it was sometimes discouraging day picking beans yesterday. i know this is how it can go with some varieties when i first try them out and with some of the others too. i get over it. there's enough other successes to keep me interested and the challenges are learning experiences too.
while the plants may have grown and put pods on in many cases the pods were empty or the beans weren't very good quality. those Shelleasy x Soldier beans were so lovely when you sent them to me
@Bluejay77 and the plants were twice the size of any of the beans planted around them but i have perhaps a dozen viable seeds from the entire crop of pods that was hanging on them and they sure don't look that nice. i will give them another try next year in a different garden and hope they'll come through. the funny thing is that Venda was planted in the row next to the SES and last year i hardly had any seeds in any of the Venda pods and so i retried this season on them and the pods from those plants did have some seeds in them. so at least i can send some better quality seeds back for those to replace what you sent me. i don't think i have a full 60 beans from those. i'm not done shelling those out yet.
in good news Purple Dove is still productive enough and giving good quality seeds in all the gardens where planted. it is even more reliable than Red Ryder which has been one of my more consistent beans. this year even the Red Ryder beans in some gardens had trouble finishing beans. i'm guessing it was the heat because i did keep everything watered regularly.
the Fort Portal Jade plants are about a foot high and look like they've been through a war, but they are still trying to put on new pods with new flowers. the Monster beans i planted in that same row after the initial planting of FPJ seeds didn't do much were much more productive. Monster is so aptly named. not all the beans planted produced, but a few did and those that did produced quite a nice crop. the problem with many of them is that they resemble many of my other brown marked or spotted beans and i really don't need any more of those to grow out and experiment with. then amidst those plants there will be one plant that puts out such an unusual pattern or color bean so i'll have those to work with going forwards.
i planted Sunset and Yed this year and it looks like Sunset is a good warmer weather bean and the pods can withstand more rain than some other beans. as i'm harvesting and checking beans i pull some pods and check them and while looking at the outside of the pod i'm thinking there's no way the beans in that pod are not going to be rotten, but they are fine. so that is a good trait to have along with the beans being smaller and also finishing up fairly early. Sunset is one of the cross breeds i came up with quite a few years ago now. Yed looks like it will be a later bean, i remember this from the last time i planted it too. not sure how the crop will be from them.
Dapple Gray i was hoping would be a good reliable bean in the heavy soils in some gardens, but again, many pods are not producing beans, just empty or not developed well enough. it mostly depended upon how close those plants were to other sources of shade in the garden for them to be more productive. in other gardens where the soil is better quality Dapple Gray does better. similar to how the many larger varieties of beans react to our soils and climate here. they're all lovely beans, but i have to keep growing them to hope they cross with a smaller more reliable bean and pick up the more resilient traits (which is why i plant so many Purple Dove beans).
this is all very amusing to me too, in the learning department i remembered in past years how the Yellow Eye beans had such a struggle filling pods. this season in most gardens the Yellow Eye beans have been doing good. better than i've had for years. i thought they didn't like the heat, but this year says that thought was wrong.
Huey did very well. it's a winner for a dry bean here.
Lavender did ok, i should have enough beans to return a good portion or full allotment, but some of them may be smaller than what was sent to me.
i still have a lot of beans to pick. i'm not done evaluating all of the beans i planted but on the whole it is a mixed bag. i'm glad that my bulk bean plantings are fairly reliable. i'll get enough back from those plantings to make this worth it in terms of labor, but even if i didn't i'd still enjoy much of the challenge and what i keep learning. i have some wonderful new beans to keep working with that have come from Domino and Monster and i know some of them will be stable enough eventually. already they made it through a very tough season and look to have good form and finish quality and also time, size, shape and habit. these are worth more of my efforts to keep them going.
i'll have enough to send some initial samples out.
On a bright note, the Painted Mountain corn did very well although I lost some due to heavy rain when it was drying. I picked it all, shucked it and am letting it dry in the house. Not bean related but at least something was a success! Lol @Zeedman how is yours doing?
