2015 Little Easy Bean Network - Old Beans Should Never Die !

[Hal]

I'm an aggravated gardener today. I planted @sea-kangaroo's Pied Python June 4th and none of them will be growing at all this year. They all rotted as did about 2/3 of the over 2,000 seeds I planted. I waited purposely until June 3rd and 4th to plant anything. Then we got days and days of rain and overcast. I guess there just wasn't enough sun heating up the soil to get good germination on my bean seed.

That is just so terrible I might have to invent a word for it! I feel awful knowing how much work it will be to replant all that.

 

[flowerweaver]

@Bluejay77 sorry to hear you lost so many beans, that is a tragedy! We've had almost six inches of rain in three days from 'Bill' and I think we are over 40 inches so far here in the desert, with the fall rainy season yet to come. I have not had to irrigate at all!!!

SeedO is here helping me harvest beans. In general the bush beans were stunted by being planted in the troughs, lack of sunshine for a month and a half, and too much rain. We are keeping track of the production of each kind, and so far the loss to mold is substantial. Fire ants and mice are starting to chew on remaining pods, so it's a race. The pole beans are faring a bit better, having been planted on hills and having better circulation on the trellises. There were a few segregations. Photos and report to come.

The LEBN Imbotyi Chaphaza was harvested yesterday. The beans were planted April 11th. The plants were extremely stunted, under 7" tall. Flowers appeared on May 30th and were pink. Out of the six beans planted, six pods were harvested June 18th. The pods had purple streaking and the longest was 3.75" They yielded a total of 15 beans, 8 were good, and 7 were molded. All the beans looked like the original ones that were sent. So from sowing to harvesting it was 69 days. No doubt it would have done better had my weather been more like usual! Instead of feeling like Africa it's been feeling like Ireland around here.

 

[897tgigvib]

Hang in there Russ!

 

[PhilaGardener]

Instead of feeling like Africa it's been feeling like Ireland around here

Leapin' Lizards - Texas Leprechauns!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @flowerweaver !

That is so neat SeedO is there helping with the harvest. Did he move to Texas?

In my plantings I put 12 seeds in the ground for every variety, but only about 3 healthy plants were in each stand 4 if I was lucky, when they came up. I was hoping for at least 7 healthy plants per variety. Many never came up and many had decayed coyledons with the tops rotted off where the first true leaves would normally be. I pulled some of those up and the root systems don't even look well developed. Rain and lack of sun I think is what has happened here. No sun to warm the soil. We've had 5 inches of rain since the beginning of June as of last week already when 4 inches for 30 days in more normal. Oddly we are only up one inch for the year. I know what Texas is putting up with so my rainfall seems like nothing but when we get than much this far north and no sun it really can make for an unseasonalby cool time for the year and not good for growing gardens. Seems like summer is never coming. I know if I keep crabbing about cool weather Mother Nature will probably turn the sun into a blow torch in July.

Anyway the weather forcast is for a bit more rain Saturday night a string of 80 degree days for about 5 or 6 days, and I was out Friday afternoon with more seed filling in the empty places. Got half of it done and tomorrow will finish the other half. Since all that I have planted this year are bush beans I'm hoping the late plantings will come up healthy this time, and mature dry seed before the October frosts. I'm just so wanting to see what all those segregations I found last year are going to do.

Your Imbotyi Chaphaza seed you have pictured looks great. Yeah there sure seems enough weird weather to go around this year for lots of places.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Anyway so Marshall how have you been doing lately? I hope things are beginning to go better and better for you.

 

[flowerweaver]

We hired SeedO to come down for the summer as a farm intern since he has been keen on experiencing desert farming. Only it's been wetter here than Seattle, so we haven't even had to irrigate. There are lots of unfinished homesteading projects left over from last summer, so if it would just stop raining there will be plenty to do around here other than gardening. We got yet another .8" yesterday, and .25" today. River was over both crossings on our road again this morning.

Marshall, we are thinking of you as we shell and record the beans. Do give us an update when you can on how things are going for you.

 

[journey11]

Now that's an awesome summer internship. Especially since you were in transition with moving and didn't have anywhere to get your hands dirty. Have fun @TheSeedObsesser and keep us updated!

@flowerweaver , I'm sure you'll keep him plenty busy! With all of that rain, there will be lots of weeds to pull. Can't wait to hear/see what projects you'll get accomplished this summer with the extra assistance.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hello @Hal !

Remember when I had mentioned the Ernie's Big Eye bean? Well I just happened to stumble over a gardening forum yesterday in the UK called "Allotments 4 All". Opened a thread called "Red Podded Beans" and some fellow has a post from May of 2013 and he has a little list of beans he has and lists one called Ernie's Big Eye - Dwarf. Got to be the bean. I would bet it's been kicking around the British Isles for years since I donated it to the Henry Double Day Research (Garden Organic) back in 1980. Members of Garden Organic no doubt have acquired the bean and it's been traded around among gardeners there.

So I signed up on the forum so I could personal message this fellow about getting some of the Ernie's Big Eye, and I posted on that thread a message too. I don't know if I'll here back from him, but today another fellow on the forum must have read my post and writes to me and he is growing some Ernie's Big Eye this season, and will be willing to send me some after his seed harvest.

I guess if you keep poking around long enough things have a way of turning up one day. Just amazing.

Ernie's Big Eye had a large red patch around the eye, and maybe more but finer red spotting than JC too. It can look a bit different in different soils and change a bit from season to season. I always thought it was a striking looking bean. I know Seed Savers Exchange has an accession number on EBE, but they never seem to offer hardly any of the old Wanigan collection beans they acquired years ago.

Ernie's Big Eye. I went to my old 1980's bean seed file and here is how it now looks after last growing the bean in 1985. Once part of John Withee's Wanigan Associates 1,186 beans collection. It originated as an outcross from Wanigan and SSE member Ernest B. Dana's bean collection in the late 1970's. Dana was from Etna, New Hampshire. Ernie was particularly fond of beans that had this Jacob's Cattle type patterning. Now isn't this a bean worth growing. Oh Yeah !

 

[Hal]

@Bluejay77 that is fantastic news, looks like another one is coming back home. It is great to see that it was kept going all these years, obviously it was appreciated by the right folks.