2017 Little Easy Bean Network – Everything Beans, Post It Here & Join The Fun

[Poppa T]

I'm amazed that something actually ate an okra plant. I just did not expect that at all.

Bay, I'll still question if you are sure it was rabbits. Why are you so sure? Rabbits will eat bean plants but when I've had that problem with rabbits it was as the beans were still quite young, right after they sprouted. They bit them off, stem and all. I have had groundhogs eat the leaves off of beans and not touch the stems. That was pole beans and they actually produced fairly well up high. And going back to the okra, how tall was that okra? How does a rabbit physically eat an okra plant that was ready to bloom to a stump?

Rabbits will tuck into anything tasty, including stems. I have a fallen apple tree (wind damage during a storm a few weeks back) . The rabbits took no time in devouring anything they could reach - leaves, apples, even this year's scions. My beans were devastated last year until I put up some 2ft high X 1inch galvanised mesh around them. With the bottom of the mesh cranked outwards 3inches and buried 2inches down so they don't get to dig under it, it worked fine.

Of course, you might have rabbits AND deer ( double whammy ), something I'm not suffering from (although we do have a deer issue in Devon).

I occasionally lie in wait in one of my allotment ( in the UK an allotment is the name given to your veg' patch ) sheds with my air rifle. My wife, Ruth, also known as TLR makes a wonderful rabbit stew which I then vac-pack and freeze....lovely winter warmer.

 

[journey11]

Wahoo, I got my first couple dried beans off the Cleopatra vines! They're nice because, even though the pod coloring makes it hard to tell by sight whether they're dry enough, they beans rattle in the pod when they're dry, so you can kinda harvest by feel.
View attachment 22169

There are a number of beans with this Rattlesnake-style coloring on the pod, and also a number of beans that started out green and then picked up a watercolor purple tinge (none of those are ready to pick yet). I think the latter are probably going to be true Cleopatras -- they've got the red-pink vine, the purple blossoms, and the same purple-wash pod. These Rattlesnake-y ones might be a new segregation... lighter purplish-beige color, fewer black spots, and a cream-colored hilium. But I'll see what they look like when I have a bigger sample size.

Journey11, do you remember if your bean pods kept the purple tinge all the way through to the end? (Or did the pods start getting spotty at the end?)

Here's the link to the description of the Cleopatras from last year:
https://www.theeasygarden.com/threa...-heirloom-beans-from-extinction.18995/page-48

Wow, I'm amazed how much closely they came out as before, bothin appearance and growth habit. The speckled pods when I grew them were from Gopher, the sister segregation to Cleopatra. And the purplish pods on the purplish vines of Cleopatra came on later by about 3 weeks. I will be eager to hear how your seed looks on those. Mine kept that tinge, no speckling, as they aged, until turning dry and brown.

 

[journey11]

Karachaganak is fabulous! What a cool looking bean.

Pixie is extremely mixed up. I planted about 40 plants and ended up with about half that were bush, and half with runners. And many pod types, including one dark purple vined plant that bore dark purple pods. Some stringless, some with strings, speckled pods, plain green pods, and a couple with notably longer pods than most of the others, some flat podded, some juicy and round. We ate most of them, but I let some go to seed out of curiosity. I will plant a smaller seed sample next year, space them well apart and take better notes, looking for a high quality stringless snap bean out of the bunch. Here's the seed I got from Pixie...

Nearly every color under the sun! Just a few that resemble what was planted. Oh well...we had fun shelling them anyway.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@journey11,

I think you sent me Ora's Speckled in 2013. What can you tell me about the bean? Do you know any of it's history how it got it's name etc?

 

[journey11]

@journey11,

I think you sent me Ora's Speckled in 2013. What can you tell me about the bean? Do you know any of it's history how it got it's name etc?

Oh sorry, I had replied to your message there yesterday, but I must have gotten distracted before I hit send. I bought my start of Ora's Speckled from Bill Best's website back in 2009 and have grown it a couple of times now. It's described as a brown speckled greasy cut-short, an heirloom from Jackson County, KY. All of his beans have been handed down in families and are often named for either the family, region or individual who kept them. It's a pole bean, best picked when the pods knuckle out (providing a better source of protein in the diet) and the pods are fairly short at about 4", but it is a very productive bean. Here's a pic I obtained from his website, since I can't get to my computer at the moment :

His bean swap is this Saturday. I'm very disappointed that I'm going to have to miss it again this year. It's a 4 hour drive for me, but I'd do better to take a hotel so I could be there early. I'd have a lot to trade with this year. I did find a local seed library that just started up. I'm going to give some of my surplus to them.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@journey11,

When you sent back a sample of Pixie and labeled as a bush. I liked the seed. I thought how neat a bush snap bean with a cranberry looking seed. I was thinking about planting it this year but had too many other things to get planted. I think when I do a planting of Pixie I will cull out anything that grows runners and then let only the bush types go to seed. Then I will probably just keep selecting the original look of the Pixie seeds and hope it settles into that pattern. If I can accomplish that I wonder if it will still be a bush snap bean.

 

[journey11]

Russ, I'm not sure if Hilo Laotian Lady lima is going to make it. I knew it was day length sensitive, but whew... It just started blooming about a week ago. I won't expect a killing frost until the end of the month, but I can't imagine the pods will ripen by then. All my other beans are dry and ready.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Russ you know the only way to answer that question about snap beans is to try and see. I'm only starting in this and I'm quickly learning you never know what you will get until you try.

Maybe it's my rookie enthusiasm but I'd probably try to grow both runners and non-runners to try to develop two different varieties. And I'd look at the different colors/patterns to do the same thing. But I'm quickly reaching the point where I have to limit that because of space. Even with all your different gardens I imagine that factors into what you plant too, plus how much time you have to work them. I have some opportunities to do that this year, but due to space I have to make some decisions on what to plant. Do I plant something new or do I plant something that looks like it may have stabilized just to see if it has? I'll do both.

 

[Tricia77]

Karachaganak is fabulous! What a cool looking bean.

Pixie is extremely mixed up. I planted about 40 plants and ended up with about half that were bush, and half with runners. And many pod types, including one dark purple vined plant that bore dark purple pods. Some stringless, some with strings, speckled pods, plain green pods, and a couple with notably longer pods than most of the others, some flat podded, some juicy and round. We ate most of them, but I let some go to seed out of curiosity. I will plant a smaller seed sample next year, space them well apart and take better notes, looking for a high quality stringless snap bean out of the bunch. Here's the seed I got from Pixie...
View attachment 22199
Nearly every color under the sun! Just a few that resemble what was planted. Oh well...we had fun shelling them anyway.

I love all the different colors and patterns!

 

[journey11]

I love all the different colors and patterns!

Yes, there were a couple in there that really surprised me!