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

[flowerbug]

Hello folks! Just thought I'd post an introductory message here while I wait in eager anticipation of the 2022 thread. I've been growing and saving beans for about seven years, and last year I developed an unhealthy obsession with beautiful and unique beans. To my existing collection of Tiger Eye, Orca, True Cranberry, and Kenn Early, I've added Ojo de Cabra, Beefy Resilient Grex, Bantu, Nez Perce, Rockwell, and Chester Skunk.

View attachment 46833 View attachment 46834

I live in south central BC, Canada, where the summer is short, hot, and dry. We have sandy soil that demands a lot of water. Some of the late beans (like Ojo de Cabra) only barely dry down by the time the October frosts come. But, on the plus side, there are little to no fungal pests!

I'm loving reading through the conversation (though I haven't gone through all 203 pages ). @heirloomgal I especially loved your story about the flock of kids giving up their hide-and-go-seek game to shell and play with beans with you -- that resonates so much with my experience too. My kids always end up getting caught up in the gravitational pull whenever I start shelling beans. So fascinating. Apparently kids have long attention spans and don't need iPads; who knew?!

Anyhow, looking forward to joining this little group! I've created a (very long) short list of beans I want to grow out, and I have to confess my ambition exceeds my growing space -- at least if I want to observe a decent isolation distance. For home growing and eating, I just jam them all into one row, but Canada's seed saving network recommends 20 ft for P vulgaris and 0.3 mi for P coccineus and P acutifolius for ensuring clean genetic lines; what do you all do?

welcome to TEG and the bean threads.

i don't isolate beans here but i may block plant just because it makes some things easier for harvesting or keeping track of what is where. it depends upon how many seeds i have to begin with.

nice pics! love the colors.

 

[capsicumguy]

i don't isolate beans here but i may block plant just because it makes some things easier for harvesting or keeping track of what is where. it depends upon how many seeds i have to begin with.

Oh, I definitely block-plant too (although it would certainly be a fun shelling/sorting exercise to throw them all in together!) I just do it within one row, is all

I gather that this network enjoys the serendipity that comes from outcrosses. That makes me happy too.

 

[meadow]

Hello folks! Just thought I'd post an introductory message here while I wait in eager anticipation of the 2022 thread. I've been growing and saving beans for about seven years, and last year I developed an unhealthy obsession with beautiful and unique beans. To my existing collection of Tiger Eye, Orca, True Cranberry, and Kenn Early, I've added Ojo de Cabra, Beefy Resilient Grex, Bantu, Nez Perce, Rockwell, and Chester Skunk.

View attachment 46833 View attachment 46834

left: all beans save Bantu, also showing an unnamed scarlet runner and Hannan Popbean
right: Bantu, with some weird wrinkly gray off-types that I'm choosing not to replant

I live in south central BC, Canada, where the summer is short, hot, and dry. We have sandy soil that demands a lot of water. Some of the late beans (like Ojo de Cabra) only barely dry down by the time the October frosts come. But, on the plus side, there are little to no fungal pests!

I'm loving reading through the conversation (though I haven't gone through all 203 pages ). @heirloomgal I especially loved your story about the flock of kids giving up their hide-and-go-seek game to shell and play with beans with you -- that resonates so much with my experience too. My kids always end up getting caught up in the gravitational pull whenever I start shelling beans. So fascinating. Apparently kids have long attention spans and don't need iPads; who knew?!

Anyhow, looking forward to joining this little group! I've created a (very long) short list of beans I want to grow out, and I have to confess my ambition exceeds my growing space -- at least if I want to observe a decent isolation distance. For home growing and eating, I just jam them all into one row, but Canada's seed saving network recommends 20 ft for P vulgaris and 0.3 mi for P coccineus and P acutifolius for ensuring clean genetic lines; what do you all do?

Hi! Welcome to the group! You have some varieties that I'm curious about too, although Rockwell was the only purchase this year... and I'm dying to know if Beefy Resilient Grex truly tastes like beef as Carol Deppe claims!

I've only saved seed once from one variety of bean (last year) so it was easy to isolate from any garden by distance and large physical barriers in a front flower bed. This year I will be saving more varieties! Aiming for minimum of 20 foot distancing within the garden (but will go as low as 15 feet if necessary in the more optimal of the 2 gardens), with barrier crops in between.

Since we had an unusually hot spell last season (and heat stress makes beans more vulnerable to insect pollinators), I'm also prepared to intervene with mosquito netting for row covers as well as individual bags that could be slipped over the blossoms.

Unfortunately I've run out of prepared garden space, and unexpectedly received several varieties that need refreshing. These will be grown in livestock watering troughs, spaced as far apart as possible while still being in the 'backyard' or possibly expanding into the small pasture behind the backyard. I want them to be where I will see them every day, since I want to monitor progress and take notes. Since barrier crops won't be an option, I may net every other one. Not sure yet.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Hello folks! Just thought I'd post an introductory message here while I wait in eager anticipation of the 2022 thread. I've been growing and saving beans for about seven years, and last year I developed an unhealthy obsession with beautiful and unique beans. To my existing collection of Tiger Eye, Orca, True Cranberry, and Kenn Early, I've added Ojo de Cabra, Beefy Resilient Grex, Bantu, Nez Perce, Rockwell, and Chester Skunk.

View attachment 46833 View attachment 46834

left: all beans save Bantu, also showing an unnamed scarlet runner and Hannan Popbean
right: Bantu, with some weird wrinkly gray off-types that I'm choosing not to replant

I live in south central BC, Canada, where the summer is short, hot, and dry. We have sandy soil that demands a lot of water. Some of the late beans (like Ojo de Cabra) only barely dry down by the time the October frosts come. But, on the plus side, there are little to no fungal pests!

I'm loving reading through the conversation (though I haven't gone through all 203 pages ). @heirloomgal I especially loved your story about the flock of kids giving up their hide-and-go-seek game to shell and play with beans with you -- that resonates so much with my experience too. My kids always end up getting caught up in the gravitational pull whenever I start shelling beans. So fascinating. Apparently kids have long attention spans and don't need iPads; who knew?!

Anyhow, looking forward to joining this little group! I've created a (very long) short list of beans I want to grow out, and I have to confess my ambition exceeds my growing space -- at least if I want to observe a decent isolation distance. For home growing and eating, I just jam them all into one row, but Canada's seed saving network recommends 20 ft for P vulgaris and 0.3 mi for P coccineus and P acutifolius for ensuring clean genetic lines; what do you all do?

I'm actually a little surprised that Bantu works for you. I'm somewhat further South than you, and I had problems adapting it to the season here (plus, no matter what color the seeds that went in were, everything came back purple) Maybe it's a matter of whether you got it directly from Simcox, where it was probably as he picked it up in Uganda, or whether you got it through someone who filtered it through their own growing and adapted it.

 

[heirloomgal]

Welcome to the forum @pauldaoust!

I like your bean selections, I've got Ugandan Bantu in the plans for this year. So gorgeous that bean!

There is a gardener here (@jbosmith you still around?) who mentioned in a post some time ago to me that cross pollination has a lot to do with the kinds of winged creatures one has around. Over the last 14 years, I have never seen a bean cross. And I plant everything (which can be a lot of beans) together with no isolation distances. I've found a cherry tomato cross twice ( I used to grow over 100 varieties a year) and a pepper cross once. It would appear that crosses just don't really happen in certain gardens, while others have more of them.

I did grow a runner bean this year - Piekny Jas - and the bees flocked to that plant, and then all over, like it was a wild hallucinogen and I can't help but wonder if that remarkable activity might lead to the first situation where I'll get a few crosses. If so, sadly, no more runner beans for me, but I'll be curious to see if things stayed pure regardless.

Glad you joined, you'll have fun with all us beanheads over here!!

 

[flowerbug]

how many lima beans do you grow? any squash, cucumbers, melons? the plants which i see the bees wandering around quite a bit. perhaps you don't have many of the same bees we have around here, but they've never been scarce or absent. the larger bumblebees are now less common than before but the smaller ground nesting bees are still around and they are often in the beans and various other plants too.

i can often determine how messy things might get by seeing what happens with the onion flowers and the cosmos. if those have a lot of different bees on them then i know i've also probably got a lot of mingling going on in the bean plants.

 

[Zeedman]

Anyhow, looking forward to joining this little group! I've created a (very long) short list of beans I want to grow out, and I have to confess my ambition exceeds my growing space -- at least if I want to observe a decent isolation distance. For home growing and eating, I just jam them all into one row, but Canada's seed saving network recommends 20 ft for P vulgaris and 0.3 mi for P coccineus and P acutifolius for ensuring clean genetic lines; what do you all do?

Let me add my welcome to TEG, and to the Little Easy! There seem to be a lot of bean fans in BC, I've exchanged beans with several gardeners there over the years.

As an SSE member, I use an isolation distance very similar to that recommended by SoDC... but bean spacing depends upon the type & numbers of pollinators present, the intended use of the beans, and how much the purity of the seeds matters. If the seed is rare or irreplaceable - or if it is important to share seed that is true-to-type - then wider spacing (or blossom bagging) might be prudent. To a lesser degree, spacing even depends upon variety, since some beans seem to be more prone to crossing (Goose for one).

Bumblebees & ground-dwelling bees actually nest on my property (which I actively encourage) and are very active; so some isolation efforts are necessary. I space different beans at least 20-25 feet apart, with rows or trellises of other flowering plants between to act as barriers (and the pole bean trellises act as barriers between different tomatoes). Since most bees work their way across the garden, the barrier crops provide places for bees to wipe their feet, and bean crossing has been very low - under 5%. Limas & runner beans, though, are more attractive to bees & will likely cross more heavily if more than one is grown in the same location. That is where friends & family who garden can come in handy.

 

[capsicumguy]

You have some varieties that I'm curious about too, although Rockwell was the only purchase this year...

Ask away if you have any questions about those varieties! Looks like you and I are in very similar climatic regions. I, too, am dying to know if Beefy Resilient Grex lives up to its reputation -- haven't cooked them up yet.

I've only saved seed once from one variety of bean (last year) so it was easy to isolate from any garden by distance and large physical barriers in a front flower bed. This year I will be saving more varieties! Aiming for minimum of 20 foot distancing within the garden (but will go as low as 15 feet if necessary in the more optimal of the 2 gardens), with barrier crops in between.

aha! So this is something I've always wondered -- whether obstructions and distracting plants could be used as barriers. You, and a few other people below you in thread, have confirmed it!

I also had no idea heat stress made beans more vulnerable to pollinators. So glad I joined this thread; I've learned a few things already. I'd be curious to know which of your beans survived the PNW heat wave; all of mine did great except Rockwell and Nez Perce. Chester Skunk and Ojo de Cabra were particularly productive; they pulled the poor trellis over!

Unfortunately I've run out of prepared garden space

The perpetual sorrow of the gardener.

I'm actually a little surprised that Bantu works for you. I'm somewhat further South than you, and I had problems adapting it to the season here (plus, no matter what color the seeds that went in were, everything came back purple) Maybe it's a matter of whether you got it directly from Simcox, where it was probably as he picked it up in Uganda, or whether you got it through someone who filtered it through their own growing and adapted it.

That's a tragedy that they all came back purple; wonder what happened there. I didn't have the breadth of colours I'd hoped for -- there were some jade ones that never produced, and an ugly wrinkly gray one -- but in general I'm happy. I've segregated the colours I didn't have enough of so I can grow more of them and less of the others.

I didn't get them from Simcox (just learned about his work this year through Russ' website), but from Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds. His website doesn't list where he got them from But I have seen photos in other catalogues and though, "whoa, that's not the same beans I grew." Probably just so much variation in the landrace.

I wonder if they worked so well for me because of my climate? I don't know if Uganda is hot/wet or hot/dry, but if the latter, then I'm in the perfect place for them. Especially last year with peak temps of 46C/115F.

There is a gardener here (@jbosmith you still around?) who mentioned in a post some time ago to me that cross pollination has a lot to do with the kinds of winged creatures one has around. Over the last 14 years, I have never seen a bean cross. And I plant everything (which can be a lot of beans) together with no isolation distances.

That's encouraging. We do honestly have a lot of insect pollinators -- wild ones and professional ones employed at the neighbour's orchard -- but I haven't seen a crossed bean yet either (although I do suspect I've seen some drift in the colours of two of my beans).

I've found a cherry tomato cross twice ( I used to grow over 100 varieties a year) and a pepper cross once.

Wow, and my mother-in-law rolls her eyes at my twenty tomato varieties! Sounds like fun. Did you do that for the sake of preserving varieties, or for resilience, or just cuz you loved them all?

I've never seen a pepper cross either, much to my dismay -- I'm trying to let a bunch of early varieties cross in the field, so I can select some locally adapted ones, but darned if they don't keep coming true to parent every year.

how many lima beans do you grow? any squash, cucumbers, melons?

Never tried lima beans -- guess I have too many traumatic memories from frozen lima beans at church potlucks Are they good as dry beans?

We do grow plenty of cucurbits of all sorts; sounds like they'd do well as barrier crops for beans? I've heard that it's helpful to time the flowering of barrier crops for the crops you're trying to protect; any idea if cucurbits will do the trick for beans?

As an SSE member, I use an isolation distance very similar to that recommended by SoDC... but bean spacing depends upon the type & numbers of pollinators present, the intended use of the beans, and how much the purity of the seeds matters. If the seed is rare or irreplaceable - or if it is important to share seed that is true-to-type - then wider spacing (or blossom bagging) might be prudent. To a lesser degree, spacing even depends upon variety, since some beans seem to be more prone to crossing (Goose for one).

Wow, different varieties even -- that seems complex. I think I'll just stick to recommended spacings -- it's doable in our garden, just will require a bit of planning. And I'll only do one tepary variety -- or maybe two. Thanks for the detailed advice!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

That's a tragedy that they all came back purple; wonder what happened there. I didn't have the breadth of colours I'd hoped for -- there were some jade ones that never produced, and an ugly wrinkly gray one -- but in general I'm happy. I've segregated the colours I didn't have enough of so I can grow more of them and less of the others.

I didn't get them from Simcox (just learned about his work this year through Russ' website), but from Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds. His website doesn't list where he got them from But I have seen photos in other catalogues and though, "whoa, that's not the same beans I grew." Probably just so much variation in the landrace.

I wonder if they worked so well for me because of my climate? I don't know if Uganda is hot/wet or hot/dry, but if the latter, then I'm in the perfect place for them. Especially last year with peak temps of 46C/115F.

Fort Portal, Uganda is actually quite odd, climatically. It's more or less ON the Equator, so the days and nights are more or less equal in terms of length year round. On the other hand, it's also very high up, so the temperatures are actually quite cool. The only other place I can think of that has a climate like it is probably somewhere in the Andes (another zone of problematic plants.)

For the Jade ones, just get yourself some Fort Portal Jade, that's more or less the same thing (in fact hidden somewhere in my Bantu population is possibly a Fort Portal Jade off type that was purple instead of green.

When I got my initial package there was a mustard colored one that looked interesting, but it didn't come up.

Actually the odd thing is that more or less the same color thing happened when I grew another Joe Simcox bean, Fort Portal Mixed (which, despite it's name, is nothing like Fort Portal Jade) Lots of colors went in, only purple came back. Or why, when I started sharing it around on the site, I re-named it Fort Portal Violet.

And conversely, when I grew Mottled Grey (yet another Simcox), which was supposed to be one variable type of bean, every color came back as the same as the one that was planted (so it was actually a landrace, not a single bean type.) Ones that looked like Fort Portal Violet came back as Fort Portal Violet (they even had Violet's odd trait of having heavy purple mottling on the cotyledons when the plants were seedlings.). The mottled grey ones (which resembled another African bean called Pebblestone), remained as they were (speckled seed[ initially purple on white, turning to black on tan after a couple of years of storage.] no cotyledon markings.) The off type I called Night Sky (mostly purple with a few white specks) came true, and the few really off types (a small greyish tan bean and a small maroon one, which didn't even have the same flower coloring as the rest.) also were true to type.

 

[Artorius]

Hello folks! Just thought I'd post an introductory message here while I wait in eager anticipation of the 2022 thread. I've been growing and saving beans for about seven years, and last year I developed an unhealthy obsession with beautiful and unique beans. To my existing collection of Tiger Eye, Orca, True Cranberry, and Kenn Early, I've added Ojo de Cabra, Beefy Resilient Grex, Bantu, Nez Perce, Rockwell, and Chester Skunk.

View attachment 46833 View attachment 46834

left: all beans save Bantu, also showing an unnamed scarlet runner and Hannan Popbean
right: Bantu, with some weird wrinkly gray off-types that I'm choosing not to replant

I live in south central BC, Canada, where the summer is short, hot, and dry. We have sandy soil that demands a lot of water. Some of the late beans (like Ojo de Cabra) only barely dry down by the time the October frosts come. But, on the plus side, there are little to no fungal pests!

I'm loving reading through the conversation (though I haven't gone through all 203 pages ). @heirloomgal I especially loved your story about the flock of kids giving up their hide-and-go-seek game to shell and play with beans with you -- that resonates so much with my experience too. My kids always end up getting caught up in the gravitational pull whenever I start shelling beans. So fascinating. Apparently kids have long attention spans and don't need iPads; who knew?!

Anyhow, looking forward to joining this little group! I've created a (very long) short list of beans I want to grow out, and I have to confess my ambition exceeds my growing space -- at least if I want to observe a decent isolation distance. For home growing and eating, I just jam them all into one row, but Canada's seed saving network recommends 20 ft for P vulgaris and 0.3 mi for P coccineus and P acutifolius for ensuring clean genetic lines; what do you all do?

Hello from Poland!

I'll plant Ugandan Bantu this year and see what I get in the fall. I'm also planning other multicolors like Dakota Bumble, Thousand To One from Terra Edibles and again Beefy Resilient Grex. Will be interesting.