If you love Tolkien so much, why are you saying "dwarfs" instead of "dwarves" (remember Tolkien CREATED that plural for the Hobbit) ?
My husband purchased an auger tool that attached to the end of a rechargeable drill, and it worked really well for digging holes for the thick branched that we stuck in the ground as bean pole supports. He found it very helpful to have a 5 gallon bucket on hand to collect the dirt that came out of the hole; he could place the auger in the bucket and and shake the dirt off before drilling deeper. This was the first time that we tried the auger method, and for us it worked like a charm. We used it to drill about a dozen holes.
when i wrote it i did consider using that but it didn't really feel right for the context in that when you write about pole or bush beans you do not write about poles beans and bushes beans.
Good thing you didn't call them dwarf French beans, heads would really have been spinning.
Thanks for sharing the results of your digging. After receiving the seeds, I don't think we have the real deal. Just too small to be the beans Nobuko is familiar with. Ah well, I'll grow them and try her family recipe with them anyway.I was reviewing this thread, and dug a little deeper. The 'aka' prefix in Japanese refers to red flowers (and purple or black beans); 'shiro' refers to white flowers (and white beans). Despite Kitazawa's description, the red-flowered trait identifies "Akahana Mame" as Phaseolus coccineus. In my experience, the red-flowered runner beans tend to be fatter, as opposed to the more flattened white-flowered runner beans. I have also noted that red flowered, black-seeded runner beans tend to be sweeter in flavor than the purple. There is a widely circulated heirloom runner bean, "Insuk's Wang Kong", that was grown for use as shellies. Trials by many in the U.S. have shown it to be more heat-resistant than many runner beans. The beans are either purple & black, or all black.
BTW, as someone who collects & grows many Asian beans (including adzuki, mung, hyacinth beans, 60+ soybeans, and many Asian long beans) as well as several edible gourds, I hope you will continue to share your housemate's wisdom & experiences. I suspect we would have many wonderful culinary conversations over the back fence.
My eyes must have glossed over this line. Can "aka" also mean purple flowers. Because there is something I read once that has stuck in my memory. Someone claimed there were Japanese hyacinth beans that had red flowers (while others said the same variety had purple ones.) If red flowered ones DID exist, that would be interesting since, as far as I know a hyacinth bean flowers are purple, white or a mixture of the two. And I think that type's name also began with "aka".
Hmmm... both of the pole beans I grew with that shape (True Red Cranberry and Striped Cornfield) did badly this year... and Striped Cornfield has previously been a high producer. Something weird about this year for beans.
Nobuko confirms that "aka" refers to red, "shiro" to white, and "hana" to flower. The rest of the name of that hyacinth bean might be revealing. 'Murasaki" means purple, she says.
strictlymedicinalseeds.com
Alright, bean people. How can we find this bean?!?!
