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

[flowerbug]

Can you give me more details on this ride thing. Who needs a ride from where to where?

i'm hoping Chris will see this and let you know if he wants to or not.

 

[reedy]

i guess this is another sign that growing too many beans at once isn't good when you don't have enough space to organise them well or you get going on too many things at the wrong time of the season. yes, i am downsizing for next year. trying to hold it to 30 instead of 50.

That's partly why I grow a good deal of my beans as mixes. In any year I only have a 1/2 dozen or so plus any network beans to keep track of and isolated but still at least 100 others and their crosses in the mixes.

 

[flowerbug]

@reedy, yes, i understand the appeal of that arrangement.

i stack and cross stack box tops as the beans dry and i may have several box tops from the same garden or even some from just certain sessions of picking that i want to keep track of until later. like in some cases i only want to replant the earliest beans i pick because those seeds may come from plants geared towards the shorter season that i desire. so i tag those and keep them apart and then see what happens next. sometimes i don't need to do that at all as that may be all i get from that plant/planting.

in other news...

oh wow! unpacked my new macro zoom lens this afternoon and tried it out (without reading any of the instructions ). it works. so that was the first important thing to verify. the next thing to verify is that, yes, i will need a tripod unless i happen to get lucky with a shot because i shake a little too much, but i came pretty close a few times.

i was trying to get some snaps of the Monster bean and seven children gathered round. the sun was shining so i tried to take advantage of the natural light through the window. took about 30 pictures and while a few were close enough for a casual peek they were not good enough for my intended purpose so i ditched them all. yes, i still have some reading and practice to do.

i've been planning on a light table/tripod/cable release set up anyways and also will need the plug in AC adapter so i don't have to worry about dealing with the battery running out and having to recharge when i'm working but i'm gradually getting there. one step at a time.

today at least i created more space here by consolidating boxes and sorting. i need to have some floor space tomorrow so i can get the worms fed (moving buckets about and sitting on the floor on my pillow).

 

[reedy]

@flowerbug, In my mixes I also save earlier ones separate as well as those with less spotting or other deformation of the pods. Those are my seed, the rest go for bean soup, chili and the like. I'v started separating out a subset of the big mix for snaps. I just toss all of them in a cardboard box till time to shell. I use paper grocery sacks for finish drying of the pure varieties.

 

[Blue-Jay]

i am about an hour southeastish from there.

i am already planning on going and sent a message to them to hold table space for me. it will be great to be able to meet you in person.

i would offer crash space to people but we are really short on space here and Mom would probably not like it for me to invite strangers. i'm not worried about pretty much anyone but having someone else in the equation means i can't just go willy nilly like i've done in the past.

and not that she hates people, i'm really hoping to bring her (i'm going to kidnap her as i told her she is coming to that seed swap this year) as she will have fun, she always does... she's more of a people person than i am.

@flowerbug,

Is that Midland seed swap attended by a pretty good number of people? Ben Cohen from the Small House Farm will be there and Karen Golden of Michigan Heirlooms might be there too. I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ Crow's 2019 Bean Show Day #11​

Hiawatha - Pole, Dry

This bean is one of the many outcrossed beans from Will Bonsall of Industry, Maine. I've grown it three times and it has grown true everytime. I gave it this name last year. I got a small percentage of shrivelled seed from it in 2018 and again this year. Total Seed Harvest Was: 7.70 ounces (218 grams)

Hiawatha - Pole, Dry

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ Crow's 2019 Bean Show Day #11​

Hodson Greenpod - Semi Runner

I got a sample start of an old bush variety called Hodson Wax which was a popular bean and it lots of catalogs from the early part of the 20th century. The bean came from an American Indian fellow who lives in Ontario, Canada. Upon planting some of his seed I did get a bush wax bean out of it. In one planting I got a semi runner and half of them produced green pods and some yellow. The pods were much longer than Hodson Wax but had the same seed coat color. The bean also matured dry seed much later than Hodson Wax. It pushes the season and is still drying pods when frost is threatening. I haven't tried it as a snap bean yet so perhaps it's really a dry bean. So this is just a working title for the bean. It also produced one off type this year that looks like a very washed out colors of a horticultural or cranberry bean. The bean sets lots of pods, but I didn't get a lot of beans because of it's lateness and late planting. I left a lot of seed behind that was destroyed by frost. Total seed harvest from 15 plants was 4 ounces (113 grams).

Hodson Greenpod - Semi Runner

Hodson Greenpod Off Type

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ Crow's 2019 Bean Show Day #11​

Hodson Yellow Pod - Semi Runner

This is the yellow podded outcross from Hodson Wax. It too is late close in season with it's green podded counter part. I got the same Hodson Wax seed coat from this one too. It also climbs and sets lots of pods. It began drying pods just a little earlier. The seeds of these two beans are heavier than that of Hodson Wax. Total Seed Harvest from 15 plants: 5.25 ounces (148 grams)

Hodson Yellow Pod - Semi Runner

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ Crow's 2019 Bean Show Day #11​

Holy - Pole, Dry

This years grow of this bean was just terrible. I orginally got it from Mark Christensen of the New Zealand Bean Project in 2011. It was brought back from Europe after the second world war to New Zealand by service men. It has pretty much the same story as the French bean Monstrance. I didn't even bother to weigh the seeds I got from this bean this year. About enough to hold in the palm of your hand.

Holy - Pole, Dry

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ Crow's 2019 Bean Show Day #11​

Indian Prairie - Pole

This is another of the outcrossed beans from Will Bonsall. This was the original seed coat I got from my 2015 grow out of this bean. Named the bean this year for a city park in one of the nearby towns in our county. This year most of the crop was all black beans. I decided I'm going to select this bean for the original seed coat. I've definitely got black beans coming out of my ears. Not enough seed of this bean to bother putting on a scale.

Indian Prairie - Pole