@Bluejay77 I also grew Fort Portal Jade a few years back, mainly because of the unique color of the seed but being a bush bean and I mostly grow pole beans I gave my seed to Dan Jason, (Salt Spring Seeds).
Annette
i wish mine had done as well as those pictures! they look lovely. mine were overgrown and i may have gotten 50-100 seeds but i'd say most of them are not all that great looking. i'll give them a try next season in a better location and watch more carefully for them being overgrown. this year was a struggle for me in too many ways and while i had some great beans in places i also had others that surprised me by how poorly they did. i mean, pinto beans, i've never had pinto beans struggle and i had them in a location where they had all the room they could want to sprawl across some rocks and into a pathway, all the light and water they could want. i'm guessing this year was just too wet for them...
my early warwicks also didn't look so nice as those
@Bluejay77, when i was pulling up the plants not too long ago i notice that they had rotted right off at the ground level and the roots were almost non-existent, which would explain why they just didnt' fill pods/seeds very well. i do have some, but they don't look very nice in comparison.
it was just so soggy here this year.
the Montezuma Reds had the first crop of seeds, almost every seed coat was splotched from how wet it was. later on we had a dry spell and the seeds from that time frame are nice looking. my other small red beans i grow the Red Ryders i noticed sorting a lot of those last night that many of those also were marked/splotchy. they're edible, they just don't look right.
it's raining again right now. it's been raining so much the past six weeks i wonder how this year compares to record rainfall years... i got out a bit today to put up gardens and i wonder if i'll get out more this week or not, but there is supposed to be a break in the weather before the cold/snow/rains/etc come later this week. perhaps after that is passed too... we'll see.
never know what Momma Nature is going to toss our way.
one reason why i like to plant a variety of beans, never know what the season may end up being like. all of my smaller beans of the goat's eye types did great this year. some of the others also did well because they we're planted in prime garden soil (one of the few gardens with that much organic matter in there because the strawberries will thrive in there - i looked at them today on the way past as i was finishing up and they look like they weren't even touched they've been so well watered in the past few weeks)...
um, anyways, hehe, cheers...
