2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[flowerbug]

Fort Portal Jade harvest (so far, but i'm not sure i'll get more now or not because the last plant i have alive is looking pretty sad).

from 4 seeds to 22 seeds is a nice increase for these, but i'm not too likely to grow these again here as they required pots and being kept out of the heat. i just don't have the window space here right now to do more next year. if i can adopt out some of my amaryllis bulbs to free up space by the window i can try again next year with better potting soil and likely get much better results. we'll see what next spring brings.

these seeds look nearly perfect and compared to what i've managed in the past they are perfect.

[edit i found a bean i dropped so the total is 22 now ]

 

[heirloomgal]

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?

Surpringly, root rot is very connected to drought. A bean agronomist told me last year that it it probably the largest cause of reduced yields in their bean fields, which are not irrigated. You could pul it up and check the root and stem for colouration, red usually indicates the presence of root rot. It may have just had weaker genetics. But, voles can be a dickens too! They love bean roots.

 

[Blue-Jay]

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 don't think this fellow traveled to Armenia. He was in his latter years of high school. Maybe I can go find the 2014 thread and there might be the info in there where this fellow got the bean. He was from Lucas, Ohio. His name was Nik Brown.

I found the 2014 thread and Nik went by the screen name TheSeedObesser. We used to call him SeedO for short. Just for the heck of it I went to conversations and wrote a note to him asking where he has obtained the Armenian Giant Black. It's a long shot but if I'm very, very lucky I might get a response from him. I haven't heard from him in 8 years.

 

[jbosmith]

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

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.

I value mine at around $5/lb based on the logic that, if I wasn't growing my own, I'd be buying the local beans that sell for around that much in the bulk bins at the store.

I was in an Aldi last fall that had canned black beans for roughly the price of a single canning jar lid, even before the growing, cooking and processing. I was sputtering for quite a while about that one.

 

[flowerbug]

the bean gardens as they were yesterday, the first picture is of the North Garden which has been repeatedly razed by deer. there's a few bean plants struggling along here or there but i don't know how much production i'll get from them.

this garden was planted after the above garden but you can see it hasn't been raided nearly as much. you can see the Purple Dove beans in the foreground grow very well in comparison to most of the rest of the beans and also the further back you get in the garden the more deer grazing. the scarecrow is cheering them all on.

inside the fence where the beans are safe (and planted sooner) things are doing much better. a lot of flowering happening.

and the last two bean gardens to the south side of the fenced gardens. planted first and second. all sorts of flowering and pods in there.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Technically harvested my first beans yesterday (some Borlottis my mom threw out on the lawn for the birds to eat that managed to sprout grow and produce. Of course the REAL beans won't show up until winter, indoors (I hope).

 

[heirloomgal]

Technically harvested my first beans yesterday (some Borlottis my mom threw out on the lawn for the birds to eat that managed to sprout grow and produce

That's some tough Borlottis!

@flowerbug Your bean garden is kinda gorgeous.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

That's some tough Borlottis!

Not really, My mom threw out a couple BAGS of them (say, 3-4 pounds) and there are maybe six or seven plants. Throw enough of ANY bean out in a pile and SOME of them usually manage to germinate and turn into plants before the birds and other critters get them. The only additional help they got was my mom putting a cage over them so the gardeners wouldn't mow them down.

It's really no different than how I would get my Sky Pointer Cow Pea seed. I never actually PLANTED any of it on purpose (I DID plant some off types from the bags, but none of those ever made it to maturity). It's just that, with SO MANY leftover waste beans being tossed out on the lawn for the animals, it was invariable that some would wind up being picked up and dropped somewhere where the gardeners wouldn't mow over them (like the flower garden). So long as we simply let those alone, many of them eventually flowered and bore seed (it helps that Sky Pointers flower and set at a VERY short height, so they don't have to put on a lot of mass to pull it off, and that their pod trick makes them sort of invisible to the deer that might otherwise want to eat them.)

Same story with the rice beans and the senna that still shows up, though, in that case, anything that is growing NOW is from seed that has lain dormant for a couple of years, as I haven't tossed any new material down in a while.

 

[heirloomgal]

Not really, My mom threw out a couple BAGS of them (say, 3-4 pounds) and there are maybe six or seven plants. Throw enough of ANY bean out in a pile and SOME of them usually manage to germinate and turn into plants before the birds and other critters get them. The only additional help they got was my mom putting a cage over them so the gardeners wouldn't mow them down.

It's really no different than how I would get my Sky Pointer Cow Pea seed. I never actually PLANTED any of it on purpose (I DID plant some off types from the bags, but none of those ever made it to maturity). It's just that, with SO MANY leftover waste beans being tossed out on the lawn for the animals, it was invariable that some would wind up being picked up and dropped somewhere where the gardeners wouldn't mow over them (like the flower garden). So long as we simply let those alone, many of them eventually flowered and bore seed (it helps that Sky Pointers flower and set at a VERY short height, so they don't have to put on a lot of mass to pull it off, and that their pod trick makes them sort of invisible to the deer that might otherwise want to eat them.)

Same story with the rice beans and the senna that still shows up, though, in that case, anything that is growing NOW is from seed that has lain dormant for a couple of years, as I haven't tossed any new material down in a while.

It is rather amazing that some seeds can actually remain in the ground, through various seasons, through both wet and dry, frozen and warm, and STILL remain viable to sprout in the years ahead. That is some trick.

Of course, with junk weeds I don't want - plantain, horsetail - it's another, much less miraculous, story.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

It is rather amazing that some seeds can actually remain in the ground, through various seasons, through both wet and dry, frozen and warm, and STILL remain viable to sprout in the years ahead. That is some trick.

Of course, with junk weeds I don't want - plantain, horsetail - it's another, much less miraculous, story.

You call it a "trick", I call it a natural adaptation from their wild ancestors. In a world where conditions are so variable and unpredictable, having seeds that are all designed to sprout the following year (or, nature help you, as soon as they hit the ground) is a very risky proposition. If next year is bad, ALL your offspring die off. So there is an evolutionary advantage in having progeny that will spout at various times. In general, plants that can get away with recalcitrant seed (seed that can't survive being dried out, and needs to be planted IMMEDIATELY after falling or being picked) tend to be reserved for places like Equatorial Rainforests where the climate can be counted on to be more or less constant year round. That's probably one of the reasons Primary Rainforest is so hard to re-establish once it's been destroyed; anything that had recalcitrant seeds is now totally GONE, and, if you can't replace it with material from somewhere else, it isn't coming back. The only "odd" thing in the rice beans is that a domestic crop still has so much "hard seed" in its makeup, as that is usually one of the first things bred OUT of a domesticated crop (since it raises hell with crop yield predictions and one's ability to rotate crops or switch varieties). Probably the only reason rice beans still have it is that, compared to most domestic crops, they haven't been nearly as heavily bred (there are plenty of places in Asia that grow them and eat them, and they are considered a good way to eke a little extra food out of the rice paddies when they aren't being used for rice (plus, they are considered medicinal) but I can't think of anywhere where they are the DOMINANT kind of food, or even the dominant kind of legume.)

I just wish a few of the volunteer ones turned out to be the "good" kind of rice beans for me, the ones that actually CAN flower and bear seed up here. Pretty much all of what comes up are the "other" kind, the ones that sprout, send up one or two permanent leaves, and then do nothing else until the frosts come and kill it.

And as for the senna I actually CONSIDER that a "junk weed" in my yard. I don't use it medicinally (wouldn't know how), it can't produce seeds up here (in a very long hot season it can flower and make green pods, but those pods can never mature before the cold weather comes.) and it STINKS when you pull it up or mow it down. Even most of the critters won't touch it (which is probably good, since I also don't want to have to spend my time shoveling up masses of animal dung off the yard, plus the odd corpse of the animal that ate too much and literally pooped itself to death.)