How to shell urd beans
Last
week, I wrote that I
was concerned shelling tiny Urd Beans might be difficult. I needn't have
worried. A few days later, when hot sunlight was streaming in the
front window and across my pan of drying beans, I was startled by a
loud pop. "Huckleberry!" I exclaimed, sure that our spoiled cat
had gotten into something he shouldn't have, but Huckleberry was asleep
on the couch and the popping continued.
I eventually figured out
what every Urd Bean grower out there already knows --- warm, dry
weather will shell your Urd Beans for you. When the pods reach a
certain level of dryness, the two halves curl apart and the seeds
explode out in every direction. Picking 
another batch of pods this
week, I had to carefully enclose entire fruits in my hand since even
the gentle pressure of my fingers was enough to pop some pods open,
just like pressing on a touch-me-not pod.
Green or damp pods don't
pop on their own, but if you catch them during a dry day, you can
gently roll a handful between your palms and remove the hulls from
several pods at once. Or just wait until the sun comes out and
your kitchen turns into a rice krispies commercial --- snap, crackle,
pop.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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