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

[Ridgerunner]

Next I'll talk about Jas. I had to replant a coupe of these but managed to get five plants. All five were pole beans with striped pods and lavender flowers. There is a little difference in size and productivity between them but I think that's just because of where they were planted. As far as I'm concerned these all repeated perfectly so the name lives for another year. I'm hoping this stabilizes, they are pretty productive and the beans are pretty good size and plump.

You will notice one oddball down there, the 3R. The very last pod of any of these I opened had those three beans in it. The very last pod. I was very pleased, I finally had one that is obviously one of those reverses Russ has talked about. And they are such a pretty color. You know I have to plant those next year, just to see what happens.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Next I'll talk about Miss T. It was a very productive pole bean, still from the Will Bonsell beans. The beans all came from one plant and had a bit of variety. This kind of shows what I harvested last year. Some variety in the pattern and some in the actual colors. I tried to select beans that looked alike to plant, brownish with that crescent pattern on it.

I still got a fair amount of variety in the beans I harvested this year. This photo below shows beans I purposely selected to show that variety off of one plant this year. It's not just a little color variation it's a lot of different patterns. The pattern on one side of the bean can be a lot different compared to the other side. I'm starting to think this might be a bean that stabilizes to show different patterns and maybe slight variations in color. I'd like that.

I only had four plants. The beans in the middle are representative of what I planted. When selecting which beans to photo I tried to pick out the beans that represented the majority of the beans on each plant. When I look at all the #1 and #2 I see a definite difference in general colors as shown below. But I can find beans like all of these in the ones off that one plant last year. I'm not ready to call any of them different from what grew last year, with one exception. #1, #2, and #3 were pole beans with solid pods. Some flowers were lavender and some were yellow.

#6 was a little different, I think. A rabbit bit the tip off the plant just as it was starting to grow well. It sent out a couple of side shoots that grew and produced. I think it was going to be a semi runner but maybe it was only going to be a bush. It sure did not act like a pole. I'm not ready to call that #6 different yet, I'll grow it again and see what it does if I can fence those rabbits out. I'll plant the others and see what they do but right now I'm not ready to call this anything but Miss T.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That only leaves Raspberry Ripple. The first shot is what I planted, sort of a red on ivory pattern. To me a very pretty bean. This one did not behave at all this year. It was a pole bean with pink flowers and solid green pods last year.

Now the composite to show them side by side. You can see some differences.

#1 was planted pretty early but a cutworm whacked it off. It sent out a couple of side shoots that eventually showed it was a pole bean. But it was slow to grow and bloom. Pod and bloom were same as the original bean last year. This is one I cut off just before a frost and hung up to try to get some viable beans, it was that late. I managed to get these two beans but more pods are still drying. I think this bean is the only one that matches last year's bean so I'll continue calling this one Raspberry Ripple. I think the coloring is immature.

#2 looks like the original but is was a bush bean, not a pole. That makes it different. Productivity was very low though so I'll not name it or send you any seeds Russ. I'll grow it out next year and see if it is worth pursuing.

#3W looks like the original bean and grew on as a pole, but the bloom was white. A beautiful pure white blossom, not pink like its parent. That makes this different. I'll call this one Rising Fawn and send you some seeds Russ.

#4 was also a pole but some blossoms were white, some were yellow. I don't know where that yellow came from. As you can see it's a very light pink bean. This was never a strong plant, I struggled to get 15 beans off of it. To me those beans looked like they had not totally completed getting final color. I'm not going to name this one or send you seeds but will grow it out again next year and see what happens.

All of the red ones from Raspberry Ripple struggled to get much productivity. I did not have that problem with the two plants that produced black beans from them. I never counted the beans I got from 3B but it was a lot. I did count the ones from plant #5, I got 1476 beans after sorting. One thousand four hundred and seventy six. That's a lot of beans. As far as I can tell these two beans are identical so I'll name it Tallulah's Treasure and send you some seeds Russ.

That's it for me. I covered the grow-out from the black beans I found in the Blue Jay in an earlier post. You won't get much from me this year Russ, nothing like last year. You will only get six:Tranquility, Rising Fawn, Tallulah's Treasure, Midnight at the Oasis, Ausmus Holler, and Voodoo. It will be another week or so before I put them in the mail, I have some in the freezer to make sure no bugs are present. I have several I'll try to grow out next year to see if they are worth naming and sending to you.

It's been fun.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I will do one more post. I still have those 1,476 in the freezer so they are not shown below. That second quart jar from the left are the 2,544 beans I got off of the one plant that gave me Voodoo. These are the excess beans I grew for the network this year I will use in soup and general eating. The ones saved for seeds are not shown of course.

 

[ninnymary]

Ridge, is Voodoo a bush bean?

Mary

 

[Ridgerunner]

No, Mary Voodoo is a pole bean. It's the second and third one (same plant) from the right, topping off above my 12' high trellis. it's a first year segregation so who knows what it will look like next tear? It is not suitable for use as a snap bean, only as a dried bean. The pod is too fibrous.

Of course if you want seeds of any of them just let me know. This photo was taken way back in the spring.

 

[Blue-Jay]

For ideas on bean names you can go to your county map and state map and find all sorts of ideas for bean names. Towns, Townships, valleys, rivers, creeks. I've even used street names.

 

[Ridgerunner]

When driving around I'll often see place names or business names that give me ideas. The challenge is remembering them until I get home and can add them to my list. Rising Fawn is a place on an exit sign off Interstate 75 in north Georgia just before you cross into Tennessee. I've been wanting to use that one for a while and finally got a bean I think would fit. I've used features of the area like creek names and such. Ausmus Holler has a family connection where my parents were raised. Sometimes when reading I'll see a word or phrase that could work, like Tranquility. I have a few song titles written down that might work. And sometimes the bean just reaches out with a name.

 

[Blue-Jay]

More beans from my backyard grow out. This one is from the Will Bonsall outcrosses. First photo a true bush type WB-PKT #22 which I have tagged with the name of "Pecatonica". This is the seed I'm trying to select for. I get a lot of seed that looks like the second photo. I also got a black segregation which had a pink blossom while the rest of the grow out had white blossoms. The black bean was way earlier than the #22's. Also got a horticultural or cranberry looking segregation from #22 also.

#24 - WB-PKT #22 - Pecatonica

Pecatonica variation

Pecatonica - Black Segregation

Pecationica - Cranberry Segregation

 

[Blue-Jay]

I got seeds of one called "Pink Eye Soldier" from Seed Savers Exchange last winter. Their seed was marked with a 62% germination rate. About half the seed I planted grew. The seed coat reminds me a lot of "Tobacco Patch". "Pink Eye Soldier" didn't seem nearly productive as TP or as healthy of a plant.

#25 - Pink Eye Soldier