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

[heirloomgal]

Spent a couple hours in the bean rows today. I don’t think I’ve done that since planting time. I decided to rake any leaves and debris, partly because it looks better, but more because as fall rains increase I want to reduce any material present that will encourage bean mould. I trimmed some leaves here and there as well. It rained last night but it’s going to get hot & dry again, which is good. Luckily the rain was moderate.

Some goodies from today. Love this time of year.

Starlite

Mountain White Half Runner
What a bean! A semi runner with incredible productivity. I’ve so loved this one and Parker’s Half Runner that I think I’ll try Ranger next year.

The Owl’s Head bean pods all have beans like this so far!

Canon City which I received from @Zeedman. Everything about this bean is BIG, the leaves, the vines, the pods. Huge!

Botosani Splash ‘60’ is done!

Strangely, Petit Carre de Caen set a bunch of pods then started flowering again.

Dead Man’s Tooth. I’m tempted to pull it out and hang it, but it doesn’t seem quite ready yet. A little bit more time I think.

Our rain last night was preceded by heavy winds. Half a dozen poles went down.

Chinese bean ‘Lu Qing’.

Russian bean ‘Khabarovsk’.

 

[jbosmith]

I feel your pain, and understand about the soil smell. I went through much the same thing a few years ago (albeit on a smaller scale) when we had two consecutive years of record rainfall. EVERYTHING in the flooded area died, even the earthworms. The soil smelled rotten, like dead fish. Lost about 6" of topsoil on the low end too, which made it so low that the weeds after that were willows & cattails. We ended up abandoning the low end of the rural garden after that because it never dried out.

Yeah, I poked around some and there's nothing alive in the soil. Not even in the rotten woodchips that make up the pathways, which are usually practically squirming. I think I'm more sad about that than the plants.

 

[Branching Out]

Last year my crop of Harvester Mangiatutto was a complete flop. There were only two seeds remaining in the Gusto Italiano packet; I planted them this spring,and good news-- both seedlings have produced pods.

 

[Branching Out]

Yeah, I poked around some and there's nothing alive in the soil. Not even in the rotten woodchips that make up the pathways, which are usually practically squirming. I think I'm more sad about that than the plants.

This is a very troubling scenario. My sympathies go out to you and your poor garden jbosmith.

I was hoping to reference something that I had read recently, but sadly am not able to locate it. If memory serves me correctly though the concept suggested that once the water recedes all of that dead organic matter will quickly become food that will be eaten up by bacteria-- which can result in a nitrogen deficiency in the soil. Does this seem reasonable? If so, perhaps sowing a mixed cover crop to add some nitrogen and roots for air might be in order once the land dries out enough that you can work it. I have sown small patches of cover crop in my flower beds in the past with good results. A mixture could look something like mustard to help bio-fumigate, clover and field peas for N, and perhaps Tillage Radish to poke deep channels in the soil?? True Leaf Market has a really good cover crop mix that is not too expensive, at 5lbs for $20. I keep a jar of it in the freezer, and it will last me for years. These crops sprout quickly and grow fast, so if you can get seeds in the ground asap they should still have time to do some good before autumn. Most importantly, hang in there!

True Leaf Market | True Leaf Market Seed Company

Over half a million customers have chosen True Leaf Market seed company for non-GMO, heirloom & organic garden seeds since 1974. Vegetable Gardening, Sp...

www.trueleafmarket.com

Cover crops as nitrogen source

Learn how cover crops can produce Nitrogen for your fields.

www.canr.msu.edu

 

[Branching Out]

I have become a Carol Deppe groupie! This year I grew out several of the seeds that she has been developing, including her Gaucho bush beans which are supposed to dry down far quicker than what it typical. This photo shows green Orca pods in the foreground, and the tan coloured pods of Gaucho in the background. Gaucho are indeed my first beans to ripen and dry down, so kudos to Carol.

 

[jbosmith]

This is a very troubling scenario. My sympathies go out to you and your poor garden jbosmith.

I was hoping to reference something that I had read recently, but sadly am not able to locate it. If memory serves me correctly though the concept suggested that once the water recedes all of that dead organic matter will quickly become food that will be eaten up by bacteria-- which can result in a nitrogen deficiency in the soil. Does this seem reasonable? If so, perhaps sowing a mixed cover crop to add some nitrogen and roots for air might be in order once the land dries out enough that you can work it. I have sown small patches of cover crop in my flower beds in the past with good results. A mixture could look something like mustard to help bio-fumigate, clover and field peas for N, and perhaps Tillage Radish to poke deep channels in the soil?? True Leaf Market has a really good cover crop mix that is not too expensive, at 5lbs for $20. I keep a jar of it in the freezer, and it will last me for years. These crops sprout quickly and grow fast, so if you can get seeds in the ground asap they should still have time to do some good before autumn. Most importantly, hang in there!

True Leaf Market | True Leaf Market Seed Company

Over half a million customers have chosen True Leaf Market seed company for non-GMO, heirloom & organic garden seeds since 1974. Vegetable Gardening, Sp...

www.trueleafmarket.com

Cover crops as nitrogen source

Learn how cover crops can produce Nitrogen for your fields.

www.canr.msu.edu

I've done a few things. I made something IMF-like (I don't know enough about Jadam to claim it's really IMF), inoculated 2 5 gallon tubs of wheat bran with it, and spread it around right before two days of rain. Just to get something living back into the soil. I've also got a lot of worm castings ready to be made into tea for further inoculation, but want to get the OM up some before I use it so that it has something to bind to.

I also got soil tests back and .. oof. My organic matter usually ranges around 7-9 percent depending where I sample from in that garden, but now it's ... 0.5%.

The soil is too wet to do much, and we just got another 2" of rain. There's also absolute clouds of mosquitos down there now as there's pools of stagnant water everywhere that just won't go away. Once I can work the soil I'll cover crop if there's time, but also need to rebuild the beds and re-fill the pathways with woodchips. As soon as leaves start to fall everything is getting a thick blanket of leaves and mulch hay for the winter.

 

[heirloomgal]

The first ‘Frauenbohne’ pod dried. It was crispy dry, but the beans inside were not super duper dry yet. I hope they don’t wrinkle from shelling too soon!

Zargana of Zestos will be the next dried pole bean I think. Early maturity for sure. I stripped the remaining yellowing leaves since the beans are clearly drying down.

Floor on my bean drying room is complete! Unforeseen perk: it matches the dog.

 

[flowerbug]

@Branching Out i think Orca were one of the longer season beans (similar to a few others i'd grown that were larger beans) and so anything that is a smaller bean will tend to dry down more quickly.

the interesting thing with this season is that my earliest planted Purple Dove beans refuse to finish completely. normally they will give up flowering some time ago but this year with the rains that came along some of the plants are now flowering again. a few of the plants did give up early. i picked dry pods off those plants yesterday. not very good condition pods but often enough the seeds inside are edible and that is all i will do with those since they are not from my selected seeds that i planted in all the later gardens.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Some goodies from today. Love this time of year.

Starlite, Botosani Splash

I can tell you about the packets of these seeds you got from me now that you have had success with them so you won't be nervous about them. You had the last packet of each of these beans. We were down to the bottomm of the barrel. Down to the very last chance.

 

[Blue-Jay]

My picture taking is very lacking in volume this year. I harvested nearly a full quart basket yesterday of Network bean Idaho Marrow. I've been trying to cross the bean with Mona Lisa in hopes of getting the Monsa Lisa pattern on the Idaho Marrow bean and maybe better seed germiantion and improved productivity. I have shelled but a couple of the bean pods and nothing new yet. I grew them together last year also. Hoping to find a new seed in them this year. Mona Lisa is still weeks away from producing any dry pods.

I planted Zinnias at my pole bean plot July 1st. Watered them regularly and never saw Zinnias grow this fast. I will probably even get some new seed from some of the selected blossoms. I took a couple of individual blossom photos yesterday. The best plants this year for me are Tomatoes and Zinnias. In the Zinnia photo you can see how small the direct seeded beans are. The tall plants that have grown and overgrown the top of their poles are limas that I started early in styro cups and transplanted. Between the bean rows is Purslane which I keep weeding and it's almost impossible to kill. All it has to do is get a couple of molecules of water and it will reroot itself laying on top to the soil in the hot sun.

This direct seeded La Pap bean has grown better than most of the direct seeded beans. I don't know why but it has. Looks like I will be getting dry seed from this one sometime in September.