2020 Little Easy Bean Network - An Exciting Adventure In Heirloom Beans !

[Decoy1]

Thanks. Yes, maybe the flatter ones are just a little older.
I cooked the picked beans and found they were OK, but needed just a little longer than some to become tender so, as you say, they seem to need to be picked very young
My seed was from 2016. Perhaps the same vintage as yours?
I’m growing Purple Rose Creek too so will be interested to compare those as well.
Pretty plants!
Is Purple Dove a Robert Lobitz bean too?

 

[flowerbug]

Thanks. Yes, maybe the flatter ones are just a little older.
I cooked the picked beans and found they were OK, but needed just a little longer than some to become tender so, as you say, they seem to need to be picked very young
My seed was from 2016. Perhaps the same vintage as yours?
I’m growing Purple Rose Creek too so will be interested to compare those as well.
Pretty plants!
Is Purple Dove a Robert Lobitz bean too?

yes. it's the first of the bunch and i've grown it now three times and each time it is doing fine here with our weather and soils (i'm testing it all in all gardens and it doesn't care at all where it is planted). the only downsides to these beans i've found so far is that the Japanese Beetles love it too. i have to hand pick them off before they get too thick, but even with some damage they still produce well.

i agree, they are pretty plants, anything with purple flowers fits in well with all our other purples and yellows.

the first year i planted them i didn't want to eat too many of them, but when i sampled a few pods when they were just coming on i found them to be delicious and sweet tasting while standing right there in the garden. i had a great crop of seeds from that first year so the second year i planted about a hundred plants and they did great and we had plenty to eat fresh and to steam and that is when i discovered that they are great beans to pick a few times and then let the rest go to seed for dry beans.

i do not think they'd be that good of a bean for canning because they are not thick/fleshy beans or super solid all the way through, but i have no plans to can them. i really love 'em steamed or eaten right there in the garden when i'm picking.

seed vintage sounds about right. they all germinated fine for me.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Spring bean show – I plant my first beans down here around the first of March to beat the heat. If I’m much later than that planting them I get really bad results, I suspect due to my climate. So it’s time to show some results. The reason I mention the weight of 60 beans is that is how many I save when I save for seeds. Just an arbitrary number but you can roughly compare relative sizes.

These first three beans are from the Will Bonsall outcrosses Russ sent me a few years back. Most of the others are Will Bonsall beans too. Out of all those I started with, these are the first I consider stabilized. They have been well behaved since I first planted them as segregations. Not sure how you want to handle these Russ. I propose I send these to you and you replace the seeds you already have with these names. But that is up to you. To be clear, it’s Banzala, Valley View, and Jas.

Banzala – Parent bean Norridgewock, from the WB #39 packet. Banzala is a bush bean with lavender colored flowers and with green pods about 6” long. 60 beans weigh 42 grams so a decent size. On six plants I grew 294 grams of dried beans. It is a dry bean, not a snap bean. The color is a real deep purple but when it ages it will be black.

Banzala

Banzala Flower


Valley View – Parent bean Norridgewock, also from packet WB #39. Valley View is a bush bean with pink and yellow flowers on the same plant. The 6” pods are striped and turn a pretty color just as the bean is ripening. 60 beans weigh 44 grams. On 6 plants I grew 317 grams of dried beans. It is a dry bean, not a snap bean.

Valley View

Valley View Flower

Valley View Pod as it ripens

 

[Ridgerunner]

Jas – Parent bean also Norridgewock from packet WB #39. Jas is a climbing bean, a half-runner around 7 feet tall. The flowers are a beautiful lavender. The 4” to 6” pods are striped. 60 beans weight 46 grams. A decent size. On five plants I grew 365 grams of dried beans. Also a dried bean, not a snap. Something interesting about Jas is that every time I’ve grown it I’ve had a very few reverses. Not many, this year it was only three individual beans. The pods also can grow reverse. The pods are typically green with purple stripes but a few pods are purple with green stripes.

Jas Beans with two reverses

Jas Flower

Jas pods, regular and reverse

 

[Ridgerunner]

Next up is Aksai. I need to grow it one more time to consider it stabilized. Parent bean is Terrier Kidney, from the WB #32 packet. It is a bush bean with pink and yellow flowers. The 6” pod are a solid green. 60 beans weigh 33 grams. On six plants I grew a total of 267 grams of dried beans.

Aksai


Cock ‘n Bull – When I first grew it I was not very impressed, a small wrinkled bean and not many. The parent bean was Terrier Kidney from the WB #32 packet. I had trouble with those #32’s, they wanted to mold instead of germinate and grow. When I’ve grown it since it’s done well. I think that first plant was a weak one and I was lucky to get anything. Cock ‘n Bull is a bush plant with pale pink and yellow flowers. The 6” to 7” pods are solid green. 60 beans weigh 47 grams. I grew 249 grams on 6 plants. Also pretty close to stabilizing but not quite there yet.

Cock 'n Bull


Highlight – Disappointing this year. All the plants were weak this year, what few seeds I got were from one plant. I’ll try growing it again next year. If it is as bad I’ll give up on it, it has never been very productive. The parent bean was Terrier Kidney from the WB #32 packet. Highlight is a bush bean, some plants had lavender flowers, some had pink so not stabilized in that aspect. The 6” to 7” pods are solid green. I only got 7 shriveled seeds. They are really shiny black and look good when they do well.

Highlight

 

[Ridgerunner]

Kara Bush – That’s my working name, I plan to change it if it stabilizes. When I grew Karachaganak last year I noticed a different growth habit so I saved those seeds. Apparently Karachaganak has not stabilized growth habit. In his notes on the Will Bonsall collection Russ mentions that beans from that collection may not be stabilized. Artorius noticed different growth habits with Karachaganak this year and Betula is also growing it. We’ll eventually sort out which growth habit is assigned to Karachaganak.

The parent bean is Norridgewock from the WB #39 packet. This one was a semi-runner, maybe 3’ to 4’ tall. The flowers were either pale pink or pink and yellow. The 4” to 5” pods were solid green. 60 beans weigh 30 grams and I got a total of 94 grams from 3 plants.

Kara Bush

I’ll include this one just because we like pretty beans. I grow Blue Jay as my bush snap bean. I needed to renew seeds so I let 4 plants go to seed, never ate any off of these 4. 60 seeds weigh 27 grams. I got 242 grams off of those 4 plants.

Blue Jay

 

[Ridgerunner]

Working name Raspberry Ripple 2 – These I planted late and the results reflect that. Parent bean is Dove Kidney from the WB #27 packet. This is the first time I’ve planted this segregation, it looks like the bean I planted. The pole bean has pink and yellow flowers. The 3” pods are solid green. 60 seeds weigh 19 grams. I got a total of 41 grams of beans, mostly off of one plant.

Raspberry Ripple 2

Working name Rising Fawn Black – First time I planted this segregation. It looks like the bean I planted. It is another segregation from the original Raspberry Ripple which means the parent bean is Dove Kidney from the WB #27 packet. It is a pole bean with pink and yellow flowers. The 4” to 5” pods are solid green. I only got 17 grams of seeds, again a late planting.

Rising Fawn Black

 

[Ridgerunner]

Working name Miss T Red – Again a first time segregation and it segregated again. The parent bean was Terrier Kidney from the WB #32 packet. A half-runner with white and yellow flowers. The 5” pods were solid green. 60 beans weigh 36 grams, total weight 336 grams off of 5 plants. One interesting thing about this bean is that you can get a lot of different patterns off of the same plant. I spread these out so I can pick seeds form one plant only, otherwise I’m not sure what is a segregation.

Miss T Red The beans at the bottom is what I planted.


Working name Tartan Tan – @Artorius asked about this one. The last time I planted Tartan I got three segregations. The original Tartan had a hashed pattern, hence the name, but these three segregations don’t. The three patterns last years were the same but the colors were different, I called them tan, brown, and dark. I decided to plant the tan version. So again a first time segregation but this time it did not segregate.

The parent bean is Norridgewock form WB #38 packet. A half-runner with white and yellow flowers. The 4” pods are solid green. 60 beans weight 36 grams with a total weight 648 grams off of 5 plants.

Tartan Tan

Working name TT A – Another first time segregation and it kept segregating. The parent bean is Dove Kidney, WB #27 packet. Yet another from the original Raspberry Ripple line. Some pole plants had pink and yellow flowers, some had white and yellow flowers. The 6” to 7” pods were solid green. 60 beans weight between 22 to 25 grams depending on segregation with a total weight of 629 grams off of 5 plants.

TT A. The two in the middle show what I planted.


That’s all of the Will Bonsall beans.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The next two are from segregations I found in Blue Jay a few years back.

Working name Voodoo Black – It is a first time segregation and it kept segregating. The parent bean is Blue Jay. The first Voodoo was a black bean with a very faint purple pattern. A vigorous pole bean. Some plants had white and yellow flowers, some pink flowers, and some pink and yellow. The 6” pods were solid green, many having 6 or 7 beans per pod. 60 beans weight 18 to 20 grams with a total weight of 625 grams.

Voodoo Black. The bean at the bottom shows what I planted.

Working name Ausmus Holler Black – Another first time segregation that again segregated. The parent bean is Blue Jay. The first Ausmus Holler was a black bean with a brown pattern. Another vigorous pole bean. The flowers were either pink or white and yellow. The 4” pods were solid green. If I get to a stabilized bean with pods like this I might have matchstick in the name, that’s what these skinny little pods reminded me of. 60 beans weighed between 13 and 17 grams depending on segregation, with a total weight of 542 grams.

Ausmus Holler Black. The bean at the bottom hows what I planted.

This concludes my bean show. I look forward to your results in a more reasonable time of the year.

 

[Decoy1]

I’m growing the Network bean, Mugungi. So far the plants are very small, not very healthy looking and seem to be struggling.

Has anyone else grown Mugungi?