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

[Blue-Jay]

I have very good luck presprouting beans then planting the sprouts outside. I give them just a little water to make the ground moist after planting the sprouts. Not soaking wet just keep them a little damp until they emerge.

@Michael Lusk, Let us know if more of your network beans emerge.

 

[Michael Lusk]

Welcome, glad you joined.

I grew Kutasi Princess a while back, those are probably my seeds. Good luck with them. They produced well and reached the top of a 12' high trellis. Be ready for them to climb. The seed pods were pretty easy to open too. When you cook the bean half goes white, half goes dark. They are an interesting looking bean in soup. I liked the bean, they are well worth renewing.

Edited to add: I also grew some Kutasi Princess on a 5' garden fence and they did fine there too, but they did run some horizontally. It is a true pole bean.

Thanks for the information, I appreciate it. I'm looking forward to these and will share the details.

 

[PhilaGardener]

Germinating seed inside is particularly useful if you have older seed since you can see what is happening and avoids gaps / empty rows in the garden if viability is low; it also is a great jump-start in early Spring to deal with cold/wet conditions.

 

[flowerbug]

It's interesting to me to seed folks planting beans in cups or cell packs. I have (rarely) transplanted beans when a patch came up sparsely and needed compacted but have never started them for transplant. Do they generally do OK that way? If so it sounds like a good way to give special treatment to ones you only have few of.

they break so easily and i'm somewhat of a clutz enough that i would not do this with any bean unless it were going to live in the container for a long enough time that the stem would get hardy enough to survive being transplanted. i've one time bought potted bean plants (scarlett runner) and they did survive being transplanted but they were pretty thick stemmed by the time i got them in the ground.

 

[flowerbug]

Planted my 'easy beans' last Thursday and was worried that nothing was going to sprout...today I noticed that I've got at least a couple of all four varieties (Grandma Rivera's, Gabarone Sugar, Pink Tip and Kutasi Princess) showing up in the garden plots. While I've gardened for years, this is my first year with this group growing out the rare beans. I even built some new 'poles' for the project (see photo). Looking forward to seeing them get up to the top...

welcome to this bean thread and to the network.

 

[flowerbug]

today saw my first volunteer bean sprouts! *bounce bounce bounce!* getting closer to planting time.

 

[reedy]

All mine are in the ground and most are up. Blackbirds have broken a couple of my network Limas and pulled up some of my corn. That isn't acceptable. Corn is planted thick and not too much of an issue there but I can't afford to lose even one more bean.

Beans are now netted and some of it is electrified, hope they get tangled up and electrocuted! Tomorrow I'll be on the tailgate of my truck before dawn and I'll be armed.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I think the trick to moving new little bean plants is when they are young and haven't got an extensive root system or extensive amount of foliage to support yet. As long as you get a big enough root ball I've moved young beans before. I saw a single volunteer bean in one of my backyard plots last week and scooped it up with a troll and planted it in a large flower pot on the back stoop, and it's doing fine today. Growing slow with the cool nights. I was curious what is was that had volunteered and I'll find out when it produces it's seeds. I have my last year planting diagram on my computer and identity shouldn't be too hard. In my rented plot a quarter mile from here at a former Nursery I got over a hundred volunteer bean plants scattered over a twelve hundred square foot plot. I will not be saving any of those.

 

[aftermidnight]

My latest method is putting the beans in a jar with a lid used for sprouting seed/beans for culinary use. Fill the jar half full of water, soak overnight, dump the water, then, 2 or 3 times a day, fill with water, swish, and dump. It's sitting on the windowsill, getting lots of air and light. It's working like a hot da*n.
Took some 9 year old Cherokee Trail of Tears I had stored in the fridge and was going to toss them, then thought, why not try this with them. Three days later they're sprouting, now I have to find a spot to plant them. These will be direct planted, too many to pot up. Hubby will be happy as it is one of his favorites, he'll be able to eat as many as he wants .

 

[thistlebloom]

Your beans arrived today Russ. Thank you so much!
I'm impressed with your attention to detail with the packaging.

They will be planted tomorrow by my older group of garden kids. I'm excited about them learning about saving seed, and the background of heirlooms and why they are important.