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

[Zeedman]

If you would have asked me which legume would flower first, this would have been my last guess - peanuts. This makes me a lot more optimistic about their chances. It will be interesting to see how well the pegs penetrate that somewhat lumpy soil... I'll make a point of keeping it moist for awhile.

 

[donna13350]

Are those nuts transplants or seed sown in the garden? They're doing great.

 

[Zeedman]

Are those nuts transplants or seed sown in the garden? They're doing great.

Transplants; I anticipated having trouble getting them to mature in my short Summer. They were surprisingly happy under LEDs, and grew quickly... transplanted 16 days after planting. Which also avoids the chances of my high squirrel population eating the seed before it could germinate. It remains to be seen whether squirrels or voles will harvest before I do.

I'm really surprised to see those plants flowering so quickly, just 30 days after planting. That ties the bush hyacinth bean that I grow. I just hope that the plants will continue to enlarge.

 

[heirloomgal]

Transplants; I anticipated having trouble getting them to mature in my short Summer. They were surprisingly happy under LEDs, and grew quickly... transplanted 16 days after planting. Which also avoids the chances of my high squirrel population eating the seed before it could germinate. It remains to be seen whether squirrels or voles will harvest before I do.

I'm really surprised to see those plants flowering so quickly, just 30 days after planting. That ties the bush hyacinth bean that I grow. I just hope that the plants will continue to enlarge.

At first I was going to say that freshly dug peanuts in the shell are so gosh darn awful you'd need not worry, and then I remembered the fellow at Annapolis Seeds once mentioning that he lost a ton of his peanuts one year leaving them to dry after harvest where the lil' critters could get them, and they did. So, yeah, I guess it is a concern after all isn't it? I don't know how they eat them though; without curing and roasting they taste like Javex to me.

 

[nune]

Hey, check @Bluejay77 's user page. I have some sad but important news.

 

[heirloomgal]

Having bought a mulcher shredder last year, when we were cleaning up the garden last fall we shredded all the bean plants. (Our tiller wouldn't be able to handle them I don't think, it's not very big.) They came out like fine woodchips because they were so dry, so I mulched the rhubarb plants with them. This year, I had the biggest rhubarb plants ever. Remarkable size considering I plunked those plants in a spot that had no good dirt, I just dug out weedy sod and planted them there to be out of the way of the tiller. So they always struggled a little with being too dry and malnourished and riddled with bug holes as a result. Until this year! The bean mulch really worked some magic.

 

[flowerbug]

the rhubarb plants here this year are about 1/4 their usual size (no rain and no mulch). i'm amazed they didn't go dormant yet. i haven't even gotten around to weeding them either. normally i try to get some of the quack grass pulled out of there before it gets further inwards...

Purple Dove beans were flowering yesterday or the day before (planted May 4th). they're a bit later than i would expect, but this season without rains everything is a bit later.

maybe a chance of rain later today. time to get outside and i hope i can get the last four rows of beans planted before 12:30.

[later edit] three of four rows done. the rest will get planted tomorrow. between quack grass and busting clods the first and worst row along the grass took me almost two hours to finish.

since these are potentially sacrificial beans i planted what i had tons of seeds for on hand. not the selected seeds i will keep selecting from for future plantings, so most of these if there is any crop at all with either be fresh beans or dry beans.

 

[donna13350]

At first I was going to say that freshly dug peanuts in the shell are so gosh darn awful you'd need not worry, and then I remembered the fellow at Annapolis Seeds once mentioning that he lost a ton of his peanuts one year leaving them to dry after harvest where the lil' critters could get them, and they did. So, yeah, I guess it is a concern after all isn't it? I don't know how they eat them though; without curing and roasting they taste like Javex to me.

When squirrels take nuts, they bury them, so I wonder if storage kind of naturally brings out the sweetness, kind of like sweet potatoes...fresh, they're awful, stored for a while, much better.

 

[heirloomgal]

When squirrels take nuts, they bury them, so I wonder if storage kind of naturally brings out the sweetness, kind of like sweet potatoes...fresh, they're awful, stored for a while, much better.

You mean the taste of the peanuts? I've never had them just cured without being roasted so I'm not sure. Could be. Anyone ever eat a peanut that was not cooked in any way, just dry cured?

 

[Zeedman]

You mean the taste of the peanuts? I've never had them just cured without being roasted so I'm not sure. Could be. Anyone ever eat a peanut that was not cooked in any way, just dry cured?

Nope. DW liked them boiled plain though.... kind of like over-ripe edamame now that I think about it.