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

[Myrthryn]

it is possible in a blend that you will get variations due to the recessive genes mixing and some colors/patterns may not return until those combinations happen again. also for me here some beans change based upon soil chemistry/where they are planted and what the weather is like. i don't have any experience with tepary beans, but i have read about them.

as for which beans do well here, i'm constantly trying to breed or find more that work in our gardens, we have a mix of soils with only a few gardens being sandy or loamy and most of the rest being more of the subsoil clay that has been amended through the years. here's a few that i grow quite often, but there are many others i wish i had room for each year.

- Top Notch wax bean (fresh eating).

- Red Ryder, a small red kidney bean (dry beans).

- Fordhook Lima beans (shellies and dry beans).

- Purple Dove (for fresh eating, shellies and as a dry bean).

- Huey (my own cross for a firm chili dry bean).

i have a lot of crosses and other beans that i'm evaluating all the time, plus a bunch of other beans that i've grown but they've not made it yet into the bulk bean rotation. not enough space to grow out hundreds of beans each season. if i can get crosses of Purple Dove with any of the lesser performing beans i'd be happy (Dapple Grey and Yellow Eye are two i'd love to improve).

nothing i have grown on the fence has been reliable enough to keep growing, either they are not finishing early enough or they have issues and i don't want those genes mixing with the other beans. we don't have enough fence space anyways to make them a priority for me.

Thanks for sharing that. I've been aiming for more cold resistant, shorter season crops. Didn't look at all of those, but purple dove seems to be speedy in that regard.

Tasted my first batch of tepary beans this evening. Took a long time to cook. Had with 'ham' and very earthy in flavor.

 

[flowerbug]

i hope for 110-115 days from the end of May. some years i get that and other years i may get a few weeks more. this year it was spot on.

 

[flowerbug]

i've been sorting beans today, a few of the more random box tops that have a large mix of varieties in there. fun to see what is in those.

 

[baymule]

I got beans! After drought, intense Texas heat, attack of the grasshoppers, all my bean plants gave up and died. One came back to life, the Black cattle bean plant. I built a wire cage around it for protection from the Sheep. I picked the pods today. They are supposed to be Black Cattle beans, the seed I got from you, @Bluejay77 we’re black. These are a mottled brown and are acttractive. I got 28 seed, a few look a little sketchy.

 

[Zeedman]

Pretty beans. Looks like the sheep scared a few out of their skins, though.

 

[baymule]

At this point I’m delighted to have anything, even a skinless bean. I’m happy with my not-Black cattle beans. LOL

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Bluejay: I'm sooo terribly sorry. None of your beans I planted and tried to take care of, came to anything of value. With our drought, fires, smoke and then deer that jumped over my homemade fencing for my garden area, no beans were ever harvested, even by me. I'm very sorry.

Someday we hope to move up to Washington where they get lots of water from the sky. Maybe I'll try to rejoin then. Thank you. -Barbara

 

[Ridgerunner]

@Rhodie Ranch don't feel bad. Gardeners understand when things don't work out. We are so dependent on weather, animals, bugs, diseases, and who knows what that you have to be an optimist to even try. You are not the only one that has had problems with network beans. I'm one of many that has failed at one time and then another.

I consider these network beans though Bluejay has never seen them other than in photos. These are segregations I'm trying to stabilize from outcrosses I got from Russ years ago. These are still segregating. This is my second crop this year. I planted nine new segregations I got from my spring planting. Three of those failed but I'll have seeds from six of them. Some of the new segregations are downright pretty.

I don't consider these a failure, though I'll admit it's quite a change from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday afternoon courtesy of Hurricane Zeta. I had already started collecting dried beans from these, and yes they are segregating again. I'll just let these finish and will get plenty of seeds to try again next year to stabilize some. If Zeta had been a week or two earlier it would have been a totally different story, I might not have gotten any seeds. That's how dependent we are on weather.

Before Zeta

After Zeta

 

[Zeedman]

Wow, the wind sure stripped the leaves. Funny as this may sound, that may actually help the pods to ripen faster. We usually have a couple light frosts here before the freeze... they kill most of the leaves, but not the stems or pods. The pods ripen at an accelerated pace after that.

 

[flowerbug]

this morning i'm cooking up 26oz of reject red beans from the first sort. they're just blemished or the seed coats didn't close up properly or they are wrinkled or smaller size than i would want to replant. all edible otherwise and they'll make for some good burritoes or other filler for the next few days.

normally i mix the reject beans all together so they can make a big pot of multiple bean soup or to put them in the freezer to use later, but i was hungry for beans and hadn't gotten on to the next batch yet to sort...

i lost a lot of red beans to rot this year because of how i planted them, that is ok and how i learn, or at least should have learned... about 7 lbs after the first sort.