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

[Hal]

Hal,

If your bean plants are at the stage of dryng pods couldn't you have pounded some long stakes (as long as a man stands tall) in the ground with a couple of 7 centimeter screws sticking out of the wood up and down the length of your stakes on both sides and pulled the mature plants up by the roots and hung them to dry off the wet soil. Plus since their roots are no longer in the ground they dry their pods even faster. On a rainy day they drain the water off fairly well. I had this rain problem in late August and I did this and it works like a charm saved most of my seed crop this way.

I gave it a try but with the conditions I was receiving I still had problems so most things that had enough to be worth it were lifted and hung undercover to dry in the shed. Sorry for the late reply.

I had one bean produce pods so sweet they tasted as if they had been dusted with powdered sugar, it was a black type like Black Turtle which goes by the name of Gunlik it stood up to the dry, mites, wet, wind and everything else and put on a lot of pods. It is going to be my go to dual purpose bean.

 

[flowerweaver]

Will there be a 2015 Little Easy Bean Network? I'm about a month out from planting and am preparing and planning my fields now, so just wondering!

 

[897tgigvib]

I'm pretty sure there will be @flowerweaver .

@Bluejay77 is on vacation, but maybe if you pm him he might receive it. Or i could email him to find out for sure

 

[flowerweaver]

Thanks @marshallsmyth good to know. Hopefully he will be back before too long. Our first wildflowers opened today, so gardening season is in sight!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hello Everyone,

I do check into the Easy Garden Forum from time to time just to see what's going on. It's usually pretty quiet during the winter as far as our bean network goes. I stopped by today and Wow! I didn't expect this activity. It looks like flowerweaver's pilot light is on and she's ready to push the start button. Well to tell you the truth I won't be back until about the 1st of April. That has been the routine for me for the last two years. @flowerweaver will planting beans in early April be too late for you? Will that work at all?

We will have the rest of the African bean collection to get grown and renewed. Hope we can accomplish that task this year. I will post a new Little Easy Garden thread on about April 1 with all the photos of the beans that need to be grown.

I've still been getting a few bean seed returns from our growers from this past season. I think I have all that will be coming back from season 2014.

I was amazed to read about wildflowers blooming now where flowerweaver lives. The only thing that has popped up where I live in Illinois in a few new snowmen. I got news from one of my neighbors that during our most recent snow storm we had snow drifts a little over three feet deep.

At the moment there is a 1300 mile gap between me and the seeds I keep. I think in the future I'm going to have to allow our growers who live in warmer climates and longer growing seasons such as flowerweaver to pick next seasons beans to grow out probably in early December so I can get them mailed out before I hibernated for the winter. Then those growers will already have their seeds when they need them during their earlier planting time. That is the best news I can offer this time around.

 

[Ridgerunner]

April is plenty early for me so I'll just wait. I saw on your blog that you were out of pocket so I just wish you well.

Maybe Marshall could help Flowerweaver out with some of his segregations if that is a problem for her. Just a thought. Don't want anyone missing a season.

 

[897tgigvib]

Yea, good idea @Ridgerunner

@flowerweaver I have small amounts of seeds I can send to you. What's going on with me is far too many varieties to grow in a single season. None are getting badly old, but a good number have not been grown in 2 or 3 seasons, and also a good number have not been grown for a season or 2 and might not for a couple more seasons. The total number of varieties and segregations is about 470. (I say "about" because 64 of my cans have envelopes of segregations in them, and those I just averaged out to 3 segregations per can.) So far I have 210 varieties and segregations to grow for 2015, which means... 470-210= 260 or so varieties and selections available, plus some that I'm growing this year have enough seeds to also share.

Flowerweaver, not sure if you know what I mean when I say segregations. Segregations are not necessarily stabilized varieties, and may not yet breed true. But I'm getting some amazing new varieties developing, mainly from outcrosses I received from @Bluejay77 but also from my own garden and from some few others.
I also have a lot of pure varieties too, lol. Some could really use growing down in your longer season.

Would you like me to send you a bubble wrap envelope filled with packets of bean seeds? If so, let me know, and send me a private message with your mailing address. Let me know the basic types you're looking for, and how many kinds you can grow out. Only those I'm short on or need fresh seed of would you need to send some back at season end, others you would not need to send return seeds at season end. I'd write that on the individual envelopes. I pack them simply in mailing type envelopes, kinda labeled and described.

oh, and this goes for anyone else to, such as @aftermidnight i think is the teg name, and all the rest.

@M.A.R. are you still around anywhere?

 

[VA_LongBean]

I'd love to get started, but even with temps above freezing my garden is still frozen solid. Still, there is time to get things growing indoors to transplant in April.

 

[baymule]

I can't wait to get started this spring! I will finally have ROOM!! But my garden patch right now is a big weed patch. Raw land. Needs a lot of TLC, compost and work. But first we gotta get moved......got our portable building moved, got a U-Haul for Saturday and loading up!

 

[flowerweaver]

The joys of gardening in the southwest are the soil never freezes and something is always growing. The downside is having to irrigate daily. Half the fields were tilled last month and we will soon be laying irrigation lines for corn and beans.

My window for planting beans is mid-March to Mid-April, however I usually go by soil temperature of 60-65 degrees and last year I started a week earlier. I have frost cover for the main fields in case of a late freeze (which usually happens). We are already hitting 80 degrees during the day (40 at night) so I'm thinking I'll be planting the second week of March.

I grow both bush and pole types, and try to group them by short and long season, because I can get a second crop of corn planted behind the earlier beans. So @Bluejay77 I will leave some space open in anticipation of growing out something for you in April. And meanwhile I @marshallsmyth I will take you up on some of yours, as they are so lovely. I will PM you.

Last June a tornado ripped through here toppling trees, damaging our house and vehicles, destroying most of our crops. The pole beans and their trellis where tangled into a big mess and died. The bush beans fared better but were beaten down by baseball size hail and many of the pods rotted. I was able to harvest a bit of seed on most things, but there was nothing for eating. Hopefully we won't ever go through that again! This year's garden is going to be the best.