Comments on: Borlotti Beans & Freezers

By: Jane

Jane — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 13:42:19 +0000

I picked my borlotti beans yesterday and inside they are pink/ creamy coloured. As it’s the first year of growing them have I left it too late to eat them? Most of the recipes I’ve seen tend to show them all creamy coloured!

By: Carole Nuttall

Carole Nuttall — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 11:10:58 +0000

Hi John
I’ve grown Borlotti beans for the first time this year, in a tub on my roof garden – not harvested them yet but they look fantastic and, as I’m an artist of sorts, when I’ve shelled the beans, I’m going to use the brilliantly coloured pods to make a collage and paint their exact shades – should produce something very interesting. Oh! and I am looking forward the eating the beans too!!

By: Jools

Jools — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 17:28:12 +0000

Have been looking at various sites regarding Dwarf Borlotti beans. This is my first year of growing some this year but like a lot of people are not sure how to deal with them. Do I leave them on the plant to go dry or can I pick them once they have the pronounced red colouring and then dry out in my greenhouse or can I freeze them straight from the pod with/without blanching???

By: John

John — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 12:15:56 +0000

You can eat the pods when young but the idea is to leave the beans to develop and eat those. By the time the beans are developed, the pods are pretty indedible.

By: Chris Johnson

Chris Johnson — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 11:36:50 +0000

Hello John,
I’m growing borlotti beans for the first time this year. Sorry, I may be as thick as a whale omelette, but do you eat the pods as well?

By: lisa

lisa — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 23:17:54 +0000

hi – I am about to plant some of these as I saw a great idea on using them. Fill a roasting pan full of roughly chopped tomatoes with garlic salt pepper and whatever other seasoning you want and slow roast for two hours – push through a sieve into saucepan and bring to the boil adding sugar to suit taste then add the beans and slowly bring to boil – I don’t like baked beans from a can personally but have got to try these as they look awesome

By: Angela Horn

Angela Horn — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 09:06:38 +0000

Hiya – we’ve grown stripey Borlotti beans for two years running now, here in SE London, and despite me being a complete amateur and *not* ever watering or doing anything beyond minimal weeding, they have been wonderful. I grow them along with Blauhilde (purple) French beans and both seem to need zero maintenance. I just started them off in loo roll tubes to get a good long tap root, then planted out. They are on lovely soil (a very old compost heap which we just bulldozed into a bank) in a walled garden here in sunny SE London. I was really interested to read that you put the beans into soups because I’m looking for ways to use the mature beans now. Normally we harvest them as tender pods – even if the beans are 6″ or 8″ long, as long as they haven’t fattened up I just cut the pods into inch-long chunks and steam lightly for a couple of minutes, and they’re lovely – crunchy, nice flavour, tender, not stringy at all. However I didn’t keep on top of things and now (late October) loads of the pods have run to seed and I have tons of beautiful fat, stripey beans. I’ve tried boiling them quickly and having them with a bit of butter and salt and pepper but they taste really floury so if you have any more tips on what to do with them, please tell me. Thank you!

By: John

John — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:06:44 +0000

I think you should probably blanch them but to be honest we don’t bother, just bag into portion sizes and freeze.

By: Wendy Seaton

Wendy Seaton — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:31:25 +0000

Hi John

I have been growing borlotti beans for the first time this year on my new allotment, and am thinking I need to get them all picked quickly before the frosts hit – which means either drying or freezing them. If I go for freezing do I need to blanch them first, or can I just bag and freeze them – the latter I hope! I can find very little information/guidance about growing and harvesting in my selection of gardening books – obviously need to buy more.

Many thanks

By: John

John — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:36:19 +0000

Now come on Rampant, you can use capitals and write in English if you try. This is not a mobile phone

My preliminary results would indicate the A rated frost free upright uses over double the power of the chest freezer, which stores more. Seems a bit too high so retesting but definitely much higher than the chest freezer.

The gadget is called a power meter and was about £7 from Aldi.