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

[flowerbug]

four more flats of beans picked this morning before it got too hot and humid out there to continue. i wish i could pick for the rest of today and get caught up but that's not likely to happen. hoping no rains land for tonight or tomorrow morning so i can get another round of picking in before it does rain.

so far it looks pretty reasonable with results except for some reductions due to critter feeding in the bean gardens.

today i picked through some of the Red Ryder, Purple Doves, Yellow Eye, Painted Pony and a few other odds and ends along the way.

i could pick for another five days to get caught up but i don't think the weather is going to give me that much of a break.

 

[flowerbug]

we made a nice dent in things this morning two of us picking for about three hours. Mom says i'm a bean picking machine but i just tell her i've had tons of practice.

i think we got about ten box flats picked and that was most of the largest bean patch and parts of others but also about 1/3 of the other fairly large garden when you consider we're doing it one plant at a time and pulling the bean pods off. what i should have done since there were plenty of dry beans left to pick in there is got some paper bags and just pulled plants and filled up bags so i could get the pods off later. oops. i thought we had a few more hours left before the rains would get here.

such is life. i'm sure we'll survive. there's still a lot of beans growing and have yet to dry down out there so we'll see how the rest of the season will go, but even with critter predation inside the fenced gardens i'm still pretty happy with how much i've gotten out of there.

i found another of the out-cross plants so that makes at least four plants total that i've found so i will have plenty of seeds for working with in the coming years. Mom asked what i've called it but i don't have a name for it yet and she said that i should call it that...

a couple days ago i shelled out some of the Tinker's Fire beans and they're very purdy... most of them came true to type with a few pods with some cut shorts or other patterns/colors but that is ok. i knew it wasn't 100% yet.

 

[Branching Out]

So far the rock star of my bean world is these two Hidatsa Shield Figure plants (yes, you read that correctly just two plants, and hopefully HSF-- wouldn't you know it's the one bean that didn't get noted down in my records?). The plants get hot afternoon sun and are only watered once per week, yet they are thriving. They may end up completely covering my Camelia shrub. I especially like how the bean pods grow on the shady side of the plant. My goal for these was to see if they grow well here, and to save some seed. We ate a few as snap beans this afternoon and they were very nice, which is a bonus. In the same planter are a jalapeno and a cucumber plant, neither of which is doing much of anything.

Update: just realized that it is indeed three bean plants. One was hiding in behind the others, incognito.

 

[Branching Out]

we made a nice dent in things this morning two of us picking for about three hours. Mom says i'm a bean picking machine but i just tell her i've had tons of practice.

i think we got about ten box flats picked and that was most of the largest bean patch and parts of others but also about 1/3 of the other fairly large garden when you consider we're doing it one plant at a time and pulling the bean pods off. what i should have done since there were plenty of dry beans left to pick in there is got some paper bags and just pulled plants and filled up bags so i could get the pods off later. oops. i thought we had a few more hours left before the rains would get here.

such is life. i'm sure we'll survive. there's still a lot of beans growing and have yet to dry down out there so we'll see how the rest of the season will go, but even with critter predation inside the fenced gardens i'm still pretty happy with how much i've gotten out of there.

i found another of the out-cross plants so that makes at least four plants total that i've found so i will have plenty of seeds for working with in the coming years. Mom asked what i've called it but i don't have a name for it yet and she said that i should call it that...

a couple days ago i shelled out some of the Tinker's Fire beans and they're very purdy... most of them came true to type with a few pods with some cut shorts or other patterns/colors but that is ok. i knew it wasn't 100% yet.

You are a bean machine Flowerbug! Well done.

 

[flowerbug]

You are a bean machine Flowerbug! Well done.

since we had a nice break with some sunshine and a good breeze after the rain i went out and finished picking through that patch so i have another three flats. with rain predicted again for this evening i decided i'd just get it done. good thing as we are now having more storms coming at us.

 

[flowerbug]

So far the rock star of my bean world is these two Hidatsa Shield Figure plants (yes, you read that correctly just two plants, and hopefully HSF-- wouldn't you know it's the one bean that didn't get noted down in my records?). The plants get hot afternoon sun and are only watered once per week, yet they are thriving. They may end up completely covering my Camelia shrub. I especially like how the bean pods grow on the shady side of the plant. My goal for these was to see if they grow well here, and to save some seed. We are a few as snap beans this afternoon and they were very nice, which is a bonus. In the same planter are a jalapeno and a cucumber plant, neither of which is doing much of anything.

HSF is a very pretty bean! i'm glad you are having them do well for you there.

 

[flowerbug]

i brought all the flats in from the garage so i could sort through them all and get them bagged (the dry enough ones) or stacked for drying. i will be able to finish that today and perhaps even get some shelling done (i still have the small flat of Tinker's Fire pods to finish up so i'll do those first so i can reuse that flat).

so far i've found two interesting out-crosses, one which has potential for being an edible bean. the other is a black bean with some faint stripes or markings. i don't think that one is an edible bean, but can't say now as the pods are too far along.

 

[flowerbug]

Tinker's Fire are such a purdy looking bean and they did well this year. i'm not done picking through the entire patch but i did pick what was ready last week and now those are shelled out and sorted.

i'm not used to many beans here getting completely full seven bean pods with each bean being fully formed. only a few pods were water damaged.

i'm not sure what the next round of picking will look like but i've already got enough seeds now that i've refreshed my stock plus i have plenty in reserve from last season. from what i've picked so far it looks like it's above 90% stable.

 

[Branching Out]

I'm growing out Van Gogh's Olive too @Branching Out , can't wait to see them freshly harvested! What a color!

A couple of my network beans are really struggling due to the hot dry summer that we have had, so this morning I was relieved to find a handful of green pods as well as three dry pods on the Van Gogh's Olive semi-runner plants. I cracked open the mature pods and ackkkk!!! The beans are white kidney shaped with magenta pink swirls. The three pods all came from one plant, so I am hoping that the other couple of plants that are still producing will have rounded olive green beans. Heirloomgal, you were growing out this variety as well. Have you harvested your Van Gogh's yet? While it is possible that I screwed up, I am certain that I was especially meticulous with the seedlings of my network beans. Ugh.

 

[Branching Out]

Acting on feelings of beany inadequacy I marched out to another network bean patch and scavenged several dry pods of Coco de Belle Isle. Thankfully the pods opened to reveal a handful of plump dry beans that match the colours that I was expecting. There the plot thickens though, as one vigorous plant in this patch has yet to set pods. It is lush and green, and unlike the Belle Isle plants it is heavily branched with laterals starting right from the base of the plant and continuing all the way up. The laterals climb a bit, but then droop downwards. Good chance something unique is growing there, so I will try to get a photo of a blossom if I am able to. The anomaly is the plant on the right.