Beanmad Nanna
Attractive To Bees
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2023
- Messages
- 43
- Reaction score
- 142
- Points
- 58
- Location
- Suffolk, UK (zone 8a) (microclimate)
Hello fellow Bean enthusiasts
I've joined this and another couple of seed sharing networks to expand the range that I grow.
In my head I have a few priorities, but actually my main driver is All the Pretty Colours and I'm just lying to myself to justify the hoarding.
I don't really get how forums work, having been part of a couple that I found incredibly frustrating which put me off for a very long time.
I have been a gardener, a teacher, an eco activist for decades. Now a grandmother. Beyond the prettiness & range of aesthetic qualities I am hoping to have a collection which is a deep and broad gene pool to draw on, and as a legacy to my children and people I share seeds with.
Maybe this is where i commit to paper (all) my growing aims.
Food stuffs : I am hoping to hold a range of varieties which can cope with variable seasons or /and extremes of weather conditions, and still provide for a family = FOOD SECURITY HAS BECOME CRITICAL
* large white kidney-ish - runners, (I grow Enorma / Czar/ Gigantes, next year also d'Espagne) - Tarbais
* large white round - coco & more fatty monstrance types (I grow coco Sophie pole, I'd also place Coco precoce & prolifique here as 1/2 white 1/2 tan speckled, one of the Lazy housewife types (round coco), and another more like a cutshort, then buck eye fall bean (half runner), St Antonio pole both look like black eye peas/monstrance types)
* large black kidney - (Valentine bush, Rhondda runner, hoping to obtain a scottish selection I know of & continue with my own selection from scarlet runners)
* black rounder types & rice bean types - ( Cherokee veil of tears, marvel of venice pole)
* borlotti types - (grow common lingua de fuoco bush and climbing, I'm sure I started with one called dragon's tongue, selection with darker seeds- still seeing if will stabilise, would like tiger eye, goat eye, and some darker beans I have seen )
* horticultural? not sure how to categorise = mottled seeds smaller than the borlottis - (coco Princesse pole, bird's egg types )
* semi dry triple purpose - ( bush coco de Paimpol, & piemontaise, Tunny = half runner? ( roundish 1/2 red/white, seen under other names v old var. ), )
* flageolet - (chevrier vert, I want hungarian rice bean. I failed with Coco d'israel years ago)
* pinto? types = pretty beans - ( brown soldier, gold Jacobs Cattle, I've a load ordered for next season - I really want to increase my holding of good and TASTY doers in huge range of colours )
* mottled fatty beans - (gnuddle , ) ( looking into acquiring larger 'potato' types)
* Flattish 'butter' beans - (unknown name, lima/butter bean shape dark chocolate brown with sparse pale tan speckle near navel ; fat goose )
* Purple pods
* Buttery yellow pods
* soup beans - (hutterite soup, yellow dutch, various north european greenish, tannish types ) - am also selecting soup Peas for my conditions
I am looking for
earliness = short season to early harvest or successional sowings;
= can they be harvested before autumn storms???
productivity per square of garden space; (? ease of setting; );
TASTE = are they worthy of kitchen storage space or worthy of fresh pod space in ground;
style = what they do in the kitchen - culinary performance = texture; = speed of cooking;
rarity = not only having monocrops in hands of big agro companies = diversity in gene bank
OMG - it is true, I am utterly obsessed. I dare not count up the varieties I hold already. I am hoping to be able to make a few 'family favourite' selections in coming years.
I am happy to have fallen in to the community of bean savers.
Michele ( Beanmad Nanna aka Knitting Nana )
I've joined this and another couple of seed sharing networks to expand the range that I grow.
In my head I have a few priorities, but actually my main driver is All the Pretty Colours and I'm just lying to myself to justify the hoarding.
I don't really get how forums work, having been part of a couple that I found incredibly frustrating which put me off for a very long time.
I have been a gardener, a teacher, an eco activist for decades. Now a grandmother. Beyond the prettiness & range of aesthetic qualities I am hoping to have a collection which is a deep and broad gene pool to draw on, and as a legacy to my children and people I share seeds with.
Maybe this is where i commit to paper (all) my growing aims.
Food stuffs : I am hoping to hold a range of varieties which can cope with variable seasons or /and extremes of weather conditions, and still provide for a family = FOOD SECURITY HAS BECOME CRITICAL
* large white kidney-ish - runners, (I grow Enorma / Czar/ Gigantes, next year also d'Espagne) - Tarbais
* large white round - coco & more fatty monstrance types (I grow coco Sophie pole, I'd also place Coco precoce & prolifique here as 1/2 white 1/2 tan speckled, one of the Lazy housewife types (round coco), and another more like a cutshort, then buck eye fall bean (half runner), St Antonio pole both look like black eye peas/monstrance types)
* large black kidney - (Valentine bush, Rhondda runner, hoping to obtain a scottish selection I know of & continue with my own selection from scarlet runners)
* black rounder types & rice bean types - ( Cherokee veil of tears, marvel of venice pole)
* borlotti types - (grow common lingua de fuoco bush and climbing, I'm sure I started with one called dragon's tongue, selection with darker seeds- still seeing if will stabilise, would like tiger eye, goat eye, and some darker beans I have seen )
* horticultural? not sure how to categorise = mottled seeds smaller than the borlottis - (coco Princesse pole, bird's egg types )
* semi dry triple purpose - ( bush coco de Paimpol, & piemontaise, Tunny = half runner? ( roundish 1/2 red/white, seen under other names v old var. ), )
* flageolet - (chevrier vert, I want hungarian rice bean. I failed with Coco d'israel years ago)
* pinto? types = pretty beans - ( brown soldier, gold Jacobs Cattle, I've a load ordered for next season - I really want to increase my holding of good and TASTY doers in huge range of colours )
* mottled fatty beans - (gnuddle , ) ( looking into acquiring larger 'potato' types)
* Flattish 'butter' beans - (unknown name, lima/butter bean shape dark chocolate brown with sparse pale tan speckle near navel ; fat goose )
* Purple pods
* Buttery yellow pods
* soup beans - (hutterite soup, yellow dutch, various north european greenish, tannish types ) - am also selecting soup Peas for my conditions
I am looking for
earliness = short season to early harvest or successional sowings;
= can they be harvested before autumn storms???
productivity per square of garden space; (? ease of setting; );
TASTE = are they worthy of kitchen storage space or worthy of fresh pod space in ground;
style = what they do in the kitchen - culinary performance = texture; = speed of cooking;
rarity = not only having monocrops in hands of big agro companies = diversity in gene bank
OMG - it is true, I am utterly obsessed. I dare not count up the varieties I hold already. I am hoping to be able to make a few 'family favourite' selections in coming years.
I am happy to have fallen in to the community of bean savers.
Michele ( Beanmad Nanna aka Knitting Nana )