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

[Tricia77]

Such great looking seed too. How is the drying season going where you live. I've had so much wet weather here this year. lots of bean seed just rotting away.

It has been very dry which is a good thing for my beans. Since last week my pole beans have all started drying. The leaves are yellowing and falling off.

 

[Zeedman]

Such great looking seed too. How is the drying season going where you live. I've had so much wet weather here this year. lots of bean seed just rotting away.

It has been a good bean year so far, in spite of the rain... we've dodged the worst of it. It helps too that almost every bean I planted this year is a pole variety, so they dry down quickly once the rain stops, and spoilage is low.

Both of the yardlongs (Chinese Red Noodle and Chinese Long Green) are done, all seed harvested with little apparent spoilage. The row of Chinese Long Green used for pods is still flowering & setting new pods! The last time I grew the Red Noodle, there was a green-podded cross - the first cross I've ever had in a yardlong. I didn't save that seed (it was poor quality that year anyway). There was no sign of crossing in this year's grow out.

Serbian Pole is done too, harvested the last dry pods & picked all remaining pods for shellies... about 3 quarts shelled. Fortex is ripening furiously now, many pods drying indoors. Found a few dry pods of Soissons Vert, so it looks like there will at least be enough seed before frost to replenish my stock. If I have to harvest the majority as delicious shellies, it won't break my heart.

Hopi Pole Lima has really been picking up, picked an ice cream pail of dry pods today. That was only two days after they were last picked - its amazing how fast the drying pods can go from green to brown. Lots of dry seed already, haven't made up my mind yet whether to continue harvesting for dry storage, or freeze some fresh as butterbeans.

Both of the remaining soybeans (Ji Lin 15 & Mandarin A) have dropped leaves, and are beginning to dry down. So far, the traps have protected them from vole incursions, as witnessed by their contents. With another 2-4" of rain due in the coming week, I picked all of the dry & near-dry pods. Normally, I would allow 80-90% of the pods to dry, then cut the plants off at the ground & hang them up to dry... but this year's weather demands extra efforts to get good seed.

I'm still waiting for the Aeron Purple Star to begin drying en masse. Only a few dry pods so far, the majority - 12 vines worth - are fat, but not yet beginning to dry. They & Soissons Vert are really pushing the season, but based upon the forecast, the killing freeze will be late... so it appears there will be plenty of time yet.

 

[flowerbug]

the coming week the forecast has chances of rain for every day and every evening so i may be doing some picking in the rain if i have to. we'll see...

 

[Zeedman]

the coming week the forecast has chances of rain for every day and every evening so i may be doing some picking in the rain if i have to. we'll see...

DW came up with a great idea for harvesting in the mud - tying plastic grocery bags over your shoes. Just rip them off & throw them away before going back indoors. Got a feeling I'll be doing that a lot in the coming weeks.

 

[flowerbug]

DW came up with a great idea for harvesting in the mud - tying plastic grocery bags over your shoes. Just rip them off & throw them away before going back indoors. Got a feeling I'll be doing that a lot in the coming weeks.

out of habit now when i garden i always take two pair of shoes out with me and a large dull knife that i use to weed works well for scraping off the mud before i put the "in garden" shoes in the bucket. i usually need the knife or a trowel anyways when it is muddy to scrape off the shovel if i'm digging.

i could not really stand the idea of throwing topsoil away that i've worked hard to get in reasonable shape after all these years. also the plastic. just can't do that. i have in the past worn bags over my socks to keep them from getting muddy inside the shoes i normally wear, but i haven't had to do that this season (not working on any trenching projects this year). the garden shoes i normally wear are plastic/rubber and have holes in the sides to let air in and out so once in a while when i'm in the dirt i may take them off and shake out the chunks of dirt. my out and about shoes around the house in the limestone mulch are old crocs that i've resoled so those too may need to be shaken out here or there if i get a rock in there. i like shoes that breathe, but also i like shoes that if they get dirty i can scrub 'em or use a weak bleach solution on them and soak them a few times a season.

 

[Michael Lusk]

Today was a pretty good seed day! I'm a small scale, urban gardener so this is bountiful haul for me.

Clockwise from top left:
Cape Sugar 2 (cream color w/ red flecks)
Red Swan (tan with red eye)
Dragon's Tongue (grey with purple flecks)
Nwambili (orange and brown)
Munachedda Pale (cream and tan)
Solwezi #2 (purple)
Fisole Rassacher Kipfler (speckled dark purple)

 

[Ridgerunner]

Nice photos and a good harvest. Mine will not be nearly so good.

To me it's fun to see how some of those colors change over time. When I pull them out to plant the next spring sometimes purple has changed to black or brown. White has become a dark cream. I've even seen patterns in the dried beans that were not there in the fresh beans or were really hard to see. It's all fun.

 

[thejenx]

DW came up with a great idea for harvesting in the mud - tying plastic grocery bags over your shoes. Just rip them off & throw them away before going back indoors. Got a feeling I'll be doing that a lot in the coming weeks.

Don't you have a pair of gumboots?

 

[flowerbug]

picked two of the gardens this morning with rain coming. it wasn't supposed to get here until after 4pm, but they lied as it started sprinkling a bit after i got out there to pick. still i went through the lima beans and some of the other beans in that garden so i had enough to keep me busy shelling for the afternoon.

i keep wondering if the Fortex are ever going to do anything but i now just have to think that perhaps they are doing something but i can't see it because i've been a bit too busy with other things to look too closely.

some of the other beans seem to be in that same mode. they may be doing something but until the frost knocks the foliage down or i get in there closer and look better... we'll see...

i did pull off some of the pods from the Kanawakanee Pole beans that were plump and turning color because i wanted to make sure i had at least a few viable seeds inside and starting to dry. a lot of the pods for that plant were flat or the seeds were not developed so to see some solid pods with firm beans in them turning colors made me decide to just bring some in while i was there.

the Flossie Powell Lima beans, i had pods and some beans in the pods but almost all the beans were not developed. i have a few seeds that might be viable and a lot of very green pods on the plant still, but i'm not sure any of those green pods will have enough time to fill.

i think i'm going to be playing this kind of thing all week, trying to get gardens picked as i can get to them between rains, and then bring the pods in and shell out what i can and hope i can dry down the rest of the pods. i may have to get out Mom's new hair dryer to help get them dry. it was a mess today. i ended up having to rinse the green pods of the lima beans before shelling them out they were so full of sand/mud. the pods that were already dried on the plants were throughly soaked and soggy, but i shelled those out and the beans inside were in good condition. i dried them off well and will stir them a few times a day in their flats and watch for any fungi trying to ruin them...

 

[Blue-Jay]

i think i'm going to be playing this kind of thing all week, trying to get gardens picked as i can get to them between rains, and then bring the pods in and shell out what i can and hope i can dry down the rest of the pods. i may have to get out Mom's new hair dryer to help get them dry.

Actually I don't know if I would use a hair dryer on seed. Might generate more heat then they can stand. Best thing I've found for drying seed and pods is a floor fan. Set it up somewhere where the constant noise won't bother you and let it run all night and maybe the next day. Works really well and doesn't generate heat that would be cooking that litte embroyo inside the seed. You be amazed how much moisture is pulled out of pods with constant air flow moving over them.