2021 Little Easy Bean Network - Bean Lovers Come Discover Something New !

[jbosmith]

Russ has a bean Red Turtle that was even earlier than early Warwick by I think 1.5 to two weeks and was an awesome producer.

I grew that this year too and it's definitely a keeper! I'd tentatively put it on par with Turtle Peas here, though having only grown it once and not side by side I can't say that for sure. It happened to come along right when I was thinking I needed something I could pass off when people say, "Do you have any kidney beans?" so I think it's going to be a perfect fit.

i did try Early Warwick and while it was early in our garden soils it doesn't do that well compared to others so i only plant a few once in a while to keep the seeds fresh enough but not in any mass plantings for bulk beans. i do like the colors and shape of it so i'm glad to see that i now have a potential cross breed with some white on the end so it is distinctive enough for me to grow it

I have a bean called Johnson from Leigh Hurley (SSE VT PI L) that looks a lot like Early Warwick and King of the Early but i've never grown either of those to know how production compares. It did really well for me this year but some years it struggles as much as other bush beans here so I only grow it every third year. It always tends to get rainy here right when the pods are starting to dry down and it makes it tough to keep them fungus-free, especially if the plants lean at all.

I planted my raised bed bush beans on June 5th. I had a large group of those bush dry beans gave me their first dry pods on August 16th and another large group of varieties that gave me their first dry pod on August 20th. Their were other beans that gave their first dry pods even later like late August and early September. However among the the August 16th group John's Bean finished with all it's dry pods about two weeks earlier that all the other varieties. It was the first bean to be totally picked out in about two weeks. A very fast dry down. Also fast to defolitate.

I grew John's bean when I did a big trial a few years ago! It gave me a lot of reversed-color beans which I always like, and was definitely early. Raised beds would definitely help with my bush bean problems. All of the Jacob's Cattle variants as well as your Blue Jay bean are doable here season-wise if I could just keep the pods clean.

 

[jbosmith]

@flowerbug This bean is "Olteanu's Romanian Yellow", the Yellow being a pod color, and not the bean itself. IA SSE HF listed this as a runner bean but I'm guessing it's actually a vulgaris variety. I don't really know what I'm talking about though. Anyway, I thought you'd like it because it's purple!

Unfortunately this is my entire crop this year. A baby rabbit made it under the electric wire and inside my garden fence and had it's own private compound for a week or more before I figured it out. It mostly ate volunteer kale leaves but it cleaned out almost all of this variety of beans. It didn't touch any of the others, but this whole row disappeared over the course of a week. I was baffled by what was doing it because I couldn't find any cut worms. I was more amused than angry though I do wish I had more of these beans, especially now that they're rabbit tested and approved.

 

[heirloomgal]

@flowerbug This bean is "Olteanu's Romanian Yellow", the Yellow being a pod color, and not the bean itself. IA SSE HF listed this as a runner bean but I'm guessing it's actually a vulgaris variety. I don't really know what I'm talking about though. Anyway, I thought you'd like it because it's purple!

Unfortunately this is my entire crop this year. A baby rabbit made it under the electric wire and inside my garden fence and had it's own private compound for a week or more before I figured it out. It mostly ate volunteer kale leaves but it cleaned out almost all of this variety of beans. It didn't touch any of the others, but this whole row disappeared over the course of a week. I was baffled by what was doing it because I couldn't find any cut worms. I was more amused than angry though I do wish I had more of these beans, especially now that they're rabbit tested and approved.

View attachment 44344

Pretty purple 😍 !

 

[heirloomgal]

Despite having such remarkably poor germination, I'm cooing over my wee bit of soybeans that made it. 🤣

Sayamusume, Grand Forks and Gaia will be much less, but always hope to do better next year.

Here is a pole bean that tugs at the heart a bit. It's Northeaster, and it was one of the beans badly damaged by my mole. The pods that were on it shrivelled up prematurely and the vine leaves wilted and shrivelled up too. It was done. Or so I thought. I think what happened is, there was a bit of root matter under there that the vole did not eat, and despite the vine basically dying off, the root piece continued to grow. The whole vine miraculously recovered and is now leafing out and flowering beautifully. It is the only thing in the garden covered in fresh, leafy green. Maybe I'm just sentimental, but life is sort of totally amazing.

 

[jbosmith]

Despite having such remarkably poor germination, I'm cooing over my wee bit of soybeans that made it. 🤣
View attachment 44352

View attachment 44353

Sayamusume, Grand Forks and Gaia will be much less, but always hope to do better next year.

Here is a pole bean that tugs at the heart a bit. It's Northeaster, and it was one of the beans badly damaged by my mole. The pods that were on it shrivelled up prematurely and the vine leaves wilted and shrivelled up too. It was done. Or so I thought. I think what happened is, there was a bit of root matter under there that the vole did not eat, and despite the vine basically dying off, the root piece continued to grow. The whole vine miraculously recovered and is now leafing out and flowering beautifully. It is the only thing in the garden covered in fresh, leafy green. Maybe I'm just sentimental, but life is sort of totally amazing.
View attachment 44354

What do you do with the soybeans? Use them like other dry beans or something specific? I've never grown soy but it's on my tentative list for next year!

I love bean resilience stories. I had some last year that were eaten by bugs early on, I replanted with transplants covered in kaolin clay which did fine and ripened normally, and then I noticed a second layer of other beans that had regrown from the stubs of the first wave!

 

[flowerbug]

@flowerbug This bean is "Olteanu's Romanian Yellow", the Yellow being a pod color, and not the bean itself. IA SSE HF listed this as a runner bean but I'm guessing it's actually a vulgaris variety. I don't really know what I'm talking about though. Anyway, I thought you'd like it because it's purple!

Unfortunately this is my entire crop this year. A baby rabbit made it under the electric wire and inside my garden fence and had it's own private compound for a week or more before I figured it out. It mostly ate volunteer kale leaves but it cleaned out almost all of this variety of beans. It didn't touch any of the others, but this whole row disappeared over the course of a week. I was baffled by what was doing it because I couldn't find any cut worms. I was more amused than angry though I do wish I had more of these beans, especially now that they're rabbit tested and approved.

View attachment 44344

i have not grown that bean here but i do have it as @Zeedman gave me a supply of those and i passed along samples to @Bluejay77 and someone else at the last seed swap i attended. they were a pretty bean for sure. the ones i had there had some white marks mixed in too. i'm not sure i'll get around to growing this one or not.

dang rabbits can do some damage. i have to hunt them.

 

[Zeedman]

Hello fellow cold season grower! What are your normal frost dates there? My coldest (3b) garden has a standard June 1 - September 1 growing season but, this year, the last frost was in early May and we have yet to have one this fall! I actually cut down living tomatoes and peppers yesterday to make room for garlic, a first for me.

Helloooo back at ya! My reliable growing season is from mid-May to about Oct 5th, but my target planting date for beans & warm-weather veggies is June 1st. I'm not really a short-season gardener this year; was able to plant early, and no sign of frost yet in the forecast. If we hadn't had weeks of flooding rain in mid-summer, it would have been a perfect year. A good year for the farmers around here, who got great crops of corn & soybeans - much of which has already been harvested.

@flowerbug This bean is "Olteanu's Romanian Yellow", the Yellow being a pod color, and not the bean itself. IA SSE HF listed this as a runner bean but I'm guessing it's actually a vulgaris variety. I don't really know what I'm talking about though. Anyway, I thought you'd like it because it's purple!

@flowerbug beat me to the punch. Yes, my seed was a glossy purple & white; yours appears to be all-purple. I'm curious when your seed was obtained. When I grew "Olteanu's Romanian Yellow", SSE was erroneously listing it as a runner bean (probably because of the seed color). I informed them that it was actually P. vulgaris, and they changed their listing... but maybe others who grew it listed under the old description. It was fairly late for me, so I never grew it again.

 

[Zeedman]

What do you do with the soybeans? Use them like other dry beans or something specific? I've never grown soy but it's on my tentative list for next year!

Soybeans are usually grown by gardeners for use as edamame (green soybeans cooked in the pod), but they can also be used as dry beans, roasted for soy nuts, or processed to make tofu, miso, etc. If you want to try soybeans, I grow a lot of short-season varieties... so we should talk.

 

[jbosmith]

@flowerbug beat me to the punch. Yes, my seed was a glossy purple & white; yours appears to be all-purple. I'm curious when your seed was obtained. When I grew "Olteanu's Romanian Yellow", SSE was erroneously listing it as a runner bean (probably because of the seed color). I informed them that it was actually P. vulgaris, and they changed their listing... but maybe others who grew it listed under the old description. It was fairly late for me, so I never grew it again.

I got the seed from them last year, but the germ test date isn't listed so I'm not sure when it was grown out. The lighter lavender seeds in that pic are shellies and the dry seeds are even darker in person than they look in the picture. They're indeed all solid purple. They still have it listed as a runner bean in the Exchange but it isn't listed for the upcoming yearbook. I'll reiterate the species point when I fill out the eval.

Soybeans are usually grown by gardeners for use as edamame (green soybeans cooked in the pod), but they can also be used as dry beans, roasted for soy nuts, or processed to make tofu, miso, etc. If you want to try soybeans, I grow a lot of short-season varieties... so we should talk.

We should definitely talk! I'd like to add more species of legumes to my grow outs so that I can grow varieties side by side without bumblebee crosses. That's actually how I ended up with what I thought was a purple runner bean this year! I tried some cow peas too but only had a couple of varieties that show much promise. I tried lentils last year, which was fun but I think that harvesting is best left to people with equipment

 

[jbosmith]

dang rabbits can do some damage. i have to hunt them.

I have a 2' fence around my home garden with an electric wire at bunny/woodchuck/squirrel level that keeps most things out. My theory is that the baby bunny started under the wire, got shocked, and jumped into instead of away from the garden