A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

On bean leaflet structures, some varieties have a more rounded leaflet while others are narrow but long. In AG, one company selects for long, narrow leaflets as their brand signature.

Thank you @seedcorn! What is AG?

 

[heirloomgal]

Some bouquets from today. Sweet peas now need to be cut each day to prevent pod formation. Tried a new packet mix called 'Lil' Bit of Magic' but it's more like lil' bit of boring. Plain purple and hot pink are always default colours in variety packets. Not getting them anymore, will stick to the named single varieties. But they still smell wonderful. Wish I could post a picture of the scent ☺

'Black Cobra' pepper. It occurred to me yesterday that these might not turn jet black as they are supposed to if I don't move them outside. Hope they adjust to direct sun without checks.

Network bean 'Flor De Mayo'' pole bean, or more like mini pole bean. Diminutive little leaves, much like Yoeme Pastel Eye. Hope it makes beans in time, I did start it early, but it's not climbing yet.

Network bean 'Cosaruciaro di Sicili' (spelled that wrong for sure) bush bean. This plant certainly makes elephant ear size leaves!

Network semi runner bean 'Piatella'. But I think it has aspirations...✈

Network bean 'North Star Pinto '.

Network bean 'Tennessee Green', not 100% sure that those are runners on them, but it looks like it. I hope a couple will turn out to be bushes. The heat seems to have affected these a bit as well, they are not large plants like the others yet.

 

[Zeedman]

'Magnolia blossom' peas. I can't recall what kind of peas these are, snaps or shells...or snow?

Ditto on @PhilaGardener 's assessment. I grow Sugar Magnolia (also developed by Alan) which is also hypertendril, but purple podded. Having now seen your photo, I may need to grow Magnolia Blossom as well.

There I go again, falling for a new bean/pea hook, line, and sinker.

 

[Zeedman]

'Tennessee Green' looks like several plants are throwing runners but I'm not 100% sure yet. It may just be a tall plant. Not as big as some others, but doing okay.

Regardless of size, it seems to be flowering profusely.

 

[seedcorn]

Thank you @seedcorn! What is AG?

Abbreviation for agriculture.

 

[heirloomgal]

Regardless of size, it seems to be flowering profusely.

Yes, whether that's good or bad I'm not sure. Seems to me the plants should be bigger to flower like that. 'Conserva' plants (network bean) have stayed quite small too and are flowering. I hope they are okay. Got some really bad weather news today, it is supposed to rain all week. My gosh, the beanss are not gonna like that. Hoping they're wrong. Almost everything growing is raised up off the ground one way or another, so maybe that will help. Very odd summer. Going down to 15 as well, while today was 35 degrees.

 

[flowerbug]

Yes, whether that's good or bad I'm not sure. Seems to me the plants should be bigger to flower like that. 'Conserva' plants (network bean) have stayed quite small too and are flowering. I hope they are okay. Got some really bad weather news today, it is supposed to rain all week. My gosh, the beanss are not gonna like that. Hoping they're wrong. Almost everything growing is raised up off the ground one way or another, so maybe that will help. Very odd summer. Going down to 15 as well, while today was 35 degrees.

my experience with Conserva was that it was a small bush habit. it did medium well compared to some others and i was able to return beans to the network, but because they were mostly white beans they didn't catch my interest enough to continue growing them.

 

[heirloomgal]

@Bluejay77
Was feeling a bit disheartened that my Vaquero and Bountiful bean grow outs are looking more and more like semi-runners, so I poked around a bit looking for hope on the internet. I may have found some, but I'll let you check out this info and see if you still don't want any of the beans returned from those plants. (I'd post links but I'm only on a tablet now, so I don't know how.) SSE, Victory Seeds, Pinetree and a few other places describe Bountiful as a semi runner. Vaquero is much less common it seems, and less available, but Great Lakes carries it, and they describe it as a semi runner. Funny coincidence, when I planted that bean for some reason I thought it was a semi and planted it beside Tigre & Rio Zape. Let me know what you think! Is there any hope!?

 

[Blue-Jay]

Victory Seeds and a few other places describe Bountiful as a semi runner.

I can tell you this. That when Victory seeds describes Bountiful as a semi runner they are dead wrong. Bountiful is a true bush snap bean. I am growing it also myself this year and not a single plant is throwing runners. You can even find a description of the varietiy in the 1931 publication, "Beans Of New York" where botanists at the New York State Agricultural Station in Geneva, New Your tested hundreds of bean varieties in the 1920's and published their findings in this book. Your Bountiful should definitely not be growing runners. The beans growth habit is described also on my website.

Vaquero is a semi runner and will climb on support.

 

[heirloomgal]

I can tell you this. That when Victory seeds describes Bountiful as a semi runner they are dead wrong. Bountiful is a true bush snap bean. I am growing it also myself this year and not a single plant is throwing runners. You can even find a description of the varietiy in the 1931 publication, "Beans Of New York" where botanists at the New York State Agricultural Station in Geneva, New Your tested hundreds of bean varieties in the 1920's and published their findings in this book. Your Bountiful should definitely not be growing runners. The beans growth habit is described also on my website.

Vaquero is a semi runner and will climb on support.

There are places that said it was a true bush too. SSE said 'sprawling bush habit' which makes me wonder if there is a difference between semi runner and sprawling bush? On the same note, some places describe a bean as 'a bush that throws short runners' - isn't that a semi runner?