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

[flowerbug]

it may help to start the plants early in larger pots and then transplant
them out after the ground warms up.

also to bang, jiggle or wiggle the flowers to pollinate (someone upthread
mentions squirting with water). we have hummingbirds that like them
and i think that makes sure they get pollinated here.

i wish they were a perennial here, i'd grow them for the flowers alone...

 

[thejenx]

Over here the forecast is without frost for at least another week! Yesterday it was really hot for October 25C/77F.! On saturday I've harvested the first pods of my Lima beans and the 1st plant of my Teepee bean that I had planted late in the greenhouse. Three plants came up out of 5 beans, only 1 or 2 pods per plant with beans inside, but still an increase of this bean!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @flowerbug,

I'm curious about the names of the varieties of your beautiful seed. I could probably guess a couple of them. Top row first seed on the left might be Orca then Molasses Face. The third one not sure. Second row starting on the left. Vermont Appaloosa, Painted Pony, Third one don't know, Bird Egg, Palomino. Third Row with two varieties. Chocolate, Second one don't know. Fourth Row. don't know, don't know, Pinto, don't know, Eye Of The Goat. Fifth row I don't think I could guess any of them.

 

[flowerbug]

hi bluejay,

i've not been great on named varieties, but also most of what you
see are not known or sourced by me as named varieties, instead
they have come about from cross breeds over the past half dozen
years.

my sources have been:

- a soup mix (red, pinto)
- coop food store (yellow eye and adzuki)
- a few commercial seed packages (none shown here)
- trades with a few people (most from the hills in the
south so i have of all things greasy beans, cornfield beans,
pink tip and yellow eye from there)
- vermont bean seed company...

whatever variations and crosses that have shown up have been
via those routes and perhaps some wandering bees (but i'm not
aware of many people gardening very close to us we are isolated
from the neighbors by 1/4 to 1/2 mile in all directions). i would
guess that some varieties may have snuck in via seeds from
others that were planted that i didn't notice, but hard to say
for sure.

in the picture there are five rows (from top to bottom and
left to right): (N - known named variety, C - cross breed,
S - selected from a named variety)

Top Row:

- C, purple cross (from yellow eye, or orca/calypso/yin yang)
- N, yellow eye
- C, early yellow eye cross (yay at last! i hope this will become stable)

2nd Row:

- N, appaloosa
- N, painted pony
- C, red
- C, brown
- C, yellow

3rd Row:

- C, spot
- C, solid

4th Row:

- S, dark (peregion)
- S, tan/brown (pinto)
- N, pinto
- S, dark stripe with specks (peregion)
- S, tan stripe (peregion)

5th Row:

- C, black
- C, purple
- C, matte red (adzuki cross)
- N, red ryder (or red ryder cross with red bean from soup mix)
- C, light purple
- C, dark grey/brown
- C, light grey
- C, red/brown
- C, brown
- C, red/yellow
- C, yellow (red bean with pink tip)
- C, light green
- N lima (fordhook)

i have quite a few others that i've grown this season but no picture
as of yet. still sorting...

i've found at least a half dozen new ones this season so far, i'm sure
there will be more.

in my entire collection i probably have a few hundred cross breeds
and variations already. most are likely not stable or named as of
yet and may never be. i'd need quite a few acres to grow them
all out and have enough space to be sure what is what.

this season i tried to grow out a large number of crosses and some
were single beans and the weather and conditions were pretty bad
for us so most seemed to have not done anything. i may have gotten
ten out of fifty to produce.

also, while i love the shape/size of the appaloosa and painted pony
beans they are not very reliable. i planted quite a few this season
and did get plenty back to restore the seed stock, but again i'm not
happy with them. other beans are more reliable and productive
(pintos, red ryder and the peregion selections). what i have been
hoping for are more reliable crosses with the red ryder or the other
more productive beans to show up and i think i now have a few dozen
of those in various forms to work with...

my edamame soybean crop of several hundred seeds planted and
multiple plantings was nearly a 100% loss due to animals, but i
managed to squeak a few plants along hidden off in other gardens -
i only have a fraction of the seeds left compared to what i
planted. i may stop trying to grow these entirely. we like lima
beans more anyways.

 

[flowerbug]

thejenx,

it's looking similar here, i'm surprised by this season in so
many regards. we had a few nights down close to freezing
quite some time ago (almost a month now it seems), but
nothing since then and we are frost and rain free for at
least another week, last night was near 40F. looks like
beautiful fall weather. sun today - so nice to see.

good thing, i need several days to dry out from all the rain
so i can get back to projects... i have to be patient with this
clay or i am playing with mud pies.

any dry beans in pods that i missed my latest picking (last
Friday) are probably rotting or sprouting, but there were
some pods that were still green so i may have late beans
from them. the scarlet runners might take the cool night
last night as their final hurrah. we'll see...

lima beans are flowering and putting on new growth, give
me another two or three weeks and it will be another crop
entirely. i suspect we'll have a hard frost before then -
that's ok, they're pretty good picked green and shelled out.

 

[LocoYokel]

Got a few beans from my scarlet runners before they frosted, nothing like last year tho. The box on the left is from plain pods, box on right striped pods, middle box is odd colors and latest picked.
Some of the new colors include this odd light grey stone-shaped bean and two colors of brown, I only got one of the white ones this year (was two but the dog ate one), The white ones used to be the only other color I would get, must be a double recessive. That bubblegum pink sure is purdy, it does dry to a pale lavender:

Noticed a trend in the speckled pink beans, that line forms on only one side:

I have gotten a lot of the pale colored beans this year, over 50%, but at least I got some beans, was really worried what with the late start and hot-hot summer. My bean wall was quite thin this season but it still provided privacy, besides I love the flowers.

These Scarlet Runners sure keep me entertained!

 

[flowerbug]

lol Loco (at dog eating). maybe it will come out
the other end ok? pre-fertilized for next season
already...

 

[flowerbug]

in today's sorting... i've now got yellow soldier beans (normal is brown) and
black soldier beans (a few look more like a penguin ). some are just slightly
spotted (one tiny mark).

when i started planting the soldier beans they are the wax bean variety
called "Top Notch" that i've always had here that i've liked. it has always
been a really good and reliable producer. i have a lot of different selections
from it besides the yellow and black (from previous years).

 

[thejenx]

@flowerbug I think we all would like to see more pictures of all your beans

 

[flowerbug]

hi thejenx,

i am trying to come up with a consistent set up
with bright enough light and a close enough picture
zoom to capture the details that i can see.

so far i'm not happy with anything i've tried.

on a low budget...

this is a picture of last time i consolidated and
reorganized the collection:

larger picture versions you can click to see via my bean page
(which still has a long ways to go):

http://www.anthive.com/project/beans/


or the top page:

http://www.anthive.com/

i have some pictures i tried to take on my color board (the
avatar ), but they just didn't turn out as well as i'd
like...

the tan beans turn a beautiful dark brown color as they age.