A Seed Saver's Garden

[Pulsegleaner]

May I ask what bean varieties your growing @Pulsegleaner?

I you just mean the P. vulgaris, I don't think they have a formal name yet. They're the off-types/crosses of Falcon Russ found and was kind enough to let me have. The blacks are in one long planter, the speckled brown are in another and the "flips" (reverse speckled) are in with the corn (I had originally planned to save those against crop failure, but when it became obvious that the planters were doing fine; while the rice beans were a no show and I needed some sort of legume in there to keep the sort of Three Sisters I was doing going, I used them as part of that because by then I didn't have that much else in beans I could reasonably count on.)

I suppose that, once they are stabilized, naming will fall to me. Good thing I have some time for that (the fact there are at least two flour colors and possibly two cotyledon color forms means they aren't stable yet.) Every name I can come up with that makes sense seems to have a possibility of misinterpretation. Since the original was Falcon, I wanted to keep with the birds of prey theme. I thought Redtail might be good for the speckled ones (since their pattern is very similar to the plumage on a Red-tailed Hawk's breast), but I'm not sure of using a name with "red" in it for a bean that isn't.

Likewise, I had toyed with calling the black one "Maltese Falcon" (That being the only black bird of prey I could think of) but that sounds like it is a version of the bean that actually comes from Malta (which it doesn't)

"Blackhawk" is going to remind most people of military helicopters, not birds, so that's no good (Come to think of it, Redtail might be misinterpreted that way as well, since I think there was a famous group of WWII African American Pilots called the Redtails.)

"Kestrel" makes it sound too small, "Osprey" too big. (Though, as it is still smaller seeded than most beans, "Kestrel" I might be able to get away with so long as nobody has seen Falcon before and noticed it is even smaller. )

Outside of the regular beans, I have two types of long beans growing (both white podded, I think, but I don't remember which ones.) a pot of horse gram (Dolichos biflorus), a pot of mostly mung beans with a few urd and mothe beans in there as well, and a confused scramble of an unknown number of assorted odds and ends of legumes spread between four pots on the side patio (unknown because, not only do I not remember half of what I planted, at least half of the stuff there is from last year that only NOW came up. I know there are some Hyacinth beans, Sweet Peas, Flat Vetch, Silky Vetch and Hairy Vetch (maybe*) but beyond that, I'll have to wait and see some flowers for identification.

*I always ASSUMED what I had was Hairy Vetch, based on the pods and seeds. But, looking at pictures online, the flowers on mine are the wrong color (greenish yellow, rather than white) and I seem to recall not in bunches like that, so maybe I have a different species.)

 

[heirloomgal]

I thought Redtail might be good

Oooh! That's a great name! I love the bird beans. I'm growing Lastochka this year for one main reason - the name! I love it when there is a *series* in a vegetable; there are a few cherry tomatoes I've collected like that, the Vernissages & the Tigers come to mind. I've also got two of @Bluejay77's 'sugar' beans, Gabarone and Cape. I'd like to collect all the sugar beans eventually.

There is a pea I'm growing this year just because I liked the name, Rembrant Snow Pea. It sort of went with the 'Van Gogh's Olive' network beans I'm growing this year too, lol. I like the idea of 'Impressionist' themed legumes.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Oooh! That's a great name! I love the bird beans. I'm growing Lastochka this year for one main reason - the name! I love it when there is a *series* in a vegetable; there are a few cherry tomatoes I've collected like that, the Vernissages & the Tigers come to mind. I've also got two of @Bluejay77's 'sugar' beans, Gabarone and Cape. I'd like to collect all the sugar beans eventually.

There is a pea I'm growing this year just because I liked the name, Rembrant Snow Pea. It sort of went with the 'Van Gogh's Olive' network beans I'm growing this year too, lol. I like the idea of 'Impressionist' themed legumes.

While I still like "Ugandan Discussion" for it, if you are doing impressionists, maybe when and if that blue, green and purple mottled bean @seakangroo discovered ever re-surfaces, we should name it "Monet".

Of course, at the same time I name it, I have to work out what it is best for. I have a recipe for flageolets bookmarked on my computer, but these are probably only HALF flageolet now, so working out how best to cook them will take some experimentation. Assuming all of the plants get a second or more pod (under my saving method, pod #1 of a plant is ALWAYS saved for seed, in case it turns out to be the only one.) I'm even temped to pick a few early and see if they can function as a snap, or a shelly (normal flageolets are usually a pale green, different from the seed coat green I am used to, but whether that is the actual color or they pick them a bit unripe and dry them, I'm not sure).

 

[Zeedman]

'Purple Serrano'. Definitely bigger than the red serranos.

Those don't really look like serrano peppers, which are more cylindrical. They look more like the "Purple Jalapeno" that I grew several years ago (which wasn't really jalapeno-like either). Both jalapenos & serranos are thick, heavy peppers (serranos feel almost solid), the PJ was thin walled. I hope that is not what you have, because I found it had no redeeming qualities other than its color, so I never grew it again.

 

[heirloomgal]

Those don't really look like serrano peppers, which are more cylindrical. They look more like the "Purple Jalapeno" that I grew several years ago (which wasn't really jalapeno-like either). Both jalapenos & serranos are thick, heavy peppers (serranos feel almost solid), the PJ was thin walled. I hope that is not what you have, because I found it had no redeeming qualities other than its color, so I never grew it again.

The last time I grew serrano they were waaay smaller too. I may have gotten a cross, I rechecked the site where I got it and they describe 'fuzzy' foliage. Definitely don't have that.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

1. A few of the long beans in the back have flower buds, and there is one pair of developing pods.

2. Apparently, the speckled common bean has purple mottled pods as well as cotyledons.

3. The cukes now have actual developing cucumbers

4. The one sunflower that made it this far has a bud at the top. It's going to be a really tiny sunflower (maybe daisy size) but I might get seed even from that. (I suppose, as it is the only one, and I don't know of any others around here, whatever seed it may make is still pretty likely to be pure to the type, so I'll only have to buy the other one to try again.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

My first corn plant has a tassel, but it's the weirdest tassel I have ever seen! (I'll try and take a photo tomorrow.)

When my dad told me yesterday that my corn plant had an ear, I thought he was being silly (since I know the tassel always beats the ear in showing up, and he did verify it was coming out of the top of the plant, not the side*) But looking at it today, I can see where he was coming from. It's clearly a tassel (it even has it's pollinia out on the bottom now), but the thing has no branches at all! It's just this big fat lump (looks a little like the top of a sorghum plant, or a paintbrush). I don't even think it's a matter of all of the tassel branches being clustered together because it just emerged, it seems like it is one single base stalk as thick around as the corn plant itself! I'll still go out tomorrow and start collecting pollen for the freezer (since the odds are the tassel will be spent by the time the actual ears and silks show up,) but I suspect this plant has set itself up for the strongest natural self pollination ever, as, barring a fairly decently strong wind, no pollen from it could REACH any other plant, it'd just fall straight down the sides of the stalk!

 

[flowerbug]

... but I suspect this plant has set itself up for the strongest natural self pollination ever, as, barring a fairly decently strong wind, no pollen from it could REACH any other plant, it'd just fall straight down the sides of the stalk!

if it becomes a completely new variety you could call it Downdraft.

 

[donna13350]

You should do a google image search for "fasciation in corn". I suspect that may be what you're describing.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

You should do a google image search for "fasciation in corn". I suspect that may be what you're describing.

Well, most of the articles I see refer to ears, not tassels. But as one of the two ears I used did show the short, stubby cobs I saw in the online pictures, I think you may be right.