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

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Marshall,

So glad your back.

Try this pronunciation Gan - E - Meed.

Ganymede I have always thought of it's seeds as Red, White and Blue. The dark color looks Navy Blue to me.

Anyway I harvest some Billingsgate yesterday and cracked open a couple of pods and discovered some different colors. Same pattern but new colors. Now I need to get more pods dry and see what else I get. I'm sure by what you are discribing I haven't scratched the surface yet on this one. Yesterday was my first dry pods harvest. Small amounts of pods from about a dozen bush bean rows out of the total of 20 rows of bush beans. Soon we will both have our bean seed shows going.

I did crack open a Weiner Treib pod today and looks like one plant making black seeds. I got that Conserva snap bean from Joe Simcox and so far I'm getting pure white seed back from that one.

 

[Hal]

Did the Billingsgate give you both narrow pods like Magpie?

 

[Blue-Jay]

Did the Billingsgate give you both narrow pods like Magpie?

The Billingsgate pods are slender but not as slender or as long as Magpie. The pods although still oval in shape seem a bit more rounded than Magpie. Not as heavy as Jacob's Cattle, but longer and much straighter. They also have a fairly long spur on the end. I wish I would have saved a Magpie pod from last year. I saved a bunch of pods. The color pattern on the seed seems to be holding but breaking out into different colors. I can see it now. Billingsgate, Billingsgate Blue, Billingsgate Red, Billingsgate Yellow etc. I don't have to collect anymore new beans. The collection now makes them for me just by growing them all.

 

[digitS']

I began harvesting some of the volunteer Cascade Giant pods for seed this week. Many had begun to dry but a few more days would be a good idea for the varieties that I cannot just trust to come back on their own despite whatever efforts I'm making as their gardener.

All the beans have mature pods. The questionable one is Boonkjies #39 . Those plants and pods are so tiny it makes me wonder how they are utilized in their native environment! I suppose that they are doing just fine in my garden but I will have to pay attention during harvest so that seeds are not left behind. Boonkjies reminds me of growing lentils ... except smaller, plants for sure.

Steve

 

[aftermidnight]

Russ I've just popped a little something in the mail to reimburse you for postage, I don't want to see you out of pocket, besides I want to stay on your good side, you never know when I'll come a begging LOL.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

I began harvesting some of the volunteer Cascade Giant pods for seed this week. Many had begun to dry but a few more days would be a good idea for the varieties that I cannot just trust to come back on their own despite whatever efforts I'm making as their gardener.

All the beans have mature pods. The questionable one is Boonkjies #39 . Those plants and pods are so tiny it makes me wonder how they are utilized in their native environment! I suppose that they are doing just fine in my garden but I will have to pay attention during harvest so that seeds are not left behind. Boonkjies reminds me of growing lentils ... except smaller, plants for sure.

Steve

Hi digitS

The Boontjies sounds like they are too small to be grown for a commerical market. However overseas markets might be different. Perhaps they may have been grown in private vegetable gardens and sold at one time by seed companies for that purpose. Maybe also a restaurant delicacy.Possibly this variety develops their seeds very slowly so perhaps keeping the pods in pickable condition longer. One of the Comtesse de Chambords that I grew last year with the closer to rice sized seed also had very thin pods. Once they dried their seed and the pods had dehydrated they were nearly the thickness of shoe strings. I'm guessing that the pods might be very thin. Is that the case with Boontjies?

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ I've just popped a little something in the mail to reimburse you for postage, I don't want to see you out of pocket, besides I want to stay on your good side, you never know when I'll come a begging LOL.

Annette

Oh Annette! You didn't have to do that. I sent the beans voluntarily. You have sent me some nice things. So I should be able to do it in return.

 

[digitS']

Hi digitS

The Boontjies sounds like they are too small to be grown for a commerical market. However overseas markets might be different. Perhaps they may have been grown in private vegetable gardens and sold at one time by seed companies for that purpose. Maybe also a restaurant delicacy.Possibly this variety develops their seeds very slowly so perhaps keeping the pods in pickable condition longer. One of the Comtesse de Chambords that I grew last year with the closer to rice sized seed also had very thin pods. Once they dried their seed and the pods had dehydrated they were nearly the thickness of shoe strings. I'm guessing that the pods might be very thin. Is that the case with Boontjies?

They are remarkably thin, Russ!

The seeds are very small. Right now, it's hard for me to know if there is a seed in there.

I'm trying to imagine a combine scraping thru a field trying to pick up the plants ... My guess - very patient harvesters with adept digitS. It would have to be valuable seed just because of labor costs.

Steve

 

[Naomi Schoenfeld]

Welp, it's been an awesome season so far -- and high time I clocked in to report.

My planting list this year, all pole beans, was:

Cherokee Trail of Tears
Swiss Landfrauen
Black & White Goose (from Bluejay77)
Blue Coco
Poletchka (from Bluejay77)
Leslie Tenderpod (from Bluejay77)
Logan Giant (from Bluejay77)
New Mexico Red Appaloosa (from Bluejay77)
O’Driscoll
Poletchka (from Bluejay77)
Red Speckled (from Bluejay77)
Vermont Cranberry
Hardwig’s Belgium
.. plus a couple of other open-pollinated seed swaps

The results:

• About 10% of the plants grew out as bush beans. I've been harvesting them for soup, but won't save the seed. My garden is pole-bean oriented.

• My Cherokee Trail of Tears have been dividing into two distinct varieties over the past few years -- one with long, smooth pods and longer/narrower seed, the other with shorter, lumpy pods and cutshort beans. Click through to https://flic.kr/p/otC7uJ to see what I mean. Anyone know which is more true to the traditional CTT?

• The Red Speckled threw out very short runners, but mostly behaved like bush beans. Goal was to replenish seed -- achieved. I'll mail that back to you a little closer to autumn, Bluejay77, when I'm sure I'm giving you the best seeds.

• Some haven't yet matured to leather pods: Logan Giant, New Mexico Red Appaloosa, Leslie Tenderpod. All have plenty of pods, though, so it's just a matter of waiting.

• So far, the winners in the dry beans category: Black & White Goose (grew and yielded like crazy!), Blue Coco, Poletchka.

• Last but definitely not least -- one very cool sport, picture here. It's the one on the bottom. No idea what the parents might be, but Bluejay77, it's on the Black & White Goose pole. Not that you need even more beans, but let me know if you'd like some back. It's tasty, too. I'm definitely going to grow this one out next year and see if I can stabilize it.

Looking forward to the rest of the varieties maturing!

 

[Blue-Jay]

• Last but definitely not least -- one very cool sport, picture here. It's the one on the bottom. No idea what the parents might be, but Bluejay77, it's on the Black & White Goose pole. Not that you need even more beans, but let me know if you'd like some back. It's tasty, too. I'm definitely going to grow this one out next year and see if I can stabilize it.

Looking forward to the rest of the varieties maturing!

I guess I must be a little dense but I'm sorry I couldn't figure out which one of your beans is the new sport from Black & White Goose. Help me out a little bit give me directions to the new bean. I can be a little slow in figuring out things sometimes.

My next two years is going to be devoted to growing out my true bush types and try to clean them up as some are sporting runners. Will be culling out anything that comes up semi-runners during the growing season of 2015 & 2016. Will then return to growing out pole and semi-runners in 2017.

Tell you what Naomi. You work on the new sport for the next two seasons and I might take you up on a litte sample of them in the spring of 2017. I'll trade you for them for something I have you might be interested in.