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

[reedy]

I thought I had all my beans planted but then came across a pack of Missouri Wonder someone gave me down at Bill Best's seed swap a couple years back and I don't have much freezer space so got to find a spot for them.
Also some interesting out crosses from 2015, I put them back in freezer for now. @Bluejay77 , are you interested in them? If so I'll include some when I send back my network beans this fall. One is a common/runner cross, I think in F2, the parent vine was monstrous with massive amounts of red flowers but very poor pod set. I'm told later generations of these crosses improve in production but I don't have room for such giant vines. The original seed was Cherokee Greasy.
@flowerbug , I'll get your bush beans on their way this week.

 

[flowerbug]

I thought I had all my beans planted but then came across a pack of Missouri Wonder someone gave me down at Bill Best's seed swap a couple years back and I don't have much freezer space so got to find a spot for them.
Also some interesting out crosses from 2015, I put them back in freezer for now. @Bluejay77 , are you interested in them? If so I'll include some when I send back my network beans this fall. One is a common/runner cross, I think in F2, the parent vine was monstrous with massive amounts of red flowers but very poor pod set. I'm told later generations of these crosses improve in production but I don't have room for such giant vines. The original seed was Cherokee Greasy.
@flowerbug , I'll get your bush beans on their way this week.

thanks @reedy! the main fenced gardens are mostly ready to plant. i just have two small gardens to finish up in there and one of those is reclaimed space so likely that will be space for beans this year.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @reedy,

You could send the outcrosses this fall with your return package. Have you named these crosses yet? Even just working titles. After all they happened in your gardens. You were told later generations have improved production. Did you send them out to other growers? Just curious. How many crosses do you have?

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Tricia77,

Looks like a pretty nice grow out. I know you have a lot of varieties in your collection. Do you store them in a freezer until you can grow them out? I'm convinced that anyone who has a large number of varieties of anything needs a freezer so you don't have to worry about trying to keep up with the aging of your seed.

 

[Tricia77]

@Tricia77,

Looks like a pretty nice grow out. I know you have a lot of varieties in your collection. Do you store them in a freezer until you can grow them out? I'm convinced that anyone who has a large number of varieties of anything needs a freezer so you don't have to worry about trying to keep up with the aging of your seed.

Thanks Russ! You are partly to blame for a large portion of my collection lol! Right now I have small amounts of a lot of varieties. I need to really consider freezing my collection. My collection grew so fast which is wonderful, but at the same time it’s overwhelming. I currently store my collection in a cool area of my house stored in plastic containers. It is organized by type and then alphabetically bagged up. Each variety is in a little ziploc baggie. Fortunately I don’t have many old seeds, they are mostly newer seeds from the last 2-3 years.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I never even thought about aging seed when I got back into my bean collecting in 2011. Now I already have 8 year old seed of my own. I'm glad I got freezers. I've now got three of them, and it might even be possible I'll add the fourth one this coming autumn. But I think there will be no more after that.

 

[reedy]

Here are some of my network grow outs as of today, not the best picture and don't look at my weeds please.

I have very little freezer space so only keep a few special things in there. I'm not entirely convinced it is necessary except for very long term storage, I'v planted seed five + years old that wasn't frozen and it grows just fine.
That row of small, hard to see, plants behind the beans is Mignon dahlias, they only get about 2 feet tall. My bigger ones to go between the beans are not doing well, may have to stick something else in there.

 

[Ridgerunner]

For your viewing pleasure. I thought these pod colors were interesting. That are from Jas, one of the Will Bonsall #39 segregations. These photos are all from the same plant, it's not that different plants are producing two different color/pattern pods. And the pods are the same age of maturity, it's not that they get darker or more solid as they age. I just thought it interesting that one plant had this much difference in the pod colors it produces. I planted five Jas seeds. All those plants are producing pods that look like this.

I'm not ready to call this one stable yet. This is the second time I've grown this segregation and it's looking good but my understanding it takes three times before it is considered stable enough for release. So at least one more time growing it.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi @Ridgerunner,

You got two different pod patterns. What is going on here is what beans also do to some of the seeds. They reverse the colors. These plants are doing it to the pods. You got almost the solid purple with a few greenish yellow flecks in there. Then you have the greenish yellow base color with the purple as the speckling.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Thanks, Russ. That's interesting. Jas has thrown some reverse seed before, but just in one pod. These reverse pods are pretty common. Since we like photos I'll pull up a old one that shows the Jas reverse bean.