2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[Blue-Jay]

Im also at the line of zone 5b and 6a, and a Network bean Hallados grandos, didnt make Flowers until August 30th!! I check them every day i have pods with bean bumps forming so i think i will make viable seed before the plant dies off. This plant definately needs to be grown farther south than indiana haha! Tennessee and south is my guess but then again i should get viable seed if the predicted long term warm trend stays true

Funy I got Hallados Grandos from a grower who lives in Appalachin, NY which looks like hardiness zone 4b. I don't know where they had obtained the bean. You can always start a long season bean in a small container of potting soil mix two weeks before planting and see if that gives the variety enough time to mature dry seed. You can pick green pods that are becoming rubbery or yellowing and dry them in doors. Takes longer but the seed is mature enough to grow. Just needs to be very dry for storage. I'll write to this person and see if they remember where it was obtained.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@heirloomgal I would be happy to fulfill your Network pledge of Lazy Wife if it is okay with @Bluejay77

Is your Lazy Wife the round seeded version which is the original as I have understood it from Annette Barley who did some research on Lazy Wife and who had obtained the original. The more flattened kidney shaped seed what a Lazy Wife that was marketed in the 1980's and possibly was not Lazy Wife at all.

 

[Blue-Jay]

After this bought of cool almost cold weather. We will probably warm up and be nice for awhile. My hope is for bone dry and near 80 F degrees for about half the month of October.

Last Saturday I was cutting off a bunch of pole bean vines at the soil line. Yesterday I clipped off some more of them.

 

[meadow]

Is your Lazy Wife the round seeded version which is the original as I have understood it from Annette Barley who did some research on Lazy Wife and who had obtained the original. The more flattened kidney shaped seed what a Lazy Wife that was marketed in the 1980's and possibly was not Lazy Wife at all.

Yes, it is the original. "Lazy Wife (Original)" which is SSE Bean 5972. It also matches the photos on Remy's website for the original rounded Lazy Wife.

eta: Remy's Photo (it's the bean on the right)

 

[Boilergardener]

Funy I got Hallados Grandos from a grower who lives in Appalachin, NY which looks like hardiness zone 4b. I don't know where they had obtained the bean. You can always start a long season bean in a small container of potting soil mix two weeks before planting and see if that gives the variety enough time to mature dry seed. You can pick green pods that are becoming rubbery or yellowing and dry them in doors. Takes longer but the seed is mature enough to grow. Just needs to be very dry for storage. I'll write to this person and see if they remember where it was obtained.

The hallados grandos plants are growing awesome lots of vegetative growth and now they are packed with pods, i will pick the pods as soon as they start to yellow and disconnect from the pod wall/ etc. Ive done that alot this year as suggested on this page. Has worked great on the bush beans especially that get more soil splash up and diseases. Earlier picked i see less diseases that when i let them dry on the plant and picked later. I didnt grow any from plantings and may try that next year.

 

[ducks4you]

@heirloomgirl, I DID plant my beans 2 inches and OVER from each other. I was careful to do this.
I guess that I LUCKED into some good seed! Most of them are from cheapo carboard boxes, the size that could hold 8 pieces of white chalk, or 8 full sized crayons, and labelled, "Kentucky Wonder Beans." They sprouted quickly and are growing in a mass, good thing for a drought year.
This year I intend to cut most of my vegetables at ground level to take advantage of the tunnels in the soil created by their roots. I Will pull one of the bean plants bc I gotta see how deep the roots went.

 

[meadow]

Is your Lazy Wife the round seeded version which is the original

For anyone interested.. I have these notes from the SSE catalog a post by @aftermidnight…

Setting the record straight- "Lazy Wife Bean"
It describes the original "Lazy Wife" as having been carried by W. Atlee Burpee starting in 1885, who obtained it from Mennonite immigrants in Pennsylvania who had grown it for generations. Burpee then dropped the variety in the early 1900's.
Somewhere along the line (around 1980) another different strain was circulated by the name of "Lazy Wife". SSE admits that they and other venders sold this inauthentic strain for years.
However, the original Burpee strain has been returned to circulation by Derek Fell, a former Burpee Seed catalog manager. Derek had obtained his seed from Bill Byrd of Carversville Pa, who had grown & saved seed for the original "Lazy Wife" ever since Burpee dropped it from their catalog.

So thanks to a few seed savers this bean is now back in circulation, another bean saved from extinction

In doing my own searching through the old Burpee's catalogues, they listed it as "Lazy Wife's Pole Bean" which is what I think of as the correct name. But they did shorten it in later years too, so who knows? BTW, Burpee continued to sell it until the mid-1950's.

 

[ducks4you]

WHAT a learning curve year for me. This video is interesting. She speaks on plants acclimating to your microclimate.

 

[meadow]

I saw today on a couple weather networks that we are scheduled to go as low as 33 to 37 F on Thursday night...

I don't have any wisdom, but I do have one piece of information that might be worth considering:

Temperatures are taken at a certain height above ground (I think it is 6 feet, or maybe 8 feet), and the ground-level temperature is going to be colder. If you opt for the cover with blanket option, it might be smart to also pile some straw or other insulation around the base of the plants.

 

[ducks4you]

Temperatures are always taken in the shade, too, and that makes a difference. Your ground temperatures are still really high, too, unlike in the Spring, where it warms up, then freezes and early plantings are caught in between cold air and cold ground.
I frequently harvest roma tomatoes after frosts. The leaves cover them and they don't look at all damaged. It takes a killing frost to do them in.