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

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

The one not in a bag is the sport. Here's another picture - https://flic.kr/p/otG2Ep - though it still doesn't do justice to the purple colors. Essentially, it looks a lot like your Prairie Patch, only in shades of purple and grey.

2017 sounds like a plan. We'll revisit it then!

 

[aftermidnight]

Naomi, as to your CTT's, the pod on the right with the longer seed is like the CTT's I've been growing for about 20 years.

Annette

 

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

Thanks, Annette! I'll keep the name attached to those, and select out the others.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I'm glad SOMEONE'S Beans are doing well. Mine are in near stasis (a part of me says that, as I am not currently a member of the bean ring, nor am likely to be any time soon, for the reasons I mentioned long ago) I really shouldn't be putting my results here. However since ultimately seed from most, if not all of the types of beans I grow will probably end up being included in Bluejay's pool eventually, either through me sharing it with him or sharing it with someone else who shares with him (like what happened with the Armenian) So info on the varieties may of use on the thread down the road .
At the moment I have two growing bean pods. That's it, TWO. Actually, until this afternoon I though I had only ONE growing bean pod, but while I was watering my Fort Portal Mixed, I found one of the flowers one of the plants had set a month or so ago actually HAD taken, and there is actually a now well swelled pod there that the leaves had completely concealed. But other than those two I've got bupkis.
I'm particularly frustrated with the other one which is on a Mottled Grey plant. While I am glad for that pod, I am really annoyed that it is the ONLY one in the pot doing anything. With the FPM, there are only three plants living now and at least two have made flowers at least, so that is one thing. But there are at least EIGHTEEN MG's out there and so far NONE of the other have shown the vaguest signs of getting off their metaphorical reproductive asses. Most are still barely seedling size. About a quarter seem to have given up and gone into leaf drop. I know I have at least another month (if not more) before things start to get into autumn cool; and that is plenty of time for a healthy flush of beans. But it seems like there is some sort of curse on this one for me . Three plantings most of the time an inability to get three quarters of them to even germinate ( it turns out for this years second try they actually do BETTER planted outside than inside, but I still only got up to maybe half the seed I planted. The Richter's material for this is just too old to really germinate well and now this. I spent a fortune and stocked up like crazy t try and make sure I got a crop of these and it looks like I'll probably have to buy still more , unless I simply give up on this one as being either no good for me or simply no good.

For the record I got my first harvest off those plants earlier this week, one pod off each (purple ones FPM, speckled ones MG)

As I said earlier, while I am certainly glad to finally get some MG back the amount of effort and extreme number of non-starts make me question whether this is a bean that is really worth the effort.

Not to sound churlish, but I am sort of glad these beans did not come from the network, so I can use what I get to keep my own population going. If they had, then I'd basically be honor bound to turn over ALL beans I got this year (the SG plant has one more pod, but just one, and looks unlikely to survive long enough to get more, so I'm probably looking at a max of 8-9 fresh MG's to work with. Maybe someday I'll have enough to share of it, but not now).

One odd thing of note, as with the FPM, MG seems to be a dramatically different color that what was planted. The planted seed was a tannish buff, with heavy speckles, creating a sort of pink granite appearance. The spots are still there but, except for a few odd spots here and there, the base color is stark white. Maybe the seed changes color a great deal over time (I suspect the original material Richter's has is now 5-6 years old.)

The FPM situation looks a little better. the plants have a decent number of additional pods. In fact one looks like it might be a better strain than normal (without the ripe pod still hanging there I can't be sure, but the pod on one plant seems to be significantly bigger than normal for FPM. Maybe I'm wrong and there actually IS a mix involved in FPM [I do recall one seed that was in the planted material was unusually large])

 

[Blue-Jay]

The one not in a bag is the sport. Here's another picture - https://flic.kr/p/otG2Ep - though it still doesn't do justice to the purple colors. Essentially, it looks a lot like your Prairie Patch, only in shades of purple and grey.

2017 sounds like a plan. We'll revisit it then!

That is a very pretty purple bean. No telling what other new combinations you might get the next two years as the genetics sorts themselves out.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

The Prescott's Old Family Heirloom harvest has begun! American quarter and some sort of Aussie coinage at right for size. This is probably my second favorite bean that I've grown so far.

@Bluejay77 I'm going to need your address.

I've also harvested a lot of Fort Portal Mixed beans too. @Pulsegleaner, if your supply ever runs low you know who to call. They did good here, still a lot of green pods that need to dry yet. I got all of these off of one plant.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Thanks but I think I'm stable I think (I can't really grow much anyway) Plus if that plant really IS making bigger pods, I should probably focus on that one next year.

That all for the same plant? guess the size variation between flushes is normal.

 

[baymule]

Up date on African beans. One of the bambarra bean plants, a small one, turned brown and I found nothing under it. I sifted the soil, but was afraid to dig around too much, because there is a nice healthy bambarra right next to it and I didn't want to disturb it. The Jugo and Bambarras look good. I read that they can take a long time to make anything, I think I figured on September or October.

But the real surprise is one red bean/pea?? that has vined like mad. One plant is about 6' wide and 8' long, sprawled out all over the place. It has had blooms, but nothing happened. Nothing. Nothing. More vines. Blooms. Nothing. But today I finally found some pods! I don't know if they are beans or peas, we'll continue to watch and see what we get. Here's the green monster.

Here are the pods. They look like a pea to me, what say ya'll?

With growth like that from just one pea/bean the size of my pinky fingernail, I see a possible forage plant for livestock. We still have to wait on a ripe pod to see what we have.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well, I did say that one of the red ones looked more like a cowpea than an earth pea. I don't think Earth Peas make aboveground pods, so I'd say I was right.

 

[baymule]

Well, I did say that one of the red ones looked more like a cowpea than an earth pea. I don't think Earth Peas make aboveground pods, so I'd say I was right.

don't those pods look like peas and not beans?
And is it normal for only one pea/bean? to make that much in vines?