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

[Tricia77]

I had a few Japanese beetles in the beginning, but now it's Mexican Bean beetles. I have to check my notes about flower color last year. All the vines have flat pods and some are starting to show the streaking. My vines are to the top of my 8 foot trellis. I'm not sure about the name yet. I need to wait and see what comes of these beans. I so hope you get the bright pink beans Russ!

 

[TheCuteOrpington]

These are my pinto beans I planted this year!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Russ, I'm wondering what the Bluejay pod should look like? You'd ask earlier how standardized the Bluejay beans I got from Canada were, other than the ones that show a climbing growth habit. I took these pods from the ones grew as production green beans. They all had the same growth habit, were really productive, and good texture and taste. I'm quite happy with them as my p0roduction early green bush bean. As you can see there are some differences in the pods.

I'm harvesting dried beans for seeds for next year, plus the extras will be eaten as dried beans. I haven't done it yet but I'll try to look at the seed patterns form these and see if there is any consistent differences in the patterns based on pod color/pattern. Sometimes I get solid green pods and that unstriped purple from the same plant.

I'm planning on waiting until I get production from all four of my "climbing" Bluejays before I talk much about them, but I think that will be an interesting story. I'm having a lot of fun from those Canadian beans.

 

[aftermidnight]

@Ridgerunner I went through my photos but couldn't find a picture of the pods of Bluejay but do have a picture of the flower, really pretty, close to periwinkle blue.

Annette

 

[Ridgerunner]

@Ridgerunner I went through my photos but couldn't find a picture of the pods of Bluejay but do have a picture of the flower, really pretty, close to periwinkle blue.
View attachment 21299
Annette

Annette, my flowers aren't quite that shade but yes, quite pretty. It's probably too late in the season to get a photo but I'll check. I'm down to just waiting for the last of the pods to dry to collect.

Had a friend just get back from visiting Vancouver. She said it was very pretty but that there was a lot of smoke from fires. She did like it a lot. She and her husband did one of those Alaskan cruises.

 

[Ridgerunner]

These are the same bloom of a regular Bluejay, just on different backgrounds. Not quite the same shade as yours Annette.

 

[journey11]

Russ, I'm wondering what the Bluejay pod should look like? You'd ask earlier how standardized the Bluejay beans I got from Canada were, other than the ones that show a climbing growth habit. I took these pods from the ones grew as production green beans. They all had the same growth habit, were really productive, and good texture and taste. I'm quite happy with them as my p0roduction early green bush bean. As you can see there are some differences in the pods.

I'm harvesting dried beans for seeds for next year, plus the extras will be eaten as dried beans. I haven't done it yet but I'll try to look at the seed patterns form these and see if there is any consistent differences in the patterns based on pod color/pattern. Sometimes I get solid green pods and that unstriped purple from the same plant.

View attachment 21295

I'm planning on waiting until I get production from all four of my "climbing" Bluejays before I talk much about them, but I think that will be an interesting story. I'm having a lot of fun from those Canadian beans.

Here's one of mine from last year that is normal...a rather long, rounded pod. I'd have to dig out my notes. I'm thinking they were stringless...

Did have one plant that threw purple pods too. Otherwise same characteristics, except the yield was 3 weeks later.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Ridgerunner.

The pod you show from last year is about how Blue Jay pods look, and your rather lavender looking photo of the blossom is what I always get from Blue Jay. Blue Jay does not have purple pods, and it is not a pole bean or even semi runner. It is a true bush. It is also a green stringless podded bean. Annettes photo of the bluish blossom is not anything I've ever seen in BJ, but very pretty. I feel that probably some of the small Candian companies that sell BJ are getting some outcrossing with something else they grow. I had ordered BJ from a Canadian company now out of business called Two Wings Farm. When I planted their seed I got a bunch of the plants in the population that had stringy pods. I could not evern chew up the strings enough to swallow them. Seems like their version of BJ was probably crossed with some type of dry bean.

The Blue Jay saga is quite interesting. If anyone has a really pure line of Blue Jay I would say it's Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa as they isolate their grow outs.

 

[reedy]

Those pictures of the blue flowers are sure pretty. I can attest that beans cross way more than a lot of peole think. My Little Brown Greasys went nut this year.

I also accidentally grew some F3 of my Ideal Market x KY Wonder. They showed up in 2015 as a large light tan bean in the Black Ideal Market patch. I grew about twenty of them last year and ended up with a dozen different types. I didn't intend to grow them out this year but two vines came up volunteer and I gave them a tree branch to grow up.

The original F1 looked much like the big ones on the right. I may grow these out next year to see how stable they are as this phenyotype has shown up in all generations so far. I don't know however it s coming true to type or if it might show up from any of the others. They were a fine snap bean.

I'm so happy, I got good increase on my network grow outs and even managed to find my return packets. I think they are fine but letting them sit a little longer before sealing the plastic packs to send back.

I got good amounts of off type Crystal Wax and off type Refugee packed up too. @Bluejay77 , do you some of them as well?

 

[Ridgerunner]

@Ridgerunner.

The pod you show from last year is about how Blue Jay pods look, and your rather lavender looking photo of the blossom is what I always get from Blue Jay. Blue Jay does not have purple pods, and it is not a pole bean or even semi runner. It is a true bush. It is also a green stringless podded bean. Annettes photo of the bluish blossom is not anything I've ever seen in BJ, but very pretty. I feel that probably some of the small Candian companies that sell BJ are getting some outcrossing with something else they grow. I had ordered BJ from a Canadian company now out of business called Two Wings Farm. When I planted their seed I got a bunch of the plants in the population that had stringy pods. I could not evern chew up the strings enough to swallow them. Seems like their version of BJ was probably crossed with some type of dry bean.

The Blue Jay saga is quite interesting. If anyone has a really pure line of Blue Jay I would say it's Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa as they isolate their grow outs.

Yes, it's pretty obvious that something is going on with the Canadian Blue Jay seeds I got. In spite of the differences in pod color all the true bush eat really well as a green bean and produce well. As far as an eating bean I'm quite happy with them. I'm not sure if I want to get some true Blue Jay seed or just keep growing these. Maybe both. I did not segregate the saved seeds by pod color this year, just kept seeds from the best pods to plant next year, though I have a few saved from the striped pods. Blue Jay are not currently in Seed Savers catalogue so I may ask you for a few to get started.

I did get one that is a runner from this year's planting. I cleared out around it and gave it something to climb on. I'm not really impressed with it. The bush Blue Jay or whatever they are have pretty much finished as far as the beans drying out. I'm not sure if this one is going to get long enough to be a pole or stay a half-runner. It's not vigorous at all and is just starting to bloom. I'm not sure of bloom color yet, it's that far behind. I'll see if I get any seed out of it at all.

Last year I noticed some solid seeds in the ones I saved. I have three of those growing. They all made a vigorous pole bean with Blue Jay colored blooms. Two of them topped my 12' high trellis, the other was planted later and doesn't have anything that tall to climb on. On the two early ones the pods look like Blue Jay pods are supposed to. The third is a bit behind. Of the two early ones, I have some dried beans from one. It has produced a lot of fairly early pods. The second early one was slower to produce pods that have not dried yet and not as many of them.

I'll show the seeds I got from that early one one. The seeds look black but if you look closely you can see some hints of purple on the dried bean. The dried beans are the first shot below. The second shot is from a pod that had not totally dried out, you can see the purple clearly on those. I haven't settled on a name for these yet but since they are black and purple I'm leaning toward something with "bruise" in it, maybe "Bruised Ego". I want to see what I get out of the other two before I decide.