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

[Blue-Jay]

How many bean varieties do you have at any given time?

Do you mean how many do I grow in a single season? Do you mean how many I have total? I guess I can answer my own questions.

I usually grow over a hundred varieties in a season. The number of beans I have in storage I could only estimate at around 1,400. Did that answer your question. All my seed stocks are kept in a freezer. That keeps germination from dropping faster than normal room temperatue kept beans. My freezer stored beans will proibably have about 90% germination rate after 30 to 35 years.

 

[Zeedman]

Giant Nilgiri - Pole dry photo left. This bean came to me in 2018 from a grower in Pennsylvania. Large seed. The bean comes from the mountain region of Nilgiri, India also called the Blue Mountains.

Beautiful. If the yield is decent & the DTM short enough, I'd be tempted to squeeze it into one of my grow outs. Unfortunately, given that my garden is shrinking, I'd probably have to drop something to make room for it.

 

[heirloomgal]

Beautiful. If the yield is decent & the DTM short enough, I'd be tempted to squeeze it into one of my grow outs. Unfortunately, given that my garden is shrinking, I'd probably have to drop something to make room for it.

I've grown it @Zeedman and it matured in plenty of time in my location and the yield was amazing. It's a really great bean.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Holy - Pole dry, left photo. I acquired this bean from the Central Tree Crop Research Trust of New Zealand in 2012. This year was the sixth grow out since 2012. Nice bean productive. Basically a white bean. Mild flavor if you want to stew them for some recipe.

Italian - Pole Snap, right photo, I acquired them from an Iowa grower last year. He says the are a very nice green bean. The Iowa grower said they have been his go to bean ever since he first grew them for fresh eating over 10 years ago. I haven't tried them but will sometime.


Holy - Pole Dry........................................................Italian - Pole Snap

 

[Blue-Jay]

Khabarovsk - Pole dry. Left photo. I had received the variety from a grower in Ohio in 2015. My first grow out in 2015 was wonderful. After a disappointing season in 2022 were the seed was so terrible I didn't save any of it. My 2023 grow out of 8 plants produced only 1 ounce (28 grams). I got an amazing crop this year of 2.5 pounds (918.5 grams) from 8 plants of high quality beans. Kiagara Mame right photo also was the same in 2022. The seed being of such poor quality I had not saved any of it. This years crop the seed quality was good but the volume was poor at 1.85 ounces (52.4 grams) from 8 plants.


Khabarovsk - Pole Dry............................................Kiagara Mame

 

[colcol]

Blue-Jay -- Do Network beans move to the sale pages when you have enough stock grown out?

 

[Dahlia]

Khabarovsk - Pole dry. Left photo. I had received the variety from a grower in Ohio in 2015. My first grow out in 2015 was wonderful. After a disappointing season in 2022 were the seed was so terrible I didn't save any of it. My 2023 grow out of 8 plants produced only 1 ounce (28 grams). I got an amazing crop this year of 2.5 pounds (918.5 grams) from 8 plants of high quality beans. Kiagara Mame right photo also was the same in 2022. The seed being of such poor quality I had not saved any of it. This years crop the seed quality was good but the volume was poor at 1.85 ounces (52.4 grams) from 8 plants.

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Khabarovsk - Pole Dry............................................Kiagara Mame

Wow, you have such detailed notes!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Blue-Jay -- Do Network beans move to the sale pages when you have enough stock grown out?

Not necessarily. Sometimes I will pick out a bean from the network that I think might sell well on the sales pages and grow it out so there is a large quantity here and put it on the sale pages. Are you interested in buying something you see on the network pages? If there is something on the Network pages you like you can always grow it out and return 60 nice seeds and the rest of the crop you have.

Sometimes the network beans in stock just hang on in very small amounts. Maybe a packet or two of 10 or 12 seeds. Norridgewock was one such bean for awhile. Sometimes I would send it to someone that wanted to grow it and it never came back. Some growers had trouble getting a good grow out of it. This year there has been a one return of real nice quality seed of Noridgewock. The bean is from Maine and this years grower is from Maine. Maybe Norridgewock is sensitive to soil and climate of other places. I've already sent it out to another grower who is going to grow it in 2025 and this grower is also lives in Maine.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Wow, you have such detailed notes!

Well thank you for the compliment. I think my notes could be even more detailed. I do try to keep track of where I obtain a bean and when. I also keep a record of my harvest of seed each year. Sometimes I can just remember things about some of the beans. Sometimes I take photos of green and dry pods of varieties that I'm growing. Maybe I should post a set of photos of dry pods I took of all the beans of my 2024 crop.