2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

try Venda sometime. that one (and I think it was Improved Golden Wax) have been pretty tough to shell once they are dried. guess what I picked the other day? about half a box of completely dried Venda pods. going to save those for mid-winter exercise. there's some others through the years that have been magnificently difficult to shell once dried. i tend to not grow many of them again as i don't want those genes spreading into my other plantings... instead Purple Dove are the main plantings i'm doing because i do want those genes to spread and give me some things to work with that are more along the lines of paper thin pods and easy to shell along with all the other positive traits.

in other bean news from the gardens here i'm still waiting for one of the other Robert Lobitz beans to finish up in my comparison grow outs, but with chances of frost tonight and perhaps tomorrow night too (not sure yet these are just false chances or going to happen) i may not get a harvest from them that is much of anything. they've gone long season and the pods are there but i don't think i've seen any seeds in them that are fully formed or even well formed. the other three beans i planted in that same garden have been harvested and did mostly ok in comparison.

the list of RL beans grown this season were:

Atwater
Blooming Prairie
Chaska Purple
Delano
Koronis Three Islands
Purple Rose Creek
Viola

Chaska Purple is for sure a longer season bean than Blooming Prairie, Delano, Purple Rose Creek, Purple Dove, Koronis or Viola. Atwater i'm not sure about yet but i think that's also a longer season bean.

it doesn't look like i'll have much of a lima bean harvest either (the pods don't have much in them yet of developed beans even as shellies) just got planted too late and the weather wasn't what they wanted along with being nibbled on by deer. the pods may fill if we get another few weeks of nice weather but i think the frosts will shut them down sooner. ah well, plenty of other beans... diversity in planting always helps me out in the end...

Thanks for the suggestion @flowerbug I'm always up or a bean challenge. Is it pretty? @Bluejay77 tempted me last year with the suggestion of Petite Gris due to its nasty pods....I think I'm going to try it in 2023.

 

[flowerbug]

Thanks for the suggestion @flowerbug I'm always up or a bean challenge. Is it pretty? @Bluejay77 tempted me last year with the suggestion of Petite Gris due to its nasty pods....I think I'm going to try it in 2023.

it's a white bean (i'm normally not much of a white bean grower), bush habit and among the slender pods and for me in the types and shapes of beans i normally have a difficult bean to get seeds from in general. so when i found Venda was actually edible and seemed to be a more reliable seed provider i wanted to do another grow out this year to see how many seeds i could get along with determining how well it would do in yet another garden. it seems to have done ok. aside from the difficult shelling it might be a keeper. if it crosses with something else then there's a chance it will be an improvement of some kind for the gardens so we'll see how it goes.

 

[heirloomgal]

Snap happy evening as the family was watching Xena Warrior Princess

Just lovin' on all my new beans.

Holy. Though the quantity was not fab, the seed quality was good. One of my fave bean stories of all time with this one.

Kartoffelbohne, I heart you. So. Many. Beans.

Took SO MANY tries to get a picture of this bean where it didn't look seasick, or like it had a bad flu. That said, the production for this bean was great despite that it went in mostly as seed. I don't remember if this is what it's supposed to look like? Seed quality was not quite as perfect as I aim for, but it isn't terrible either. It could just be the beans colours. Ruzova Kravicka.

Too bad the picture doesn't represent. This bean isn't black, it's burgundy. It's also quite large, with the hardest big pods I've ever come across. Brick hard, though they crack open well if super dry when squeezed hard. Dusslinger Backerschurze, which I think means Butcher's Apron. Modest producer.

Oooh baby! Kroatische Strangenbohne. A wonder bean indeed. Love it, and production was excellent for direct seeded, part shade and early frost.

Lilascheke. 3rd time around and this is the best seed quality I've had yet, though they aren't uniformly perfect. But still, pretty good. Jimi Hendrix level of purple.

Seda Kravicka. A workhorse, remarkable production. Interestingly, the seed coat colour drifts from dark, grey-beige to navy. This could be a development related phenomenon since the scant navy seeds are of a lesser quality I find. Some of the more beige seeds have a faint blue on the edge too. Very easy to shell.

Hoj (slash over the o) Princesse. Makes purple crescent pods. Forget the background for this one at the moment.

Peruano.

 

[Decoy1]

What a pretty bean! It looks rather similar to Steirische Kirschbohne (Styrian Cherry Bean).

Searching on "Astrid" wasn't very helpful as far as bean varieties go, unfortunately. Please let us know if you learn more about this bean!

Thank you, Zeedman and Meadow, for your thoughts on Astrid. My donor has now said that they came from Deaflora. I confess to having doubts as Deaflora don’t carry them at the moment, and I think there would be internet references if they’d offered them in the recent past.

I agree they do have a kirschbohne look to them.

 

[meadow]

Thank you, Zeedman and Meadow, for your thoughts on Astrid. My donor has now said that they came from Deaflora. I confess to having doubts as Deaflora don’t carry them at the moment, and I think there would be internet references if they’d offered them in the recent past.

I agree they do have a kirschbohne look to them.

I looked at archived Deaflora a little bit using the Wayback Machine and didn't see it. There is a French bean named Astrid (that I found reference to somewhere else but no photo or other information). eta: and with those pods, there is no way it could be the same bean. hmm. or is there? I need coffee or something, I've made a bazillion edits to this. lol

 

[Decoy1]

I looked at archived Deaflora a little bit using the Wayback Machine and didn't see it. There is a French bean named Astrid (that I found reference to somewhere else but no photo or other information). eta: and with those pods, there is no way it could be the same bean. hmm. or is there? I need coffee or something, I've made a bazillion edits to this. lol

Thank you very much for your efforts and for searching using the Wayback Machine which I hadn't encountered before.

I'll just have to enjoy them for what they are - but it's always much more satisfying to know a bit about where a bean came from. But in the meantime I hope you felt better after your coffee!

 

[heirloomgal]

@Bluejay77 I was browsing The Seed Detective website in the UK, and your Bluejay bean is the first one on the dwarf list!

I don't quite understand the bean designations in the UK? Dwarf varieties and French runner beans are the two categories. I'm thinking these are bushes and poles?

 

[flowerbug]

@Bluejay77 I was browsing The Seed Detective website in the UK, and your Bluejay bean is the first one on the dwarf list!

I don't quite understand the bean designations in the UK? Dwarf varieties and French runner beans are the two categories. I'm thinking these are bushes and poles?

i've not wandered much overseas in bean looking so i've not heard those terms before.

 

[flowerbug]

i shelled out half of the Venda beans this morning waiting for the day to warm up enough and also could not get the internet back until later. which meant i really needed to do something other than sit here and wait. so i got some of them done instead. looks like a fair number of good quality seeds so i can give some of them away.

 

[heirloomgal]

Did a couple more tallies.

Bounty Hunter, semi runner, 12 plants.

Fissole Rassacher, pole, 4 plants.

Giant Nilgiri, pole, 3-4 plants. Big beans.

Quedlinberger Speck, pole, 3-4 plants.

All the bush beans are finally shelled. And most of the pods are off most of the birch poles; there's a few stragglers, all direct seeded ones. Been taking those poles into the carport at night and back out to sun every morning. Can't wait for that to be done!