2016 Little Easy Bean Network - Gardeners Keeping Heirloom Beans From Extinction

[Blue-Jay]

@aftermidnight, So I decide to do a little more searching about Christley. I got into the Seed Savers Seed Exchange site and they have "Christley" listed. It was also listed as "Christley Wax" Here are two of the descriptions posted by SSE members who have grown the bean in the past that I thought were the best of most of the general descriptions.

99 days, good climber to 8', yellow stem, white flower, 6" flat light-yellow crescent-shaped pod, 5 red kidney seeds per pod, meaty, tasty, snap shell dry heirloom.

75 days, yellow-green pods, flat maroon seeds raised by Oscar Christley's great-grandfather 200 years ago in Draper's Valley, Virginia.

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 , these tiny pods have a slight curve but wouldn't call them crescent shape, I tasted one of the immature pods today, a little on the fibrous side with a nutty taste. As soon as there's a pod dry enough I'll open and see what color bean it produces. Some of the pods are showing signs of beans forming. If they stay tiny and don't get too fibrous they might be a good candidate for a stir fry.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

Just had to share this with you. This is Sweetwater discovered in 2014. Look at the size of these leaves. About as big as my hand. This is something I would expect from a lot of pole beans, but this bean is a bush about 15 inches tall. Many of the leaves on each plant are large like this. You can't see into the plants easily at all and most of the time you aren't aware that it's blooming or producing pods. I haven't grown the bean enough to say that it is stable, but will see more towards that end of this season. The bean also doesn't seem to have attracted or been fed upon by many Japanese beetles.

 

[aftermidnight]

Growing traits similar to Woods Mountain Crazy beans? You have to push the leaves aside to see them flowering or the beans for that matter. I'm looking forward to seeing what your Sweetwater produces at the end of the growing season.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

My backyard bean nursery very mature now, and some of the bush beans are are yellowing out there pods. I have never had pods begin to turn yellow this early in the season. Direct seeded the bush beans and pole beans in the ground May 25th. Could be the extra light reflecting off my light colored house. I think @Hal made that suggestion about the reflected light last year. My pole beans on my south flower bed matured quicker than I've seen those varieties do last summer.

My flower pot babies pretty much grown up now. The Red Turtle beans in the flower pot on the lower step on the left was the one that got the plant food feeding and now it's looks the same color as the Red Turtle beans in the pot on the right.

 

[aftermidnight]

Everything looks so lush and healthy, you should get a good crop of seed from those. By the way are you eating any of them in the snap stage or are all grown for seed? We're having 'Cherokee Trail of Tears (white Seed)' snaps tonight along with a few 'Aeron Purple Star' runners, this runner produces the sweetest beans I've ever eaten.
Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

@aftermidnight, I'm not eating any of the pods. They will all be for seed. From everything you see in the photos. I wouldn't be surprised if I get 20 pounds of seed. I will weigh all the seed after it's all shelled and dried. The pod set on all those bush beans looks really heavy.

 

[Hal]

@Bluejay77 That reflected light does wonders it would appear. You're at home patch is incredible!
That 'Sweet Water' reminds me of one cultivar I have from Chile, bush but leaves that made everything else in the bean patch look like miniatures.

 

[Tricia77]

I found two partially dried #34 pole bean pods last night, so I opened them up to see what they produced. They both came from the same vine that has yellowish white flowers and heavily striped pods I posted pictures of earlier.

Outcross bean by Tricia Rosamilia, on Flickr

Outcross beans by Tricia Rosamilia, on Flickr

I also noticed another vine is producing lightly splashed pods with pink/purple flowers. I can't wait to see all the different beans I am going to get out of this pack! I need to practice patience though!

Outcross bean by Tricia Rosamilia, on Flickr

Here is a picture of the original seeds #34. I didn't separate them out by color, I just planted the different colored beans around each bamboo pole.

#34 Pole Bean by Tricia Rosamilia, on Flickr

Solwezi #2 has out grown it's six foot trellis and it is really producing beans!

Solwezi #2 by Tricia Rosamilia, on Flickr

 

[Ridgerunner]

@Tricia77 that tan color will probably darken quite a bit as it dries, but nicely marked beans. I know it's hard but you might try waiting until the pod has dried and become crinkly before you harvest unless it turns wet. I've been collecting beans at about that stage or just past because it's been wet here. Even pretty close to that stage I've had wet beans sprout in the pod or get that brown color which I think means they are no good as seeds. If the weather is wet or they are touching the ground where they can absorb moisture I harvest early. Otherwise I try to wait. Emphasis on try, I don't always succeed. If I have a plant making a lot of seeds I'm more patient than if the plant is struggling to form beans. On those plants, every bean is precious.

I've gotten a few from one of my #38 vines that are two colors, a solid patch of brown and a solid patch or white. This morning I got the first one off of a different vine, it's red with darker red markings, very pretty. It will probably finish drying a little darker but I think the red color will hold. The beans I planted were a dark brown. I'm getting almost no beans that look that much like the bean I planted. I do get some similar beans off of some different vines where I planted similar-looking seeds, but a lot of the time I get totally different beans from similar looking vines. The beans I get off of one individual vine pretty much look the same, but until you get a bean off of a specific vine you have no idea what you will get. It makes waiting hard.

Another fun one. I got a mostly white bean with black markings off of one vine. Off a different vine of the same type of bean I planted, I get a mostly black bean with white markings. They are pretty much mirror images of each other. I know I'm not making it any easier to wait, but it is worth the wait. You are going to have fun when they ripen.

I'm not ready to do another photo show. It's just turned hot and dry here so I think I'll soon have a lot more beans off of new vines. I want to be able to show more of the story than just a few beans. I'm sure I'm in for more surprises.