2023 Little Easy Bean Network - Beans Beyond The Colors Of A Rainbow

[heirloomgal]

I was so happy with my seed room that DD and I decided to repaint the dining room and renovate the kitchen after that, mostly in the form of painting the cupboards and the walls, filling holes etc. Few little repairs needed to be done here and there. With all that plus the garden harvest going strong and the general running of a busy (and hungry) household needing attendance etc on top of everything else I'm feeling a bit under the weather today! Scratchy & sore throat, and I haven't had a bug in many years. So I'm parked on the couch listening to Columbo, drinking black currant tea and posting pics because it's relaxing and fun, lol.

I found some dried pods in surprise places today 😊.

Network bean Diamont. I don’t remember exactly what the seed I planted looked like but I don’t recall them having this much purple!

Two of the European beans had dry pods too, Bigarrada Gris-Negre.

The Bigarrada plants took a tumble onto the corn, but ironically I find they mature faster this way.

And Zwolse Paarse which I think means ‘Sultry Purple’.

Well, I thought Zugdidi might be an impossibility in my climate (begins flowers at nearly 100 days) but I found these today. It’s some hope, not a lot, but some!

Pretty European bean ‘Langenauer’. And Schwarze Witwe yellow pods behind.

Trying to find new and creative ways of drying bushes. Trees across the trellis tops 8 ft up is working like a charm and I don’t need to fasten the bushes, I just tag the stems.

Network bean Cape Sugar, hurry!

Cant wait to shell all this!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Network bean Diamont. I don’t remember exactly what the seed I planted looked like but I don’t recall them having this much purple!

That is the pattern of Diamont. Perhaps you soil shifted the color intensity a little. It really looks nice.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Delicous Giant was a Gill Brothers Seeds introduction in 1925. A cross between Oregon Giant and Kentucky Wonder. Second bean is Theresa Marchese beginning to dry pods. Theresa Marchese was brought into the U.S. from Sicily in 1913 and grown by the same family in Lansing, Michigan since then.

Delicous Giant - Pole Snap

Theresa Marchese - Pole Snap

 

[Ladyreneer]

I was so happy with my seed room that DD and I decided to repaint the dining room and renovate the kitchen after that, mostly in the form of painting the cupboards and the walls, filling holes etc. Few little repairs needed to be done here and there. With all that plus the garden harvest going strong and the general running of a busy (and hungry) household needing attendance etc on top of everything else I'm feeling a bit under the weather today! Scratchy & sore throat, and I haven't had a bug in many years. So I'm parked on the couch listening to Columbo, drinking black currant tea and posting pics because it's relaxing and fun, lol.

I found some dried pods in surprise places today 😊.

Network bean Diamont. I don’t remember exactly what the seed I planted looked like but I don’t recall them having this much purple!View attachment 60050

Two of the European beans had dry pods too, Bigarrada Gris-Negre.View attachment 60054
The Bigarrada plants took a tumble onto the corn, but ironically I find they mature faster this way.View attachment 60062

And Zwolse Paarse which I think means ‘Sultry Purple’.
View attachment 60056View attachment 60057

Well, I thought Zugdidi might be an impossibility in my climate (begins flowers at nearly 100 days) but I found these today. It’s some hope, not a lot, but some!View attachment 60061

Pretty European bean ‘Langenauer’. And Schwarze Witwe yellow pods behind.View attachment 60060

Trying to find new and creative ways of drying bushes. Trees across the trellis tops 8 ft up is working like a charm and I don’t need to fasten the bushes, I just tag the stems.
View attachment 60063


Network bean Cape Sugar, hurry!View attachment 60065


Cant wait to shell all this!View attachment 60067

HG,
Such gorgeous examples of harvested bean seeds! Great job! I actually love shelling beans, too, as I find it rather relaxing. 🫘 😌 🫘

 

[Ladyreneer]

Delicous Giant was a Gill Brothers Seeds introduction in 1925. A cross between Oregon Giant and Kentucky Wonder. Second bean is Theresa Marchese beginning to dry pods. Theresa Marchese was brought into the U.S. from Sicily in 1913 and grown by the same family in Lansing, Michigan since then.

View attachment 60109
Delicous Giant - Pole Snap

View attachment 60110
Theresa Marchese - Pole Snap

BlueJay, very nice harvest. I'm looking forward to seeing the dried beans. ❤️

 

[heirloomgal]

BlueJay, very nice harvest. I'm looking forward to seeing the dried beans. ❤️

Me too!

 

[flowerbug]

@Bluejay77 looks like Striped Bunch will be coming back to you as i'm pretty sure i'll have enough seeds.

the others i don't know about yet.

 

[flowerbug]

funny, the hoped for cross between Purple Dove and Painted Pony had a seed coat completely unexpected. so now i'm wondering if it really is a PD cross or one of my other beans (one of the Peregion selections). if it ends up being an edible bean i don't really mind.

so far the PD odd garden (with a bunch of different PD beans i pulled out as i was shelling because they had something different going on) has given me back only one bean with a different seed coat and i'm doubtful the bean will be worth going forwards with, but we'll see. i should have a few more weeks yet.

 

[heirloomgal]

Does anyone else strip their bean plants of some leaves once they start to yellow? I'm finding that if I'm going to get a mould spot it'll be from a leaf falling on a stem or pod and spoiling there under the canopy. Plucking leaves seems to reduce the chance for those little mold spots on the winding stems. I also find that getting rid of leaves covering the bean pods really seems to speed the beans drying up. Exposure to sun and wind helps so much. Later in the season as frost approaches I'll clip the plants at ground level as @Bluejay77 does but for now leaf removal seems to be working well to speed things up.

I shelled all the Starlite bean pods today! Will post pics soon. The whole lot of them turned out very well. So happy!

What a relief!

 

[flowerbug]

Does anyone else strip their bean plants of some leaves once they start to yellow? I'm finding that if I'm going to get a mould spot it'll be from a leaf falling on a stem or pod and spoiling there under the canopy. Plucking leaves seems to reduce the chance for those little mold spots on the winding stems. I also find that getting rid of leaves covering the bean pods really seems to speed the beans drying up. Exposure to sun and wind helps so much. Later in the season as frost approaches I'll clip the plants at ground level as @Bluejay77 does but for now leaf removal seems to be working well to speed things up.

I shelled all the Starlite bean pods today! Will post pics soon. The whole lot of them turned out very well. So happy!

What a relief!

oh wow, i wish i had the time and the energy to be able to do things like that. so the answer is mostly no. the thing i may do is pull plants and put them up on a pile of other bean plants that have already been cleared of pods so they can stay drier, but more often i will just pull any pods that are that close to drying and bring them in to finish inside. when i go through the day's catch i'll sort the pods apart so the dry ones can go right into a paper bag until i can get them shelled out and then the rest of the pods which are still cool to the touch (i.e. they have some moisture left in them) will go in flats to dry further. a few days in the sun can make that go faster but i don't always have time to do that. mainly i just want to stir those once a day or so to make sure they're getting air on all sides so they won't get fungus on them.

if i have time i may shell some of those pods that are still moist enough to be cooked and eaten as shellies.