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

[Blue-Jay]

This bean plot 2,214 square feet (205 square meters) will not be planted this year. The soil is too dry and hot. The owner of the property is too concerned about his well to allow me to water it in it's entirety to cool it down to plant it. I had 44 varieties of bush beans planned for this year. Will have to wait until 2024 to see if I can plant them then. I spent several hours on June 15th pulling large weeds and dumped them in the owners compost pile. June 16th I went over it with my roto-tiller shallowly to cultivate all the small weeds that had started to grow.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Pleasant Valley plot where my two large raised beds are behind a deer fence. I planted both beds with pole beans and some tomato plants. Some of the plants have broken their necks trying to emerge from the soil. I tried watering around the poles every few days. However that might not have been enough or soon enough. Some of the plants looked like their was damping off. They emerged then dryed up and fell over limb on the soil. I put in some more seed and watered the entire two beds for about 5 hour with a lawn sprinkler.

West Bed

East Bed

 

[heirloomgal]

Some of the plants have broken their necks trying to emerge from the soil.

Is your soil really hard when dry @Bluejay77?

 

[nune]

I'm really sorry that's happening, Bluejay. A similar reason is why I can't grow African Cave beans. As I said on your profile, I'm still growing Yessica's Inca and Black Kali "Mung" beans and am willing to share those with you to make up for it.

 

[flowerbug]

does anyone here know if deer, rabbits, groundhogs, etc. go after Adzuki beans? i have some spots i'd like to fill in with these as a ground cover and soil improvement crop and just as an experiment to see if they can drill through this hard soil without too much prep work. i've had enough clod busting... i was just going to go along with my weeding knife and kinda poke holes and then cover them up and see how they did...

otherwise i am officially done with any formal bean garden planting or otherwise stuff i will care too much about. anything else i do from now on is purely speculative and experimental (it being so late, but also because it is outside any fenced area).

 

[donna13350]

so...zeedman...this is your new challenge ! Take a few peanuts and let them just dry cure over the winter, then you get to taste test them and report back for all of us !!!!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Is your soil really hard when dry @Bluejay77?

The first photo on top is where the soil is rather loamy. Has good sand content and doesn't crust easily. This is the plot where the majority of the broken heads appeared and where it looks like most of the possible damping off plants occured. Maybe that was just the luck of the draw according to the seeds that were planted.

The second photo on the bottom of my post #712 the soil tends to develop crusting and has plates of various shapes that appear. This soil is harder and probably contains greater clay content although the soil is gray black when dry and black black when wet. Some broken heads occured in this plot but over all this soil is where the plants are emerging healthier looking in greater number than the loamy plot. Almost doesn't seem to make sense.

A new planting idea has occured to me when direct seeding bush or pole beans. That is to remove more soil around my poles and put in potting mix. Then place seed on top of the potting mix and place more potting mix on top of the seed and gently firm it over the seed. For bush beans make your long drill line deeper and place potting inside your drill line then place seed on top of the potting mix and more potting mix on top of the seed then once again firm over the seed. Keep damp more often than when planted in just soil. When I was growing early started plants in styro cups in potting mix. The seedlings seem to emerge a lot more easily than they do in your garden soil.

 

[heirloomgal]

I've not seen broken neck stems since I've been planting beans, but I've seen where the sprouts come up but the first true leaves in the centre are broken off, or missing. The stem is intact, the cotyledons are there but everything else isn't. That is sort of a mystery isn't it. You'd think the loamy soil would be more ideal and have less problems.

That's a good idea, using potting soil in strategic spots to help emergence. I use it in my starter pots too. It's very water retentive, the seeds have no problem lifting it up to rise out.

 

[heirloomgal]

More network bean updates, all network beans in this post. Was a super hot day again at nearly 90 F so went around taking pictures instead of working, lol. So much more fun! I actually need to go out in the bush and gather more branches for the semi runners but I'm procrastinating because of the gazillions of mosquitoes in there.

Mangetout Pleine Panier, such a vigorous bean!

Cape Sugar (transplants failed so went in as seeds, so smaller plants).

Ocio Della Madonna. Please ignore the ugly green metal stakes, they're there to avoid killing and/or snapping bean plants when I drag the hose around the corners of the rows.

Stephano Borlotti D'Aventi, oooh love this network bean so much, great variety

Lucie

This was a real surprise - the Botosani Splash bean is flowering, and it isn't even climbing yet.

My 'paranoia' section of beans, the only plants of each variety I have & no more seeds either. If I mess these up I'm in trouble!

Here was another surprise, the Owl's Head bean is already flowering too even though it's barely started to climb.

 

[heirloomgal]

#2. Some of the non-network beans of the year. Most of these went in as seeds since I only gave network beans the royal transplant treatment this year. A few are actually network beans from last year that I didn't get many seeds from so wanted to try again. I found Fasold and Kyoto a bit sensitive to my low winds growing area so I put them in areas with greater exposure to moving air this year.

Grandma Gina's - will thin a bit more but I'm gonna wait until they're bigger just in case.

Annelino di Trento bush beans

Bush bean bed. This bush bean bed is not growing as quickly as the pole plants are - I have no idea why. The seeds were put in later than the others, so there's that. Not sure what is going on with this bed. I'm hoping they pick up the pace soon and get gaining size.

'Frauenbohne' bean is the only one of the bunch that seems to really be vigorous. I may just be being impatient, I'm not sure. I can't imagine what could be a problem in this bed.

Growing in a box 4 feet off the ground for maximum air. Thinned some plants tonight, but will thin more as they get a bit bigger.

It's beginning!