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

[Blue-Jay]

Russ's 2020 Bean Show - Day 27​

Superbean - In 2013 I planted Robert Lobitz's White Robin and one of the beans had other ideas it climbed all over the place. So I quickly thought of it as super bean. When I plant the seeds of this bean I get something different each time a new set of segregations. It's almost as if many of the blossoms on the plant were cross pollinated with pollen from many other different beans growing that plot that summer. First photo is the original seed I harvested in 2013. I took some of that 2013 seed and planted them this year and I got a mottled bean but not exactly like the 2013 bean. The 4 photos following Superbean 2013 are all the variations that Superbean produced this year. Not a single seed like the original.


Superbean 2013......................................................Superbean Segregation 1


Superbean Segregation 2..........................................Superbean Segregation 3


Superbean Segregation 4

Tenderpod - Bush Snap. 5 inch round green pods. This is the original Tenderpod the the Burpee Seed Company released in 1941. Later in the 1970's they rebred the bean into a solid white seeded bean.

Tene's Beans - Bush Dry. Grown by the Larry Locke's family of Grand Manan, Nebraska for three generations. Larry Locke’s grandfather Ashton was given some by a Miss Albertine Bancroft around 1920. They have been grown by the family ever since.


Tenderpod...................................................................Tene's Bean

Topcrop - Bush Snap. This was the very first bean variety that I raised in my high school days. Resistant to BCMV and Bean Pod Mottle Virus, and NY 15. Bred by the USDA in Beltsville, Maryland. Introduced in 1947. All American Selections Award winner in 1950. Parentage is United States 5 Refugee and Full Measure.

Topnotch Golden Wax - Bush Snap yellow pods. Listed in seed catalogs as early as the late 1940's.


Topcrop.......................................................................Topnotch Golden Wax

 

[Zeedman]

Superbean must be one of those "promiscuous" beans... if so, it might never stabilize.

Tene's Beans - Bush Dry. Grown by the Larry Locke's family of Grand Manan, Nebraska for three generations. Larry Locke’s grandfather Ashton was given some by a Miss Albertine Bancroft around 1920. They have been grown by the family ever since.


Tenderpod...................................................................Tene's Bean

Tene's looks like a fat bean... but without scale, I wonder how large it is? It looks a little like Bumblebee, without the mark on the hilum.

 

[Artorius]

Bumblebee is a beautiful bean, but it doesn't grow well for me. Beans are not as filled out although they will germinate and grow when planted. They also don't yeild well here. I have thought maybe the summers are to hot here for them. I know they will grow well in the New England states. I just stopped growing them a few years ago.

In my place, this bean grows very well.
I corrected the spelling of the name above the photo. I looked at the Wanigan Associates catalog and there words "bumble" and "bee" are not separated . I will write it this way from now on. It turns out that many seed vendors do not write it correctly.

 

[Artorius]

Zeedman, Tene's Bean is half the size of Bumblebee. I have the seeds of both beans so I can compare them.

I plan to sow Schwarze Witwe next year. A week ago I got seeds from Germany.
Bean hunting season has begun

 

[flowerbug]

Bumblebee has very large seeds for a bush bean, and a short DTM. I grew them many years ago, to trial as shell beans. I was happy with the yield, but found the skin to be too tough for my taste, and never grew them again. Having learned more about beans since then, I may re-visit Bumblebee again in the future, when/if I get caught up in my over-due grow outs.

i found this past season that some beans may not work as a quick cooking shelly because they do have a thicker skin, but if you cook them long enough they do ok. i have plans this coming season to retry some shelly beans precisely because of this. the first time around i didn't cook them long enough and i didn't have enough that i wanted to sacrifice the 2nd picking so i let them dry down instead. excellent early bean and if shelly that can make them an earlier harvest for some uses.

 

[Grizzlyhackle]

I'm new here and hope I'm in the right spot. Sieva/Seiva beans. I got the 2021southern exposure seed catalog and don't see them listed this year. Use to get them from a place in Maine. Was there a crop failure this year. Any company carry them. I tried Monticello gift shop. Bought some there on a trip in 2016. There website says sold out for the season. I know I'm early but these aren't real popular with mainstream seed companies. Anybody got a lead on them. I checked the web last night. Won't buy from just any where and didn't see much. Even the ones I had from southern exposure would throw some with purple tint some completely purple beans. For me and dw we like the taste over the rest of varieties. I like the vine cuz I don't have to bend to pick two or three rows of henderson's when 1row of Sievas I get more with less pain.

 

[Zeedman]

I'm new here and hope I'm in the right spot. Sieva/Seiva beans. I got the 2021southern exposure seed catalog and don't see them listed this year. Use to get them from a place in Maine. Was there a crop failure this year. Any company carry them. I tried Monticello gift shop. Bought some there on a trip in 2016. There website says sold out for the season. I know I'm early but these aren't real popular with mainstream seed companies. Anybody got a lead on them. I checked the web last night. Won't buy from just any where and didn't see much. Even the ones I had from southern exposure would throw some with purple tint some completely purple beans. For me and dw we like the taste over the rest of varieties. I like the vine cuz I don't have to bend to pick two or three rows of henderson's when 1row of Sievas I get more with less pain.

No worries about your question, this forum is pretty flexible. When you've been here awhile though, a question in the wrong place might get you placed in Question Quarantine. (Just kidding! )

There is a Mottled Sieva that is similar to the white Sieva, but has purple spots & slightly smaller seeds. If that is the lima you grew, some seeds would have the reverse pattern, with white spots over purple. I have grown both varieties, and IMO they are equally productive.

It may just be that most seed companies have not yet updated their listings for the 2021 season. But if they are truly out for 2021, this would not the first time that Sieva has disappeared from the seed trade. Several years back, the same thing happened. Because I grow & maintain Sieva, my exchange page listing (in another forum) showed up on search engines, and I was inundated with people asking for seeds. I only had a little over a pound of seed, but gave out all that I could. Sieva returned to many companies two years later.

Back then, while the majority of the seed companies had obtained their seed from a single grower, there were still a few companies which grew their own seed. I've taken a quick look at those, none of those have it listed as in stock - yet. If they don't show up within a month, contact me here via PM, and we can arrange a trade.

By the way, in the course of my search, I observed that Landreth's is using a photo of a fava bean, and calling it Sieva. Trueleafmarket is showing a white-seeded common bean, and calling it Henderson lima If I have a pet peeve, it is supposedly professional seedsman misrepresenting their offerings with completely erroneous photos. They should know better, and when I see such errors in a seed company, it calls their competence into question.

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Tene's bean is just ever so slightly smaller than Deseronto Potato. Still a good sized bean.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ's 2020 Bean Show - Day 28​

Unrivalled Wax - Bush Snap yellow pods. Originally and introduction in France. Brought to the U.S. in 1913 by D.M. Ferry And Company. By 1931 the variety was listed in nearly one-fourth of the seed catalogs of the day. Has the reputation of doing well in drought conditions. The plants are short about 14 to 15 inches. It produces a lot of seed for a small bush plant.

Utah Yellow Eye - Bush Dry. In my early SSE days. I opened a box that was sent to me one February day and here is the bean called Utah Yellow Eye. It then seemed to have a broader eye figure than most yellow eyes. I never kept track of who sent me what in those days. I wish I had. It would be an interesting piece of history for me to know now. I reacquired the bean two years ago from SSE. Heritage Farm has no plans of every listing the bean themselves in the yearbook as they tell me they don't have a distribution packet made for this bean.


Unrivalled Wax...........................................................Utah Yellow Eye

Uzice Speckled Wax - Pole Yellow Podded - Serbian variety with wide flattened pods. I've been told it's a pole variety but having grown it twice. I've yet to see it climb on anything. Obtained from Richd Lloyd in Washington state in the winter of 2013.

Veitch Wonder - Bush Dry. European variety never very much grown or well known in America. However I maybe changing that. My 2019 crop was sold out almost before the 2020 crop was dried. Not as productive as most modern dry varieties but I will keep growing it because to me it's so pretty. Hybrid of common bean(Phaseolus Vulgaris x a runner bean Phaseolus Coccineus) from the James Veitch Nurseries of Chelsea-UK-Anno 1900-1910. Found in 2015 by the Belgian Seedhunter Lieven Decrick in a Colombian Genebank.


Uzice Speckled Wax...................................................Veitch Wonder


Victoria Brown Eyes - Bush Snap. A Robert Lobitz original named bean from the early 2,000's. I tried eating some of these this summer and they are stringless and tender when cooked. I like steam cooked vegies the best. The seed coat very much reminds me of Buckskin Girl but just a different color.



Victoria Brown Eyes

 

[flowerbug]

Veitch Wonder is indeed a very nice bean, how long a season does it go? never known you could get a viable cross from those that would grow very well. always interesting to see.

Victoria Brown Eyes did ok here when i grew it last year. did not eat any green beans as i didn't have that many plants growing and wanted to make sure i had enough seeds. it ended up giving me plenty enough seeds that i tried to give seed samples away. not sure i succeeded, but the local seed library has a donation or two of that one from me.