2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

Some more beanie pics today. Was feeling snap happy 😂

Been having beautiful, breezy, warm & sunny days. Wonderful time of year.

Gaia Soybeans

Quedlinberger Speck.....oooh, love this one. Nice long pods.

Giant Nilgiri 😍

Frank Barnett
It looks like someone cut the bean edges with a knife!

Garafal Oro
@Zeedman I love this bean. The colour is so calm and serene, pinky flesh colour; it's also quite large! This is another humble beauty.

White Cloud Cannellini. I can't help but remember 'animated' discussions I've seen transpire between people who feel this is not a white kidney variety, and those who do. Oh, the inflamed passions of bean people. Lol I do like the name of this one though. Dreamy. ☁️🌬️

Berta Telaska. 3 years ago I grew both Jesse Fisk and Berta Telaska, one a pole, one a bush. Well, I didn't realize they are twins and accidentally shelled all the pods from both into one bucket. Disaster! It was a huge harvest too. 😣 I finally have one of those varieties sorted out now!

Pods of Lippoldsberger. I like pods like these, that resemble necklaces. Reminds me of Alubias Tolosa. Not sure if it's connected, but these pod types always seem like good producers.

Armenian Giant Black
Ooooh, another big mama bean! It's a gorgeous, big, smooth bean. Pods are very large! Top quality bean. Probably the biggest pure black bean I've ever grown. 😍

Posting this to show how green the dried pods of Soissons Verte are! (Beside are regular coloured pods.) Grune au des Karpaten has the same dried pod. You have to feel them, you can't tell by looking if they're dry!

 

[Triffid]

I was so relieved to find flowers on the Pink Tip greasies yesterday. The vines have only been interested in growing up and branching out all summer.. they look super, but I want beans! They matured long ago, so they must be photoperiod sensitive, right?

 

[meadow]

Beka Brown is sure pretty -- so plump and rounded with warm honey tones. I've shelled 3 entire plants and they have all been true to type. It makes me happy just to look at them. 😄

I'm glad that first dry pod was an oddity because it has changed the way I'm harvesting and shelling (keeping the pods from each plant separate until confirmation that the seed is all 'correct' looking). Just wish the mother plant of the oddity would hurry up and finish drying so I can see if there are any other speckled beans or not! 🤓

 

[flowerbug]

I was so relieved to find flowers on the Pink Tip greasies yesterday. The vines have only been interested in growing up and branching out all summer.. they look super, but I want beans! They matured long ago, so they must be photoperiod sensitive, right?

i've only grown a few greasy beans but as of yet i've not found any sufficiently short enough season for it to be consistent enough here. that isn't really a problem though because i don't want a lot of pole beans here anyways. i have troubles enough with the beans i already have.

 

[flowerbug]

cooking a pot of beans up right now - a mix of Purple Dove and Navy Pea beans. they smell good - wish they were done i'd have some for breakfast...

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Yardlong trials. All 3 are new acquisitions from Asian Garden 2 Table, and all have ripened some dry seed:

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"Long King" lives up to its name. Medium-green pods, nearly all 23-24" long - but thus far, the lowest yield of the three. Good crunchy texture, nutty not-too-sweet flavor. Dry pods have a light pinkish look.

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"Vine Full #9". Light green pods, length highly variable. Sweeter & more succulent than "Long King", and heavier yielding - but slightly stringy.

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"Summer Treasure". Light green pods, most 18-20", fairly consistent in size. So far, the highest yielder by a wide margin. Crunchy, nutty flavor. The seed coat is very unique.

All had very similar DTMs (55 days +/-, within a few days of each other) and about 80 days to dry seed. Given the widely different seeds, I was surprised that all 3 varieties were so similar. I have grown quite a few yardlongs, and could tell the differences between most of them. The yields above should be taken with a grain of salt though, because the different varieties may peak at different times. I should also note that DW & her Filipino friends used long beans in the snap stage, so that is how I harvest them. "Vine Full #9" is supposed to be white(ish) when the pods expand. Much to my disappointment, it had the poorest quality in snap stage.

My 4th yardlong & the only one I am saving seed for ("Galante") has a later DTM, and reached snap stage at 75 days.

Which one of these was the one that came covered in pink fungicide? I never got around to planting mine, so I am still unaware of what those seeds look like naturally. I keep thinking that was Long King, but the long kind seed you show is a solid reddish tan, and I KNOW the fungicide ones were mottled under the stuff.

 

[Zeedman]

Which one of these was the one that came covered in pink fungicide? I never got around to planting mine, so I am still unaware of what those seeds look like naturally. I keep thinking that was Long King, but the long kind seed you show is a solid reddish tan, and I KNOW the fungicide ones were mottled under the stuff.

If I recall, "Summer Treasure" (the mottled seed) was coated, as was one of the red/brown seeded varieties which I did not plant. I wish I could check the 5 varieties I ordered; but those seeds are in storage now, and I hesitate to open them while the indoor humidity is still high. My dehumidifier is producing enough water right now to keep all of DW's houseplants watered.

 

[jbosmith]

Opinion time: If you were going to block-plant hobby scale quantities of either bush P. vulgaris or soy beans, what spacing(s) would you use? I feel like most of the spacing online and in books has more to do with harvesting equipment in farm fields than actual plant needs.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I'd say first work out your width/girth. You'll want there to be room enough between the rows you can walk between them without knocking things over (unless you plant to bend over plants to harvest them). I suppose that also means having a rough idea of the final girth of the plants as well, are they really bushy and are going to be as big around or more than they are tall, or with most of their growth be upwards?

One real problem you might have with soybeans is that, in my experience (@Zeedman correct me if I'm wrong) most soybeans are pretty short, so you are going to be doing a LOT of bending over for harvest. The real fact is, that, while you certainly CAN grow any soybean on a small garden scale, once you leave the Edamame types, you aren't going to find many DESIGNED for that, for the same reason you won't find a lot of wheat or oats specifically designed for the small patch gardener. These are all field crops, and so have been selected for field growth. A lot of the things one might find advantageous for a garden crop (like staggered ripening and multiple flushes) just aren't going to be easy to find (that's part of WHY I go on these seed searches, in the stuff that is less important is a lot of the genes that got left behind during breeding selection.)

 

[heirloomgal]

I think some of that answer would be related to how well your beans typically dry in regards to how you space them now. If you don't have mould problems, I'd consider replicating your present spacing in all directions. You don't really need to go tramping into block plantings, I find, because the method regulates weed growth well. I did small bush bean blocks a few years ago, and crowded them - 4 inches between plants in the row, about 8 inches between rows. In a dry year, it is insanely productive. In a wet year, you're in trouble!