I used to love home canning up crowders/field peas, so nice later in the year to enjoy them. Shelling is sort of a zen thing.

...when one has easy shelling pods.

I have this one variety of a dry common bean where the pod constricts around the beans so tight, there is basically no air space. It is not a tranquil experience in shelling.

Tormato wrote: ↑Sun Oct 02, 2022 10:22 pm ...when one has easy shelling pods.

I have this one variety of a dry common bean where the pod constricts around the beans so tight, there is basically no air space. It is not a tranquil experience in shelling.

Shelling is the difficult part, indeed.

Mmmm, if the shelling was that awful on a bean, I would give it a try of really letting them get very dry and smacking the beans out of the pods in a pillow case sort of thing. Release those aggressions time, LOL!!

Otherwise, for me, sort of a repetitive no thinking about it thing while my mind idles or we are chatting and popping out peas or beans.

I planted purple hull pink eye peas where I had been growing the onions and garlic. That all came out in April and May so I was if going by most local planting calendars way late on these peas, but whatever, they are as much as a cover crop as anything else so If I get a few peas to eat I’ll be happy. They are beginning to flower so that’s promising.

@karstopography, the purple hulls should be just fine. They can take the heat. I always plant my Red Rippers right behind the corn and that's usually around the end of June-early July.

I do have a row of Mississippi Silver from last year's MMMM growing as well as a row of Green Dixie Blackeye that I bought just to try. Supposedly they're a good canner and the peas inside stay green even when dry. We'll see.

The pink eye purple hull peas are the three rows to the left. The two on the far left are from 2024 harvest from garden. Those came up way better than the seed packet purchased for the 2024 planting.