Recent content by Blue-Jay

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 24 Frost - Pole Dry. Pre 1790 bean. Grown by both British and American gardeners in colonial times. Regarded for it's frost tollerance. To me it seems like a difficult bean to grow. Perhaps the Illinois climate is too warm for this cultivar. Fruhegoldbohne - Bush...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 24 Fountain Pitts Allen - Pole Dry. I got this bean from a Stephen Smith of Guthrie, Kentucky. He claims to have bred this bean when he was in high school and the name of a friend was part of the inspiration for the name of this bean. It's very productive and...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 23 Flossie Powell - Pole Lima. This bean did very well in soil that others literally droped dead. 4 plants produced 1.25 pounds (575 G). It's an heirloom of which it's name goes back about 104 years. This bean was grown by a real Flossie Powell in the early part of...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 22 Epsilon - Bush Dry. Here is another cross I've been growing and just aching for it to stabalize so I can share it with as many as might want it. Epsilon, fifth letter of the Greek alphabet. Epsilon Eridani a nearby star system with exoplanets. Epsilon Ot 1 -...

I'm the same way. Maybe it's like looking into the night sky at all those tiny little twinkling speckles so far away. Almost hypnotic.

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 21 Draper's Glen - Semi Runner Dry. Discovered this bean in 2019 in Marico. Lately the bean has taken to producing two off types a pure white bean and a snaller sort of square looking bean with a much more prominent eye ring and a bit more spots over the rest of...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 21 Doti Dotion - Pole Dry. This bean grew to about 7 feet (2.3 Meters). It reminded me a lot of Neabels Ukrainian. Large seeds and patterned with colors shades identical to Neabels. Productivity is about average. A bean brought back to North America by Joseph...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 19 Diamont - Pole Dry - A gift to me from a bean friend in Austria who I believe may have acquired the bean from the Sarconi Seed Company in Italy. In 2025 it seemed productive enough producing 10.2 ounces (289 G) from 6 plants. A beautiful and unique look seed...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 19 Delicous Giant - Pole Snap. Developed by the Gill Brother's Seed Company of Portland, Oregon and released in 1925. This bean has grown well for me everytime I've grown it. 6 plants I had last summer produced 12.55 ounces (355 G) of seed. The bean produces light...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 18 Corree De Sang - Pole Dry, This bean also struggled. I got a few quality seeds to try over. Maybe again a case of the weather or soil. It's a pretty looking bean. I don't know who I got this bean from. Cosmic Girl - Bush Dry - Here's a bean that struggled a...

There were only two growers of Pinktip Greasy in 2025. One was in Michigan. They live a little bit north of Kalamazoo.They returned seed that looked a lot like yours and a note that said too long for my climate. The other grower was in Iowa on about the same latitude as Cedar Rapids and they had...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 17 Cold Creek - Bush Dry - This bean was a segregation of it's seed mother in 2019 which I was also calling Cold Creek. Grew it again in '20,21,25. By 2021 I seemed to be stable so I decided to use the seed mothers name for this bean. Not a lot of seed this past...

I've never noticed if the Zinnias caused the beans to produce better. I had 4 rows of semi runners last summer and one row of beans was the closest to the row of Zinnias and on the shadow side of the Zinnias. The entire row of beans didn't produce as well as the other three rows. However just...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 16 Chickasaw - Semi Runner Dry. I discovered this bean in a Sulphur bean which was a bush. I still think I can see a slight yellowishness to the tan base color of some of it's seeds that it inherited from the Sulphur bean. This bean grew close to a row of Zinnias...

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 15 Cherry Trout - Bush Dry. This bean struggled during the summer of 2025. It also didn't like the weather and possibly the soil too. I got enough seed to plant again. This is an original bean of mine from the early 1980's. It is in the Seed Saver's Exhange bean...