2021 Little Easy Bean Network - Bean Lovers Come Discover Something New !

Zeedman

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2021 beans, continued.

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"Grandma Robert's Purple Pole", from a 2006 Gardenweb swap with Darrell Jones, who inherited it from his Grandma Roberts in Pelham, Tennessee. Snap bean with round purple 5" pods. Dry pods often shrink down over seeds, and offer fairly good protection from moisture. It has an unusual attribute, in that the sprouts often have 3 or 4 primary leaves instead of the usual pair... something which appears in 10-25% of the seedlings. The source confirmed this peculiarity is genetic. Tolerates heat & is normally very productive, but the first round of flooding killed 1/4 of the row, and stunted the rest. A second round of heavy rains struck as the remaining plants were beginning to recover, killed another 1/4, and permanently stunted the survivors. Those survivors produced 8 ounces of seed, enough to replace the old stock... but I will grow it again soon, to preserve its unusual genetic traits.

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"Jembo Polish", pole snap/shelly. From William Woys Weaver 2005, originally from Abundant Life Seed Foundation. Strong climber to 8-10'. 5-6" X .75" wide flat pods, turning to purple-striped yellow when ripe, and shrinking down over the seeds when dry. OK as snaps, but best used for the very large, delicious 1"+ shellies. Dry seed is very large, 30/ounce. These were grown in the home garden, and were the one ray of light in an otherwise disappointing bean year... almost 4 pounds of dry seed, and a lot of shellies.

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"Sangre de Toro" (bulls blood), pole dry. From an SSE member in 2007, originally from Honduras. Moderate climber to 6-7', but can be heavily branched, especially in the first 3'. Diminutive 4-5" pods borne in clusters of 4-6, turning bright red when ripe, purple when dry. Easy to shell. Dry seed small (120/ounce), glossy, and bright red. Despite the small seed size, the yield can be very high - but not this year. Even on the high end of the rural garden, the plants were waterlogged, and permanently stunted into bush habit. A partial recovery late produced 25 ounces of seed - from a 24' row. :( Enough seed, at least, to replenish my stock.

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"Sargas", pole dry. Sent to me in 2014, by someone distributing the collection of the late SSE member Richard Schoolmaster of Michigan. Vigorous pole habit, moderately branched. The immature pods are green & fibrous, mature pods 6” long, yellow turning tan, and stay round when dry. Nearly all pods are borne well above ground level, so less attractive to rodents. Easy to shell. Dry seed slightly flattened, roughly the size & shape of Great Northern, 5-7 per pod... and nearly the same golden brown (or "mustard yellow") as the "Budapest II" in my previous bean post. Yield potential is high, 3.5 pounds the last time I grew it... but with half of the plants lost to flooding & the remainder stunted, only 11 ounces this year.

There were two total failures. I found my lost 2004 packet of "Ralph's Italian" from a swap, and sowed them indoors using rescue protocols... but it had been stored in less than ideal conditions, and all seeds were dead. And the pole wax bean "Blue Blockeye" (on the low end of the rural garden) germinated well, but was completely destroyed by subsequent flooding. :( In summary, while the over-all bean yield was about 1/3 of normal, there was at least enough seed of most beans for preservation & a few swaps.
 

HmooseK

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@Zeedman

Ralph’s is that one bean that I have tried and tried to get seed for. All my seeds from way back when were dead.


Annette had seeds from Victory and here is what she said back in 2018.

——————————————————
Went out and had a look today, loads of beans showing up but they sure look like a wax bean to me. This is what I bought from Victory Seeds as Ralph's Italian Heirloom, my beans really do look like their picture.

We've had a lot of rain but it's still fairly mild. Quite a few pod are swelling with seed, actually they look really yummy but I've had to slap my fingers to leave them alone
:)
I'm thinking of tying a clear umbrella over top in a couple of places, at least keep the rain off. If I can get them far enough along I'll pick a few pods and continue drying them inside in case the weather turns before the rest are mature enough.

From what I managed to sleuth out the last time Victory grew these was in 2009, I bought seed in 2013 but didn't try planting until this year, so my seed was pretty old. After so many tries to germinate with no luck that over looked last seed in the packet did and boy did it grow. I think I heard Victory plans to grow them again in 2020 but in the meantime keep your fingers crossed these amount to something. If they do I'll be popping some seed in the mail to you.

Annette
——————————————————


Ralph’s is not supposed to have yellow pods. I’m afraid this bean may be lost.
 
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heirloomgal

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2021 beans, continued.

View attachment 45571 View attachment 45572
"Grandma Robert's Purple Pole", from a 2006 Gardenweb swap with Darrell Jones, who inherited it from his Grandma Roberts in Pelham, Tennessee. Snap bean with round purple 5" pods. Dry pods often shrink down over seeds, and offer fairly good protection from moisture. It has an unusual attribute, in that the sprouts often have 3 or 4 primary leaves instead of the usual pair... something which appears in 10-25% of the seedlings. The source confirmed this peculiarity is genetic. Tolerates heat & is normally very productive, but the first round of flooding killed 1/4 of the row, and stunted the rest. A second round of heavy rains struck as the remaining plants were beginning to recover, killed another 1/4, and permanently stunted the survivors. Those survivors produced 8 ounces of seed, enough to replace the old stock... but I will grow it again soon, to preserve its unusual genetic traits.

View attachment 45574 View attachment 45575
"Jembo Polish", pole snap/shelly. From William Woys Weaver 2005, originally from Abundant Life Seed Foundation. Strong climber to 8-10'. 5-6" X .75" wide flat pods, turning to purple-striped yellow when ripe, and shrinking down over the seeds when dry. OK as snaps, but best used for the very large, delicious 1"+ shellies. Dry seed is very large, 30/ounce. These were grown in the home garden, and were the one ray of light in an otherwise disappointing bean year... almost 4 pounds of dry seed, and a lot of shellies.

View attachment 45576 View attachment 45577
"Sangre de Toro" (bulls blood), pole dry. From an SSE member in 2007, originally from Honduras. Moderate climber to 6-7', but can be heavily branched, especially in the first 3'. Diminutive 4-5" pods borne in clusters of 4-6, turning bright red when ripe, purple when dry. Easy to shell. Dry seed small (120/ounce), glossy, and bright red. Despite the small seed size, the yield can be very high - but not this year. Even on the high end of the rural garden, the plants were waterlogged, and permanently stunted into bush habit. A partial recovery late produced 25 ounces of seed - from a 24' row. :( Enough seed, at least, to replenish my stock.

View attachment 45578 View attachment 45579
"Sargas", pole dry. Sent to me in 2014, by someone distributing the collection of the late SSE member Richard Schoolmaster of Michigan. Vigorous pole habit, moderately branched. The immature pods are green & fibrous, mature pods 6” long, yellow turning tan, and stay round when dry. Nearly all pods are borne well above ground level, so less attractive to rodents. Easy to shell. Dry seed slightly flattened, roughly the size & shape of Great Northern, 5-7 per pod... and nearly the same golden brown (or "mustard yellow") as the "Budapest II" in my previous bean post. Yield potential is high, 3.5 pounds the last time I grew it... but with half of the plants lost to flooding & the remainder stunted, only 11 ounces this year.

There were two total failures. I found my lost 2004 packet of "Ralph's Italian" from a swap, and sowed them indoors using rescue protocols... but it had been stored in less than ideal conditions, and all seeds were dead. And the pole wax bean "Blue Blockeye" (on the low end of the rural garden) germinated well, but was completely destroyed by subsequent flooding. :( In summary, while the over-all bean yield was about 1/3 of normal, there was at least enough seed of most beans for preservation & a few swaps.
Gorgeous beans @Zeedman ! I especially love the colours of Jembo Polish and Sangre de Toro. I really like super producers like SdT. And look at that, Grandma Robert's Purple pole - another beige seeded purple pod.
 

jbosmith

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2021 beans, continued.

View attachment 45571 View attachment 45572
"Grandma Robert's Purple Pole", from a 2006 Gardenweb swap with Darrell Jones, who inherited it from his Grandma Roberts in Pelham, Tennessee. Snap bean with round purple 5" pods. Dry pods often shrink down over seeds, and offer fairly good protection from moisture. It has an unusual attribute, in that the sprouts often have 3 or 4 primary leaves instead of the usual pair... something which appears in 10-25% of the seedlings. The source confirmed this peculiarity is genetic. Tolerates heat & is normally very productive, but the first round of flooding killed 1/4 of the row, and stunted the rest. A second round of heavy rains struck as the remaining plants were beginning to recover, killed another 1/4, and permanently stunted the survivors. Those survivors produced 8 ounces of seed, enough to replace the old stock... but I will grow it again soon, to preserve its unusual genetic traits.

View attachment 45574 View attachment 45575
"Jembo Polish", pole snap/shelly. From William Woys Weaver 2005, originally from Abundant Life Seed Foundation. Strong climber to 8-10'. 5-6" X .75" wide flat pods, turning to purple-striped yellow when ripe, and shrinking down over the seeds when dry. OK as snaps, but best used for the very large, delicious 1"+ shellies. Dry seed is very large, 30/ounce. These were grown in the home garden, and were the one ray of light in an otherwise disappointing bean year... almost 4 pounds of dry seed, and a lot of shellies.

View attachment 45576 View attachment 45577
"Sangre de Toro" (bulls blood), pole dry. From an SSE member in 2007, originally from Honduras. Moderate climber to 6-7', but can be heavily branched, especially in the first 3'. Diminutive 4-5" pods borne in clusters of 4-6, turning bright red when ripe, purple when dry. Easy to shell. Dry seed small (120/ounce), glossy, and bright red. Despite the small seed size, the yield can be very high - but not this year. Even on the high end of the rural garden, the plants were waterlogged, and permanently stunted into bush habit. A partial recovery late produced 25 ounces of seed - from a 24' row. :( Enough seed, at least, to replenish my stock.

View attachment 45578 View attachment 45579
"Sargas", pole dry. Sent to me in 2014, by someone distributing the collection of the late SSE member Richard Schoolmaster of Michigan. Vigorous pole habit, moderately branched. The immature pods are green & fibrous, mature pods 6” long, yellow turning tan, and stay round when dry. Nearly all pods are borne well above ground level, so less attractive to rodents. Easy to shell. Dry seed slightly flattened, roughly the size & shape of Great Northern, 5-7 per pod... and nearly the same golden brown (or "mustard yellow") as the "Budapest II" in my previous bean post. Yield potential is high, 3.5 pounds the last time I grew it... but with half of the plants lost to flooding & the remainder stunted, only 11 ounces this year.

There were two total failures. I found my lost 2004 packet of "Ralph's Italian" from a swap, and sowed them indoors using rescue protocols... but it had been stored in less than ideal conditions, and all seeds were dead. And the pole wax bean "Blue Blockeye" (on the low end of the rural garden) germinated well, but was completely destroyed by subsequent flooding. :( In summary, while the over-all bean yield was about 1/3 of normal, there was at least enough seed of most beans for preservation & a few swaps.
I love that you have one of Dar's seeds as he and I have had poor luck with swapping beans due to differing climates. The only thing he and I have both have decent luck with is Dibramo (aka Sicitalian Black Swamp) though 'luck' here means 'Well, if I dry out the shelly beans they seem to sprout again'...
 

Blue-Jay

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Bluejay77's Big Bean Show
Day 17 - The Beans I Grew This Summer

Kishwaukee Yellow - Bush Yellow Podded Snap

Discovered in Cherokee Wax in 1977. I have always had the feeling Contender was the male pollen donor. The tan seeds of the two alternate seed coats that the bean produces has that same color tone and veining that Contender seeds have. Very productive, I raised a bunch of this bean to blanch and freeze this past summer. This bean is in the Seed Saver Exchange bean collections in Decorah, Iowa. Once sold commericially in the middle 1990's for a time by Horus Botanicals of Salem, Arkansas. The bean is also held in the USDA seed bank collection at Pullman, Washington under the accession number of W6 51310.


Koronis Purple - Bush Dry

Large Seeded. 85 days to dry seed. Planted seed June 5th and picked first dry pod on August 25th. Blossom purple-pink. Tall 22 inch plants produce 6 to 7 inch pods and some nearly 8 inches, green with purple streaks. Beans are kidney shaped beautiful bright purple very subtly flecked with occasional small whitish patches. An original bean variety named and introduced through the Seed Savers Exchange yearbook by the late Robert Lobitz of Paynesville, Minnesota around 2001.


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Kishwaukee Yellow.............................................................Koronis Purple


Kishwaukee Yellow Alternate Seed Coats


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Kishwaukee Yellow Black Seed Coat...............................Kishwaukee Yellow Buff Seed Coat


Korinis Tan Trout - Bush Dry

Seed is small patterned similarly to Jacob's Cattle. White when first harvested it takes about a month for the tan color to develop. A bean that Robert Lobitz received unnamed from Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds in BC Canada. Grown, selected then named by Robert. He listed this bean for the first time in the Seed Savers Exchange yearbook in 2001.

Koronis White Oaks - Bush Dry

17 inch tall plants with pink blossoms. Pods contain plump oval solid white beans. A Robert Lobitz original named bean that he introduced through the Seed Savers Exhange yearbook.


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Koronis Tan Trout.......................................................Koronis White Oaks





 

Zeedman

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I love that you have one of Dar's seeds as he and I have had poor luck with swapping beans due to differing climates. The only thing he and I have both have decent luck with is Dibramo (aka Sicitalian Black Swamp) though 'luck' here means 'Well, if I dry out the shelly beans they seem to sprout again'...
:lol: Been there, done that... sometimes dodging raindrops in the process. "Dibramo"? I remember reading about the "Sicitalian Black Swamp" beans & being curious about them, but was scared away by descriptions of them being long season. Now I notice that Sandhill describes it as well adapted to Northern climates...? :idunno I may need to try it one of these years.

Dar & had a couple exchanges. He was also the source for the pole bean "Blue Marbutt" and runner bean "Gigandes", both of which I still grow. "Blue Marbutt" (another black-seeded bean) is over-due for replenishment, I will probably be growing it in 2022. Dar is a small-scale commercial bean seed grower & very knowledgeable about beans... I wish he would pop in here. He dropped out of GW (as did many after the site was sold) but still posts on HG.
 

Blue-Jay

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I may have found some information about purple podded beans. A piece written in a Dutch book. There must have been a few Dutch explorers in the 1600's here before the arrival of larger numbers of Dutch. 1653. Van der Donck, in his "Description of the New Netherlands," (Which is New York, New Jersey and Deleware) distinguishes the beans cultivated by the Indians before the coming of the Dutch, and the Turkish beans which had been introduced: "Of Beans there are several kinds; but the large Windsor bean [Vicia Faba]... and the horse bean will not fill out their pods... The Turkish beans which our people have introduced there grow wonderfully... Before the arrival of the Netherlanders [1614] the Indians raised beans of various kinds and colours, but generally too coarse to be eaten green or to be pickled, except the blue sort, which are abundant," etc. He then describes the Indian mode of planting beans with maize.

This from one of my contacts in The Netherlands that like to research all sorts of things grown in gardens.
 
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Zeedman

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I admit to not being much of a garden historian... but most of the purple beans I've grown seem to trace their ancestry back to Europe. I haven't seen references to all-purple beans (or wax beans for that matter) being grown by Native Americans, and have always wondered whether both originated from mutations occurring in Europe. There was an incredible amount of change to the genomes that occurred when New World vegetables were widely grown in the Old World.
 

Blue-Jay

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Bluejay77's Big Bean Show
Day 18 - The Beans I Grew This Summer

Koronis Yellow - Bush Dry

15 inch tall plants. Pods 4.5 inch pods contain oval beans that when harvested new are nearly white with a slight partial black eye ring. Seed color of light yellow takes time to develop. Looks like a larger seeded version of Sulphur bean. A Robert Lobitz Original named bean. Not early as this bean was still blooming and was full of green pods three weeks after the rest of the plot these grew in where completely harvested and all those other plants were just dead leafless vines.

La Pap - Pole Dry

Italian variety The Pope. The photo is my entire harvested seed crop for 2021 of this variety.

koronis yellow.jpgla pap.jpg
Koronis Yellow..................................................................La Pap


Libra - Pole Lima

This lilac variation of Ping Zebra has come about I believe from a cross of Ping Zebra and the Lima Ganymede in 2014. The new outcrossed seed which looked like a smaller version of Red Calico showed up in a grow out of Ping Zebra in 2017. A grow out of the 2017 outcrossed seed in 2020 began to show up a number of variant colors that were patterned like Ping Zebra. All the new variants are close in size to Ping Zebra being much smaller than most limas. Andromeda was one such variant that I posted nearly at the beginning in this series of Beans That I Grew This Summer.

Lilaschecke - Pole/Snap/Wax

70 days to short stringless yellow pods. Plants climb to about 8 feet. Comes from the Moravia region of the
Chech republic. I grew this bean among lima plants this summer and the competition from the limas must have proven a bit much for this bean as the seed I harvested was half the size of what I normally find for this bean.

libra.jpglilaschecke-2021.jpgLibra....................................................................................Lilaschecke
 
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