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

[heirloomgal]

We're having another great spell here too for weather, hot & dry. I think this'll continue for close to a week, which is great. It rained for 3 days, and then some. A shame it forced my hand to pull out some of the vines from the ground, because they would still have had some time to dry down naturally. I don't see frost coming anytime soon either.

I was able to pop open a few dry-ish pods today just to satisfy my curiosity, I haven't been able to peek at these ones yet. I photobombed all three of them.

Network bean Blaugraue. Unfortunately, 2 out of the 3 plants I was able to germinate died mid-June. I replanted, nothing sprouted. The one remaining one barely hung on and then sprung to life a month or so ago, so I will get some beans to try again. Very lucky for me. And the bean is stunning.

One of my European bean try outs, 'Wildtäler'. I actually planted 4 out of 8 seeds I had last year and none sprouted, but I tried the last 4 this year and all sprouted in record time - hooray! It is a little late maturing, but not too late for my climate. It's another really gorgeous dark cherry colored bean seed. Oooh, I love it too. The sun on the bean disguises how smooth they are. I need to do research on this bean, I have no idea if it can be eaten as a snap or not.

And 'Syrian Fire' which I plan on shelling tonight. Another beauty. It really is hard to comprehend the diversity and beauty in the P. Vulgaris species!!!! Beans are an incredible seed.

Current main bean garden status. The leaves are yellowing on many of the still growing pole beans, which I consider a good sign. The beans must be reaching peak maturity and dying down all on their own.

 

[flowerbug]

For bean drying weather here. I see the forcast for us is in the 70's all the way through October 5th. With no rain. Then 80 degrees on the 6th.

we had weeks of dry and sunny weather so i cannot complain about there not being enough time to pick beans.

i finished today's pick through and tomorrow's forecast now gives me a time of after 2pm so perhaps i can get out tomorrow morning and check for dry pods that are ready in other gardens that i couldn't get a look at today. there isn't that much left out there but there should be something.

the last two gardens i planted of Purple Dove are full of pods and beans and some are still flowering in both gardens, but the earlier planted garden is turning yellow while the other one is still green. when i get a chance to dig my garden records out from underneath some bean boxes (tomorrow as i don't want to make any noise tonight now that Mom's sleeping) i can see what days i planted both of them and that will give me a good cut-off date for planting them for the coming years. considering how many beans the groundhog ate from the back patch i'm surprised by how many pods i see now. they might all end up as shellies if we get a heavy enough frost anytime in the next few weeks.

the box i picked of beans today was as damp as the beans i picked yesterday so it will be interesting to see how they hold up under this much moisture pressure.

 

[flowerbug]

...Network bean Blaugraue. Unfortunately, 2 out of the 3 plants I was able to germinate died mid-June. I replanted, nothing sprouted. The one remaining one barely hung on and then sprung to life a month or so ago, so I will get some beans to try again. Very lucky for me. And the bean is stunning.

it is! did any of your beans come out brown or grey? i don't know what gets them to turn out different colors but i've seen all sorts of different shades on the spectrum. i didn't even have them on my planting list for this year but i see a seed must have been mixed in my Sacre Bleu planting (which didn't give me much in return but that's ok i just wanted to renew a few seeds so i can poke a plant here or there into my plantings each year) as the color and shape of the beans are hard to miss.

love that cherry red color too! beauties!

 

[ruralmamma]

We've been getting some rain and I'm trying to harvest between showers and as often as possible. I'm using my seed-starting setup as a drying rack and taking full advantage of the small fan I use to circulate air around seedling to assist in drying pods. One variety pulled from the garden and hanging in the shed to finish drying and two others have been completely harvested too. Pretty much caught up with the shelling too which is a first for me, especially since this year's harvest is 4-5 times what I usually do.

 

[flowerbug]

... Pretty much caught up with the shelling too which is a first for me, especially since this year's harvest is 4-5 times what I usually do.

it is so hard to stop once i get going! addictive! like opening presents on Christmas day...

 

[flowerbug]

ok, my July 14-15 plantings were the last Purple Dove beans to go in and they are likely to be too late in finishing unless we have some amazing frost free days for the next two weeks (at least). so i can remind myself next season to have everything planted by the middle of June at the latest if i want them to finish up without having to wonder how many i'll be using as shellies (or losing them). no matter what, they have done pretty well as a cover crop.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Remember when I posted this dark charcoal looking bean with the white stripe. I found out about it today. It is a hybrid or cross that someone discovered of another bean called Trace Rojo the second red bean.


Hyrid Cross of Trace Rojo...............................Trace Rojo

 

[heirloomgal]

Remember when I posted this dark charcoal looking bean with the white stripe. I found out about it today. It is a hybrid or cross that someone discovered of another bean called Trace Rojo the second red bean.

View attachment 69348View attachment 69349
Hyrid Cross of Trace Rojo...............................Trace Rojo

That pink one looks very similar to the Poroto Huancabamba bush bean I'm growing! The only difference is that PH has dark red flecks over the pinkish red, this one seems more of a pure dark pinkish color. I wonder if there is a gene or set of genes that codes for that distinctive white stripe, and for some reason our North American beans (and I think even the European ones probably) haven't been selected forward when (or if) any of these genes expressed themselves.

 

[heirloomgal]

Was shelling some Crsnjevec (not sure the spelling of it) beans tonight and came across the oddest beans. That bean is more or less marble shaped, very round, and some of the pods (which are ROCK hard) have beans that start out as perfect round beans and with each successive bean in the pod, they get more and more square - like really square. It was not a few pods either, but a bunch. I'll post a pic if I take one tomorrow. Such a strange thing to see.

Wanted to post this for the bean seed savers who have never tried stripping some plant leaves to rush the plants to maturity. I actually did not strip these leaves manually as I usually would, the pole broke and the plant fell over but it still illustrates very well how fast the beans change when they're not under leaf cover anymore. The beans that were dangling beneath the pole did not change from green, but just 2 days in the sun and the exposed pods are losing all the green already despite them both being at the same height (and therefore same age) on the pole.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I wonder if there is a gene or set of genes that codes for that distinctive white stripe, and for some reason our North American beans (and I think even the European ones probably) haven't been selected forward when (or if) any of these genes expressed themselves.

I'm sure this white stripe is genetically controlled. Everything about a bean including seeds, flower color, growth, maturity time are all controlled by genes. These characteristics can be influenced by the enviornment.