2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

[Blue-Jay]

I really like beans patterned like Ukrainian Pole and Kroatische. I wonder how many more there are like these.

 

[ruralmamma]

I woke up around 3 am and worked on sorting and packaging Network beans in hopes that I might possibly get them mailed while I'm out tomorrow. Still have 3-4 varieties to go and have called it quits for today. Spent an hour looking for seed return packets and suddenly thought to look in the shipping box, where I'd put them last week.

Once I sorted seed, I realized that Cold Creek didn't produce as many nice seeds as I first thought but managed to get at least sixty to return and planning to try it again next year. George Washington Fall produced nice seed but not as many as I thought. Both varieties had an off-type that produced well though.

 

[ruralmamma]

Oh what a relief to read this @Neen5MI, I have a feeling that Pink Tip might have been a new bean in Bluejay's collection so I was worried that my failure was especially bad news. Grateful for your success!!

@heirloomgal, @Neen5MI, what color were your Pinktip seeds? I was intrigued when both of you mentioned that it didn't do well for you when I had no issues with maturity. After reading my notes, I realized that it was neither greasy nor had a pink tip, but instead had huge pods the size of Ma Williams without the bright pink coloration. Went to the Network pages and discovered there is a Pinktip and a Pinktip Greasy and I think I grew the former as my seed is large and light brown.

My original seed packet just says Pinktip but the return packet says Pinktip Greasy. Just wanted to compare notes before I return seed to @Blue-Jay

 

[heirloomgal]

I really like beans patterned like Ukrainian Pole and Kroatische. I wonder how many more there are like these.

I wonder too, I quite like that coloration. It seems a uniquely European bean seedcoat.

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal, @Neen5MI, what color were your Pinktip seeds? I was intrigued when both of you mentioned that it didn't do well for you when I had no issues with maturity. After reading my notes, I realized that it was neither greasy nor had a pink tip, but instead had huge pods the size of Ma Williams without the bright pink coloration. Went to the Network pages and discovered there is a Pinktip and a Pinktip Greasy and I think I grew the former as my seed is large and light brown.
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My original seed packet just says Pinktip but the return packet says Pinktip Greasy. Just wanted to compare notes before I return seed to @Blue-Jay
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My Pink Tip beans were the white seeded ones on the right @ruralmamma , I guess I should have added Greasy to the name when I referenced it. I forgot that there are a couple beans with Pinktip in the name!

 

[ruralmamma]

My Pink Tip beans were the white seeded ones on the right @ruralmamma , I guess I should have added Greasy to the name when I referenced it. I forgot that there are a couple beans with Pinktip in the name!

No problem as I actually thought I planted the greasy ones and have the description for Pinktip Greasy in my notes. Better to discover that now than later . A grower about an hour north of me offers the greasy variety, so hopefully it will perform okay here.

 

[flowerbug]

and to make things even more complicated about Pink Tip, many years ago someone from down south sent me some Pink Tip beans that were golden yellow colored seed coats.

i've not grown them recently and do not have them any more but i think they did cross with the Red Ryder beans i regularly grow and ended up becoming a stable bean i called Sunset which is an early bush dry bean.

 

[Decoy1]

I wonder too, I quite like that coloration. It seems a uniquely European bean seedcoat.

As far as I’m aware, the most common European varieties with roughly that patterning but not that colouring are pea beans which come with different but related names. I have grown Pea Bean, Inca Pea Bean. Oddly though there is also Kjem's Pea Bean but that has entirely different patterning. And there’s also Tunny

 

[flowerbug]

as i was shelling out some Purple Dove beans last night (after doing a different box of mixed beans with much tougher pods to shell) i was thinking i should try to make a short video of that since they are so easy to do in comparison - except i don't have a stand or tri-pod for the camera and not really any other easy way to do it and i wasn't in the mood for fiddling around that late either. so you just have to imagine some long, thin and papery pods that have a degree of shatter trait in them so that if you just squeeze them a little bit and the pods almost spring wide open and most of the beans just fall out.

 

[flowerbug]

this morning's adventure in bean sorting and shelling was an unlucky bounce when the bean i was looking at was dropped and managed to bounce off the flat and into the bag of shelled out pods and rejects.

it was one of about a dozen beans that i was interested in so i shook the bag to get the bean down towards the bottom and then emptied it gradually while still shaking to get the bean at the bottom with all the rest and then dumped those out in a tray to find the specific bean i was after again.

it wasn't too bad to do and took less than 10 minutes, but funny to me how sometimes you get these lucky bounces that end up in places you'd not expect.