The Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans Varieties Nearly Free

[Blue-Jay]

Hello Honeycomb !

The Black Coco beans just came in the mail today. Thank you for your seed return.

 

[the1honeycomb]

Hello Honeycomb !

The Black Coco beans just came in the mail today. Thank you for your seed return.

Glad you got them hope they are Ok

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i wished mine did better for me this summer. the only bean that did anything and survived the beastie that was visiting their patch i think was the black an white trout. some seed i never got in the ground, i was waiting to till another space to put a second patch.

Russ, i should have seeds to send you from the black and white trout this week.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Chicki'esmoma !

So you have Black Trout to send. So what happened to the other six varieties I sent you? Did you plant only some of the seeds this year and hang on to the rest? I still not sure what went on where you live. What was your summer like.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

hi Russ. i put in about half of each of the seeds in the packets i got from you, so i still have some to work with next year. i believe i had at least 50 seeds in the ground when i was done.

something was taking them out as soon as they started showing their first set of true leaves. i found i had some cut worms later in the summer but there was something else digging up that same bed. thought it was a ground hog/wood chuck since it went for some chinese cabbage and nibbled it down to the roots. it could have been a skunk or raccoon since i saw signs of both around the yard early in the season (saw the skunk while walking the dog, saw paw prints of the raccoon on the ash barrel). later in the summer i noticed some of my lower growing tomatoes would be half eaten during the middle of the week when my chickens would be penned in and not have their access to the plants. seems it left alone the collard, kale, brussel sprouts and eggplants that were in the patch with the beans. whatever it was did disturb the potatoes that were growing under most of those plants, found a few kicked up and tossed out of the patch. only 1 B&W Trout plant survived to grow and give me plenty of beans to send back to you.

i think the cut worms took out the beans since they all seemed to have been cut close to the soil line when i saw them. but i didn't see the top of the plants around and would only see the bottom half where it would be cut. i never had this problem with growing beans when i live with my parents about 10 years ago, they had a fenced in yard and i never saw more than a skunk occasionally cross their yard. the past couple years i haven't bothered getting beans in the ground since by the time i would get to planting them i would be out of space or needed to till another patch. i'll put in place some safeguards so this doesn't happen again next year. blood meal the ground in case it is a ground hog/woodchuck, use toilet paper rolls around the stems to keep the cutworms at bay. i had a border around the patch but no fence, so next year i will be putting a small fence around them just in case it is a critter taking things out. are there any other recommendations to keep these beans protected from critters?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Some of that sounds more like a groundhog than anything else (the potatoes) but two summers ago I had to take 18 rabbits out of my garden before I could get any of my late bush bean crop established. Theyd eat the beans a day or two after they sprouted down pretty close to the ground. No tops were left like a cutworm would leave. That was 18 rabbits out of my garden, not the ones down by the chicken coop.

Ive also had a problem with rats living next to the garden under some tin I was using to suppress weeds and grass. That one was driving me bonkers. Every night two plants would disappear from the end of my row of pole beans, regular as clockwork. The whole plant would just disappear, cut down almost to the ground, but only two. Id expect anything else to do more damage or at least be more random. One day in the middle of the afternoon I happened to see a rat out there and was able to solve that problem.

Im sure Marshall can tell stories about gophers and others can probably tell stories about chipmunks. Somebody might have a story about crows or ravens. Then there are all those things you mentioned. Seems like everything likes bean sprouts.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

i thought of rat too. i've been trying to figure out what is beside the driveway tunneling between the saplings growing on the slope between that and the yard. i've heard it active during the evenings when i've gone out with the dog or to my car. i hear it scrambling in the leaves.

my dh mentioned as we were cleaning this house of all the stuff my FIL had horded over the years, that a rat had gotten into the house. FIL had shot it with an air pistol but it got away. as i was pulling stuff i came across it's mummified body in what is now our laundry room. we have since sealed up most entryways but i have 2 cats and a dog that would and have made short work of any rodents that get into the house (so far only a couple mice and a mole that got through the root cellar). i would think with my neighbor's cat frequently visiting my yard i wouldn't have a rat or mouse population.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hey Marshall ! You whoooo ! Where are you? Lots of beans to look at !

I planted African Premier this year. That's the bean all the way to the left the next bean photos to the right of that are all different beans and seed coats found among my grow out of African Premier.

The photo in the upper left hand corner is a bean I grew this summer called Chocolate. I planted 8 seeds that looked just like it. The rest of the photos are all the other seed coat combinations this bean threw off.

The bean on the upper left is called Corbett Refugee although I doubt it's authenticity. The other three photos are other combinations that came out of it this summer. I like the one underneath Corbett Refugee as it looks like a miniature version of a runner bean.

The bean on the left is called Crow River Black. I really like the third photo which I am already going to call Purple Trout.

The Bean on the left is a very tiny seed called Falcon. Looks like it has a bird like figure around the eye. The bean on the right is what Falcon threw off this summer. There were two plants that gave me this seed coat. I had planted 16 Falcon Seeds. Kind of a yucky greenish brown color of the new bean. Doubt that I will grow it again. Maybe a couple of seeds just to see if it segreates into something more intersting.

The Bean in the upper left hand corner is an outcross I found last year in 2012 among Koronis Three Islands or perhaps a segregation of Koronis. I called the new bean Flamboyant. The other beans are all combintions I found growing among the planting of this bean this summer.

The bean on the left is one I planted called Frauenbohne. It's a German variety and the bean next to it is a red horticultural looking bean it threw off this year.

The Bean on the left is one I planted this year called Goose Cranberry. A red horticultural or Cranberry type bean. The odd looking orangish bean on the right is what came out of some of this planting this summer.

The bean on the left is called Junin. A snap bean I got from Germany. The bean on the right is what I found among Junin. It's seed very much seems sized and shaped like a snap bean also. I will give this one a try out.

The Bean on the left is called Magpie. The bean on the right is a few seeds I found among Magpie this summer. I don't know why there weren't more if there must have been at least one plant the produced the seed. I have named this new bean Billingsgate. Hope it will stablize over the coming growing seasons.

Molasses Face on the left and a neat colored bean on the right it threw off. I'm definitely growing this one to see what it does. I've already picked a name for it called Nippersink.

In the upper left hand corner is Owl's Head and outcross from a fellow in Maine. I grew this one before back in the early 80's and it always seems to throw off all the rest of these combinations. I almost lost the Owl's head last year in our drought as I only found one seed of it among the entire planting of Owl's head. I grew that one seed this year in my house in a flower pot sitting in front of a west facing window.

The brown and white Jacob's Cattle looking bean on the left is Pawnee. A bean I named that came out of my gardens back in 1979. This year was the first time I ever remember Pawnee throwing off a different combination like the one on the right. Stuff happens as they say.

The bean on the left is one I found among White Robin last year in 2012 and I've been calling it Pebblestone. The one on the right is a purplish color that is patterned very similarly to Pebblestone.

The bean on the upper left is another one of my named beans from the late 1970's I call Shoshone. It too seems to like to throw off a few new colors from time to time.

The bean on the left is called Smith River Super Speckle. The rather mundane looking bean on the right is what I found on one single plant growing in the middle of the Smith River planting this summer. What a plant is what let me tell you. A bit over two feet tall and spread over two feet wide. I think it might have even chocked out a couple of the Smith River Super Speckles. I'll probably plant a couple of these new seeds just to see if the next generation turns into a monster like this one did. The number of seeds this thing produced was something else also.

Uncle Willies is the bean on the left I bought from a small Canadian seed business called Anappolis. The bean on the right I found among Uncle Willies had a different seed shape and different pod characteristic than UW.

The bean on the upper left is White Robin. White Robin Threw off Pebblestone last year in '12 and the other three it threw off this year. The bean on the upper right turned out to be pretty massive also. Throwing off a vine that crossed a three foot gap between my bush beans and my staked tomatoes and then it grew nearly to the top of the tomato stakes after it climbed a tomato plant. This plant had some serious sized pods and also produced big amounts of seed. The bean on the lower right looks like a light red kidney and is colored almost the same shade as the red part on White Robin.

All the above photos came from beans that are either bush or semi-runner types. Plenty of new things to investigate next summer for sure. If I pursue most of these beans seriously I don't know if I can think up good names for them all.

 

[897tgigvib]

Amazing isn't it Russ!

The more varieties one grows in proximity, including those who are the seed source growing many varieties in proximity, the more likely one is to discover new varieties!

Us Bean collectors. We're sources of new varieties of Beans.

I got the packet of Nova Star darker segregation from you Russ. Thank you! I'll be putting together some to send to you.

~~~that's an amazing assortment~~~

 

[journey11]

Russ, did my beans arrive yet? I put them in the mail to you last Friday.