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

[Decoy1]

Zuni Shalako is one of the A-Z beans I got this year but never found room for it in the end, but I am planning to grow it in 2025. That is another bean I've wanted to try for awhile and am looking forward to. I see the seeds in your photo have lots of gold, and it seems that varies. Probably a soil sensitive variety? I wonder if some beans respond to high fertility with more color on white, and others get less color with the white? My Eden Valley beans from this year are not nearly as colored as the ones in the Bean Collector's Window, and that was high fertility soil I planted them in. I know when I grew Vaquero in 2021 the seeds were very black and white like cows, but the seeds I harvested were very very white with only minimal black patterning.

I enjoyed growing Zuni Shalako two years running in 2020 and 2021 and had good yields. Interestingly the degree of whiteness varied considerably between the two years. So if it’s soil conditions rather than climatic conditions, it must be quite localised as they were grown in the same garden but different beds.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Zuni Shalako is one of the A-Z beans I got this year but never found room for it in the end, but I am planning to grow it in 2025. That is another bean I've wanted to try for awhile and am looking forward to. I see the seeds in your photo have lots of gold, and it seems that varies. Probably a soil sensitive variety? I wonder if some beans respond to high fertility with more color on white, and others get less color with the white? My Eden Valley beans from this year are not nearly as colored as the ones in the Bean Collector's Window, and that was high fertility soil I planted them in. I know when I grew Vaquero in 2021 the seeds were very black and white like cows, but the seeds I harvested were very very white with only minimal black patterning.

A couple of years ago Guy Dirix posted a photo of Pawnee he had grown in soil where he mixed in a lot of compost. So he raised the organic matter. His Pawnee when he harvested the seed had lot of white with a decent size brown patch around the eye and small spotting more than what I get when I plant Pawnee is some soils around here. Many time Pawnee grown here is nearly all brown. Guy Dirix's Pawnee is what I wished mine looked like every time I would grow it. Same difference when I grow Ernie's Big Eye here and @Decoy1 grew me some in the UK.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I thought it would be fun to post all the Network beans that have come in so far. I spent all day yesterday photoing these beans.

Anakin Kuvalli Giant - Pole Dry. Left Photo. This was a bean that Joseph Simcox brought into the country from Europe. I think Bevin Cohen of the Small House farm in Michigan was the first to get a hold of the bean and he added his sons name Anakin to the beginning of the beans name. Nice bean and productive of large seeds. The grower of this bean from Janesville, Wisconsin turned in really nice beans.

Aunt Jeans - Pole Dry. Right Photo. I came across a little seed dealer online from Minnesota that says this bean is a Canadian heirloom. Before this I hadn't known hardly anthing of the bean except that is was a pole dry bean and some say it also makes a decent snap bean. I orginally acquired this bean in 2012 from the California fellow who thought I should start this thread. The grower of this was also the Janesville, Wisconisn grower and this seed turned in really pretty seed of this one also.


Anakin Kuvallii Giant...............................Aunt Jeans