A dill head

I know, I know. It’s a little premature to be posting about this mid-summer canning staple, but it’s never too early to start strategizing  about how to go about it.

It’s been my experience as a canner that the tastiest dilly beans use fresh dill heads – the top of the dill plant after it’s gone to seed – because the flavor of the herb is that much more more pronounced and concentrated, even sharp, than tamer dill sprigs.

Unfortunately, most people don’t have access to dill heads unless they grow the herb themselves, which is why most recipes calls for dill sprigs.

The problem is that dill is a cool weather plant. It’s usually planted in April and peters out by mid- to late-June. Beans, meanwhile, adore heat. They’re planted in mid-May (after all danger of frost has passed) and harvested sometime around mid-July.

So the dill misses the beans and the beans miss the dill.

There is a way around this canning kerfuffle, according to my friends and master dilly bean makers Brendan Perry and Susan Guida, farmers at Stone House Farm in VA.  They recommend planting the herb and beans simultaneously in mid-May.  This way, the herb will be ready to go to seed right about the time the beans are harvested mid-July. If you don’t have a garden, bring home several potted dill plants from the nursery and let them go to seed in their pots.

Hello, delicious dilly beans.

I should point out that dill does tend to grow better when planted in the cooler month of April. But for the purpose of making dilly beans, a May planting is fine. If you want, stagger plantings at two-week intervals beginning in April to May, so you have fresh dill all season long.

And really, is there such a thing as too much dill?

Expect a killer dilly bean recipe from me sometime this spring.