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

[Tricia77]

I am having a lot of damage from bean beetles this year. I didn't go to my garden for two days and tonight I went to check on things and most of my bean plants were covered in them

 

[Blue-Jay]

For Japanese beetles I take a deep plastic bowl of water using dish washing liquid and pick beetles off plants and drop them in the suds around the middle of the day when it seems like the largest numbers of them are present. Some days I've picked off about a hundred of the buggers on a 12 x 24 foot plot. The last few years here their populations have gone down, and I hope it stays that way.

The University of Illinois agricultural extension says that if we don't get 13 inches of rain from about the 1st of August to the beginning of November many of the larvae of the beetles don't feed and develop well enough to survive through the winter. I think that is one factor that keeps the beetles populations a bit lower and I've read that after a few years their populations naturally taper off anyway.

 

[VA_LongBean]

Starting to harvest the tepary beans. It took for this long dry spell for them to set and mature seeds so I'll not include them in my VA garden in future. :/ This summer has been murder on my garden, but I will send back a return on all seeds.

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 Well my little experiment is proving me right, the trouble I had with #45 was just old seed. I planted 4 fresh seeds from four different plants that I managed a couple of seeds from in hanging baskets. These are in the greenhouse, plants look healthy and are now flowering, there is a slight possibility being in the greenhouse I may get a few seeds from them. Four are true bush the other looks like it may be a twining bush.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Annette,

I tried going through the thread to find out what was your original problem with #45 was, but I couldn't figure it out. So was the original plants not producing seed well or not growing well, and your new plants look like they are growing better. Is that it?

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 the original plants were quite weak from the start, they only made one or two pods, when these matured enough to collect seed I just got a couple of seeds from most of them then the plants turned up their toes and died. One of the pole beans gave me a few more seeds. the other pole in the bunch was the odd ball, it's still growing gang busters, setting flowers and tiny pods, the pods that have already dried down have no seed in them, a genetic thing, maybe. The vine keeps growing and branching and growing back on itself. I'll leave it until frost kills it. It sure would be nice to get one or two seeds out of it, it must have produced over 100 pods but none have had seed in them so far.

When I send your packet back later this year would yo like some White seeded Cherokee Trail of Tears seed? This was found a few years back in a row of the black seeded CTofT's in a garden in the UK. I have a couple of others you don't have I'll send those along too.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

@aftermidnight, If you like to send some white seeded Cherokee Trail Of Tears that would be fine with me. Send whatever you like. Sounds like it's an outcross. Perhaps the UK gardener should have given it some sort of name, or is that what he called it WS CT of T's ?

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 , I don't believe it's a cross but a mutation. Here's the info I have on them.

Mr. Yeomans's White Seeded Cherokee Trail of Tears"
John Yeoman (author of books such as 'Self Reliance: A Recipe for the New Millennium' and 'Gardening Secrets That Time Forgot") had a seed conservancy called "Village Guild' which unfortunately doesn't exist anymore. The rare seeds he safe guarded and shared amongst Guild members, are however now in the HSL collection and offered in the HSL catalogue. One of the beans in John's garden was the heavy bearing 'Cherokee Trail of Tears' bean. About 15 years ago, one of the pods on one of his plants produced white seeds. Growing these seeds on proved that a mutation had taken place, not a cross. The beans are identical to the normal Trail of Tears, except for the colour: cream white flowers, white seeds and the green pods take longer to develop the deep purple hue when they are mature.
This strain produces only white seeds every year and all generations of this strain grown since I had the seeds have been stable. Same superb flavour, strong string and pod shape as the ordinary Trail of Tears beans. The beans can be used for pods or for shelling and drying. Pods develop later in summer when early beans are past their first flush. I love harvesting them when they are very young and small (no strings then) and serve them cooked whole with a dab of butter.

I will include some in your package.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

@aftermidnight, Thanks for the history on the bean. Fascinating good stuff indeed. I'll grow them next year, and grow the CT Of T's that is listed on the first Network page of my website to compare both beans in the same growing season.

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 will do. Do you have Bird Egg #3?



Grown for snaps but better as a shelly, last picture shelly and dried comparison. As you can see the seed is quite large.

Annette