2019 Little Easy Bean Network - Come And Reawaken The Thrill Of Discovery

[Blue-Jay]

Need Advice. The network beans were doing great this year until a pocket gopher moved into the bean row yesterday. He has started eating them and pulling them into his burrow from what I can tell. Most have beans already that are as long as my finger. What should I do? I could dig them all up and move them to another area. Try and get the gopher somehow? Need advice, otherwise I think I will likely loose them all.

Bean plants don't transplant well. If they do survive and grow new leaves it will probably be to late in the season to get seed from them by transplanting. I would get rid of the gopher. perhaps you can stick a garden hose down his hole and flush him out and try to devies a way to trap him when he comes up out of the hole. You could also try an exterminator. Perhaps set a rat trap with a fresh bean in it to get him. I never had trouble with gophers.

I had a vole in my backyard this past January and I got Orkin to get rid of him. Expensive, but I valued my garden more than what it cost me for the extreminator. They set a trap for him with poisonous food and the vole took the bait.

Does sound like if you don't get rid of the gopher your crop will be gone. I really don't think in your season I would try to transplant bean plants. At this point in time the plants are producing pods and have an extensive root system to support all the plant tissue. I don't think you could get enough of the root system for the plants to carry on normally.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Do any of you have experience with Red Swan? I'm curious about a couple of things if you do. My plan was to use these fresh - would you suggest that I let them get to the Red stage or would that be too long on the plant? Also, my plants are definitely sending off runners...I thought these were supposed to be a bush variety so I planted them unsupported and I'm kind of questioning this at this stage. As a note, the seeds were purchased this year from Baker Creek.

I have not tried eating the the Red Swan but grew a few for seed last year. All my plants developed round pods with a reddish blush on them. Red Swan is definitely a true bush plant. I'm sure you could pick them at the stage before they get seedy. You have probably grown enough beans to be able to judge that picking stage. I got my start of the variety from a SSE member in Idaho.

 

[BeanQueen]

Explorer's Ooty 1 is throwing out a potential outcross. One vine has purple pigments.

Buckskin Girl freshly shelled and some wrinkled day old Ojo de Tigre, taken early from some diseased pods laying on the ground

 

[Lady0bug]

Ok, war against the gopher(s) it is! I gathered up all the metal stakes and poles I had and sank them as far as they would go into the ground to try and form a barrier around the beans. Also set some traps and put pellets in the holes. Wish me luck!
The beans were doing so well this year too. They are loaded with pods right now, hopefully I can buy them some time to ripen and dry. The bonus beans and Limas are in a different area so they are safe for now. Little baby limas are filling up the arch trellis and looking good.

 

[flowerbug]

if you have rat traps perhaps try the bit of dried apricot trick. if it doesn't get them it might scare them away any ways... or perhaps a live squirrel trap baited with that would do it too. or the black oil sunflower seeds. a lot of animals seem to like those (even ones i did not know were much into seeds liked them aka raccoons).

good luck!

 

[flowerbug]

Explorer's Ooty 1 is throwing out a potential outcross. One vine has purple pigments.

Buckskin Girl freshly shelled and some wrinkled day old Ojo de Tigre, taken early from some diseased pods laying on the groundView attachment 32680 View attachment 32681

interesting, your Buckskin Girl looks just like Victoria Brown Eyes. are those pole beans? VBEs are bush beans (i'm growing them for the first time this year).

 

[BeanQueen]

An updated version, thank you for the suggestions

 

[BeanQueen]

interesting, your Buckskin Girl looks just like Victoria Brown Eyes. are those pole beans? VBEs are bush beans (i'm growing them for the first time this year).

VBE

BG
Bucksking Girl is a determinate bush bean

Pictures taken from Russ's https://www.abeancollectorswindow.com/

 

[BeanQueen]

Great news!! I thought I had lost Galupka (Baker Creek Doesn't carry anymore) but now my row of Blue Lake bush has lots of yellow in it, I must've accidentally combined the seeds since they look identical! I have some blossom-bagged, so I am happy to be able to save them and grow them out next year, maybe eventually share them because I can't find them anywhere else! They are a great yellow snap bean, not tough like Yellow Wax when a little older, very tender.

 

[BeanQueen]

An interesting German database I just found http://www.bohnen-atlas.de/