2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[flowerbug]

Oh the daze of old back tines...

maybe that's what that New Year's eve or Christmas song was about? Old Long Tines? I never really understood the words anyways. Auld Lang Syne? no, i guess not, i see it's a Scottish song. oh, well, so much for that theory...

 

[flowerbug]

i just finished going through and removing the stickers from the Purple Dove eating beans. when i'm shelling out the first and earliest harvest i'm always taking seeds to replant as much as possible from the pods where the beans just come out without stickers. all these 2nd harvest beans i only select particularly odd beans for replanting purposes and the rest are all for eating. i had a gallon bag almost full of them Wednesday and now they are all gone through and ready for cooking some day.

now i can finish off shelling out the two boxes i have left of Purple Dove and whatever else might be in there (a few odd pods from some other plants that were in those rows).

and if it turns out i have no more beans to pick out in the gardens that are in good enough condition that might be it for bean shelling season.

still some sorting to do.

 

[heirloomgal]

I saw a most surprising bean growing thing. One of the young fellas on the seed exchange also has his own little online seed company. He grows & sells a number of beans. I was shocked when I read that he doesn't water them. Ever!

Is that possible!? He lives only a couple hours south of me!

 

[flowerbug]

I saw a most surprising bean growing thing. One of the young fellas on the seed exchange also has his own little online seed company. He grows & sells a number of beans. I was shocked when I read that he doesn't water them. Ever!

Is that possible!? He lives only a couple hours south of me!

perhaps he has a naturally good place for gardening with organic matter in the soil and perhaps an artesian spring water source? i dunno. i do know that for us, even as much water as we have going by our property there would have been very little harvest this summer without watering from the well. we had way too long of a few dry spells.

without seeing the garden and being there all summer i'd say he might be pulling a bit of leg there... (i.e. telling a taller tale - which now makes sense of that phrase to me)...

 

[ducks4you]

It is Very possible, that is, no watering.
You know, we study up and don't put our beds in low lying areas that flood. Not everybody is that careful.
2021 was a wet year here. I planted 13 potatoes just west of the garage and they all rotted, except for 2.
2022 would have been a good year to plant them in the same place.
Years ago I found a rotting sweet pepper in the fridge. I put it out in my garden and had loads of little sprouts. Had I amended the soil I would have had lots of plants, but it was mostly clay, and they all died.
I hear newbies brag about things like "free sweet pepper seeds from their purchased store bought peppers," and "I never have to water anything," as if gardening isn't hard work.
It's dumb luck.
If you need to feed yourself from some things that you plant, you would be foolish to believe that there is a type of vegetable that behaves like a sedum.
Even the privets that I bought, plants that are supposed to be super hardy. I didn't take good care of them and 5/10 died. My potting/watering was irregular, and these plants are supposed to be invasive. It is recommended that I prune blooms off so that I don't end up with a forest of them.
There is a farm property that sits just north of a stream that will often overflow with heavy rains. There are years where the stream overflows most of the property at Just the right time, and they get a terrific harvest. There are years where it floods out their planting and they have to RE plant...late. Not so great harvest.
They gamble with the weather.
NOTE: I should add that this year, a drought year, I heavily watered my tomatoes for 3 weeks. I buried them deeply and they put down good roots. I hardly had to water them, but I did the sweat equity. I should have mulched them better.

 

[jbosmith]

I saw a most surprising bean growing thing. One of the young fellas on the seed exchange also has his own little online seed company. He grows & sells a number of beans. I was shocked when I read that he doesn't water them. Ever!

Is that possible!? He lives only a couple hours south of me!

Google says I get about twice as much rain per year as you, but July and August were super dry this year and I still never watered. Yields were down some but otherwise things did fine. I mulch heavily after planting, keep the soil wet around seedlings, but otherwise don't worry about it. I don't think it's a direct correlation, but in general I assume that the plants are ok (even if not living their ideal) as long as there are still worms near the surface.

 

[Jack Holloway]

Even the privets that I bought, plants that are supposed to be super hardy. I didn't take good care of them and 5/10 died. My potting/watering was irregular, and these plants are supposed to be invasive. It is recommended that I prune blooms off so that I don't end up with a forest of them.

If these are the ones I'm thinking of, the adult plants smell like a cat sprayed everywhere. Very strongly. Very, very strongly. If you or others start noticing the smell, the privets are to blame. I always rip them out, when I find them on my property.

 

[heirloomgal]

Google says I get about twice as much rain per year as you, but July and August were super dry this year and I still never watered. Yields were down some but otherwise things did fine. I mulch heavily after planting, keep the soil wet around seedlings, but otherwise don't worry about it. I don't think it's a direct correlation, but in general I assume that the plants are ok (even if not living their ideal) as long as there are still worms near the surface.

I didn't know that's possible! And your seeds look very well filled out too, so that's kinda amazing. Twice as much water; I'm surprised, I thought we'd be about the same.

Oh, how much less work that would be to not water.... Somehow, I don't think my climate would let me get away with that though. And I'm too chicken to try.

 

[flowerbug]

i did get out a few minutes ago to pick a box top of Victoria Brown Eyes and from what i could tell they're in good condition. i was wondering if they were even going to finish at all let alone dry down on the plants ok, but there were enough pods that i should have enough seeds to replant and also have some for giving out.

so far they are one of the few larger beans that's been more consistent here in being able to grow and finish.

 

[jbosmith]

I didn't know that's possible! And your seeds look very well filled out too, so that's kinda amazing. Twice as much water; I'm surprised, I thought we'd be about the same.

Oh, how much less work that would be to not water.... Somehow, I don't think my climate would let me get away with that though. And I'm too chicken to try.

Our climate is essentially a cold version of Seattle. Oddly that never makes it to the marketing brochures...

We average around 3 inches of rain a month, the problem being that once you get away from the weather charts we end up getting no rain for six weeks and then 3 inches in a day. We got around 11 inches in a 30 day period starting in early September this year.

I use a crazy amount of spoiled hay because I hate weeding. It's a great resource that I recognize not everyone has easy access to so I feel lucky. Most of mine shows up in thousand pound fermented round bales and I drag it's moldy, stanky bulk into my gardens an armload at a time. It's great for water retention!