It’s that time of year when the farm delegates newsletter writing to different workers here at Featherstone. For my week, I decided to do some shameless self-promotion. Some of you who were members of our winter CSA last year may remember ordering heirloom dry beans as an add on in your share. This is the story of those beans.
The story began in 2012 when me and my partner Cody decided to move from Madison, WI to Indianola, WA to apprentice at an organic veggie and flower farm. The owner of the farm gave each apprentice a small plot of land on which to grow whatever we wanted. I decided to grow dry beans, because no one else was, and because I thought they looked cool. I started with three varieties – Tiger’s Eye, Ying Yang, and Flambo. Cody and I went on to spend the next several years travelling the country working on different organic farms. At each farm I grew my beans, enough for myself and to share with friends. The beans traveled from Indianola to Ithaca, NY, Montrose, CO, Millbrook, NY, and finally back to Madison, WI. Over the years new varieties were added, many given by people encountered along the way.
In 2017 I decided not to eat any of 2016’s harvest, and to instead plant everything, and try selling the harvest at the local farmers market. I thought there would be a real interest in a source of local, organic, plant based protein. Also, beans look magical, and are delicious. In the fall of 2017 about 80 pounds of beans were harvested and shelled, all by hand, and sold at the Eastside Farmers Market in Madison.
In 2018 a twist of fortune brought Cody and I to southeast Minnesota. Cody had landed his dream job working at Seed Saver’s Exchange. I found a job here at Featherstone. I decided to scale up, renting half an acre from the farm and planting way more beans than ever before.
It has been a real adventure learning how to produce heirloom dry beans at any kind of a scale. Heirloom varieties tend to be more finicky to grow than modern hybrid varieties, but they also have a flavor and texture, and appearance unlike anything you will find at the supermarket. And because they are not working through an industrial and international supply chain, they are far, far fresher when you buy them. Beans are living organisms - dormant but living - with cellular processes (very slowly) continuing as they sit on the shelf. These cellular processes are essentially the bean eating itself, which over time degrades the flavor and nutrition found within. Commercial varieties are often more than a year old by the time you cook them, whereas Ben’s Beans will have been pulled from the field just a few months before reaching your plate.
This year’s growing season had its share of challenges. June was relentlessly wet and cool, which is wrong in every dimension for dry bean production. The beans came up weak and struggled to fight off soil pathogens. In July it got hot but stayed unbelievably wet. The stress seemed to stimulate the plants to hurry up their life cycle and make their babies – aka beans – as soon as possible. Most varieties ripened one to two weeks early. Interestingly the yield of pods didn’t seem to be affected, but the beans within the pods are a bit smaller than normal. Mercifully, August has finally brought ideal conditions, with moderate temperatures and low precipitation. This has allowed for a relatively smooth harvest and processing season. At this point most of the beans are out of the field and are slowly being threshed and winnowed. They will be ready for the start of the Rochester Winter Farmer’s Market in November. And if you decide to become a member of our winter CSA, (highly recommended!!) they will be available as an add on starting in January.
Thank you for being a part of our farm this season and we look forward to feeding you through the late fall and winter, too, with my beans and all of our hearty winter veggies!
Gratefully
Ben Bisbach
Crop Manager
p.s from Patty:
Like Ben mentioned, we hope you'll be joining us for our winter CSA share program, which starts the first week of November. A few details on that can be found here. Below are some photos of our fall carrot field, some of the first fall broccoli growing in the field and the harvest of our red onions, all of which would be a part of your winter share with us! Sign up is happening now (we sold out last year!) and you can join us by going to your Harvie account and clicking on "sign up." Click here to go to your account.
Our Famous Featherstone Carrots are getting ready to harvest soon! The carrots you've gotten so far this season are our summer carrots, which are a different variety and, we think, not as tasty as our fall bolaro carrot, which sweetens over the growing season and gets even sweeter from the first fall frosts.
Not quite ready, but getting bigger every day!
Bringing in the onion harvest!
Some of our fall broccoli, just babies in the field!
For carrots, onions, broccoli and more, join us this winter today! Click here to join us!
