[Salmo]

If you pull up a bean gently you will see small light coloured nodules on the fine roots. These contain nitrigen fixing bacteria which use nitrogen from the air to produce the protien in their bodies. When they die the nitrogen is released as they rot down.

[Jodie A]

Wait until the end of the season when you are all beaned out...if you let pods go to seed now it will stop the rest of the plant producing new pods.

After you have had your fill, it is surprising how many pods you missed, let them fill out as much as possible, if the weather is dry, just crack open the pods and save the bean seeds, if the weather is wet, take the whole brown/dried out pod into a dry place, eg greenhouse and let them dry out there.

Any bean plants that have showed disease or virus should be discarded, as should any bean seed with a small hole in them.

You can keep going for years on self saved seeds, but would recommend that you buy new every 3 -5 years or so, to ensure healthiness is maintained.  Also regarding saved seed, start them off in pots under glass, so you only plant out the viable healthy ones.

[chazzo125]

Pick the beans when they are tough and stringy, but also bulging considerably with well visible seeds. It doesn't matter too much if they are still green !

Let the pods dry out a little in the kitchen or greenhouse for a few days or more. Remove the beans and further dry these out in the kitchen or greenhouse for about 5 days or so until they are hard. Discard beans less than 1cm in length once dried. Store in an airtight container until the Spring.

You should have almost 100% germination success!

[zazen999]

Pick the beans when they are tough and stringy, but also bulging considerably with well visible seeds. It doesn't matter too much if they are still green !

Let the pods dry out a little in the kitchen or greenhouse for a few days or more. Remove the beans and further dry these out in the kitchen or greenhouse for about 5 days or so until they are hard. Discard beans less than 1cm in length once dried. Store in an airtight container until the Spring.

You should have almost 100% germination success!

Well, it does matter if they are still green. As they aren't mature enough to germinate properly.

As said right back at the very beginning; they should be left on the plant until the pods start to go crispy.

[DD.]

This thread was over a year old and I thought we'd put it to bed long ago with quite sensible advice on it. I wonder why the poster deemed it necessary to resurrect it?