2018 Little Easy Bean Network - Join Us In Saving Amazing Heirloom Beans

[flowerbug]

busy days and busy nights.

nice to be out today picking. also picked some yesterday and shelled some and then again tonight.

my favorite time of the season. presents to open from Momma Nature.

so far i have one Dappled Gray, more coming along but that one was ready so i was curious how it looked. i haven't yet checked all the remaining locations. a long ways to go yet.

also so far i already have a few network beans picked plenty to meet the return seed goal, some shelled and other pods that weren't quite ready yet drying. Meraviglia di Venezia, Monteczuma Red, Purple Dove, Red Lima...

it is funny how certain bean varieties struggle here while others growing right next to them do just fine.

so much more to do...

 

[flowerbug]

when pulling up a few plants yesterday that were finished i was interested to see that they actually had nitrogen fixing nodes on them. many of the bean plants don't have them but the yellow eyes grown in a certain garden did. what was also very interesting is that this garden was very heavy on humus and most of the bean plants in there did great this year. it was also the garden that got flooded out a few times.

i shelled some of the beans from that garden last night and they're some of the nicest beans i've grown of some varieties that have given me troubles in other gardens (because the soil is pretty poor still in some places). so this does answer some of my questions about why i see the variations i have over the years. too bad i don't have a lot more cubic yards of rotted wood chips i can use. they liked all the moisture and all that humus. i'll be curious how the rest of the later beans fare in there...

as a comparison, i plant the same beans around in more than one location and the same variety didn't get very decent seeds in at least one of the trouble spot gardens but they're bootiful. i was only growing some of these to refresh my own supply of seeds so i didn't need many to begin with. a few dozen for the fresh planting supply and then the leftovers i have from 6-7 years ago, which were pretty viable still.

waiting to see how today goes for picking, really need to finish up the last few gardens getting the pods out of them that are ready (and then get them dried again as quickly as possible). too much rain still in the forecast...

 

[flowerbug]

shellies anyone? what are your favorites?

yesterday while going through what we picked i set aside some for a trial cook to see what they were like from the yellow eye crop. it took a bit longer than expected to cook them and i wasn't all that impressed by the texture and the fact that the skins on the beans tended to stick on the top of the mouth and tongue, but the flavor was good and Mom liked them. cooking them a bit longer probably would have helped and shelling them in a little more green state.

i'd not done these before so it really was a fun experiment. and pretty much the main reason i grow beans to begin with. to frog around and check things out as i'm enjoying the gardens.

 

[Zeedman]

shellies anyone? what are your favorites?

Shellies are my absolute favorite way to eat beans & the main reason I began collecting, so I could list quite a few:

Common beans:
Bird Egg #3 (pole)
Bert Goodwin (semi-pole)
Bosnian Pole (pole)
Brown King #2 (pole)
Canon City (pole)
Chester (a.k.a. Flagg)(pole)
Dolloff (pole)
Giant Red Tarka (bush)
Jembo Polish (pole)
Ma Williams (a.k.a. Goose)(pole)
King Horticultural (pole)
Serbian Pole (pole)
Soissons Vert (pole)
Striped Cornfield (pole)
Tiger Eye (bush)
Uzice (bush)
Uzice Speckled Wax (pole wax)
Zlatak (pole wax)

Runner Beans:
Gigandes
Insuk's Wang Kong
Tarahumara Tekomari

 

[flowerbug]

Shellies are my absolute favorite way to eat beans & the main reason I began collecting, so I could list quite a few:

Common beans:
Bird Egg #3 (pole)
Bert Goodwin (semi-pole)
Bosnian Pole (pole)
Brown King #2 (pole)
Canon City (pole)
Chester (a.k.a. Flagg)(pole)
Dolloff (pole)
Giant Red Tarka (bush)
Jembo Polish (pole)
Ma Williams (a.k.a. Goose)(pole)
King Horticultural (pole)
Serbian Pole (pole)
Soissons Vert (pole)
Striped Cornfield (pole)
Tiger Eye (bush)
Uzice (bush)
Uzice Speckled Wax (pole wax)
Zlatak (pole wax)

Runner Beans:
Gigandes
Insuk's Wang Kong
Tarahumara Tekomari

that's quite a list and i don't have a single one of them (i do have a bush cranberry bean called Etna, but that's not likely a variation on the King Horticultural).

thank you! i'll keep this list as a good reference.

you mention no Lima beans? i really love Lima beans as shellies...

*whew!* done picking for now until the next round is ready...

 

[Zeedman]

that's quite a list and i don't have a single one of them (i do have a bush cranberry bean called Etna, but that's not likely a variation on the King Horticultural).

thank you! i'll keep this list as a good reference.

you mention no Lima beans? i really love Lima beans as shellies...

*whew!* done picking for now until the next round is ready...

I didn't list the limas, because they are all shellies. Could have listed edamame soybeans too (since they are just soybeans eaten at the shelly stage) but that would have made the list even longer.

Limas I like:
1880's Butterbean
Berrier's #2
Cave Dweller Black (bush, growing this year)
German Butterbean
Hopi Pole
King of the Garden
Madagascar
Sieva
Violet's Multicolored

There are still quite a few limas which have yet to be grown the first time, since I can only grow 2 varieties per year. I drive to SSE's Heritage Farm nearly every year to observe their grow outs, which are different every year... and I pay special attention to their beans, limas, and cowpeas. There has yet to be a year where I did not find a lot of good prospects.

Most of the beans I grow are heirlooms obtained through swaps (a special 'thank you' to @aftermidnight ) or from SSE, so most have no commercial sources, and not much information about them outside of the seed saving community.

 

[flowerbug]

@Zeedman regarding the soybeans... some of them are much better than others as shellies/edamame. if the dang critters would leave them alone for long enough for me to have a crop i'd grow them again as i do like the variety in the diet.

the normal field soybeans grown around here are not all that great as either edamame or for making soymilk, but i did find a supply of organic sourced soybeans that worked very well in comparison. one year i grew 44lbs in a pretty small patch and then got fed up with making soymilk so i ended up gradually using those soybeans in the bottom of the worm buckets when i started them back up after planting. buried down deep they'd swell up but not have enough light to sprout so they'd ferment and eventually the worms would take care of them.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Critters decimated my soybeans, so apart from what @Zeedman so generously gave me a few years ago, I think I am down to only one type (a small green soybean I found mixed into some black ones from time to time).

No wait I forgot I also have the few greenish white ones I found in the Indian lentils.

But it will be a long time (if ever) that I have back the array of soys I had before this year.

 

[Zeedman]

[B]@Zeedman[/B] regarding the soybeans... some of them are much better than others as shellies/edamame. if the dang critters would leave them alone for long enough for me to have a crop i'd grow them again as i do like the variety in the diet.

the normal field soybeans grown around here are not all that great as either edamame or for making soymilk, but i did find a supply of organic sourced soybeans that worked very well in comparison. one year i grew 44lbs in a pretty small patch and then got fed up with making soymilk so i ended up gradually using those soybeans in the bottom of the worm buckets when i started them back up after planting. buried down deep they'd swell up but not have enough light to sprout so they'd ferment and eventually the worms would take care of them.

Yes, all soybeans are edible when green... whether they are palatable, or large enough to be enjoyable, is another matter. Some have tough skins, off flavors, hard textures, or fibrous membranes which do not detach easily. Of the 70+ soybeans in my collection, only about 15 are edamame types, with another 5-10 non-edamame cultivars which are fairly good eaten green. The rest are processing types which I offer as non-GM alternatives, and a few are just oddities that no one but another bean nut would find interesting.

My soybean grow out this year - like most of my other grow outs - was severely limited. The only varieties I am growing are two edamame types, Gardensoy 24 (developed by the University of Illinois) and Natsu Kurakake, an early black & green bi-colored variety from Japan. Natsu Kurakake is ready to harvest now... and if the rain keeps up, it will be past its prime by the time I can get to it.

Like the old-fashioned sweet corns, edamame soybeans have a very short harvest window, after which they quickly become starchy. Harvested at full color but before the pods dry, the flavor & texture become more like fresh-shelled limas.

 

[flowerbug]

@Zeedman,

to me the edamame flavor in the variety i've grown reminds me of pumpkin seeds. yum...