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

[BeanieMan]

They seem to be doing great over here but
are still too young to answer your questions

 

[897tgigvib]

My Cherokee Trail of Tears are more variable than many varieties. I do notice that with them, some pods are purple, some green, and most a soft combination of both, some pastel shades. Also, sometimes the seeds have brownness to them, but I'm pretty sure the later harvested seeds have that more than earlier harvested seeds. They also produce to the very last of the season and survive the first light frosts, but those seeds seem to have less pigment and at first are a midnight purple color, turning gloss black after a month or so indoors.

 

[aftermidnight]

Marshall, here's a picture of the bean seed in question. I've also noticed the brownness on some of the seed at times and the different shades of purple and sometimes just plain green on the beans but I've never seen this pattern on the seed coats before /08 or after.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

SeedO sent me some Armenian Black Giant to propagate for him. The seed didn't look very good but I planted them anyway. There were four seeds and I planted them around one single pole. The first time I looked at the planting only two of them came up. The two that emerged from the soil didn't have cotyledons or even leaves. The second time I checked on them. One of the plants looked like it was drying up and the other one appeared as if it was trying to start to develop some small leaves on it's little stub stem. I think when they come up without leaves they call that bald head. When a plant like that begins to develop some leaves, and sometimes bean plants recover. I call them "bean plants in repair" (sounds like a good name for one of these new modern rock groups). They are healing and slowly coming back to life. Hopefully this one plant will grow, climb up the pole and produce pods and seeds before the season is over.

Sorry about that (I'm the person who grew the original seed and gave it to SeedO, so in a certain sense it's sorta my fault it was such poor quality.)

Unfortunately, I can't offer you much hope, season wise. That's WHY the seed looked so crappy, it's actually a surprisingly long season bean; too long for my area (and bear in mind I'm a zone and a half further SOUTH than you so my season is actually LONGER than yours. I started with two seeds (I had split the original Richters pack with someone else, and as they were growing them for food and I just for curiosity, I let them have the lion's share) One of them died almost immediately after germinating. The other one lives, but never thrived. It made two pods, with a total of six seeds then conked out. And as you saw, even those seeds were not totally done when the plant keeled over. I gave two of the seeds to someone else and they said they didn't even germinate (and the other person had a total crop failure that year, so no more from there.) I sure HOPE that one with you makes it, but it's probably going to be long odds.

 

[897tgigvib]

Oh! Annette, those look like an outcross! How lucky!!! You may start new varieties from those!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Looks more like damage to me (the brown patches look like they are recessed with respect to the black surface.) I've seen etchings like that show up in my cowpeas regularly when the seed wasn't completely ripe when it dried down, or insects damaged the seed.

 

[aftermidnight]

Pulsegleaner you could be right, the brown patches are recessed on the top two seeds but not on the others. These are fairly old seeds, I've planted them in a pot, if they germinate, grow, produce beans... it's going to be a wait and see.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Sorry about that (I'm the person who grew the original seed and gave it to SeedO, so in a certain sense it's sorta my fault it was such poor quality.)

Unfortunately, I can't offer you much hope, season wise. That's WHY the seed looked so crappy, it's actually a surprisingly long season bean; too long for my area (and bear in mind I'm a zone and a half further SOUTH than you so my season is actually LONGER than yours. I started with two seeds (I had split the original Richters pack with someone else, and as they were growing them for food and I just for curiosity, I let them have the lion's share) One of them died almost immediately after germinating. The other one lives, but never thrived. It made two pods, with a total of six seeds then conked out. And as you saw, even those seeds were not totally done when the plant keeled over. I gave two of the seeds to someone else and they said they didn't even germinate (and the other person had a total crop failure that year, so no more from there.) I sure HOPE that one with you makes it, but it's probably going to be long odds.

SeedO had asked me if I would grow them for him since there may be an issue with him moving this year. It didn't bother me in the least that the seeds were in poor condition. I was just doing a report on how the beans were coming along. More or less a progress report so SeedO could read it.

Looked at them yesterday and the one with leaves developing on the little stub stem look like the leaves are progressing further. Though you live further south and have a longer season it may be that the extra hours of sunlight here might cause these beans to progress faster here essentially getting pretty equal to your growth anyway.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

That's sort of what I assumed. Hopefully, they will do better for you than me, both in condition AND size (you wouldn't have know this without anything to compare them to, but Armenian Giant Black seed is supposed to almost TWICE the size of the ones I gave you. They're basically a runner bean sized non runner.) Your extra light may make a difference; light is at a premium here with the trees. It also may help them that you can actually put them in the GROUND, as opposed to a small pot on a pedestal (away from hungry critters) It works, but I know it means that all my beans go through their lives severely rootbound.
Keep us updated. Also when you get around to planting the FPM I swapped you, let us know how that does as well. I'm particularly interested in seeing if you also get only one seed color back from the Ricter's stuff (in the sample you got, the white and purple slightly wrinkled seeds are from my own growing last year [the white were picked a bit too soon], the fatter shinier tans and browns are Ricter's original packet.) Also whether ALL FPM have the same distinctive trait, or just most of them. FPM has the STRONGEST cotyledon mottling I have ever seen on a bean. As they grow the cots become COVERED with heavy purple mottling; it nearly covers them.

 

[the1honeycomb]

Things are great with my beans! Ive had to stake up all mybush beans I should have a great harvest