2018 Little Easy Bean Network - Join Us In Saving Amazing Heirloom Beans

Raiquee said:
Hello!
...
I’m excited to be joining you all in the 2019 thread! :)
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hi, always fun to have more people growing/posting bean pictures.

do you remember your first bean planting?

any tips or ideas on what to do or not to do?

one tip from this year i just found out this evening. having red lima beans in the same garden area as other red beans can make sorting a challenge... hahaha... :)
 
My first bean planting of something other than a standard green bean, I do remember and really wasn’t that long ago. It was calypso, and I still have seed I’ve saved from that growing in my collection :)

I primarily saved tomato seeds for the longest time, and I would say since moving to this farm I now save melon, squash, bean, pea, tomato, pepper, eggplant, corn(with great caution), flowers, herbs, lettuce, radish, and I’m sure there is a lot I’m missing. The only thing I haven’t saved seed from is biannual, although one year I managed to get some alisa Craig onions to last and planted them out. Got a beautiful flower stalk on one of the 3, and it opened and my dear husband came through with the weed wacker and that was the end of that!! So close, yet so far.

Bean growing tip. I can tell ya what not to do. Plant beans with similiar beans but similiar enough pods on the same trellis. It was a great idea until they grew up together. That was pretty dumb of me.

I just finished watching seed the untold story. It’s a documentary on amazon, and is worth the rental. All about saving seed diversity :)
 
Raiquee said:
My first bean planting of something other than a standard green bean, I do remember and really wasn’t that long ago. It was calypso, and I still have seed I’ve saved from that growing in my collection :)

I primarily saved tomato seeds for the longest time, and I would say since moving to this farm I now save melon, squash, bean, pea, tomato, pepper, eggplant, corn(with great caution), flowers, herbs, lettuce, radish, and I’m sure there is a lot I’m missing. The only thing I haven’t saved seed from is biannual, although one year I managed to get some alisa Craig onions to last and planted them out. Got a beautiful flower stalk on one of the 3, and it opened and my dear husband came through with the weed wacker and that was the end of that!! So close, yet so far.

Bean growing tip. I can tell ya what not to do. Plant beans with similiar beans but similiar enough pods on the same trellis. It was a great idea until they grew up together. That was pretty dumb of me.

I just finished watching seed the untold story. It’s a documentary on amazon, and is worth the rental. All about saving seed diversity :)
Click to expand...

calypso is a pretty bean for sure and because of the round shape and pattern that was one of the first ones i ordered when i finally did get some other beans.

the first beans i grew were the Top Notch Wax and a green bean, probably a Blue Lake variety, Fordhook Lima beans.

in that first season i had some strange beans from the Blue Lake beans which sparked my curiousity even more and i can't exactly recall if i grew the soup bean mix that year or the next year (i'd have to look back in my writings to figure that out for sure :) ).

that added another 12-15 varieties to the mix. that season's grow outs were all so very heavy it was like every bean i planted did well and i had some very nice large kidney beans and the cranberry beans were all so perfect. i got very spoiled by that year how well everything did. i also had in my 3rd year a cross between the pinto beans and the green beans show up which was a very large plant and very productive, but i wasn't all that keen on the seed coat so i didn't pursue it much beyond that (i still have seeds around here of it though).

since then i've had a fun time with even more beans ordered from an on-line company and trading with people for more genetic diversity.

to me my main source of fun has been seeing how the various crosses and odd beans have shown up and trying to see if they are stable or not and what their habits might be.

i try to steer certain seed lines in the direction of bush, early, medium sized and rounder and have had some successes with that.
 
@Bluejay77 I'm hoping to get my beans in the mail this week, they're dry and ready to package up. I tried six network beans this year, unfortunately Joyce Fetterly's Red & White fell victim to a rabbit incursion and was a complete loss. As for the other five, I was able to hit my targets. My very non-scientific notes on each:

Cape Sugar #2 - Slower growing pole. Was later than most at setting pods and didn't get to the dry stage in time to get as many seeds as I'd hoped. Even though I pulled the plants, there were way too many undeveloped green pods at the end of the season. Still have a few beans hanging on.
Cape Sugar 2.jpeg


Gabarone Sugar - The plants were super healthy and grew well but definitely grew as a bush rather than a pole until very late in the season when it sent out several runners. Moderately productive.
Gabarone Sugar.jpeg


Grandma Rivera's Pole Lima - This was an awesome plant. Sort of like the seeds exploded from the ground and topped an 8' pole like it was nothing. Crazy productive...the plants are actually still producing beans. This one was my fave.
Grandma Riveras Lima.jpeg


Joyce Fetterly's Red & White - Rabbit victim.

Kutasi Princess - These definitely grew as a bush rather than pole and never sent out any runners. The conditions were good so I'm not sure what happened. The plants were moderately productive.
Kutasi Princess.jpeg


Pink Tip - This bean was fantastic. 100% germination, super fast growing to the top of the pole and extremely productive.
Pink Tip.jpeg


I've had fun participating and hope to be back next year as long as I still have a place to grow them.
 
These are the notes i took from when I grew Kutasi Princess in 2016.

I planted 10 seeds, all ten grew and produced. Pole beans about 6 to 7 feet height. The blossom has a white keel and wings but the banner was a dark pink. The pods were flat solid pale green, about 4 seeds per pod on average. The pods were pretty easy to hull. I planted the first beans April 27 and they were blooming by June 10. I’d call that fairly early. They put on a lot of pods, mostly fairly low.

That was before I knew that 6 to 7 feet were probably half-runners rather than pole. This is how Russ explained growth habit when I finally asked.

Pole beans growth habit is 8 ft or more. Many pole beans will actually grow to 12 ft. or more. Half runners are the 4 to 6 ft category, and semi runners about 2 to 3 feet.

If I remember right Kutasi Princess had an unknown growth habit when I first got them. Of course relying on my memory is a dangerous thing to do. It is up to Russ but if yours were truly bush that might be a segregation. It is strange that they all would be though. Those beans look spot on, a really attractive bean to me. When I cooked them I had a two toned cooked bean, which added interest when I ate them.
 
When I first started gardening seriously back in the 50's the only beans I grew were scarlet runners, these were the only fresh green beans my family ever grew to eat. When we moved to our forever home in 1965 a neighbor gave me a handful of green beans to try and said if we liked them she'd give me a few seeds,in the fall, I've been growing and sharing seed of "Emelia's Italian" ever since. I have it's story here but couldn't find it so here's another link https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/2002281/emelias-italian-pole-bean-aka-auntie-vi?n=13 Since then I've bought several commercial varieties but I mostly grow heirlooms. The second heirloom I acquired was "Mr. Tung's" from an offer in a now defunct local gardening magazine.

A bean brought to Canada by a Chinese Immigrant in the early 1900's. It is alive and well and now sold commercially.
"Mr. Tung's (thumbnail)
Mr. Tung's Pole Beans .png

The third was "Cherokee Trail of Tears" an offer from the same magazine, CTofT's is still one of my hubby's favorites, these last two I've been growing since the 70's. Since then I've acquired the white seeded mutation of this one.

The white seeded "Cherokee Trail of Tears" found in Mr. John Yeoman's garden in the UK.
DSCN6285.JPG


Then..... the bug hit and I've been searching for, growing and sharing heirloom beans for quite a few years now.
I went looking for a particular runner for a gal in the UK, "Piekny Jas" but getting the true one, the actual runner was challenging, someone from Eastern Europe helped us out by send a pkt. over which was shared among 4 of us. It seems I was the only one that had success growing them, from my three plants I got a bumper crop so was able to supply those who didn't have success plus a few others. I was able to send enough seed to the gal in the UK so she should have a good grow out next year.
This is the same gal who found and sent me seed of a variety I'd been searching years for "Sarah's Old Fashioned Black" This is an heirloom bean that was once grown here on the island but had disappeared. I grew it this year and was quite impressed with it, it has a touch of sweetness which I really like. I have shared most of this year's seed crop in hopes it doesn't get lost again.
DSCN7119.JPG


The vines have red veining and the vines themselves are dark;
DSCN7324.JPG

The pods.
DSCN7351.JPG


When dry.
DSCN7365.JPG


No matter where we live in this world of ours we bean addicts stick together:thumbsup.
Annette
 
aftermidnight said:
@Raiquee a big welcome from another bean grower, lately my interest has been in finding hard to find or rare varieties and in a small way help getting them back in circulation. What part of the country do you garden in, I'm north of the border on Vancouver Island.

Annette
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Annette I know you from garden web days too. Same name as on here. Have you heard of the fingerprint Fava from Peru? I’m looking to grow it out this coming year and redistribute it, finding seed in the US is difficult. There is someone on the SSE that has it labeled as Tarma spiral, so fingers crossed I can get some from her. She said her seed came to her crossed, as originally they are all green expressions and this has some purple with it.

Sorry I never answered your question. I’m in zone 5, southeastern Wi. I live maybe an hour or so south of Zeedman.
 
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