Drying beans

This may be a stupid question. How do you dry your bean varieties for shelling? 
I know you’re supposed to leave them on the plants to dry naturally. I’m not convinced that’s going to be possible for me.  In the past they have just rotted on the plant because isn’t always so wet / damp / humid. 
Advice please.

I leave them as long as I can and bring them in to finish drying in the GH if the weather is poor.
Not going to be a problem this year - although I am working up to planting some beans this week.

Do as Veggie suggests. When they are dry enough shell them and then spread them out on a tray to finish off. I store mine in paper envelopes and have never had a problem.

Dwarf beans are ready far earlier than climbing so I would grow a row of those. I do grow some climbing soisson for drying a well but they re always very late to mature even when sown early on and kept as long as possible under cover. Dwarf borletto should be good. I grow a dwarf been I bought in a supermarket last time I was in france in 2014. No idea of the variety but they are quite easy to pod. The beans I grow for eating fresh are difficult to get out of the pod when collecting seeds for the following year.

In the pictures you can see the dwarf beans just finishing off and the soissons just getting going.

         

I have had mixed results with the dwarf beans. one year some slugs took a liking to them and I barely saved enough for the next year and another, particularly wet they were hammered with moulds. I think I plant them 5" to 6" apart now. Last yer was a  good crop and this year is looking OK. Mice have never shown any interest in them.

I tend to pick them, ideally when the pods have dried but mainly when where they  attach to the plant goes soft. I then spread them on a table in the conservatory or in a dry shed.
A book said to pick he whole plant and hang to dry in a shed but when I tried that the whole lot just got mouldy and I think was a health hazard. Never tried that again.

Pull your plants when it starts getting wet and finish off in the greenhouse, tunnel / warmer in there than a shed? I've done some in the greenhouse with success. I also pick off the semi dried ones and lay them out in the kitchen/by a window etc.

At the end of the season I spread runner bean pods out on a sheet of paper on a sunny windowsill. I only shell them when the pods are brown and crispy. Then I keep all the seeds that are hard, shiny and plump, but throw away any that are shrivelled or imperfect.

Unfortunately I’m including the ones I grow in the polytunnel when I say they rot on the plant before thinking about drying. Door is left open. Also if I was to pull them when it got wet. I would of pulled them before planting ( there’s a paradox   ) this year. It’s been one of the wettest summers the locals can remember! 

I’ll definitely be trying pods on the windowsill approach. Don’t think I’m actually going to get many for picking. Everything is so behind with this cr@p weather. Only got pods on my yin yang beans in the tunnel. Everything else has just got flowers or 1” pods where the flowers have just dropped off.

If they don't dry hanging up (whole plant) I pod them and put the beans on a tray in the airing cupboard to finish off.

Do you have a covered shelter, like a log store where you could hang them but the wind blows through?

Do you have a  covered shelter, like a log store where you could hang them but the wind blows through?

Unfortunately log store is very full with all the off cuts from milling. 
I could hang them in the tunnel well spread out with both doors open. That might work.