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

[reedy]

@Bluejay77 , I also sent an email, did you get mine?

 

[flowerbug]

I'm really looking forward to next year. Since I moved it will be a year of learning how to grow beans and everything else down here with the different climate and in raised beds. Space is going to be limited but maybe I can get two seasons in, especially with bush beans. It will be fun to try. I'm going to miss my big fenced garden that was safe from deer and rabbits.

I will not be getting any of your beans next year Russ, I have plenty of those segregations from those Will Bonsall beans I got from you a few years back that I'm trying to stabilize plus those segregations I found in Bluejay. I want to stabilize what I can before I get any new ones from you. I enjoyed growing them just to renew seeds but trying to stabilize segregations is a whole new world of fun and excitement.

there's really never enough room once you start going down those rabbit holes... or is that briar patch? hahaha!

 

[Blue-Jay]

@reedy, I have not been finding any recent emails from you.

@Michael Lusk, Your 2019 grow out beans are on the way to your house.

 

[reedy]

@Bluejay77 , O'no I must have sent to wrong address or something, I just resent.

 

[saritabee]

I have to admit that now that we are past Thanksgiving and only about 9 packages out of 29 have come back so far. I am getting nervous about the rate of return this late. I would like to ask anyone that has grown network beans to please get your packages in as soon as you can. I don't want to have them all come piling in on me at my friends house when I become a snowbird. If you can't get your return beans seed returned by the 15th of December then don't send them until the 10th of April 2019. The mail will be shut off here probably before Christmas. Everyone's seed must be dry enough to store by now. All my beans that I grew this summer is going into a freezer Wednesday.

Do you mean mail by the 15th, or you need to receive them by the 15th? The Harriet's Black Hook are drying better now that they're in a big sieve with a bunch of dessicant packs, but I don't know that they're quite ready to go in the freezer yet. The rest of the beans are freezer-ready, but would it be possible to keep the HBH out of the freezer til April?

 

[reedy]

sounds like we should be starting the 2019 thread then already...

I'm already planning my planting for 2019. This year was not an especially good bean year and our stock of canned green beans isn't what I like to keep it at so in 2019 I'll be growing 40' rows of each our favorites, KY Wonder, NT1/2 Runner, Little Brown Greasy and Ohio Pole.

In the back garden I'll plant my "survivor" pole beans. That is a 3' x 50' mix that gets planted and then abandoned to the weeds and whims of the weather. Total yield from that is generally little more than a pint of dry seed but I figure they are the toughest of the tough, something that may come in handy some day. Also in the back garden a 50' row of a similar mix tended for dry soup beans.

Probably about a 20' row each of Lima's and Runner Beans, those are also mixes.

Last but most exciting, a number of Semi-Runner types from the network. I say most exciting cause I am getting tired of building all those big trellises each year for the large vine pole beans but I really like pole over bush cause with my weather it is near impossible harvest a healthy bush bean seed. They are generally ok for early fresh snaps but by time they dry down they have been knocked over by winds and splashed with mud to where I harvest more mold and dirt than seed. My experience so far with the semi-runners Burgundy Bolita and Refugee was fantastic, especially the Refugee was very productive and very good as a snap bean. So believe it or not, what's described above is a little bit of a scaling back on my usual plantings. I'm reserving the best, as in most improved soil and most protected by electric fences area for the new semi-runners. Someday I hope to move entirely to the semi- runner growth type for my beans.

 

[Michael Lusk]

@reedy, I have not been finding any recent emails from you.

@Michael Lusk, Your 2019 grow out beans are on the way to your house.

Awesome, thanks @Bluejay77 I really appreciate it! You're like the Amazon of Beans! (only the good parts about Amazon of course). Thanks!

 

[Blue-Jay]

@saritabee, If you can get your beans here by the 15th of December it would be very helpful. Mail will be shut off not much further down the road from that date. Go ahead and send the HBH anyway. I can open the packets here and leave them all winter on shelf somwhere here in my house. Put a desecant packet or two in with them when you mail. I can resend the desecant back to you with new seed if you are going to do a grow out again next year. What was the approximate date you last harvested any HBH seed?

 

[Blue-Jay]

@flowerbug, Your beans came in the mail yesterday. Many thanks for your grow out this year.

 

[flowerbug]

@flowerbug, Your beans came in the mail yesterday. Many thanks for your grow out this year.

that was a bit quicker than i expected, but i'm glad they made it.