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

[thejenx]

i trim up the beans, put dill in the bottom of the jar (as much as you like - i never can have too much - i really like dill) pack the jars with beans and then top the jar off with a typical brine used for pickling. apple cider vinegar and water with a bit of kosher salt (or non-iodized salt if you can't find kosher). if you want sweet and garlic or other spices you can put those in the brine as you warm it up. leave some head space as usual when you can anything. then i process for the time needed to get the seal set. the ratio of vinegar to water is about 1 to 2 parts. if you pack the jars pretty tightly you may want to add a bit more vinegar to compensate. i rarely measure things exactly.

i don't use spices other than dill, salt and apple cider vinegar. i prefer to get the flavor of the beans and dill. since the beans are not fully cooked they stay crunchy. a lot more crunchy than pickles.

Do you boil the beans before you put them in the jars? If so, how long? And what do you mean with "then i process for the time needed to get the seal set"?

 

[flowerbug]

no, i pack them in the jar after the dill goes in. trimmed and cleaned but otherwise not cooked at all. pouring the hot brine over them (have to leave a bit of head space so don't fill the jars too full of beans and brine) and processing to seal.

processing is a part of canning something. that's a whole different topic and there are threads here on TEG and the web for that - i don't want to sidetrack this thread too much. do a search and see if that works and if not open a new thread and i'll put more details in there.

 

[flowerbug]

finally some growing bean pictures. not quite as close to some as i'd have liked but ...

the north garden beans (don't mind the weeds, i didn't quite get back to that part yet having just finished the edges... )...

small bean garden, including comparison of four Purple bean varieties planted side by side (first four rows from left to right, the front half of the row). From left to right: Purple Diamond, Purple Dove, Purple Rain and Purple Rose. Thanks @Bluejay77 for the seeds to do this experiment with. So far it does look they are the same in growth habit. The link below this picture is to a higher resolution image (all of the pictures i post to my website i try to put the larger image than a thumbnail available if someone actually wants to look closer).

link to full sized image.

http://www.anthive.com/img/beans/DSC_20200708_164835-0400_528_Some_Beans.jpg

combined garden beans.

south fence beans.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Last Sunday July 5th. I dropped the north and south panels of the rabbit fence at Pheasant lane at the big bush bean plot so I could cultivate the weeds out of the rows with the tiller. The operation took probably about an hour and a half. The ground was so dry and hot but the beans sailed right through it.

 

[Blue-Jay]

After the cultivating was done with the tiller is was time to roll out the garden fabric between the rows. I think I got most of it done that Sunday except I ran out of fabric and ordered more from Amazon. I think I got two more row spaces to finish.

 

[Blue-Jay]

On Monday July 6th it was time to put in the soaker hoses and give these beans a much needed drink. I put in twelve 75 foot soaker hoases that day.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Tuesday I went to visit the Pole bean patch on Pleasant Valley Road and install the soaker hoses there. I was fun to see how fast the Zinnias were growing too.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I took off Wednesday July 8th and went back to the big bush bean plot on July 9th to hand weed around all the bush bean plants at Pheasant Lane. That took me most of the day. The beans have grown suddenly a lot with their first watering with the soaker hoses then rain Tuesday night, and there was an explosion of weeds too.

This is a Robert Lobitz legacy bean I've been working with since 2015 that I named after a Minnesota town called "Brooten". This bean seems to be growing faster and taller than many of the other varieties in the plot. It's seeds aren't really large either.

 

[Decoy1]

I'm growing Purple Rose for seed for the network. It's an early variety, and already has beans ahead of most of my others.

It's producing two shapes of bean, each purple but one fairly flat and the other round in cross section and deeper purple.

I'm wondering whether both bean types are characteristic of Purple Rose?

 

[flowerbug]

I'm growing Purple Rose for seed for the network. It's an early variety, and already has beans ahead of most of my others.

It's producing two shapes of bean, each purple but one fairly flat and the other round in cross section and deeper purple.

I'm wondering whether both bean types are characteristic of Purple Rose?

View attachment 36163

i think they start off darker and get lighter as they get older.

i'm growing Purple Rose too this year so i should know in a week or two as they are just starting to flower here.

we found out last year when growing Purple Dove (which i suspect is very similar or the same bean as Purple Rose) that the first few pickings were the best for fresh eating/cooking steamed for about 8 minutes was perfect for our tastes. after that as the beans got older there was a bit more fiber and bitterness to them which i just took as a sign to leave the rest for dry beans (which are excellent too ).

good luck! let us know what happens...