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

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #52​

Todays Nippersink Photos Begin on the previous page. Page 62.

When I grew out "Nippersink" in 2014 for the first time it produced 4 different segregations. This year I grew Segregation #1, #3 and #4. This first photo (Left) is Nippersink Segregation #1 Grown out this year, and it looks pretty much like the original Segregation #1 from 2014. The next Three photos after that are segregations that Segregation #1 threw off. Nippersink #1 and all three of it's segregations all grew as semi-runners. I'm wondering if, when and where this is going to end up.


"Nippersink Segregation #1"

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #52​

This is Nippersink segregation #3 (Left Photo) It looks very much like the original from 2014 except for a bit more white and less red. The (Right Photo) is the only segregation this bean produced this year. Looks like a soldier bean. Both of these beans grew as a true bush.


"Nippersink #3"

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #52​

(Top Left Photo) Is segregation #4. It too pretty much looks like it did in it's 2014 version. The next 4 photos below it are 4 segregations that this bean produced this season in 2016. All five of these beans grew as true bush without runners.


"Nippersink #4

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #52​

(Photo Top Left) This first bean that I have grown out this year is called "North Star". It a pole lima, productive and has large seeds. (Photo Top Right) Is "Ohio Pole". A snap bean that I have read may have been grown by the Miami people. Some people describe this bean as being black and white it's really a dark purple color. (Second Row Photo Left) Is Oregon Giant. A pole snap bean that has been popular in the Pacific northwest for a very long time. (Second Row Photo Right) Is "Osborne & Clyde" is a pole dry bean. The only information I have read about this bean it that it was traced back to former member of the Seed Savers Exchange the late Ernest B. Dana of Etna, New Hampshire who donated the bean to Wanigan Associates sometime in the 1970's. Then Wanigan donated the bean to Seed Savers Exchange in 1981. I have grown the bean in the early 1980's, and the bean was traded around plenty of times among SSE membership back then.


"North Star"..................................................."Ohio Pole"



"Oregon Giant"..............................................."Osborne & Clyde"

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 That is one pretty lima bean, not warm enough here most summers for them or I'd be growing a few. The only butterbean I've managed to grow and only a sample at that, is the Black Jungle Butterbean and that was in the greenhouse. I grew one pole in a tub just inside the door. We only managed a taste and enough seed for one more try.
Oregon Giant seems to be more readily available now, when I went looking for it back in 2010 it was a hard one to find but perseverance payed off and I finally found one commercial source. This is why saving heirloom seed and passing it around is so important. If one of us doesn't have or know where to find a particular variety, some seed saver out there hopefully has a few tucked away.
Bosnian pole for instance, this was almost lost had it not from someone who managed to grow a few plants, all the Bosnian Pole around today originally came from these few plants.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

@aftermidnight, So true about spreading the heirloom beans around so more people are growing them and they have a better chance to survive. There is an old wax bush variety called Hodson Wax. In the autumn of 2011 I was looking through older copies of the SSE yearbook and I spotted a listing for the wax bean from someone from Colorado. I wrote to the grower and amazingly she sent me seed grown in 2008, but when I planted it the next spring it all rotted away. The seed was dead. I belong to a facebook group on beans and people post pictures of the beans they've grown and photos of new ones they have recently come across. Someone about a week ago posted a photo of the Hodson Wax. They used the synonym name of the bean Hodson Silver Wax, but it's the same bean. So this person wanted something I had and hopefully they are going to send me some of the Hodson Wax. Also the Bosnian Pole was brought over from Europe by Remy Orlowski. She has a website called the Sample Seed Shop. I think I've spelled her last name correctly. I've sent Bosnian Pole out to a bunch of people so more and more are growing this bean.

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #53​

In the late 1970's I was growing a brown bean of which the pods look like a snap bean called "Brown Kidney" (Pawnee's Seed Mother) that I got from Wanigan Associates. In 1979 I get a little different brown bean out of it that was a little lighter shade and had a little spot of white at one end. After another grow out and the beans white area expands and it has small brown spots in the white area Kinda looks like Jacob's Cattle in brown and white. The pods were also no longer round, but more oval like JC. So I named the bean Pawnee, and I first listed Pawnee in the SSE yearbook in 1982. If you grow the bean in different soil types or in a little bit cooler season the bean really gets looking like a brown and white Jacob's Cattle, and in some soil types it can change to the point you might wonder if it's the same bean. My Pawnee grew just beautifully in 2013 and 14 (Photo Left). Got just gorgeous seed out of it. This year it was pretty hot here and Pawnee gave me seed that looked almost like it did after I grew it out the first time in 1980 (Photo Right). The third photo (Bottom Left) is how Pawnee looks grown by Full Circle Seeds in B.C. Canada. After I grew out their version in our hot droughty year of 2012 I got back seed that looked lIke Pawnee did back in 1980. Seed of my grow out of Pawnee in 1981 (Bottom Photo Right). I still have some seed stock of most all my beans that I grew in the 1980's.


Pawnee 2014..................................................Pawnee 2016



Pawnee when grown by Full Circle, Canada............Pawnee my grow out in 1981

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show - Day #53​

The Jacob's Cattle seed coat pattern makes for a very pretty bean. I have a bean called Black Trout and one called Black And White Trout. To me these beans don't have true black on them. I think they are more of a dark purple. I have always wanted a bean with the JC pattern in true jet black. Well in 2014 I may have gotten my wish. The seed mother of this bean is Pawnee. I discovered growing among the Pawnee grow out that year a much larger plant than Pawnee and when I opened it's first dry pod.....surprise a bean patterned like Pawnee in white and jet black. I grew it out in 2015 but deer ate most everything. I got a couple of jet black and white Pawnee looking seeds and I named the bean Pandora. This year I took more of that 2014 seed and grew them again in the safety of my backyard bean nursery. No deer, no rabbits, no mammal critters of any kind. More suprises came out of this years grow out. Three more seed coats. I got the Pandora seed coat and color (Photo Top Left) and I also got one with black but with some having a rather blue-gray base color and some sort of a lavender base color (Photo Top Right). I also got one that looks like Pawnee (Photo Lower Left) surprisingly since it was so hot this summer it held that Jacob's cattle pattern and displayed plenty of white with the spotting. I also got one in a golden yellow and white (Photo Lower Right). All these Pandora type seeds are smaller than Pawnee. I'm going to test them out in a different soil type to see if the seed size will become larger.


"Pandora"................................................."Pandora segregation #1"


"Pandora segregation #2".............................."Pandora segregation #3"

 

[aftermidnight]

@aftermidnight, Also the Bosnian Pole was brought over from Europe by Remy Orlowski. She has a website called the Sample Seed Shop. I think I've spelled her last name correctly. I've sent Bosnian Pole out to a bunch of people so more and more are growing this bean.

Russ, I went back and looked up the thread on GW about the Bosnian Pole, I had it a little wrong. Remy almost lost it the first time she grew it, she had given Zeedman some seed and he also had trouble with it the first year he grew it, I think it was Remy that ended up with 3 plants, so it's between the two of them so many of us our growing this very productive snap bean. I believe you got yours from Shirley Bellows, she got them from me, I got mine from Remy in 2010. They just arrived at their destination in the U.K. a couple of days ago, it only took one week .
I can't believe how fast they got there, the little package I sent to Ontario the same day (Dec. 1st.) is still in transit, expected delivery day the 13th. .

Annette

 

[Zeedman]

Been lurking for quite awhile, but couldn't resist chiming in this time.

Russ, I went back and looked up the thread on GW about the Bosnian Pole, I had it a little wrong. Remy almost lost it the first time she grew it, she had given Zeedman some seed and he also had trouble with it the first year he grew it, I think it was Remy that ended up with 3 plants, so it's between the two of them so many of us our growing this very productive snap bean.

Remy sent half of her original seed to me, and we both planted in 2008. All of Remy's seed failed. I was able to get 3 plants, but squirrels dug them up after transplanting & destroyed all but one. The survivor was replanted, protected with screen, and went on to produce seed; I sent half of that back to Remy. A seed increase in 2009 produced 8 pounds of seed, which I have since traded widely.

As it happens, I grew Bosnian Pole again in 2016 for seed renewal. It once again produced a large seed crop (late, for some reason) but I chose not to save any. There was an exceptionally vigorous cross in the middle of the row, with large glossy black seed... so further crossing with adjoining plants in the row is likely. That single plant produced a pound of dry seed! The most likely pollen donor was Emerite, the only black-seeded bean grown in the same year. I saved that seed for a future effort to stabilize the cross. Bosnian Pole will be grown again next year, in hope of getting pure seed... which is likely, given that this was the only cross out of 280 bean plants grown this year.