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

[heirloomgal]

Stabilising the out -crosses sounds like fun. And I take my straw hat to all you serious beanie breeders!

I tip my hat to them too @Beanmad Nanna! It must be kinda wonderful to have a bean to call your own! In Canada, @Bluejay77 's bean is a living legend. It's probably the most famous bean here, aside from Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder. I have a couple crosses I'd love to work with that I've found mostly in network beans I've grown out - one from Bamberger Blaue in particular. I think it'd be really fun to work on a project like that. But at the same time there are so many already established beans that I still want too. (I'm presently working my way through @Bluejay's collection like a Pac-Man) The problem is that there are just too many good beans in existence to remain focused! My thinking is I'll keep adding to my P. vulgaris reserve until I get the mystical 'nudge' that the cache is truly fulfilled. (Will that ever happen tho???) Then I'll start to play. I should replace my profile pic.

 

[Michael Lusk]

It's been a very weird year for my gardening efforts, but I can plainly say that only the network beans get the special "move into the garage" treatment!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Headrick Greasy Cutshort - Pole Greasy. Pods lack the fine fuzz or hairs that most beans have on their pods. The pods look a bit wet or also shinny. Greasy beans are from a whole different culinary culture. Pods are picked when they are swollen with seed but still green. Then destring them. Then boil them in water with bacon fat. I think believe they cook them in that mixture until the water in nearly gone. This bean was grown in my back yard plot where I could water as frequently as I wanted. Beans are smaller than a Navy bean. They produced 17.20 ounces (487 grams)

Holy - Pole Dry - This was another of the beans that struggled this season. Ordinarily a pretty productive bean. I got about 2 tenths of an ounce from them (5.66 grams)


Headrick Greasy Cutshort - Pole Greasy..............Holy - Pole Dry


Headrick Greasy Cutshort Dry Pods.

 

[Branching Out]

When I went to transfer some Royal Burgundy bush bean seeds from their container to a paper envelope I saw a couple of weevil holes on one of the bean seeds. Did that ever get my attention. There were a few bugs lurking below, so I dealt with those and hustled the beans to the freezer for the next week or so. Fortunately these seeds were on a table separate from my other beans, for which I am grateful.

 

[Artorius]

I have never managed to cut such a perfectly round hole without the appropriate tool, and this worm did it with his teeth or something like that. Does anyone else say that man is the most perfect creature on earth?
Are such thoughts a symptom of winter depression?

 

[flowerbug]

I have never managed to cut such a perfectly round hole without the appropriate tool, and this worm did it with his teeth or something like that. Does anyone else say that man is the most perfect creature on earth?

i've always found nature and animals as very interesting and amazing - as a kid ants and plants both really caught my interest and i've never stopped.

Are such thoughts a symptom of winter depression?

as a help consider that in about five weeks we will be at the shortest day of the year and then the days will get longer again and then bean planting season is just around the corner. do you have beans to sort? if you need a fix you can mix some together again and the sort them another time.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I have never managed to cut such a perfectly round hole without the appropriate tool, and this worm did it with his teeth or something like that. Does anyone else say that man is the most perfect creature on earth?
Are such thoughts a symptom of winter depression?

Well, actually, it's the adult weevil that cuts the hole, it matures IN the seed then cuts its way out.

But, as I said, real props probably go to the weevil(s) that did that with a Mucuna benetti seed, where they cut that round cookie cutter hole through a seed coat that several millimeters thick and rock hard.

 

[heirloomgal]

@Bluejay77 the network beans are on the way. I pm'ed you the tracking number. A nice perk to the tracking was that it came with $100 of insurance. I also noticed, and maybe this was there before and I never noticed it, but there is now a 'international fuel charge' of 4.00! I wonder if the day will come that public restrooms will be like old school pay phones, you need to put a coin in with every *call*.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Idaho Marrow - Semi Runner dry. I have grown these on poles but I think one can get more out of them if grown on a hog panel fence. I grew three poles worth of these and probably had about three plants around each pole. This bean was popular in the mid 1800's. Cooked beans create a smooth creamy texture. Harvested 1 pound (453 grams).

Illinois Giant - Pole Lima. You might remember this one from last year. Very productive. The bean started as a cross of Christmas and Dr. Martin limas in the late1980's. From the gardens of Merlyn Niedens of Polo, Illinois. He first listed the bean in the Seed Savers Exchange yearbook in 1992. One of the women in our seed swap circut gave me the bean at the 2020 Central Indiana Seed Swap in Nobelsville, Indiana.


Idaho Marrow - Semi Runner - Dry....................Illinois Giant - Pole Lima

 

[Beanmad Nanna]

I tip my hat to them too @Beanmad Nanna! It must be kinda wonderful to have a bean to call your own! In Canada, @Bluejay77 's bean is a living legend. It's probably the most famous bean here, aside from Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder. I have a couple crosses I'd love to work with that I've found mostly in network beans I've grown out - one from Bamberger Blaue in particular. I think it'd be really fun to work on a project like that. But at the same time there are so many already established beans that I still want too. (I'm presently working my way through @Bluejay's collection like a Pac-Man) The problem is that there are just too many good beans in existence to remain focused! My thinking is I'll keep adding to my P. vulgaris reserve until I get the mystical 'nudge' that the cache is truly fulfilled. (Will that ever happen tho???) Then I'll start to play. I should replace my profile pic.

I am of two minds - which I'd appreciate serious conversation around - probably will start a thread on it after midwinter, if I am lucky enough to remember to post it.
First - outgrowths of notable and consistently arising variables ( spontanteous mutations/throwbacks/ double recessives , I dunno specifics of genetic whys) = stabilising novel spontaneous variety. I do like the development of increasingly stable, repeatable, predictable gene-lines, down the generations via selection.
As opposed to the second option , getting hold of as many variations, subvarieties, geographical drifts aka "lines" , family-saved sorts which are VERY closely related to have back some breadth in the seed's gene pool . EG one of the german seed-saving circles is deliberately putting back together aN HERITAGE variety of white kidney ( runner ) Phenomen(e), from 5 different seed banks. Might this now be called a grex? Or in similar way so-and-so "family" been which so clearly is comprised of several types, that Ive seen labelled as grex . Ignoring those which seem clearly distinct strains, sometimes it is a subtle colour or pattern intensity variation , say in some of the grey-purplish and more chestnut brown it'd be easy-ish to select out brown vs purple seed. So I am torn even how to form this as a question. Firstly I feel I need as BIG /wide/deep a gene pool as possible. So, I need steer my course true, and be scrupulous about propagating as many of the variations as possible, rather than going for purity of type. (Running on fumes , had some very long nights lately) My logic might not be coming thru clearly toniht. .