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

Yes @journey11 all the beans photographed are fully dry. I do expect that some will alter color some as they cure more in the next few months. Most beans do that at least a little. The lighter colors seem to do that cure color change more than the dark beans. These beans are all fully dry. They better be. I have them packed in envelopes in coffee cans, and some are loose in their coffee cans also. Each can has a doubled up piece of tissue paper, tp, on the bottom of it to soften up the bottom of the can. All pieces have remained dry. I hope never to accidentally put not fully dry beans into any of the cans, ever.
After harvesting beans, I always give them at least a couple days extra drying time, even if already bone dry, on a soft thick paper plate, CHINET brand.
I have photographed beans not yet fully dry before, but all these are definitely well dried.

Actually, that would make a very interesting thread, to photograph beans in different stages of ripeness and dryness, at least of several different kinds of beans.

FLAMBOYANT 2013 segregation #1

Of the entire complex of the Flamboyant set, 2013 #1 had the hardest time of things this summer. They were growing in one of the hottest places in the garden. Even so, the plants that did pass on, did each make some beans first. Actually, one of the plants, probably 2 of them, seemed to behave as though they would prefer to grow near a coastal area in the tropics.









Plants 2 and 3 really had a hard time, but I am going to plant those seeds next year, at least number 2. She's wearing a wrinkled gown because the plant died before the pod was ripe completely, but I see through that, and can see how pretty they are, and I know it was my fault at least partially. Picture her nice and plump in her freshest glossy evening gown! She could be prettier than GOLDIE HAWN!

FLAMBOYANT 2013 #2
This group did very well. #1 is very beautiful. She is a large rounded full figured tricolored bean. Her pods slowly ripened, and were midseason. Several seeds had seedcoats pop open, but is other than that, tolerant of the heat. Just needs watering to be more even. The seeds really grow large in those pods. #1 is teicolored of beige, blue, and black. Stunning!

#2 is also tricolored. Beige, grey, and I guess that other color is called vermillion. These ripen nicely to a satin finish.

#3 is PROBABLY QUADRICOLORED. A few months time fully curing will tell for sure. I am seeing 2 shades of beige, a slate blue, and a blackish blue. Her seeds are large ovoid, as are many of the flamboyant clan.

2014 #4 is very productive, makes almost medium sized seeds that are black, actually a deepest blue there can be. They have a really nice satin finish.

What pretty beans. You plant one color and get 4 more-all different! Great fashion show Marshall!

Yea...


...Magic!

wow. some pretty beans @marshallsmyth! those Blue Aspen and Flamboyant have some nice shades of blue and violet running in their lines!

There are more sets of Flamboyant to photo. I'll do at least one today. I've got cabin cleaning chores to do today.

I thought I would try my Flamboyant set to follow Marshall's. It's a complicated set of beans. I have segregations that make segregations that look like the segregations of some of the other segregations. I not even sure I could keep track of it very well this summer myself. I discovered the bean in 2012 growing origInally among a bean called Koronis Three Islands. The only one other bean so far that is complicated to follow is the Owl's Head and it's segregations.


The one on the left is what Flamboyant looked liked in '12 and '13. The one on the right is what I found among that planting this year and it appears to have lost it's third color. Maybe perhaps a slight bit of the dark purple speckling is left. This year Flamboyant on the right threw off four segregations as far as I could tell. they are below.

Segregation 1 and 2

Segregation 3 and 4

The bean on the left looks like segregation #2 that Flamboyant threw off last year and this year and it gave me back seed that looked very close to it. This year this segregation threw of just the one on the right. A very common mottled pattern that I find lots of every season in my bean garden besides plenty of solid glossy black beans.

The bean on the left looks like a third segregation I Found among flamboyant last year and it threw off the mottled one on the right.

A fourth segregation I found last year which looked more like a pinto bean and didn't look like these two at all was planted and I found these two instead in it's place. A rounded rather brown one and the one on the right which has a different proportion of the cream tan to the red on it's seed than do many others than share this color combination and pattern.

Another odd happening in my bean patch this year is a pole bean I found in 2012 and planted it last year and again this year that I named Prairie Patch. It's a rather brownish yellowish looking pinto type bean. I planted eight seeds of it this year and didn't get one single plant that gave me back seed that looked like Prairie Patch. Every single one of these eight plants produced glossy solid jet black seed. Now what are the odds of something like that happening?

Today's show includes Wondermere and segregation. Striped Thrush and it's new segregation, and what I thought two years ago was Rose D' Eyragues. I realized I had a segregation from Rose D' this spring and planted it to see what I would get.


Wondermere on the left comes out of African Premier in 2013. When planted this year I get more of them back plus the tan with black speckles on it with white near one of the ends of the seed.


Striped Thrush on the left I found growing among White Robin in 2012. I haven't planted it until this year. White Robin is a bean with a white base color and a large spot of pinkish red around the eye covering nearly half of the seed. This pinkish red coloration has been passed on to at least three beans. White Robin threw off a kidney shaped seed last year that was solid pink that I call Jankowski. The pink color has now passed through Striped thrush and come out in this bean on the right. Marshall is getting some of White Robins pink coloration when he grew Ringwood this year which is another White Robin segregation.

In the winter of 2011 I got a horticultural type bean from a young lady in Derby England called Rose D' Eyragues (left) that was purchased by a friend of hers in a market in Paris. I grew this bean in 2012 harvested all it's seed and didn't really much look at those seeds it until this spring of 2014 when I realized most of the seed looked a bit differently so had to give them a try.

So I harvest more of that different looking horticultural seed on the left, and also got this very pretty bean on the right that looks similar to a Jacob's Cattle pattern but the red area also has purple speckling in it. It's as if it has Jacob's Cattle patterning and a horticultural patterning super imposed over that at the same time. I started calling this bean "Sweetwater"

I already can't wait for bean planting 2015! I have to redeem myself for being such a flop with the Bambarra beans. All these pretty colors!!