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

[heirloomgal]

After reading last year about @Branching Out using an earth auger, I got one. Well, I got an auger attachment for the drill to make holes for my poles. It was fairly inexpensive, about $25 for two, a 3 inch and a 2 inch. Used it for the first time today, as bean planting day will be day after tomorrow. It works AMAZING! This is SO MUCH easier than using a scaling bar and driving it in over and over for each pole, and that bar is really heavy for me. I can sink the auger about 2 to 2 1/2 feet, until I hit some hard stuff/clay. DH kept emphasizing to me the need to adjust settings as necessary on the drill for safety. I didn't quite understand his slight fixation with that detail.......until I nearly dislocated my shoulder/wrist when I hit a deep hard patch. Holy mackerel, I couldn't believe that powerful twist against my arm. After that, I kept to low speed once I got 1 1/2 feet down. I'm looking forward to sinking all the poles tomorrow, gently.

And, dare I even type it, but I still have not lost a single bean plant to bean seed flies. Not one. I'm totally blown away!!!

 

[Branching Out]

After reading last year about @Branching Out using an earth auger, I got one. Well, I got an auger attachment for the drill to make holes for my poles. It was fairly inexpensive, about $25 for two, a 3 inch and a 2 inch. Used it for the first time today, as bean planting day will be day after tomorrow. It works AMAZING! This is SO MUCH easier than using a scaling bar and driving it in over and over for each pole, and that bar is really heavy for me. I can sink the auger about 2 to 2 1/2 feet, until I hit some hard stuff/clay. DH kept emphasizing to me the need to adjust settings as necessary on the drill for safety. I didn't quite understand his slight fixation with that detail.......until I nearly dislocated my shoulder/wrist when I hit a deep hard patch. Holy mackerel, I couldn't believe that powerful twist against my arm. After that, I kept to low speed once I got 1 1/2 feet down. I'm looking forward to sinking all the poles tomorrow, gently.

And, dare I even type it, but I still have not lost a single bean plant to bean seed flies. Not one. I'm totally blown away!!!

My husband had a good chuckle over your escapades Heirloomgal. What ever you do don't torque your shoulder. Bean planting's all fun until someone loses an eye!
P.S. You don't have pill bugs up north??

 

[heirloomgal]

My husband had a good chuckle over your escapades Heirloomgal. What ever you do don't torque your shoulder. Bean planting's all fun until someone loses an eye!
P.S. You don't have pill bugs up north??

Never even heard of them until @dcfox 's post? Are they in BC?

 

[Branching Out]

Greetings everyone I am new to the TEG. But I have been following it, especially the LEBN for a little more than 3 years. I felt it was pass due to jump on board.

Welcome naa'oli! So glad you found the LEBN.

 

[Branching Out]

Never even heard of them until @dcfox 's post? Are they in BC?

Uh, yes. Every time you put a container or tray down they move in under it-- so when you eventually lift up the container or the tray they either scatter, or roll up in a ball and hide. They are everywhere here.

 

[flowerbug]

...
P.S. You don't have pill bugs up north??

i've never had a problem with them eating beans. pill bugs aka woodlice are mainly detritovores and generally will not eat growing plants unless they're pretty desperate for food or you have some pretty tender seedlings. i guess i've never grown tender bean seedlings. yes, they can get into soft fruits like strawberries but i usually do not find them on the firm ones that have just ripened, more often if i do find them on a strawberry it is one that has been damaged and then the woodlice come along to clean up the mess.

my further experimenting with woodlice is that i have some buckets here with hundreds to thousands of woodlice in them and i also sometimes put beans in as worm food, after the beans are buried deep enough they will not germinate and will instead soak up water and start to ferment (talk about a smelling thing to dig into *phew!*), but once in a while some beans won't be buried deeply enough and they will germinate and the woodlice do not eat them until they give up trying to grow inside a bucket with a dark cloth mesh cover, once they start dying back the woodlice will finish them off.

 

[Decoy1]

i've never had a problem with them eating beans. pill bugs aka woodlice are mainly detritovores and generally will not eat growing plants unless they're pretty desperate for food or you have some pretty tender seedlings. i guess i've never grown tender bean seedlings. yes, they can get into soft fruits like strawberries but i usually do not find them on the firm ones that have just ripened, more often if i do find them on a strawberry it is one that has been damaged and then the woodlice come along to clean up the mess.

my further experimenting with woodlice is that i have some buckets here with hundreds to thousands of woodlice in them and i also sometimes put beans in as worm food, after the beans are buried deep enough they will not germinate and will instead soak up water and start to ferment (talk about a smelling thing to dig into *phew!*), but once in a while some beans won't be buried deeply enough and they will germinate and the woodlice do not eat them until they give up trying to grow inside a bucket with a dark cloth mesh cover, once they start dying back the woodlice will finish them off.

Yes, I believe pill bugs are what are called woodlice in UK. I have never thought of them as much of a threat here. I’m not aware of any crops that they damage. Having said that we’re not overrun with them in the way @Branching Out obviously is.

 

[Branching Out]

Looks like you have 2 Phaseolus Coccineus beans. One of them is pure white. The other Coccineus looks like Scarlet Runner. Also looks like you have a pinto type and pure white bean and a Borlotti. Very Nice. Did the beans come with any names? Just curious.

No names came with the beans sadly. Thank you all for your assistance in identifying a couple of them as runner beans at least, which is a good start. I had better give some thought to isolation distances for those ones. The pretty Borlotti bean may well be what is known as Emilia's Bean-- the story behind Emilia's was mentioned on October 24, 2016 in LEBN.

 

[heirloomgal]

A major day of bean work, 56 little trees got sunk. That took a long time, DD & I were at it all day. But, it looks good and the poles are sunk in quite deep. The real test of this new auger method of pole sinking will be in the fall when the vines are heavy with pods. I found tamping the poles in is what took so much time, and some tamped in better than others given that the soil is quite deep in certain areas and less so in others, so where the soil is really deep and friable the tamping doesn't work great. The soil is too fluffy and doesn't compact well, but, I have hope because there is clay down there eventually. One more row of 7 in the main garden and that one is done.

@Blue-Jay how long has it usually taken you to sink all your pole bean supports in? Given how long it took me to get in 56 of them, I wonder if my poles and method need an upgrade. But then again, I don't have anything to compare against. I'm tempted to think my way of doing it is too time consuming.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Blue-Jay how long has it usually taken you to sink all your pole bean supports in? Given how long it took me to get in 56 of them, I wonder if my poles and method need an upgrade. But then again, I don't have anything to compare against. I'm tempted to think my way of doing it is too time consuming.

I think I've done about 150 of them in about 4 hours. Mine are just driven in with the cheek of a carpenters hammer. A day of burning calories for sure.