2017 Little Easy Bean Network – Everything Beans, Post It Here & Join The Fun

NancyJ10x said:

Russ - I have 3 plants of Family growing so there should be fresh seeds of that variety.

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This is prime example why you want to have more than one person growing any given variety.

Annette

aftermidnight said:

This is prime example why you want to have more than one person growing any given variety.

Annette

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Not just growing, but also storing the varieties. You'll never know what disaster can happen.

The amounts of seed on some of the beans are getting to the point where we do have enough to let more than one person in a season to grow them. This year there are a couple of beans where two people have been growing them. I think we might have lost the varieties Baymule got this year too. The critical ones are the beans that don't have a growout year on them. Those are small samples and when I send them out you almost have to send them all as some of the seeds might not germinate anyway.

SOOOO excited. Forgot that I had planted pole beans with the lima beans. Harvested by a 1/5th of the beans growing and had them with dinner last night. SOOOOOO delicious!!!!! SOOOOO tender and flavorful. ME and DD make a good team--I grow stuff and she cooks it. She even took the time to cut them into bite sized pieces. Here are pictures from this weekend:

@Bluejay77 , grow out beans and their off types are on their way back to you. Should be arriving in a day or two. I really like the Refugee for green beans and will definitely be growing them again. I'll be looking over the list for some more new ones to grow next year.

Thank you so much @reedy. Your seed was the first seed return of this season, and it is just such beautiful seed. Have you ever noticed bean weevils in your bean seed where you live? If not I will not have to freeze treat it, but the seed might go into the freezer anyway for some long term storage to keep it viable for many, many years.

@Bluejay77 , I have never seen weevils, not even sure what they look like but I always freeze treat my seed anyway before storing, just in case. I also try to save seed only from clean pods with as few as possible spots on the dry pods. Some years that just isn't possible but this was a pretty good year. For some varieties I was able to fill pint jars from pretty much perfect pods.

All our canning of green beans is done and seeds saved but I am still harvesting and mostly giving away KY Wonder, Blue Lake, and Little Brown Greasy. One of my favorites is Ohio Pole, it is later. We have canned and eaten some but they are just now coming on real good. Because of it being later I leave 1/2 dozen plants with no harvesting to eat, just seed. They are just starting to dry down good.

Russ, you'd asked about the Karchaganak. I only have two plants but here are my results. Both plants had everything like last year, the beautiful lavender bloom, same pods, same growth habit. The beans I grew this year look pretty much identical, the #2 are a little bigger than the #1. I'm not sure how significant that is, I'm going to assume they are the same though when I grow them next year I'll plant some from each and see if that is a repeat.

I don't see that same tan color I saw last year in with the black that in my opinion made it so unique. Otherwise they look the same. Would it be OK if I sent a few of these new ones this year to get your expert opinion on that? They look a bit different from last year but I'm not ready to call then different and give them a new name. I do not have one from last year to directly compare them to, just a poor photo and memory.

Have you had any results from your Karachaganaks?

The first photo is what I grew last year and named.


The next photo is a comparison of this years beans side by side so you can see the difference in size.


Next, a close-up of #1


And finally a close-up of #2.

My last green beans were tough. Think I'll let them dry out and save the seeds for next year.

@ducks4you I think pole snap beans if kept pick stay tender right up to the time frost in the autumn finally kills them. However I have noticed that bush snap beans tend to get tougher at the plants get older.