2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[Triffid]

Wow and this plant in the photo had developed pods with pretty highly developed seed in them too ! Do you have voles !

I caught one taking a break under a tarp last week
As I pulled the tarp back, apparently invading their privacy, they looked quite shocked and indignant that I would do such a thing. We stared at each other for an eternity before it disappeared behind the compost heap.

I'm certain voles have been stealing the pea seed crop. Though I'm less certain they dug under the beans, just because everything else in the row is fine. Nothing like the damage you described Russ. I'll have to hunt for holes next time I'm at the plot.

@Ridgerunner @flowerbug It could be a fungal issue at the base of the plant, but how likely is that in this drought we're experiencing? No mulch on that bed either. The plants seem firmly rooted in the soil - giving a gentle tug it didn't feel like they could be pulled out easily so I didn't initially consider that the roots or stem had decayed. Also have not watered near the base of the plants, but in channels along the outer edges and centre of the beds. I was hoping they might recover so didn't explore further, but doesn't seem to be the case so I'll dig them up and inspect the roots. I'll water the rest with some added Trichoderma as a precaution. Do you think those few seeds will be able to mature off the vine?

 

[Blue-Jay]

Do you think those few seeds will be able to mature off the vine?

When you pull up those dead plants that have those green pods on them. Try hanging them somewhere undercover away from the weather and let them dry until they are crisp. You might get some growable seed from them. Looking at how swollen those pods are with seed. The seeds at this point are probably mature enough to grow.

 

[Jack Holloway]

Bought them today. Don't know how long the images will stay at the Costco URL, but here is front and back. $25. Five more than the Pinto beans there.

 

[flowerbug]

Bought them today. Don't know how long the images will stay at the Costco URL, but here is front and back. $25. Five more than the Pinto beans there.

any food with substance under $1/lb is a great deal these days. beans are certainly that. hope you enjoy them as much as i would!

 

[flowerbug]

@Triffid my other guess might be vascular collapse due to recent heat wave. i think you said they were at the end of the rows? that is where the worst of the heat stress and evaporative losses would be...

 

[jbosmith]

Bought them today. Don't know how long the images will stay at the Costco URL, but here is front and back. $25. Five more than the Pinto beans there.

I really hate when beans are available for less than $4/lb. It completely skews my sense of the value of my garden. :-D

 

[Jack Holloway]

I really hate when beans are available for less than $4/lb. It completely skews my sense of the value of my garden. :-D

The Pinto beans were $20.?? (I mean 20 dollars and some kind of cents, most likely 95 or 99) for 25 pounds!

 

[flowerbug]

The Pinto beans were $20.?? (I mean 20 dollars and some kind of cents, most likely 95 or 99) for 25 pounds!

no, we can usually get them pretty cheap at the big box stores. i don't recall what the price i've seen recently... let me look... Sams has them for: 12 lbs of Pinto beans for $10.37 12lbs Black Beans $11.98 Wallys World: Pintos 8lbs for $5.98, Black Beans 2lbs $2.57.

if you check some of your ethnic specialty stores they usually have bulk beans for pretty cheap too.

of course if you want certified organic beans that price is usually higher.

 

[flowerbug]

I really hate when beans are available for less than $4/lb. It completely skews my sense of the value of my garden. :-D

do you know Monty Python skits? "Every bean is sacred"... i don't sell them but i value them highly enough that it would be a lot more than $4/lb, especially when you operate at manual scales and thresh each pod by hand one at a time.

 

[heirloomgal]

Bluejay I wonder what kind of steroids network beans Armenian Giant Black and Fissole Rassacher are on! I've never seen pole beans grow this huge, up & outward. Hard to estimate the height, but it must be over 10 to 11 feet. Monster vines, but no pods on Fissole R.! AGB has some though. I went poking around and some bean vines are still only blooming.

@heirloomgal ,
Pole beans develop their first pods near the ground. Then as the plants grow more they develop more pods up the vine higher off the ground. That is normal.

I have not grown Fissole Rassacher so I didn't know that it was a high climber that you descibe. I have grown AGB but my poles are only about a little over two meters or 6 foot 3 inches above the soil line and sometime I will just trim off the top of the vine or sometimes the tops of the vines will just grown back down toward the ground. So I'm not aware how tall some of these varieties can get.

I don't know if you have ever heard my story about when I first acquired AGB from a young fellow in Ohio. he sent me 5 seeds and he didn't trust himself to do a grow out on such pathetically looking seed. I don't remember anymore where he acquired the seeds of this bean. Some of the seed almost didn't look like seed. two of them looked like dried up scabs or something. Three of the seeds were very small and poorly shaped. Almost like when you shell out your beans and find some pods that have produced the tiniest not so well formed seeds near the end of the pod.

I call AGB the miracle bean of 2014. I planted all 5 seeds around a pole and 4 of them emerged from the soil. Three of them died within about another two weeks. So I had only one plant in the grow out and it developed very slowly. Actually by the end of the season after I had obtianed all the dry pods that I was going to get from it. The single plant had only grown about 3 quarters the way up the pole and I had harvested about 150 seeds. I think I sent about 130 of those seeds back to the donor. It was not until 2019 when I planted some of those seeds again that I was able to see the productivity and large pods of AGB. It was the first time I was able to see how it grows more normally. It's a great bean and I'm glad that one single plant in 2014 gave us a start on it.

How wonderful that you helped save this seed variety! And from only 5, and then 1, seed! I love seed stories like this, it's part of why I find seeds so amazing. Do you have any idea where he got the seed? Did he travel to Armenia?

I am having so much fun growing out these awesome beans in your collection @bluejay. I know I'm a giant lame-o but I really love these cool heirlooms! (Aside from the mild but numbing terror I experience intermittently when worrying that voles may show up near my bean beds.)