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

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @aftermidnight !

Yay ! You are getting germination ! The few seeds I tried of #45 I got about 85% on them. You get to put a name on each color of bean that you get. So you might have several. Looks like there is three color seed coats in your photo. I had trouble with black beans on some of the samples. The black ones didn't want to grow.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @teamneu !

Glad to see you back. I think the only bean you had trouble with last year was Red Speckled Sugar. I think the seed was probably dead, too old. You grew the Wren's Egg and sent back some beautiful seed. I'll get your choices out in the mail probably tomorrow or the next day. I've got a order in for some new shipping boxes.

 

[baymule]

My butterbeans and green beans are coming up and so far no crow attack. I think it might be safe now to plant your beans.

 

[NancyJ10x]

Russ - I got my package of beans last week. What a lovely bunch of beans.Thank you so much. Now that taxes are done, I can get them organized and ready to plant!! I am getting excited about gardening again even though we are still almost a month away from bean planting time.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @baymule,

Yeah hope the danger is past for your garden against hungry robbing critters. I guess all you can do is take a chance. If you see signs of trouble cover your plants with some homemade cages.

@NancyJ10x,

Glad you liked the beans in your package.

I'll raise my cup of tea and propose a toast that we all have a wonderful successful bean growing season. Here's to bigger better beans, healthy plants, no munching critters, and no droughts or torrential flooding rains. Amen !

 

[aftermidnight]

The Witsa's have their first pairs of true leaves, I'm on my way out now to plant them in the garden, I'll cover with bottomless pop bottles for the next few days until they're established.

Two more of the WB-PKT #45 have germinated, all three have the same seed coat color.

Annette

 

[Ridgerunner]

I planted some Blue Lake bush beans in the garden this morning. If they germinate it will tell me the ground is warm enough to support bean growth so I'll start pre-sprouting some beans. I'll also start putting some corn, tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant in the ground. It's earlier than I'd normally try but it's been a strange warm spring here. Maybe.

 

[aftermidnight]

Hi @aftermidnight !

Yay ! You are getting germination ! The few seeds I tried of #45 I got about 85% on them. You get to put a name on each color of bean that you get. So you might have several. Looks like there is three color seed coats in your photo. I had trouble with black beans on some of the samples. The black ones didn't want to grow.

Things are looking up, almost 50% germination of the 15 #45's I started, these are now planted in pots. I was getting concerned so put 5 more on the other day so we'll see what I get out of the 20 beans. 9 days into it, the remaining beans still look good, no mold and don't smell bad. I rinse their containers (two on the go now) and paper towel each morning and expose them to the air for a couple of minutes. This is how I treated the 15 year old seed I grew a couple of years ago and had 75% of them germinate.

It's hard to see the seed coat colors on some of them so as they germinate, I snap a picture and give them a number, this way we'll know exactly which each one of them produces. Once they are in the ground I'll space them out, hopefully I'll be able to keep the vines separated. The Witsa's out in the garden are looking good but still covering them at night to protect them from slugs and snails.

Annette

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 as of this morning 14 of the first 15 (#45) I started have germinated and 4 out of the 5 extras l started in case some were duds. They're all numbered and in 4 packs until they get their first pair of leaves. Any that don't look healthy I'll discard but so far things are looking good.
This leaves 10 of the original lot you sent, maybe next year for them. Some took a long time germinating, up to 11 days. What I did with the slowpokes was nick the seed coats with a pin, that seemed to get them moving .

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @aftermidnight, You are getting plantastic, beanfastic germination results. Just incredible. You are going to have a lot of those beans growing. You have enough room for all of them? 11 days and you are still getting some to germinate. I had no idea beans could do something like that. I know the germination process is set in motion by an amino acid process. As the seed ages those proteins oxidize, and after enough of those amino acids have oxidized then the seed gets beyond the point of having the embryo being able to come out of it's suspended animation for the lack of a better term. Just looks like it takes longer to get these seeds going.

I actually started doing this germination testing on this seed about a week before the Appalachian Seed swap. Many of them were growing in ziploc baggies when I left on the 31st of March. When I got back 3 days later some of the plants looked like they were trying to break out of those bags. The sides of the bags were poking way up with the plants inside. It was too cold to plant anything and it was only a test so I threw most of them away. That really broke my heart. I feel like I'm killing babies. There was one bag of bush ones I had planed on growing myself and the 3 seeds I tested on that one germinated along with the rest of all those baggies. Mind you this is now about a week and a half after I started the beans between moist paper towels. So I left those seeds with the 3 germinated bush bean seeds sit on the kitchen counter for the rest of the week. I also figured out that those bush bean seeds were in paper towels that Bounty now puts dishwashing liquid in the paper. Then after that weekend was over I took those germinated bush beans out and let them sit for the rest of the day in the open air. At the end of the day I put them back in their baggies for another two days. All this time they had no additonal water, and mind you they are now over two weeks old, but don't look like they are growing anymore but don't seem to be getting spoiled. The next day I open the baggy and look at the germinated seed and the root tips look like they are getting kind of brown. I thought maybe the soap soaked into the paper towel might be burning the roots. I let them sit another two days after I spritzed them with a little water and put them back into their ziplocs. Then I decided to fill a flower pot with soil and plant those seeds. After all that time lapsed and what those little beans went through one of them emerged from the soil about three days later and the second one emerged a few days after. So now two of them are growing in my west window. Just amazed me what plants can take sometimes. I'll plant much of the rest of that packet in late May or early June when it gets nice out.