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

[heirloomgal]

Network bean touchdown!

I received all my beans today! Geesh, that was fast - 6 days!

@Bluejay77 you're the best! Thank you!

I am SO fired up to start planting! Only 4 more months to go

 

[meadow]

@Bluejay77 I think Nona Agnes on your website might be misspelled. "Nonna" in Italian means grandmother, whereas "Nona" apparently translates as 'not to'... I think the bean is meant to be "Nonna Agnes."

The reason this came to my attention is that Uprising Seed has this as a new bean for 2023. They've decided to change the name, and have this as the description:

San Bernardo Blue.
We consider ourselves true connoisseurs when it comes to appreciating the beauty of dry beans, and I have to say, I have never been quite so mesmerized by a bean as I was cracking open pods of San Bernardo Blue the first summer we grew it. Originally collected in a village of the same name in Northern Italy, our stock seed came to us from our friends at the Experimental Farm Network. Tall, vigorous and productive climbing vines hang heavy with pods. The stunning blue color of the seed coat is unlike any we've seen and is apparently sensitive to the temperature it matures at: slate blue-grey in hotter temperatures, rich deep cobalt in our cooler PNW harvest time. Like all beans the color changes over time in storage as the pigments oxidize. While on the later side of maturity for our far northern location, we haven't had any trouble successfully harvesting them at our home farm.
Sometimes known elsewhere as "Nonna Agnes blue bean" we, along with EFN, collectively decided to rename it from the arbitrary name given (it has no real connection to anyone by that name) to one that reflects its place of origin.

Is it just me, or does it seem out of place to arbitrarily be renaming bean varieties? I mean, are we to take every 'Grandma's this or that' and slap a new name on it? I'd rather go back to the name it was when Grandma planted it. (but that probably IS just me! ) I truly appreciate how patient the LEBN family is with my obsession for bean history/genealogy.

 

[heirloomgal]

Hey everyone, meet my new Chinese beans! This is a first for me, both to try varieties from China and also the company I got them from. Great, great company for sure, despite my initial misgivings. I'm especially curious about the silver bean Bai Bu Lao. The only other silver bean I have is 'Ice', and I love that bean, but it is on the small side. I wonder if this will be like a giant Ice bean!?

Here's another one that I've never seen of before - it's actually shockingly different that I expected. The seed quality of what they sent was not great, but I can usually turn that around in a grow out. They are sooo tiny! Different than 'Herrenbohli'.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

@Bluejay77 I think Nona Agnes on your website might be misspelled. "Nonna" in Italian means grandmother, whereas "Nona" apparently translates as 'not to'... I think the bean is meant to be "Nonna Agnes."

The reason this came to my attention is that Uprising Seed has this as a new bean for 2023. They've decided to change the name, and have this as the description:



Is it just me, or does it seem out of place to arbitrarily be renaming bean varieties? I mean, are we to take every 'Grandma's this or that' and slap a new name on it? I'd rather go back to the name it was when Grandma planted it. (but that probably IS just me! ) I truly appreciate how patient the LEBN family is with my obsession for bean history/genealogy.

That WOULD be ideal, but the fact is that many beans didn't HAVE a name when they were originally planted. They were just "the beans we grow". If that had any descriptor at all, it was usually only their color pattern, where they came from regionally, or what time of year they grew. Individual names for individual varieties didn't really become necessary until the days of professional seed sellers, where the seed your produced might be going all over the country or world, and you needed a way to tell it from the hundreds of other ones that shared whatever characteristic you used to name it.

Name changes also make sense when the article in question has changed so much the name no longer makes sense. I changed Fort Portal Mixed to Fort Portal Violet because, with all of the beans now the same shade of purple, and basically behaving absolutely identically, "mixed" no longer made any sense.

Not that this is always done. We still call collies collies, even though most of them are now some shade of blonde or brown (the word "collie" comes from the same root as "coal" as in "collier" (coal miner), and refers to the fact the original dogs had black coats.)

 

[meadow]

That WOULD be ideal, but the fact is that many beans didn't HAVE a name when they were originally planted. They were just "the beans we grow". If that had any descriptor at all, it was usually only their color pattern, where they came from regionally, or what time of year they grew. Individual names for individual varieties didn't really become necessary until the days of professional seed sellers, where the seed your produced might be going all over the country or world, and you needed a way to tell it from the hundreds of other ones that shared whatever characteristic you used to name it.

Name changes also make sense when the article in question has changed so much the name no longer makes sense. I changed Fort Portal Mixed to Fort Portal Violet because, with all of the beans now the same shade of purple, and basically behaving absolutely identically, "mixed" no longer made any sense.

Not that this is always done. We still call collies collies, even though most of them are now some shade of blonde or brown (the word "collie" comes from the same root as "coal" as in "collier" (coal miner), and refers to the fact the original dogs had black coats.)

Well that's a good point! Thanks, I hadn't thought of that.

 

[Decoy1]

Grand-mère

I grew Grand-mère this last season - thank you, Triffid. It’s a fine productive bean and produces lovely deep red seed. The seed you’ve received certainly looks rather brown with age. Interestingly I grew it by chance alongside Herrenbohnli. The pods of Grand-mère are slightly larger and the seeds too are not quite as diminutive though certainly small and a similar shape.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I am away at my brother's house until Tuesday. My phone will not let me copy and insert text as a quote that I might like to comment on. Maybe Tuesday evening I will comment on renaming beans and Nona's Agony. I dont know why but that pops into my head when I see this bean name.

 

[heirloomgal]

Grand-mère

I grew Grand-mère this last season - thank you, Triffid. It’s a fine productive bean and produces lovely deep red seed. The seed you’ve received certainly looks rather brown with age. Interestingly I grew it by chance alongside Herrenbohnli. The pods of Grand-mère are slightly larger and the seeds too are not quite as diminutive though certainly small and a similar shape.

Thanks for posting this @Decoy1 ! I had no idea that this bean was still in Europe! From what I read on the Terre Promise site (which google translated) it came from Europe originally but I wasn't sure if it continued to be grown there, something like the Jembo Polish bean. Neat!

 

[meadow]

I am away at my brother's house until Tuesday. My phone will not let me copy and insert text as a quote that I might like to comment on. Maybe Tuesday evening I will comment on renaming beans and Nona's Agony. I dont know why but that pops into my head when I see this bean name.

Experimental Farm Network had this to say:

NOTE: This is the same bean formerly known as 'Nonna Agnes Blue,' but we've determined that a new name is necessary. This bean was introduced to the US by an American who named it after his own grandmother. So since no one named Agnes had anything to do with this bean, and we don't know anything about its origin other than the town where it was found, we will henceforth refer to it as 'San Bernardo Blue.' Seed purveyors have an important responsibility to be as transparent as possible when it comes to names and stories attached to seeds.

Edit:
So now we have yet another name.. EFN has it as San Bernardo Blue, and Uprising has it as San Bernardino Blue thinking that they are using the same name EFN used.

Edit 2: Um... no, Bernardino was my typo.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Experimental Farm Network had this to say:


Edit:
So now we have yet another name.. EFN has it as San Bernardo Blue, and Uprising has it as San Bernardino Blue thinking that they are using the same name EFN used.

Edit 2: Um... no, Bernardino was my typo.

Much like for years I thought Good Mother Stallard was Good Mother Stollard, because the latter sounded more like a name I was used to than the former.