2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[Blue-Jay]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you under a tornado warning at one point? Any damage to your gardens?

Yes yesterday my phone screamed at me and put up a full page tornado warning about 4 pm and one of the Chicago TV stations said radar picked up some rotation a little bit southwest of where I live south of a town called Heartland which is a zipcode northwest of Woodstock, Ill. The weatherman on the channel said cloud tops were about 55,000 feet in this rotation area. Later they said the rotation became stronger more pronounced, but it stayed in the same area not having moved. Nothing came of it at all. So glad to say. There was this constant very loud roaring rumbling thunder all during the late afternoon up to about 8 pm yesterday. Lots of lighting. The weather seemed to settle down after 10 pm last night. Was no hail or wind damage when I got up in the morning. I blew up an air bed and went down into the basement and went to bed about 9:15 pm which is about an hour sooner than my usual. I woke up around 11:15 and everything seemed quiet so I picked up my pillow and comforter and came back upstairs and went to bed in my bedroom. It probably rained off an on most of the night to fill my rain gauge to the 2.5 inch mark (6.33 cm).

At my Bean Acres offsite where my deer fence is located and all my bush beans are growing in those two large raised beds 9 miles to the southwest of me. The fellow there said 4th of July and all night long gave him 3.5 inches of rain (8.90 cm) and when he got up this morning his rain gauge showed another 3 inches (7.60 cm).

 

[Boilergardener]

Yes yesterday my phone screamed at me and put up a full page tornado warning about 4 pm and one of the Chicago TV stations said radar picked up some rotation a little bit southwest of where I live south of a town called Heartland which is a zipcode northwest of Woodstock, Ill. The weatherman on the channel said cloud tops were about 55,000 feet in this rotation area. Later they said the rotation became stronger more pronounced, but it stayed in the same area not having moved. Nothing came of it at all. So glad to say. There was this constant very loud roaring rumbling thunder all during the late afternoon up to about 8 pm yesterday. Lots of lighting. The weather seemed to settle down after 10 pm last night. Was no hail or wind damage when I got up in the morning. I blew up an air bed and went down into the basement and went to bed about 9:15 pm which is about an hour sooner than my usual. I woke up around 11:15 and everything seemed quiet so I picked up my pillow and comforter and came back upstairs and went to bed in my bedroom. It probably rained off an on most of the night to fill my rain gauge to the 2.5 inch mark (6.33 cm).

At my Bean Acres offsite where my deer fence is located and all my bush beans are growing in those two large raised beds 9 miles to the southwest of me. The fellow there said 4th of July and all night long gave him 3.5 inches of rain (8.90 cm) and when he got up this morning his rain gauge showed another 3 inches (7.60 cm).

I think this same weather system went through indiana and t had alot of rain also. Im at 5 inches for the past two days with storms coming tonight. Its horribly humid and the bush beans are leaning pretty bad and getting lots of soil splash up on them im assuming will eventually cause brown spot or worse

 

[heirloomgal]

You did very well with most of the network beans last year. I think you have your technique of prestarting plants then transplanting them to the garden when it's warm enough down very well. You know the length of your growing season and turned in really beautiful seed last year. I think there were a couple of varieties you wanted to regrow again this year as you weren't satisfied with 2021's results. So how is Greek Cypriot, Nona Agnes, and Rose Creek Beauty doing this year. Am I accurate on naming those three?

Speaking of getting a good soaking rain. The U.S. Drought Monitor still has this county on abnormally dry and the dryness of late as even expanded again. July 4th late evening and through the early morning hours of July 5th we got 2inches of rain (5 cm) then again the evening of July 5th and through the early morning hours of July 6th another 2.5 inches of rain (6.33 cm). It will be interesting to see what the U.S. drought monitor reports tomorrow for our area Thursday morning at 7 in the morning.

Wow, what a memory! Yes, last year a vole killed my Greek Cypriot beans, and I didn't like the quality of the Rose Creek seeds so I'm growing them both again. Nona Agnes was on the inventory sheet (and it was one I requested) but there were no beans or envelopes for that one in my box, so I scratched it off the inventory list when I mailed the rest of the beans back last fall. I did get some this year though from Bronwen, so I may grow it next year. It looks similar to Meerbarbe I find, especially the colour.

Here is GC -

And RC -

Remember last year the Bountiful beans all turned out to be semi-runners when they were supposed to be bushes? I replanted those seeds again just to see what I'd get and my little experiment showed them all to be growing the same again. I thought they might revert but they didn't.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Remember last year the Bountiful beans all turned out to be semi-runners when they were supposed to be bushes? I replanted those seeds again just to see what I'd get and my little experiment showed them all to be growing the same again. I thought they might revert but they didn't.

I remember you saying last year that all your "Bountiful" planting was growing runners. I planted the Bountiful last year also from the same seed year that I had sent you and every single one of my plants grew as a true bush as they should have. What are the odds that if a seed is crossed with some different variety that every single seed I sent out would wind up being crossed?

You should try to cook up a couple of the Bountiful runner pods this year and see if they are stringless. If they are stringless a chance to name a new snap bean.

 

[flowerbug]

we've not had more than a half inch of rain for several weeks now. i've been watering regularly.

i've had perfect stands of bush bean plants get hammered by heavy rains knocking them down and even breaking some plants in half. if you only have a few plants you can try to splint them right away and they may heal up, but often i just leave them alone because they'll keep growing and moving them might break them off completely.

some years are drier than others during peak harvest time. sometimes i've been lucky enough to do most of the harvest and have really nice pods with little spotting and other times i've had to pick in the rains and dry the pods down inside (making sure to keep an eye on the pods and rotating them so they're not rotting on the box tops/flats).

 

[flowerbug]

my potted beans are doing ok, but they sure do not like the soil those pots contain. in spite of that there are pods forming on the Fort Portal Jade plants and more pods than i've ever seen on a plant grown in any of my gardens. so that is clearly pointing to a combination of soil and climate here just being too rough for them to thrive. when babied and brought inside on the hot days they're doing fine. the other two beans in the pots are seeming to do ok too, but i'm getting a lot of yellowing now on lower leaves due to lack of light and repeated hot days where i couldn't put them back outside. today they're going back outside. they're not easy to carry/move so that's now something that reminds me of why i don't do such things. the things we do for our beanie babies.

 

[jbosmith]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you under a tornado warning at one point? Any damage to your gardens?

Speaking of getting a good soaking rain. The U.S. Drought Monitor still has this county on abnormally dry and the dryness of late as even expanded again. July 4th late evening and through the early morning hours of July 5th we got 2inches of rain (5 cm) then again the evening of July 5th and through the early morning hours of July 6th another 2.5 inches of rain (6.33 cm). It will be interesting to see what the U.S. drought monitor reports tomorrow for our area Thursday morning at 7 in the morning.

Y'all know that there are places where 'preparing for the weather' involves a jacket and not a bunker, right?

 

[Boilergardener]

we've not had more than a half inch of rain for several weeks now. i've been watering regularly.

i've had perfect stands of bush bean plants get hammered by heavy rains knocking them down and even breaking some plants in half. if you only have a few plants you can try to splint them right away and they may heal up, but often i just leave them alone because they'll keep growing and moving them might break them off completely.

some years are drier than others during peak harvest time. sometimes i've been lucky enough to do most of the harvest and have really nice pods with little spotting and other times i've had to pick in the rains and dry the pods down inside (making sure to keep an eye on the pods and rotating them so they're not rotting on the box tops/flats).

Thanks, good ideas, i have some propped up off the soil with some baling twine tied to posts, i hope it helps!

 

[heirloomgal]

I remember you saying last year that all your "Bountiful" planting was growing runners. I planted the Bountiful last year also from the same seed year that I had sent you and every single one of my plants grew as a true bush as they should have. What are the odds that if a seed is crossed with some different variety that every single seed I sent out would wind up being crossed?

You should try to cook up a couple of the Bountiful runner pods this year and see if they are stringless. If they are stringless a chance to name a new snap bean.

Really!? Oh, if I get some nice beans for cooking from them, I already have a name - 'Bounty Hunter'! Having grown up with a high level of awareness of Charles Bronson, Sly Stallone, Chuck Norris, Dolph Lundgren the theme sort of stays with you.

 

[meadow]

My bean farmer friend in Twin Falls, Idaho sent me several beans recently. He seems to have all sorts of contacts. He got some new breeding work from the University of California at Davis. They have done some work with Good Mother Stallards. They have transferred an I gene into the bean. The I gene makes a bean resistant to BCMV. They have maintained the GMS seed coat color and pattern. The seeds don't seem as round but more oval. UC of Davis also got a hold of a strain of Good Mother Stallard from a seed saver that is already resistant to the Mosaic Virus. They decided not to fiddle with that bean but leave it alone as it is.

@Bluejay77 I am interested in growing the naturally resistant Good Mother Stallard. Do you have any information on the seed saver that has this seed, or know how one might go about acquiring some?