Preserving Runner Beans.
My mother used to preserve beans in salt. She used the old glass sweet jars. I sliced the beans with a traditional slicer and usually there were quite a few. She used preserving salt and put the beans into layers of about 1inch or 2cm. She did not blanch them. I think that blanching does help to preserve the beans for longer by knocking out some bacteria from the beans. However, we kept our beans for a year at least and they were still as good as new. If you want to keep beans for a couple of years, I think that blanching might help.
She used to soak the beans overnight when she wanted to use them. Apart from fresh beans, I ate beans like this for years before I began to freeze them.
I seem to remember that the beans seemed to reduce in volume after you had filled the jar and more could be added after a few days.
