2024 Little Easy Bean Network - Growing Heirloom Beans Of Today And Tomorrow

[Neen5MI]

I keep all my beans stored in glass jars @Neen5MI, which I've found to be an excellent method for keeping the germination rates high. I store all the jars in my basement, on the floor, mostly stacked inside heavy carboard flats. I have a few hundred jars now, so for quick retrieval I put a sticker on each lid with a number to represent the bean variety. I keep a google spreadsheet for that numbered list, with the corresponding name and year grown. I re-format the list on another google spreadsheet in alphabetical order by bean name first, then jar number, because I always search for beans by name not jar number - but I can search for them either way because I have both options.

Every season I continue from the last jar number with the lid stickers (so I don't need to hold jars up to read the number, I can scan a whole box at once), and add the new entries onto the google spreadsheet. The only dilemma I've encountered with this system is that if your going to stack you bean boxes, the jars all have to be the same basic height. All year I collect my salsa, pizza sauce jars etc. jars and save them for storage for the bean harvest that year, so there can be some variation in the jar heights - which is a problem. Sometimes I have to buy a few extra jars at the store even though I already have other jars which are too tall.

I find that beans, if kept relatively well, have super excellent germ rates. I think seeds on the whole are not given enough credit for how well they can hold viability. I have even had poorly stored beans sprout with nearly 100% germination after more than 7 years.

That sounds like a very efficient system, and useful for modest collections as well as giant ones!

 

[heirloomgal]

To everyone using spreadsheets, do you keep a physical copy of your inventory for backup?

I've lost too many garden notes do to electronic failures and my own failure to periodically transfer those notes to a journal. I'm currently growing 48 pepper plants as a trial and keeping note of characteristics of each. I observe them first thing in the morning and sometimes I just take my physical records outside and take notes.

I do. I mostly refer to my paper copy. I think, though. google sheets is stored on one's google account, not the device your using, so even if your electronics fail your sheet is safe in the app.

 

[flowerbug]

i always try to have backups on three different physical devices.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Summer Bean Show 2024 Vol. #17

Bean #31 now here is a beautiful shade of purple. Bean #32 I thought had a pretty interesting and unique eye patch



Bean #31................................................................Bean #32

 

[flowerbug]

Bean #31 now here is a beautiful shade of purple.

interesting matte finish on those.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Since some of our newer growers that come to this thread and wonder about organizing their collections and drying and storage. I'll show and tell how I organize mine. First I harvest dry pods or nearly dry pods about every single day since I have my small backyard plots but also two large offsite plots. One of the large plots can take sometimes two days to go through at peak pod drying time. It could take me almost 4 days to go through all the plots harvesting pods and Oh God I hope it doesn't rain !

I dry them on styrofoam picnic plates that I have on the floor all over my house. When all the pods are shelled the seed will remain sitting on these plates until mid november before I package them in ziploc baggies and store them away in cardboard boxes in my freezers. I might shell dry pods once every three or four days until the last pods are harvested and well dried. Before I package any seed I will go through the seed on every single picnic plate and cull out the small, badly stained, and misahappen seed. All that is left is the cream of the crop to store away in the freezer. If you don't have a freezer then the next best place will be in your basement where it's cool. Lower temperatures slow down the aging of bean seed. The ageing of seed is really an oxidization of the seed coats which makes them darken. Also the oxidization of the amino acids inside the bean seed which is responsible for making the little embroyo plants inside the seed come to life and begin to grow. As more of these amino acids are oxidized the lower is the germination rate of the seed. Until enough of the amino acids have oxidized so there is not enough of the amino acid to awaken that little plant. The lower the temperture the slower is the ageing of the seed. Dryness is also most beneficial.

I store beans in two sizes of ziploc baggies. 2 x 3 inch (5 x 7cm) and 3 x 4 inch (7 x 10cm) I then place them in boxes deep enough to accomodate these seed packet sizes. My 2 x 3 inch packets are for what I call my Foundation seed. That is for growing another seed crop of each variety and generally I store away two or three packests with about 20 seeds in each packet for this purpose. My 3 x 4 packets are seed I call my Inventory seed that I store for distribution through my commercial catalog and is distributed also in 2 x 3 inch baggies of various amounts of seed. The seed to be frozen is then placed in cardboard boxes. The boxes are marked Foundation and numbered and the Inventory packets are also in boxes marked Inventory and numbered. Each packet has a label printed to fit inside the ziploc baggies. I print the number in upper left corner of the packet the position that packet will take inside it's box. Also printed on the label is growth habit and the year the seed was grown. The Foundation boxes have three rows of packets stored in them with two cardboard dividers cut to keep the rows from mixing when the boxes are moved. The Inventory box has two rows of seed packets with one cardboard divider placed between the rows.

I have a file in alphabetical order of every seed packet that is in the freezer from A to Z. This file is made up on a text editing program. Microsoft word from office 97 to be exact that I am running on a Windows XP machine that doesn't get connected to the internet. I can set up tab sets so there is a colum for variety name. One tab set for year the seed was grown. A tab set for the box where the seed can be found. A tab set for the year of the seed, and a tab set for the postion number where the packet can be found in it's box where it's stored. I have a second file that contains the number of each box and what is stored in each box. The information under each box number heading is the same information as the alphabetical file. It probably isn't necessary to have the two files but I like having both of them. Actually I think it is all very simple and easy to do. These text files are stored on a thumb drive and an extra backup copy of the thumb drive is kept. For each packet that is removed from a box the entry for that packet on my text file is colored red. At the end of each growing season if a box has had a number of packets removed I can go to my files and see how much room there might be to store the newer seasons seed by viewing all the red entires. After a box becomes full again. I go to my text file and remove all the red entries of packets that are gone.

After I got interested in beans and realized that it had become somewhat of an obession. I never realized at the time that my obession could be shared with so many people of a like mind and interest.

Now for the photos of the drying plates that are scattered all over my house when I have all my plots growing with beans. Also Photo of the the seed packets with their printed labels and a photo of the boxes with the rows of packets stored in them.


I have three extra bedrooms with a single bed in two of
the rooms and I have these plates covering the beds also.


This variety is stored in this exact box at the start of the row nearest the label (front of the box) on the left side of the box.


Stars and stripes in this box is the 9th variety back into the box. If there is a lot of packets for varieties 1-8 then Stars And Stripes could be somwhere in the right row. With this system I don't have to try to keep everything in alphabetical order.

 

[heirloomgal]

I always wondered how you were able to have your seeds all frozen and yet still be able to put together seed packets when people make requests! Now I know - you freeze them already sorted into the little envelopes with the seeds in them!

 

[ruralmamma]

I'm glad to see I've been doing things like the bean pro. I've been using Styrofoam plates to let my seeds dry too except they are arranged on the storage rack I use as a light stand in the spring. Oddly it was the beans I culled and tossed into the compost that are giving me my new variant this year.

Also didn't really know about Google Sheets but will look into it. I use Excel mainly because that's what I'm the most proficient in. Lately I've been using an SD card for my backups as the laptop that's fast will not recognize my printer so I transfer files to the old one when I need to print.

 

[ruralmamma]

It could take me almost 4 days to go through all the plots harvesting pods and Oh God I hope it doesn't rain !

If you don't mind asking, how do you keep everything straight when harvesting. I'm only growing 22 varieties this year and in the past I've designated a pocket for this variety and a pocket for that and sometimes combine two varieties if color of the pods, seed or growing habits are easily distinguishable.

 

[Boilergardener]

If you don't mind asking, how do you keep everything straight when harvesting. I'm only growing 22 varieties this year and in the past I've designated a pocket for this variety and a pocket for that and sometimes combine two varieties if color of the pods, seed or growing habits are easily distinguishable.

Brown paper bags free from grocery stores. A few months before harvest I get Brown paper ags when I buy groceries at Meijer and stock up on their paper bags.
With a black sharpie I mark the variety on the bag, is it a network bean, etc. If you leave wet ones in the bags too long they can get moldy especially if its a full bag of pods.