The 2014 Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans On The Cheap

[the1honeycomb]

MOst of my beans look great!!! so does the weeds that are holding them up! have to get out there and pull some grass don't have any clippings to help!! very excited aobut the expansion most of it is beans!!!

 

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

No luck so far on the Giant of Stuttgart, @Bluejay77 -- all the other beans are up, but not those. I did divvy the seeds for three plantings, though, so I'll put the second in the ground in a couple of days.

Mind you, all the other beans are up and cheering. We had two days of pouring rain followed by two of bright son -- awesome germination rates, great growth.

 

[Blue-Jay]

No luck so far on the Giant of Stuttgart, @Bluejay77 -- all the other beans are up, but not those. I did divvy the seeds for three plantings, though, so I'll put the second in the ground in a couple of days.

Mind you, all the other beans are up and cheering. We had two days of pouring rain followed by two of bright son -- awesome germination rates, great growth.

Sounds excellent Naomi. Would you like another bean to replace the Giant Of Stuttgart. I can send it out this morning. Still plenty of growing season left.

 

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

Yes, please! (I never say 'no' to a bean... )

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Namomi,

I'm sending you two. General Mackay has only 3 seeds, and I'm not even sure that one will grow either, but you can try it. Also sending Red Speckled which has five seeds. I'm surprised you can plant beans already in New Hampshire. I'm still a bit leary about our temperatures here in Illinois. Friday morning it was snowing here for a number of hours in the morning. It didn't stick. Too warm now for snow to stay on the ground, but it sure made me wonder about planting beans yet.

 

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

Sounds great!! I look forward to coaxing what I can out of them.

Think Massachussets, rather than NH, @Bluejay77 -- we're really only a few minutes from the Mass border. Even so, you're right, it's a bit early; but the oak trees were telling us the cold weather was done with (folk wisdom here is to plant when the oaks put out new leaves, or 'mouse ears'), so I went with it. We've been consistently in the 70's during the day.

There's still a small chance I could get clobbered by a late frost, but I have row covers at the ready -- and saved back a good half of my planting seed and space, just in case.

So far, so good -- the beans are up (except for aforementioned Giant of Stuttgart), and waving their second set of true leaves in the air.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I got about half of mine in the ground last Friday, also holding back some just in case. I had Blue Lake bush and Black Turtle bush already up so I figured the ground was ready. This shows that the Blue Lake Bush were germinating so I figured it was time.

I only had three Mahlathini seeds so all those went under a "rabbit" cage, but half the other two bush and half the two pole bean varieties are in the ground.

I think two of the bush and one of the pole are probably more for green beans than dried beans, so my plan is to get Russ his seeds off the first planting, that's the top priority, then play with the second planting to see how they do as green beans. Russ said he wanted information on how they grew and all that. I'm not good at keeping journals but I will try.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Returning to the V. subterrenea again, I hate to bring this up so late in the game (or sound like such a self-righteous, authoritarian jerk) but is a 25 seed return to bluejay going to be ENOUGH. It's just that, based on the pictures those seem to be more along the lines of landraces than actual strains, so every seed is probably sufficiently different genetically from every other as to be a strain in and of itself at this point. So a 25 seed return could lead to a lot of the sample diversity being lost, if one plant makes the lion's share of healthy seed. I'd almost suggest trying to send back 25 seeds from EACH PLANT THAT GROWS, but I know that, at best that would turn the propagation into a zero profit scenario (i.e. where everything the multiplier got out would just end up going back, with nothing left for them) and most likely with footing a bill they cannot fulfill (based on the one person I know who actually HAS grown V.s. themselves, the plants are not necessarily all that fecund. Out of 8 seeds they got 4 to germinate and each one that did only made 1 seed (which in most cases was smaller than the one they started with). But under the circumstances I would appeal to those who took this one to at least TRY to make sure the send back has a seed or two from each plant, so that future generation can have as close to the full range to play around with as possible.
Also, as I mentioned the red one in the Jugo picture very likely is a cowpea, not a earth pea. So whever has or had it (be it still bluejay or someone he sent one of the Jugo samples to) It might be nice if you planned to skew that one a little heavy in your planned return. Expecting 25 seeds to be sent back from that one is probably a little excessive, but 5 might be a good start. In any case, it should probably be cleaved off of the general population at some point if my guess is correct, as it is a different species and can not (as far as I know) cross with earth pea.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm definitely interested in what Bluejay has to say about this, but I had also considered some of that. I figure it is his problem a lot more than mine if I get a variety of seed colors or even plants growing differently, like some bush and some pole, some dark green leaves and some light green, or maybe different size or color/pattern dried beans. That's where the journal comes in. I will try to pay attention, keep notes, and pass on what I observe plus any strange seeds. I think you are right. There is a fair chances some of these are landraces and, while beans normally bred true, there is always a chance an overactive bee gets carried away and cross-pollinates.

I've noticed that Russ and Marshall seem just as excited about strange things happening, outcrosses or maybe even a rare mutation, as they do about getting a stable bean. They are not just into conserving varieties, they're trying to create their own. I think they are having way too much fun. I kind of feel that way about my mixed breed chickens. I'm trying to stabilize on certain things but I never know what is going to come out of that egg shell when it hatches. Some of those are a lot of fun.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I'm afraid I have to take Russ and Marshall's side on that point, I love off types to death as well. While propagating a variety on is certainly a noble thing, to see a sport and know that you are one of the few people, if not the only person EVER in history to see that particular combination is something else entirely. It's almost a religious feeling; that the whims of nature have chosen you, and possibly you alone, to witness this new creation, and has entrusted you to use it correctly. It is a great burden, and a great honor.

Speaking a little less heavily. There are some cases I can remember from growing my own beans that make me aware the whole "strain versus landrace thing is often very complicated. I'm thinking mostly of last year, when I first grew the beans strains Bantu and Fort Portal Mixed (Neither is currently in Russ's list {though I swapped him some FPM this year, so eventually that one presumably will be} so you may not be familiar with either. Both of these were sold as landraces, and based on their appearaces I had no reason to question it. Both had a very wide range of colors. The Bantus looked a lot like the "Fort Portal Jade" bean Russ has (they're actually probably very closely related (see next parenthetical note) except instead of being bright green they vary between shades of brown, purple, olive and so on (all of these colors in fact are also occasionally produced by FPJ as well, which is why I ended up writing to Richter's as to whether I had gotten a mislabeled pouch, and they ended up fishing all the non-green ones out of their supply (what happened to those, I never found out) FPM had a similar color range (with some blacks thrown in) but is more of a kidney bean in shape.
Anyhow, I planted my seeds last year, and maybe 60% of them came up (a lot of the Richter's beans are now rather old, and as they don't regenerate stock, low germinations are pretty normal. Speckled Grey, which is one of the only two they still have any of in stock is currently at around 25% germination, and losing about 5-10% per year.) I lost a few plants over the year, but a decent number of the FPM made it to the end (in the case of the bantu nine plants made it as far as the first flush of pods, but eight immediately died afterward so my seed is rather skewed in favor of the one that kept on going)
Now here is the odd thing. Despite coming from many plants, with many seed colors, all plants produced IDENTICAL seed the next time around. Hot pink when fresh, bright purple when dry. The FPM produced a little variation, with seed being lighter or darker but this was between flushes, not plants (i.e. the seed from a given flush looked different from the seed from an earlier or later flush of the same plant, but the same as seed from the same flush from a different plant.) So I can only assume that, for these the seeds actually is of a single strain in each, and coat color is determined by some other factor (how hot is was when it matured, how fast it dried etc.)
And before anyone asks, no, I do not CURRENTLY have sufficient reserves of either bean to swap seed this year. Get back to me in another year when the season is more favorable and I have been able to increase my stock.