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

[Blue-Jay]

60 seeds of network bean Octarora Cornfield bean! If these are acceptable to you of course @Blue-Jay.

@heirloomgal those are very nice looking beans. So light and bright and now we can really see what they look like when they are new. I will be using those for a new photo to replace the current photo.

Oh and the Kruger's Speckled Caseknife are so beautiful looking too. Those will also be used to replace the current photo on the website.

Yes I approve. You always grow such nice looking seed.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Summer Bean Show 2024 Vol. #19

I had a bean that looked exactly like Bean #36. Same color and pattern, but I never could get it to
stablize. Just keep throwing of new seed coats. Bean #35 and #37 look like they could be related and have coming out of the same crossing. Just different colors. Bean #38 looks like a gorgeous sample of Leslie Tender pod or Holy.

Bean #35


Bean #36...........................................................Bean Number 37


Bean #38

 

[heirloomgal]

I just checked the weather for night time lows, wow, we're going to 9C/48F tomorrow night! I guess I don't have to worry too much about all my network beans since the plants are fairly well established at this point. Thankfully things get hot again in a few days, I need all the heat units I can get. It's shocking how cold the nights have been this summer, and even some daytime stretches. Knock on wood though, very little mould on the plants considering.

It rained a lot in the last two days, which was needed, but still, there are pods out there in the drying stages. I'm very, very tempted to pull some of the most matured plants out and hang them even though some pods are still greenish along with the brownish dried ones. It's hard to know what to do. The rain softened the dried pods, but they aren't soaked through. I'm thinking I should just wait for hot weather to return. I'm sure the pods have some built in natural resistance to moisture. The pea pods seem to.

There hasn't been a season yet where I've got so much hanging on a having a long, extended fall.

 

[heirloomgal]

Doing bean searches in the last year or so I notice that the LEBN often comes up. There are some great bean websites out there for sure, like yours @Blue-Jay, Bohnen Atlas, and Guy Dirix's Belle Epoque. But there's so many beans out there and only so many people growing them! So for the sake of future bean growers, I think it's a good idea to try & document some of the pod and blossom types where possible for future reference for bean growers. I often actually come to the forum and do searches to find stuff too. I even bought a new ruler for the job.

All my photos were taken in the evening, so lightning isn't perfect, but the colors, shape and length come through well enough to capture the bean's qualities. Most of what I took pictures of tonight were the longer beans, and a couple of random others.

'Royal City Cannery' pole bean. Turns out this is quite an old bean that was canned in Westminster BC as early as 1912. The cannery closed in 1930. I guess some of the descendants of the family who ran that cannery kept seeds of this bean over the years. It's actually kind of remarkable that this bean is still in existence, given that the bean was canned and not sold as a seed variety to the public. Very few people would have had some of the seeds, presumably.

'Quatre au Metre' pole bean. Given that 1 metre = 3.2 feet, I'd say that this bean is more like 1/3 Metre. Of course, that wouldn't roll of the tongue quite as well! Whereas even the increasingly mature pods of Brita's Footlong are definitely not a foot long! When I first saw the pods I thought they were cowpeas, because of the thin shape and length when young- but I knew I never intentionally planted those.

'Stuttgarter Reisen' pole bean. I think that means 'Giant of Stuttgart'. My impression is the bean comes from Germany but was preserved and documented in Australia.

'Musica' pole bean. Not really a rare one, but it certainly is long. I've seen this bean also sold as 'Spanish Musica'.

'Muotathaler' pole bean . This may be the longest purple bean I've ever grown. I have more purple varieties growing this year than I ever have, and I do quite like the resilience of those antho genes. They all seem to be distinct, each having a quality that sets it apart from the others. It would be hard to pick a favorite, though I must say 'Dow Purple Pod' seems to have a vigor that stands out. I'm guessing Muotathaler is from Switzerland, and named for the village there of the same name.

The pods of 'Purple Dove' are quite beautiful, they aren't as matte and some others. There is actually some shine to the pods, almost like a greasy bean. It's impressive and the health of the plants is very good despite the fact that they are quite crowded right now by the kale plants.

'Dinah's Climbing' pole bean. Not much info out there about this bean! HSL had it, that's all I can find.

'Donald Todd Half Runner' has pods that are stubby compared to those above, but they are quite fat. I thought this bean would produce pods that were like Mountain White Half Runner or Ranger, but no, these are different. Both the pods and the plants are much bigger, I'd be tempted to describe this as a pole bean due to the plants growing over 6 feet.

'Saxon' pole bean. A cranberry type I think. Found my first pods on the plants tonight. A local bean from Acme, Washington, according to Resilient Seeds.

I wanted to show you @Blue-Jay how huge the network bean 'Aunt Maggie' (right side) is compared to others this year, but I couldn't get the top of the pole in the frame! And I couldn't back up anymore for perspective because my back was to the greenhouse and I needed to face the setting sun or this would be more blurry than it is. Anyway, this is SUCH a huge bean plant, it's incredible. Must be over 12 feet. Can't find any info online about it outside of your website, so this can be one more online entry for it. These Southern originating beans seem all exceptionally vigorous!

 

[Blue-Jay]

I wanted to show you @Blue-Jay how huge the network bean 'Aunt Maggie' (right side) is compared to others this year, but I couldn't get the top of the pole in the frame!

Wow ! That is incredible. It would be nice to find out more about that bean. I'll have to ask bean buyers if they have ever heard of this bean when I go to the seed swap in Berea, Kentuckky in November. Love all your photos of your gardens. Just a thrill to look at all your bean plants.

 

[Neen5MI]

I have a network bean dilemma. I picked the drying pods from the entire row of Inca Pea, removed seed from the pods, and got this:

I didn't appreciate the difference in pod characteristics during picking, but during shelling (when the unexpected seed color appeared) the black seeds come from longer, more pencil-shaped pods. I would suspect a single aberrant vine, except for the sheer number of seeds. I've grown Cherokee Trail of Tears in the same location, but not since 2022. Seems unlikely to have dropped seed remain viable and reappear after that interval. The seeds I planted all matched the ones on the left. I'll revisit the row to determine if the source of pod variation can be identified...

ETA: I stand corrected. I found 2 stray, dry examples of the black bean. They may very well all have come from the same vine. Wow! If it is Cherokee Trail of Tears, no wonder I love that bean. Early and enormously productive, useable as snap or dry.

I'm having great fun exploring new beans, both through purchase and via the Network, but it is satisfying to be reminded that my old standbys became such for very good reasons!

 

[Branching Out]

A question please: I have a small brick planter box next to the house that holds a couple of pole bean varieties that are finishing, with the pods beginning to dry down. I would like to under plant the beans with basil or salad greens, each of which would need to be watered. Would it likely be okay to irrigate the soil around the base of the pole beans as they dry down? I would think that the bean plants would take up very little water as they senesce.

 

[Blue-Jay]

A question please: I have a small brick planter box next to the house that holds a couple of pole bean varieties that are finishing, with the pods beginning to dry down. I would like to under plant the beans with basil or salad greens, each of which would need to be watered. Would it likely be okay to irrigate the soil around the base of the pole beans as they dry down? I would think that the bean plants would take up very little water as they senesce

I would say if you have any dry bean pods at the base of your bean plants when you want to water your herbal plants. The water will probably affect the dry pods the same as rain. They might absorb enough water to either germinate the seed inside the bean pods or make them look stained. I take it that those bean pods are probably still green. You might want to harvest those near the ground pods as soon as they begin to show any drying and dry them further undercover.

 

[heirloomgal]

Glad you like the photos @Blue-Jay!

Found some more pods today, on two beans in particular that I was curious what they'd look like freshly dried.

I wondered if the network bean Granny might be the same bean as 'Grand-mere', given that they both are versions of the word grandmother. The pods were exactly the same as well (I grew Grand-mere in 2023), which was another reason I had the thought. But today, I can absolutely confirm that they are indeed totally different beans! The seeds I planted (if I recall correctly) seemed a bit pinkish - beige, but fresh they look pure sandy beige. The vines are quite loaded with bulging pods, which is a bit thrilling! Cutshort seeds.

I LOVE the color of this network bush bean Olga's Yugoslavian'! Just adore pink beans. The recent rain has affected the skins on some of the OY seeds though, not great, but things are drying up and I'm still hopeful with all the many pods left on the plants that what still needs to finish maturing will be even better quality than the ones I harvested today. Such a gorgeous seed color.

The network bean Volga German Siberian plants have not done super great this year, they barely even climbed, but the pods that did set look good. I may have enough to send back 60 this year, time will tell (hoping!), but I will be growing this bean again next year either way.

Some more pod types to document - this one is the mysterious network bean Blue Gold Star. Pole bean, the vines have really picked up in the last few weeks. Nice and healthy looking. I'm surprised how good the pod set is. I even harvested a few dried ones already.

Grand-Maman Dinel pole bean. Had no idea this bean has yellow pods! The story behind this one is Mrs. Maximilienne Dinel received a bag of these bean seeds as a wedding gift in 1907; she grew them faithfully until she was 94 years old! In 2008 her granddaughter reached out to a seed Quebec seed company to help ensure her memere's bean was kept alive, and they put the bean into relatively wide circulation since. I direct seeded it so I'm quite happy that I'll get seeds from it.

The Rinzenberg bush beans are on the last leg of drying down. The rain came at not the best time, considering the stage these are in. I could pull the plants out at this point, that moist soil isn't good for drying, but I think some of the pods are a bit green yet. I dunno, it'll get hot and sunny again this week so I'm going to roll the dice with leaving them in. I enjoy growing beans from all over the place, but German beans are a favourite for sure.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Summer Bean Show 2024 Vol. #19

Bean #39 has a kind of neat seed coat. Not a lot of gray beans around. Lima #40 is a real stand out.
Bean #42 reminds me of a Guy Dirix bean that I think I acquired earlier this year.


Bean #39................................................................Bean #40


Bean #41................................................................Bean #42



Bean #43...........................................................Bean #44