Author: John

John Mueller is a freelance author and technical editor. He has writing in his blood, having produced 123 books and over 600 articles to date. The topics range from networking to artificial intelligence and from database management to heads-down programming. Some of his current offerings include topics on machine learning, AI, Python programming, Android programming, and C++ programming. His technical editing skills have helped over more than 70 authors refine the content of their manuscripts. John also provides a wealth of other services, such as writing certification exams, performing technical edits, and writing articles to custom specifications. You can reach John on the Internet at [email protected].

Why Did You Choose that Word?

Readers sometimes question my word choice in a book, which makes me think about how I’d reword the text to make it more understandable. There is a perception that one word will work just as well as another in writing, but that’s not the case. A smart author knows that word choice is incredibly important.  In fact, choosing the right word is something that an author spends a considerable amount of time doing and the reason I encourage authors to build their word power by subscribing to sites such as Word of the Day and A.Word.A.Day. So, just why is word choice so important?

 

  • Each word has a subtle difference of meaning so that equivalent words in a thesaurus aren’t precisely the same.
  • Words with similar meanings have different connotations—or secondary meanings assigned by society to the word.
  • A word carries with it an emotional meaning. Even when words mean about the same thing, the emotions evoked by the words will differ.
  • Some words will appeal more to the reader that others will. No matter how precisely a word fits, it doesn’t matter if the reader has no idea of what you’re trying to say.


There are a number of other reasons that word choice is important, depending on what you intend to write. For example, the number of syllables and the sound of the word are important to poets. Technical writers will often choose a word because it’s the jargon used by the community as a whole. However, the reasons listed here apply to everyone. Believe it or not, even technical writers need to elicit an emotional response or suffer the dubious honor of putting a maximum number of readers to sleep.

Long before a reader ever asks me why I chose a particular word, the editors ask the same question. It’s a good question. Sometimes I use a word because it feels familiar and looks right in a particular location—neither reason is a good one for choosing a word. If I can’t answer the question, then another word might be a better choice. Obtaining the required result from the text means choosing words that fit the situation and the reader’s needs.

There are situations where a number of words will fulfill the need. In this case, the author is free to choose the word that sounds best. This is a situation where the author’s voice comes through to the reader. The reader begins to relate to the author at a personal level through the word choices the author makes. In many situations, word choice reflects regional biases, so the word that feels comfortable also reflects the author’s environment.

Editors can help authors get out of ruts by suggesting alternative words. For example, an author may use the same word so often that it begins to lose its special meaning and choosing one of the useful alternatives will actually result in more varied and interesting material for the reader. Unfortunately, what the editor and the author feel is a great word choice may end up confusing the reader and that’s when I often get e-mail from you.

The next time you’re tasked with writing something, consider why you choose the words that you do. Think about the needs of the reader and what you’re trying to accomplish with the text you’re writing. Let me know your thoughts about word choice at [email protected].

 

A Reminder About Information Overload

Last week I wrote a post entitled, Information Overload. It really is important to me to find ways to serve your needs. If you’ve already responded to that post, please accept my thanks. I’ll be posting the results next week Wednesday. If you haven’t responded, you still have another week to respond to the post by writing a comment or sending an e-mail to [email protected].

Make sure you also tell me about posts that you particularly like or dislike. While it isn’t possible for me to tailor my posts to meet the needs of any specific person, I do try to meet the needs of the majority. Of course, I’m always open to your ideas and suggestions as well. My goal is to provide you with the best content that I can !

 

Green Doesn’t Mean Pollution Free

There is a misconception about green technologies that I hear more and more often. The idea that a green technology is necessarily pollution free simply isn’t correct. I’ve been giving the notion a great deal of thought and haven’t been able to come up with a single green technology that is free of pollution of some sort. In fact, I have come to wonder whether some supposedly green technologies may actually produce more pollution than the technologies they’re supposed to replace. Yes, I realize that this is a radical position, but hear me out before you make a decision for yourself (and I would welcome discussion on this particular issue).

I’ll start with the simplest green technology that I could come up with. Years ago my wife gave up her drier for a clothesline. Not only do our clothes last longer and smell better, but she gained some important space in the laundry room, our costs for drying the clothes are smaller, and using a clothesline is definitely green. However, is a clothesline pollution free? It isn’t for several reasons.

 

  • The clothesline we use is plastic covered metal wire, which means that manufacturing it generated several kinds of industrial waste and hydrocarbons.
  • The hooks used to support the clothesline are made of metal, which means yet more industrial waste.
  • The posts used to support the hooks are made of treated lumber, so they contain toxic chemicals.
  • The posts are also painted, which means more toxic chemicals, along with industrial waste and potential hydrocarbons.


Using the sun to dry your clothing is a green technology. There are few continuing pollution sources when using this approach, yet, it can be easily argued that the clothesline will eventually require replacement, as will the posts and the hooks. The posts will last longer if I continue to paint them, but that means continued pollution in the form of toxic chemicals as well. So, this green approach to drying clothing does generate a small amount of pollution—it isn’t pollution free as advocates would have you believe. (However, it is demonstrably better than using a drier.)

After thinking this issue through for a while, I did come up with some ways to reduce the pollution generated by drying clothing outside, but never have created a solution that is completely pollution free and still provides the desired result. Here are some of the changes I considered:

 

  • Use black locust posts and cross beams that require no painting and are naturally resistant to decay.
  • Use natural fiber clotheslines that don’t generate as many pollutants during production.
  • Avoid the use of hooks by tying the clotheslines directly to the cross beams.


Even with these changes, however, the simple act of drying clothing generates pollution. For example, I have no source of natural fiber strong enough to support the clothes on my property and even if I did, I have no way of turning the fibers into clotheslines. In short, drying clothing generates some amount of pollution in the form of industrial waste even with the best planning. I’ve been able to use this same approach to consider the pollution generated by burning wood instead of propane to heat the house (despite my replacement of the trees I burn to maintain the size of the woods) and other ways we try to be green. Humans simply generate pollution for every given activity no matter how benign or well considered.

So, now you need to consider how this information translates into other green technologies. When you look carefully at my arguments against calling a green technology pollution free (as has been done in the hype generated in the news lately), you quickly see that many green technologies generate considerable pollution. Most of the articles I read on the topic are woefully inadequate and some are downright inaccurate. For example, I read an article from Scientific American that tries to paint solar cells as relatively pollution free. The article does consider the burden of fossil fuels used to construct the solar cells, but doesn’t consider the content of the cells themselves. For example, when you talk about the silicon used to create a solar cell, you must consider the heavy metals used to dope the silicon in order to make it into a semiconductor.

Unfortunately, while I do know that toxic industrial waste is produced when creating solar cells, there is a terrible lack of material on just how much. It’s a dark secret that you won’t read about anywhere. The article also doesn’t consider the emissions produced by the manufacture of plastic housings and metal castings used for solar panels. So, while using a solar panel does reduce locally produced pollution, I have to wonder whether the technology doesn’t simply move the pollution to another location—the place of manufacture. It makes me wonder whether our grandchildren might not consider solar technology as an ill conceived maneuver designed to make everyone feel better at the expense of toxic output that is even worse than the technology it replaced. In fact, I have read an article or two about this particular issue already—we may be making some places in China uninhabitable in order to clean up our own country.

Of course, these are simply musings of mine that I’m choosing the share with you. My point is that we need to consider the potential ramifications of theoretically green technologies that we embrace and consider the full cost of each. There are many technologies, such as the use of ethanol in gasoline, that many people have already questioned as being reckless. You can find a lot of articles questioning the use of ethanol in places such as the New York Times, Scientific American, and Environmental Working Group that say ethanol is a wash at best and potentially worse than simply using unadulterated gasoline from a health perspective. I have an open mind when it comes to green technologies, but I’m also cautious in saying that we’re making progress because so far, I’m not seeing much real progress. Let me know your thoughts on the green revolution at [email protected].

 

Information Overload

I’m always looking for ways to serve your needs better. Of course, that means reviewing the statistics for this blog so I know what you find most useful, reflecting on your comments both in the blog and in e-mail, and looking at the latest trends in content presentation. This third possible source of useful information has made me wonder whether I’m not overloading you with information. Check out the post entitled, “Why I Will Be Posting Less” to see for yourself. Information overload is indeed a problem in our society and I would want to be the last one to add to anyone’s burden, especially after writing posts such as Learning to Unplug.

Of course, every blog is different, as are the people who read it. I’m taking a page from Mr. Hyatt’s blog and considering what you need from me in the way of usable information. What I’d like you to do is tell me how often you’d like me to post new additions to this blog:

 

  • Two times a week
  • Three times a week
  • Four times a week
  • Five times a week


You can tell me as a comment to this post or through e-mail at [email protected]. It’s important to me to provide you with enough information, but not to overwhelm you. Of course, if I end up posting less often, I’ll cover some topics a little less often too.

From what I’ve been able to garner from the statistics that the blog software automatically maintains for me, you really do like the eclectic mix of topics on this blog, so I’ll continue in that vein and using about the same percentages of posts as I do now. However, I’d like to hear about any topics you particularly like or dislike. Be sure to e-mail me about your concerns. It’s important to me to serve your needs the best way I can.

I’ll gather statistics for a couple of weeks from you (reminding you at times about this post), and then provide an update here on what I’ve learned. These sorts of discoveries are always interesting and often produce unexpected results. I’m sure you’ll want to know what I discover just as much as I want to learn your thoughts and opinions about this blog. In the meantime, happy reading!

 

After the First Frost

First frost is always a hectic time around here. The day before sees Rebecca and me running around trying to harvest everything that won’t survive the frost intact (such as tomatoes, okra, and eggplants). We had our first frost on Saturday, so we spent the day trying to get everything picked (after waiting until the last second for the plants to grow as much as possible.

On Sunday Rebecca and I went out to the garden to start picking the items that actually require a frost to taste good. This year we started with the squash and sweet potatoes. Despite the bad summer, we ended up with a nice assortment of both butternut and acorn squash.

SquashandSweetPotatoes01

It wasn’t our largest harvest, but it was a lot more than we expected considering we didn’t plant that many plants. We actually had squash growing up inside the tomato cages. The squash performed amazingly well this year. I wish we had planted more of them.

However, the big news for us was the sweet potatoes. We planted just one plant and expected to receive four or five standard sized sweet potatoes and a few smaller ones for our efforts. What we received instead was eight relatively large sweet potatoes and a wealth of smaller ones. The largest sweet potato is a monster that weighs nearly 7 pounds.

SquashandSweetPotatoes02

Yes, that really is just one sweet potato. It’s misshapen, but there is only one little crack in the surface and the potato is quite firm. I was expecting something around four pounds, so we were both surprised when we weighed it and the scale showed 6¾ pounds.

SquashandSweetPotatoes03

We’re planning to use this one sweet potato to feed our entire family during Thanksgiving this year. I’m not sure how we’d be able to use it otherwise. That’s one big potato.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Every Year is a Good and a Bad Year. This year we had great results with okra and squash. We’ll never forget this monster sweet potato though. What did well for you in your garden this year?  Let me know at [email protected].

 

Review of V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta is a movie that you can sum up with a single phrase, “People shouldn’t fear their government; the government should fear its people.” The phrase has become so famous that I turned up 55,330 hits when looking for it on Google. Hugo Weaving (V) and Natalie Portman (Evey) provide an amazing depiction of an Orwellian world in which the government has taken over the lives of its citizens to protect them from a dire plague. The question of whether the loss of freedom is worth the perceived protection that government can provide is the locus of content in this movie. The location is England, but there are constant references to the United States, which is in chaos from the plague. The fate of the rest of the world is unimportant as far as the movie is concerned and knowing how the rest of the world has fared would only prove to be a distraction. (The movie is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by David Lloyd.)

To understand the movie completely, you have to consider both recent and historical facts. The Gunpowder Revolution was a failed attempt to garner religious freedom during the reign of King James I in 1605. Knowing that most Americans know nothing about the Gunpowder Revolution or one of its favored participants, Guy Fawkes, the movie does take time to explain both in a short overview manner that doesn’t detract from the flow or entertainment value of the movie even a little. The reason Guy Fawkes is important is not the man, but the idea encapsulated by the man’s actions. Freedom to be who you want to be is the focus of both the movie and the history event. Guy Fawkes Day is still celebrated each November 5th with bonfires and fireworks.

Recent history comes into play because the movie makes constant references to the sorts of things that are happening in the American political arena today. Some people have gone so far as to cast the movie as anti-American, while others see it as a call for political activities, such as the Occupy movement. There are even some groups that are drawing a parallel between the events in the movie and the loss of freedoms engendered by the events of 9/11. Let’s just say that the movie is good at stirring a strong emotional reaction, no matter what your politics may be.

There are elements of the movie that will make people uncomfortable. It addresses a considerable number of sensitive topics and I have no doubt that some people are offended by the coverage. For example, it portrays gay and lesbian lovers in a relatively open way.

I don’t actually go to the movies to decide my political ideals and motivations, but any review of this movie has to necessarily include some information on that content. The biggest question is whether the movie is still entertaining, despite the message it tries to present (successfully or not depends on you). There are definite science fiction elements of the apocalyptic genre. You’ll also see strong emotional elements (other than the politics). In some respects, the movie is a hard core love story between V and Evey (no, you won’t see scenes of heavy breathing, but the tension between the two becomes obvious as the movie progresses). The movie draws most people in and you find yourself caring for the main characters quite quickly.

The surprising aspect of this movie is that there is also a mystery element. Chief Inspector Finch (Stephen Rea) spends considerable time trying to track V down. However, the chase leads Finch in unexpected directions. Telling you too much about them would ruin the surprises, but it really does make for a good mystery. While V tells you about the price of freedom and Evey tells you about the price of love, Finch reveals the story behind both.

If you’re looking for dramatic graphics and special effects, this movie does have some of both, but tastefully keeps them under control because it has such as strong story to tell. You may be disappointed if you truly expect to see an overwhelming assortment of chases, escapes, and pyrotechnics, but I think the makers of this movie made great choices in their selection of visual elements.

I’d love to say that this movie is pure entertainment, but you’d have to work hard to ignore the messages it presents. Despite your best efforts, it will likely cause you to think about things that you may not have otherwise thought about. The entertainment aspect really is top notch, but the strong story elements make this movie so much more than simple entertainment. Be prepared to have some aspect of your current viewpoints challenged because this movie seems to pick on a wide range of popular notions. V for Vendetta is an amazing movie.

 

Making Dehydrated Chips

Rebecca dehydrates several kinds of chips for us to eat during the winter months. I talked about the technique used to create zucchini chips in the Making Use of Those Oversized Zucchinis post. The techniques in that post also work well for vegetables such as eggplant, which has a slight peppery taste when dehydrated. We have found that the American (globe) and Italian eggplants work best for the purpose—the thinner varieties, such as the Japanese eggplant, tend to get tough. There are a lot of different kinds of eggplants, so make sure you choose a variety that will dehydrate well.

Along with eggplant, Rebecca has made dehydrated potato chips for us and I’m sure will try other vegetables as time permits. The same technique used for zucchinis works just find for any globular vegetable that has a moderate level of moisture. You want to be sure that the chips are crispy dry when finished to ensure they have the maximum storage time and have a satisfying crisp feel when chewed. Try to get the chips as evenly sliced as possible. Rebecca used a mandoline for the purpose. I particularly like the Kitchenaid model that she has because it includes a guard to keep her fingers safe and some attachments for additional cutting methods, such as julienne.

It’s also possible to make fruit chips. For example, if you use an apple peeler, you can create spiral cut apples. Cut through the spiral (top to bottom) and you end up with individual apple slices that you can dry as chips. The basic technique for drying apples is the same as zucchini, but there are a few things to consider.

Rebecca dehydrates apples using two flavorings. Of course, the sugar cinnamon combination is a must have selection. Last year she tried using cheese powder on some apples and we liked it so much that it has become the second favorite. The cheese powder makes the apple chips taste like an apple pie with a slice of cheddar on it. In both cases, you must alter the zucchini technique a little to obtain usable results.

The first difference is that you absolutely can’t use a dehydrator with the motor on the bottom. The fruit chips will produce copious amounts of liquid that will get into the motor and cause the premature death of your dehydrator. When drying apples and other fruit, use only a dehydrator with a top mounted motor so that the liquid won’t cause problems. In fact, we highly recommend placing the entire dehydrator on a tray, just to make sure that any liquid that leaks out doesn’t make a mess.

The second difference is that you don’t dip the chips as you might do with vegetable chips. Dust the top of the fruit with the flavoring of your choice. Using this approach makes the resulting product more enjoyable because it isn’t overly sweet (or sometimes bitter). It also reduces the amount of liquid the chips produce as they dry. You get just as much flavor by lightly dusting the top as you would by dipping the fruit, but at a significantly reduced cost. When the fruit produces copious liquid, the extra flavoring you used ends up in the tray anyway, so there is no point in overindulging.

The third difference is that fruit chips tend to a be little flexible when completely dry. They won’t dry crispy like vegetable chips will. Think more along the lines of dried fruit or a fruit leather. So far we haven’t noticed any difference in longevity. The fruit chips will most definitely last a year when kept in an appropriate container.

A number of people have asked how we store our chips to keep them fresh. We use five-gallon-food-grade-buckets with tear tab lids. Make absolutely certain you use food grade buckets because buckets made with other sorts of plastic could contaminate your food. These are the same buckets used by your local restaurant for everything from pickles to potato salad. In order to get the lids off, you must have a bucket lid wrench. Trying to get the lid off otherwise will be difficult to say the least. Even with the wrench, you must work carefully around the lid top to get it off. These buckets seal extremely tight and they provide great storage even in a basement or other less than ideal setting.

Dehydrated food in the form of chips makes for ready, delicious, and nutritious snacks. None of our chips has the slightest amount of oil or preservatives in them. We’ve tested this technique for up to two years with great results. The two biggest considerations are that you must make absolutely certain that the chips are completely dry and that you seal them in an airtight container, such as the five-gallon-buckets we use. Using this approach is also good for the planet because you don’t use any electricity to keep the food usable. Once the food is dehydrated, you simply open the bucket, grab what you want, and eat.

What sorts of vegetables and fruits do you think you might try to store using this approach? Is this an approach that you find appealing? Let me know your thoughts at [email protected].

 

Potatoes, Buried Treasure

Arr matey! ‘Tis potato season and time to seek buried treasure! Potatoes really are a kind of buried treasure. For one thing, the dried stalk you see above ground only gives you a clue as to the location of the potatoes underneath-not a precise location. The potatoes might be all to one side or another of that stalk, or they might be centered beneath it. I use a garden fork to dig potatoes to reduce the risk of making one unusable. I usually start digging about a foot or a foot and a half from the stalk and move inward.

Unlike many people, we mulch our potatoes instead of creating hills for them. I’ve discussed the benefits of mulching in the Mulching Your Garden post. Using a little heavier mulch makes it possible to plant the potatoes and then basically forget them for the entire growing season. To harvest the potatoes, you simply move the mulch away in the fall and dig the thin layer of dirt from around each of the potatoes. Using the mulching technique seems to produce larger potatoes (or at least, larger quantities of potatoes) with less work and no watering. However, potatoes don’t create set amounts of output. There is an uncertainty factor that gives the potato the feel of buried treasure. One plant may produce a few large potatoes and another copious amounts of smaller (salad) potatoes.

Potatoes and tomatoes are both part of the nightshade family. This family contains a number of highly toxic plants. In fact, some varieties of potato are so odd that you’d hardly recognize them and a few varieties are eaten with clay because they’re not digestible otherwise. The varieties sold in the US are rather bland when compared with the unique diversity found in the Andes (amongst other places). The largest potato we’ve ever had weighed an impressive 1½ pounds, which is far below the 25 pound monster dug in Lebanon in 2008.

You can see the resemblance of potatoes and tomatoes in the leaves. In addition, potatoes will produce a tomato-like fruit. It really does look like a green cherry tomato, but the fruit is quite toxic and you should never eat it. The flowering spud looks pretty though and you should carefully look for the blossoms. They last, at most, two or three days. In other words, blink and you’ll miss the flowering completely.

Domestic potatoes are attacked in a number of ways. This year we lost a few to burrowing insects. The most devastating pests were millipedes who ate directly through the potato and left a rotting mess behind. Because of the drought this year, mice were a particular problem. They normally don’t bother the potatoes much, but this year they were looking for food and water-the potatoes provided both. In addition to these pests, there were also other ones too. Pests can be irritating to have around the house, especially when you’re trying to grow vegetables. One of my friends did suggest that I should contact an exterminator in Charlotte NC to see if they could do anything to help me remove these pests from my garden. By the time my friend has told me about this company, the pests had already ruined the majority of the vegetables. In addition to pests, quackgrass was also a bit of a problem. We lost some potatoes when the quackgrass roots grew right through the tubers. Finally, some of the potatoes had scabs. The scab ruins the skin and makes it impossible to store the potato for any length of time (otherwise, the potato is perfectly edible as long as you cook it).

Our 20′ × 20′ patch produced two bushels of potatoes this year (about 120 pounds). That’s down from the 3½ bushels we received four years ago in the same patch (we rotate our potatoes between three areas). Between the effects of the drought, the extreme heat this summer, and abundance of pathogens, I think we still did quite well. We managed to get a few really nice sized potatoes with a maximum size of 1 pound this year. Buried treasure indeed!

Do you grow potatoes? If so, how did your potatoes do this year? Do you ever encounter any special problems with them? Let me know at [email protected].

 

Talking Technical with Non-technical Audiences

Communication has always been key to any sort of technical activity, but the need to communicate efficiently is greater today than ever before. The fact that early developers were successful despite having limited communication skills is more due to the fact that early users were also technical (so they shared the same frame of reference), rather than the superiority of the application environment at the time. In fact, applications are a form of communication specific to computers, but until recently, most developers didn’t view them in that light.

The days of the solo developer working in a darkened room and subsisting on a diet of pizza and soda are gone. Applications today have to appeal to a broad range of people-most of whom have no technical skills and have no desire whatsoever to develop such skills. The complex application environment means that developers must possess the means to articulate abstract coding issues in a concrete and understandable manner to people who view their computers as appliances. In addition, developers now commonly work as part of a team that includes non-developer members such as graphics designers. In short, if you don’t know how to tell others about your ideas and the means you plan to use to implement them, your ideas are likely going to end up on the junk heap. That’s why I wrote, “10 Reasons Development Teams Don’t Communicate” for SmartBear Blog.

The problems that developers experience today have more to do with limited communication skills, than technical ability. It’s quite possible to write amazing applications without developing the skills to communicate the concepts and techniques demonstrated in the applications to others. In fact, the stereotype of the geek is funny, in part, because it has a basis in fact. Schools don’t spend much time teaching those with technical skills how to communicate effectively and the graduates often struggle to understand the basis for miscommunication, even amongst peers. Schools will eventually catch up and begin teaching developers (and other technical disciplines) strong communication skills, but in the meantime, developers and other members of the technical professions will need to rely on articles such as mine to obtain the information needed to communicate clearly.

A successful developer now needs to listen to others actively-to be able to repeat the goals others have for an application in terms that the listener understands. In addition, the developer needs to know how to communicate well in both written and oral forms. The transition between the abstract world of code and the concrete world of the typical user is something that a developer needs to practice because there are no books that adequately address the topic today. To keep costs to a minimum, developers must accomplish communication tasks within a limited time frame and without error. In short, there is a significant burden on the developer today to create an environment in which users, administrators, management, DevOps, and other interested parties can communicate both needs (required application features) and wants (nice-to-have application features) in a way that the developer can interpret and turn into a functioning application. Luckily, there are ways to make this a bit easier on the developer. For example, when it comes to DevOps: Agosto offers expertise to help you rapidly deliver what’s needed.

What sorts of communication issues have you faced as a developer or other technical specialist? Do you often find that people look at you quizzically and then proceed as if they understand (but you can tell they don’t)? Let me know your thoughts about communication issues at [email protected].

 

In Praise of Dried Beans

One of the more amazing vegetables in the garden is the green bean. Green beans typically take little work to grow, produce well, and don’t appear to have many problems (with the exception of mold in wet years). We grow the bush variety because they don’t require a trellis. You can eat green beans in all sorts of ways—raw by themselves, cooked, in salads, and even fried. What most people don’t realize is that the uses of green beans don’t end there. You can also use green beans dried. Simply let the green bean stay on the plant until the shell is completely dry (usually after a few frosts).

Dried beans have a significant advantage over other items you grow. Unlike most items, they require no preparation. You can simply pick them, put them in a bucket, put a lid on the bucket, and then stuff it in a cool, dry place. That’s it! The beans will stay good almost indefinitely. I just finished shelling the last of our dried beans from last year. There was no deterioration of the bean whatsoever. Rebecca will use them in baked beans, soups, and in salads. Dried beans are also quite high in nutrients, making them a great food value. For example, if you make them into baked beans, a single serving supplies 28 percent of your daily requirement of iron.

Before I get e-mail about the relative merits of other vegetables, yes, you can store root vegetables such as potatoes in your basement without doing anything special to them. In addition, winter squash also lasts quite well in the basement without any special preparation. However, in both cases you face the problem of having to use the items by February or (in a good year) March. The winter squash tends to start rotting by that time and the potatoes start to get soft in preparation for sprouting. Dried beans appear to have no such limitation.

Of course, the big thing is to ensure that the bean really is dried. We keep the beans on the plants until late fall after a few frosts have killed the plant completely. The beans should rattle within the shells when shaken. The outside should be a nice tan color in most cases and should feel quite dry. The shells will also be a bit on the hard side, rather than soft as a green shell will be.

Don’t worry if you see a bit of discoloration on the shell. That’s normal. If you see a little discoloration, shell a bean or two to see for yourself that the beans inside are shiny and that the skin is intact. Even if the bean is a little dirty, it’s acceptable to use as long as the skin is intact.

The one thing you must do before using beans you dry yourself is to wash them. The beans do pick up a few contaminants during the drying process. You don’t use soap and water. Just place the beans in a colander and rinse thoroughly. Make sure you move the bean around and get all of the dirt off. When you see that the water is coming out of the colander without any dirt, the beans are probably clean.

The bean is one of those items with a nearly unlimited shelf life that’s both nutritious and delicious. The fact that you can use them green or dry, raw or cooked, makes them exceptionally versatile. Even a small garden has space for some of these marvelous plants. Let me know your thoughts about beans (both green and dried) at [email protected].