2019 Little Easy Bean Network - Come And Reawaken The Thrill Of Discovery

[BeanQueen]

Last year when I grew Sweetwater the plants were all very uniform. I have not seen red pigments or taller plants in Sweetwater. Might be a cross. How many seeds did you plant and how many are showing the red pigmentation? It will be interesting to see what the taller ones produce seedwise. Are the taller ones looking like they are going to remain a true bush? The taller ones aren't producing runners are they?

Still too early to tell if bush/vine. But they are growing faster. I have seen 3-4 plants of the packet so far. I'll look closer next time I go out.

 

[BeanQueen]

View attachment 32357

I love this one!

 

[BeanQueen]

Buckskin Girl blooming nicely!!

 

[BeanQueen]

Ojo de Tigre is once again the first to set pods this year

 

[BeanQueen]

Last year I had Magpie self-seed Midway through summer and a few of those plants turned out to be crosses. I completely forgot about when I planted three rows of Magpie this spring and now I'm seeing vines everywhere oh boy, this is going to be a mess.

 

[flowerbug]

Last year I had Magpie self-seed Midway through summer and a few of those plants turned out to be crosses. I completely forgot about when I planted three rows of Magpie this spring and now I'm seeing vines everywhere oh boy, this is going to be a mess.

Momma Nature sometimes has her own idea of how things will go...

 

[flowerbug]

things seem to be working out well enough with the sticks and strings i put up. some of the beans are already winding around them and heading up. i just worry about them until they get to the fence and then are strong enough to survive any movement of the fence in storms.

last year i had a problem with the sticks leaning against the fence that were supposed to guide the vines to the fence because they would fall over if there were too many winds from the wrong directions. this year i tied them in place at the top and also weaved some string between them half way up so they won't move as easily.

the patch in the back corner i ran out of sticks long enough to lean against the fence so i tied strings to the tops of pieces of sticks and poked the sticks in the ground and then tied the strings most of the way up the fence. already some plants seem ok with those. i just didn't know how these climbers did with things like moving strings. so we'll see how it goes...

 

[Ridgerunner]

I tear an old T-shirt into strips and, using a bowline knot that doesn't slip, tie that around the plant. I tie the other end of the strip up to where I want it to run. That can be beans, cucumbers, roses, or tomatoes. Or if appropriate I tie both ends to whatever and sort of trap the plant in there. I don't like to use string, worried that it might cut the plant, especially in the wind. I have a lot less to tie up than you do though.

 

[flowerbug]

I tear an old T-shirt into strips and, using a bowline knot that doesn't slip, tie that around the plant. I tie the other end of the strip up to where I want it to run. That can be beans, cucumbers, roses, or tomatoes. Or if appropriate I tie both ends to whatever and sort of trap the plant in there. I don't like to use string, worried that it might cut the plant, especially in the wind. I have a lot less to tie up than you do though.

it is only one fence edge so about 70 plants in total. a few will have to share strings or sticks.

once they wrap around a few times i think they'll be ok. i just worry about a storm coming along and moving the fence too much until the plants are a bit more sturdy. well, and then later when the plants get bigger i'll worry about the wind taking the fence down with all those plants on it... lol

 

[Zeedman]

I tear an old T-shirt into strips and, using a bowline knot that doesn't slip, tie that around the plant. I tie the other end of the strip up to where I want it to run. That can be beans, cucumbers, roses, or tomatoes. Or if appropriate I tie both ends to whatever and sort of trap the plant in there. I don't like to use string, worried that it might cut the plant, especially in the wind. I have a lot less to tie up than you do though.

I like that idea, especially since I have a pile of old t-shirts that I use as rags. I won't need the strips to get beans started, except maybe yardlongs. But I weave tomatoes into a string trellis, and those ties would come in handy for holding the stems in place until they set.

My own small bean crop (started from transplants) consists of:
Aeron Purple Star runners
Hopi Pole limas
Fortex (snap)
Serbian Pole (shelly beans)
Soissons Vert (shelly/dry)
Chinese Red Noodle yardlong
An heirloom red-seeded Chinese yardlong (which I named Chinese Long Green)

All of those are pole. Yesterday was dry enough to put up some trellises for the runners (which already were about 3' long) and the Serbian; then buckets of rain (two separate storms!) put a stop to any further garden work for the week. The poles are up for Soissons Vert, hopefully it will dry out enough over the weekend to put up strings Monday or Tuesday, when the next storms are expected. Still have about another 100' of trellis to put up too, and need to lay mulch for weed suppression... not that it's needed for moisture retention.

One set of bean transplants remains, some nunas that I will be experimenting with. Those will be going into large plastic drums repurposed as pots, so that they can be moved into the greenhouse (or indoors under lights) if necessary to get seed. The problem is, I need a large volume of friable soil to fill the barrels (from a local landscape supply) and their soil has yet to dry out enough to shovel! Supposedly the beans are bush, but the seedlings have sent up short twining runners, so I guess time will tell.

I started 5 of the oldest soybeans as transplants too, and got pretty good results - about 30 plants each. Only two of those (Fledderjohn and Sakamotowase) are edamame, the rest are non-GM grain types.