2023 Little Easy Bean Network - Beans Beyond The Colors Of A Rainbow

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal I was just out harvesting my Graines de Cafe that I bought from you in the spring. (Down to zero tonight) I planted them a bit late so I wasn’t expecting a lot but we picked almost 7lbs of pods! Not all are mature enough, so I’ll try some as a shelly. But they survived a light frost without damage and they will ripen off in the pod indoors (I brought in a test bean last week).

I’m so excited about them-they are so beautiful!

Awesome! I'm glad they did so well for you! Graines de Cafe is such a great bean, I found it really productive too. It's beauty is the icing on the cake!

 

[heirloomgal]

The two days of frost/near frost has passed thank goodness and we are back to safe ground. The pole beans got through with no damage at all. I even watered them a bit today because the bed has gotten dry and I think the beans still have enough green in them to need some moisture to finish in good condition. I have a feeling I'll get almost all of them to finish out there. We have a solid two weeks of great weather ahead in the low 70's with no nightly frost risk and that can do a lot.

All the nightly bean shelling feels like Christmas!

Gonna take some pics tonight so hopefully can post some photos later.

 

[heirloomgal]

Some network bean pics and a few others.

Schwarze Witwe
I like the odd name 'Black Widow'. I think that it might even be the reason I wanted to grow this network bean.

Polish Pea
This may just be the teeniest bean I've ever grown. It's SUPER small, even smaller than a navy bean. I did grow it in a planter so I'm not sure if that had an effect, all the other beans I grew in planters were normal size. Nice and easy to shell, thin blonde pods. A short semi-runner.

Oh. My. Gosh. This network bean Kitoba. I just can't believe all the great attributes this bean has. I can't quite get the color right in the photos yet, but I'm going to keep trying. Too much grey in the shots which is misleading, this is a very raspberry lavender shade of bean. It's a real stunner. I can't wait to get a weight for these, 4 plants produced a lot of top quality beans. The pods are rock hard, which I like as that quality gives resilience to both the seeds and the pods.

Hopi Pink
I only just shelled the first few pods but I found 2 of the 3 pink expressions this bean has. I got it from Mandy's Greenhouse. I like the larger light pink ones, the darker ones are a bit ho-hum. I'm going to select only for the fatter pink beans in the future. I'll be curious to see if the 3rd color expression is in the pods.

Netowrk bean Van Gogh's Olive. This is another one that is really hard to get a good picture of with my device. The bean is really sensitive to the light and background and different color tones in the seedcoats get highlighted with different lighting. So I'm posting a few pics to try and give @Bluejay77 's bean its justice. This is another magnificently coloured bean.

The lavender tones.

The bluish green tones.

Network bean Paul Bunyan Giant. All the dried pods so far have been 12 inches long, or very close to it. This bean seed reminds me a little of Brejo, it's got curved bean seeds. This is a real strange one! The name fits it well.

Youdou #1
This is actually a pretty seed, but it has ghastly orange rings around the eye and there is a rusty streak on the back of the seeds. This makes them look a bit dirty or something. But the actual seedcoat is very different, in the flesh the seeds actually have the illusion of small baby blue flecks. They aren't quite this dark in reality, it's the lightning.

Network bean Lazy Wife Red. This is a wonderful bean variety. I didn't know what to expect with this one, and it hadn't been grown since 2014. The plants were vigorous & productive, the pods were early, long and well formed. Slight curve. Easy to shell too. And the bean seeds are on the larger side with sort of speckled fleshy pink seedcoats. Excellent quality all around. So happy to have this one in my collection now! I wonder if I can eat it as a snap bean since it's called a lazy wife?

Bay of Fundy Amethyst. It's wild how much this bean is like 'Candy' - only in purple. Even the shape tendencies in the seeds of Candy are carried over into this bean, as well as the patterns. The plants of BOFA were really overwhelmed by the huge Black Panther soybeans in the next row, which I didn't know would become so large. So there was significant mold issues, but I must say they still produced pretty well for the challenges it had and the seed quality is good.

 

[flowerbug]

...Oh. My. Gosh. This network bean Kitoba. I just can't believe all the great attributes this bean has. I can't quite get the color right in the photos yet, but I'm going to keep trying. Too much grey in the shots which is misleading, this is a very raspberry lavender shade of bean. It's a real stunner. I can't wait to get a weight for these, 4 plants produced a lot of top quality beans. The pods are rock hard, which I like as that quality gives resilience to both the seeds and the pods.View attachment 60741

i'm assuming this is a pole bean for you?

i'm thinking this is likely a relative of the lavender bush bean i've been growing for a few years. i'm seeing a lot of variations in the colors of mine too and also a pole habit. i think this year i've got some that may have crossed with something else as they're a bluish green color. very pretty beans!

shells very hard like you mention.

other pics and comments in that post appreciated and enjoyed.

 

[flowerbug]

...
All the nightly bean shelling feels like Christmas!

it really does! i was commenting on that the other day to a friend at the library as i was showing her some of the beans i was going to be sorting.

 

[heirloomgal]

i'm assuming this is a pole bean for you?

i'm thinking this is likely a relative of the lavender bush bean i've been growing for a few years. i'm seeing a lot of variations in the colors of mine too and also a pole habit. i think this year i've got some that may have crossed with something else as they're a bluish green color. very pretty beans!

shells very hard like you mention.

other pics and comments in that post appreciated and enjoyed.

Yeah, it's a pole @flowerbug. I've grown Lavender Bush as well, and there is indeed some color overlap between them though I'd say Kitoba is more cheery, a little more raspberry toned. I'm not sure they're related though since @Bluejay77 's website says one came from Germany and one from Kenya.

 

[heirloomgal]

More shelling today and lots of yard clean up since the bush bean bed is now empty. Seems like summer passed in a wink. Only about a dozen pole bean varieties left in the ground now. I’ve kept every dried vine, stem and empty pod and stuffed everything into paper Costco yard and leaf bags. I’m on my 7th bag. I consider all that bean material pure gold fertility. When I mulch and spread it this time I‘m going to choose special locations.

Finally got to shelling the Hawkesbury Wonder bush beans. It was only a 5 foot row, but the harvest was pretty good. Nice hard pods.

Mrs. Kahl bush bean. I didn’t find this variety very productive, but I may have overcrowded the row when I replanted the empty spots. The bushes were rather small it seemed. But the seeds do have a charm about them. Next time I plant these I’ll give them 1 foot spacings, I think they need it.

Pole bean Purple Kingsessing. The plant is quite attractive, the way the clusters of deep purple pods dangle out from the vines. The seeds are meh, and I’ve not yet seen a photo of this bean where the seeds were all smooth and filled out nicely. I suspect this variety may not make those kinds of beans, might be an old variety or maybe it needed a different spot. The blackish non-descript seeds are tiny too. We’ll see what the rest of the pods contain as most of them are still drying down outside. I’m happy to have this one though since I’ve been wanting it for years.

Canon City from @Zeedman with the nuclear hot pink monster pods! Seeds are large for sure. Second photo is of them next to Polish Pea beans. I think you could fill a Canon City with about 5 or 6 Polish beans, lol.

 

[flowerbug]

More shelling today and lots of yard clean up since the bush bean bed is now empty. Seems like summer passed in a wink. Only about a dozen pole bean varieties left in the ground now. I’ve kept every dried vine, stem and empty pod and stuffed everything into paper Costco yard and leaf bags. I’m on my 7th bag. I consider all that bean material pure gold fertility. When I mulch and spread it this time I‘m going to choose special locations.

when i have a lot of bean pods from shelling i try to get them buried or turned into the gardens in the fall so that the worms have all fall/winter/spring to work on them and turn them into future plant food. this also helps get rid of the fungal residue on the pods so that they aren't so prevalent when i plant the next spring. the sunshine on the surface of the garden soil helps kill off fungal spores.

Mrs. Kahl bush bean. I didn’t find this variety very productive, but I may have overcrowded the row when I replanted the empty spots. The bushes were rather small it seemed. But the seeds do have a charm about them. Next time I plant these I’ll give them 1 foot spacings, I think they need it.View attachment 60758

that looks like Bomba and a few others of that shape that i've tried to grow with limited results. i think it may be another bean similar to Fort Portal Jade where hot and dry just isn't the conditions it likes and a more consistent cooler temperature seems to go better. normally i had the best pods in the beginning and end of the season which often meant the first pod beans were not finished and would wither and the later beans would also not have a long enough season. i gave up on those types other than doing some potted FPJs because i wanted those seeds refreshed but i did end up bringing the plants in when it got too hot outside.

i should note that growing a long list of varieties several seasons in similar soils and conditions does give you good idea which ones are worth using as bulk bean plantings.

two of my most consistent performers of the past five years have been Yellow Eye and Purple Dove. this year in spite of the hot weather and drought to start with and the plentiful rain to finish i think i'm seeing some of the more larger Purple Dove beans than i've harvested before. i'm not done picking the last planting of those yet, but i do notice how nice the beans have been looking in what i've shelled so far.

 

[Blue-Jay]

We had over 3 inches of rain this past week. I visited Bean Acres yesterday behind my deer fence and wow the soil was so wet and dark. It really stuck to my running shoes. I went around and pulled up some beans that grew like bush beans and hung them off the soil to dry. The P. Vulgaris pole beans that grew well including the limas I went around both raised beds and cut the vines at the soil line. The pods are pregnant with seed and it's time for them to give birth to dry seed.

I've had another project going the last couple of weeks. I bought a new cordless Black and Decker trimmer and thought it was time to clean up the fence lines and the base of the raised beds all the way around and make the place look a lot more professional. Took some photos and include two before and after's.

At the west gate looking east.

On the outside of the west fence.

North side looking south between both west and east raised beds.

This season, weeds and grass growing along the base of the raised bed and along the fence line.

This season after the cleanup.

2021 photo along the east edge of the west raised bed.

2023 Same place. Photo along the east edge of the west raised bed.

 

[Artorius]

Yesterday I harvested the first dry pods of Rassacher Kipfler, Tuvagliedda Marrone and Socere e Nore della Majella.

Rassacher Kipfler from Steiermark, Austria - ripe pods...



... and some less ripe ones.



I'm still waiting for some later varieties such as Hallados Grandos, Murusieddu Rosso, Nasieddu Viola, Floreta or Ooty India 1.

And here are interesting Awahsohs Bear pods, long and thick. They still have some time to mature.



According to the latest forecasts, there are still about 20 days until the first frost. I think I will be able to collect some nice seeds.