this.
I can tell you that shucking the beans is one of my hubby's "jobs" and he never freezes them first. So far (touch wood) we've never had a problem with weevils.
I think if they are frozen for 5 days, whatever freezing does will have happened so more time probably wouldn't matter.
If the bean seeds were dry it shouldn't hurt them. But if they weren't fully dry, freezing probably will burst the cells holding moisture and render them useless as seeds.
Good luck.
DUH! - It never occured to me that Glenda was saving the seeds to plant next year!
We eat our dried beans!
Yes, I can see that it would be important to make sure the weevils didn't ruin the seeds.
I have kept bean seeds in the freezer from the end of the season until time to plant and they still germinated well. One year, we froze cowpeas and didn't use all of them so they got tossed into the compost. They germinated and we had a great crop in the compost pile!
OH GOOD! Thanks everyone! I will just leave them in there then until I'm ready to work on them. Whew! I feel better! :)