2018 Little Easy Bean Network - Join Us In Saving Amazing Heirloom Beans

aftermidnight said:

@HmooseK I'm still around, thanks for asking, just haven't had much to contribute. The heat has me knackered .

Annette

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glad you said hi back though. same here, i get out in the morning for a while and sometimes i try to get out in the afternoon too once the peak is past, but not today and not too likely tomorrow either.

Michael Lusk said:

Last night I found some paper dry pods on the Grandma Rivera pole lima's and figured I'd take a look inside. These plants have been super productive and I'm sure I'll be able to make my seed return and then some.

Having never grown Lima beans before, I realized I had no idea how to prepare them for eating. Anyone have any thoughts on this with the larger variety? In thinking about it, I think I've only ever had baby lima beans from a store. Do you just soak them and cook them like normal dried beans?

I look forward to your advice!

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i know a lot of people soak beans for a while before cooking them. i never do. they taste fine and turn out so...

we pick lima beans while they are still plump and green for shellies. steam them for a few minutes.

the red variety may need to be cooked (c.f. google lima bean toxicity )...

Michael Lusk said:

...
Having never grown Lima beans before, I realized I had no idea how to prepare them for eating. Anyone have any thoughts on this with the larger variety? In thinking about it, I think I've only ever had baby lima beans from a store. Do you just soak them and cook them like normal dried beans?

I look forward to your advice!

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Most frequently, I use limas in the shelly (green-shelled) stage. I prefer them just before the pods dry, when the pod becomes limp where it connects to the stem. They pass through this stage very quickly, so I pick every 2-3 days when the pods begin ripening. For the most part, I blanch them (4 minutes for large beans & limas) and freeze them; that process seems to soften the skins. I freeze a lot this way, but also allow some to get dry for seed, and to share seed with others.

You can also just soak & cook dry limas like any other dry bean, although IMO you lose much of their flavor that way. Fresh green-shelled beans (including limas) are one of the best joys you can experience as a home gardener.

Just had some frozen limas last night, mixed with home-grown cut sweet corn, to make succotash.... my favorite way to eat limas.

Zeedman said:

Most frequently, I use limas in the shelly (green-shelled) stage. I prefer them just before the pods dry, when the pod becomes limp where it connects to the stem. They pass through this stage very quickly, so I pick every 2-3 days when the pods begin ripening. For the most part, I blanch them (4 minutes for large beans & limas) and freeze them; that process seems to soften the skins. I freeze a lot this way, but also allow some to get dry for seed, and to share seed with others.

You can also just soak & cook dry limas like any other dry bean, although IMO you lose much of their flavor that way. Fresh green-shelled beans (including limas) are one of the best joys you can experience as a home gardener.

Just had some frozen limas last night, mixed with home-grown cut sweet corn, to make succotash.... my favorite way to eat limas.

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i think they are divine too. so good. they have a hint of what i think of as a maple flavor when i eat them fresh and green right there in the garden. it's so good.

i planted three long rows of lima beans this year, which is about two and a half times what i planted last year and i'm hoping to get a few good rounds of fresh lima beans from them along with plenty of dry. the plants and pods seem to be doing pretty good with the heat we've had this year, but what is probably helping more is a fairly good supply of rain. though today i will go out and water because i want to keep a more regular supply of moisture to the beans this year compared to last year where i didn't...

so far so good.

the wax beans i planted two rows and we've finished eating the freshly picked ones off one of the rows already. i had to look up in my charts where i put the others for future foraging targeting. i'm not even sure those sprouted/grew as i think there are some gaps in that garden. and then after we eat through the wax beans i'll have to branch out and start sampling some of the green beans (more than what i've done already).

next season i'm very sure i need a much better method of marking things because right now too many of the bean patches are looking like a big jungle. which is good in keeping down the weeds, but it's going to be fun trying to figure out which of the beans are edible and i may only be able to say "it could be this or this or this" in my notes until i get to some dry bean stage (and if they are out-crosses it might even be more of a challenge...).

i'm really hoping some of these beans have plenty of seeds because i want to have enough in the coming years to try them all ways: fresh, shelly and dry... i think all varieties of beans should have notes beyond the habit and include any succeptibilities too...

oh, in other notes, i came across a very strangely mottled bean plant the other day and since i didn't want it to be a virus that was spreading i pulled it and stripped off the bean pods (just in case they were edible, but also to prevent any pods/seeds from dropping and giving future plants). i hate to lose any plant at this time of the season, but i knew it was in a bulk bean seed row and could be taken out. nearby there were a few other plants with rust starting on them. i took as many leaves off those as i could. i may take the plants out if the rust persists. i should take the plants out alltogether as that is another bulk seed row, but i hate to do that when the plants at either end of the row are ok. strange for it to start in just the middle like that. the spacing is good and there's plenty of air flow so it should be ok... we'll see...

JB's got picked the other morning and then i checked the wild grape vines too. had about 100 in 15 minutes.

ok, sorry to put my rambles all here in this reply, but i had coffee this morning and i'm wired. lol

peace and happiness in the bean patches to all...

flowerbug said:

i think they are divine too. so good. they have a hint of what i think of as a maple flavor when i eat them fresh and green right there in the garden. it's so good.

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Fresh, as in raw??? The mature seeds of any Phaseolus bean should not be eaten raw - especially limas.
"The predominant cyanoglycoside in cassava is linamarin. It is present in leaves and tubers, both of which are eaten. Linamarin is also present in beans of the lima or butter type." (added emphasis mine)
https://www.foodsafety.govt.nz/elibrary/industry/Cyanogenic_Glycosides-Toxin_Which.pdf

Note the level of linamarin present in limas. I find it unsettling that few U.S. government articles about lima bean toxicity came up in my search results. It was also unsettling to learn that unprocessed bamboo shoots have similar levels of toxicity... but then, I don't eat anywhere near as much bamboo, as I do limas.

I don't post this to scare anyone away from limas; I've been eating them (boiled) for nearly 30 years, with no ill effects. Nor should anyone be afraid of eating the cooked shellies of P. vulgaris beans, which are far less toxic. It's just that warnings about the toxic effects of eating Phaseolus beans raw are not, IMO, adequately disseminated. In the U.S., bean poisoning is rare, because we generally cook everything. Those who have eaten favas, though, might mistakenly eat other large-seeded beans the same way. Several years ago, I was giving a foreign-born friend a tour of my gardens... and when I opened a pod of large limas to show the seed color, she peeled & ate one. One seed won't kill you, but eating raw beans should not be done often, or in large quantities.

@Zeedman i don't eat kidney bean seeds raw. i know that. i rarely eat lima beans raw, but i've not observed any negative effects from the few i do eat that way. usually we cook them some first.

what got me to look again at the question was that i knew that the Red Kidney beans were always supposed to be well cooked (boiled at or above 212F because some people have been poisoned by low cooking temperature beans (via crockpot or higher elevation))... so i had to look and see if Red Lima beans had any similar toxic issues to wonder about. i'm still looking into it, but will plan on in the future making sure lima beans are well cooked/steamed. i love 'em so no problem being cooked a bit more and i'll avoid the raw ones.

note that the cautions i saw said that the colored versions tended to have much higher levels of toxins compared to the ones we usually eat, so i'm thinking even eating a few raw here or there won't be nearly as bad as it could have been (or it would be more generally known)...

as for other beans. i'll still like them as shellies here or there, but often always cooked through so not too likely to be a toxic issue. i'd rather always err on the side of caution though.

fresh beans, snap beans, i'm not aware of any common varieties with issues. i do know that some of the decorative beans have certain issues and i do avoid fava or other odd beans mainly because i'm not into foods that need a lot of work or processing to make them edible. there's way too many other things to eat that i can do instead that don't need that much effort...

An interesting observation...

In addition to multiple common beans, I always grow one lima & one runner bean (as in scarlet runner) in my home plots, and a similar pair in my rural garden. The runner beans are usually the first to bloom; but typically they will just drop blossoms in the heat, set a few pods if there is a cool snap, and set pods en masse when temperatures drop late in the season. This year, the heat hasn't let up since June, and I've had to do a lot of irrigation. The runners were dropping blossoms like usual... and with no pods set, the vines were flowering furiously. Beautiful, but disappointing.

About a week ago, I noticed that the JB's were attacking the flowers at the top of the trellis; so when I irrigated (with a hand-held spray head) I blasted the entire trellis, hitting all of the flowers. This was in late afternoon. To my surprise, a few days later there were dozens of small pods! I have been forcefully spraying the vines every other day since then, and there are now hundreds of small pods starting. We have been in the mid to upper 80's - with dew points in the 60's & 70's - the entire time, so for the runner beans to set this many pods is highly unusual.

If the spraying is allowing the runners to overcome the heat, this could potentially allow people in warmer areas to successfully get seed from runner beans. As it happens, I will be able to test that possibility. Because squirrels dug up nearly all of my direct-seeded runner beans, I started transplants (safely indoors) to replace the losses. There were some plants left over, and I hated to waste them - so they were placed in several large pots. Those plants are also flowering furiously; but they were not sprayed, and have only set a few pods. I started spraying them today also, and will be observing them to see if they too respond to the method.

It was also interesting to note that while Japanese beetles show no interest in runner bean foliage, they are very fond of the runner bean flowers. My pole snap beans (Emerite) were directly adjacent to the runner beans on the trellises. Before flowering began, I found quite a few JB's every day feeding on Emerite, and none on the runner beans. Now, with the runner beans flowering, there is hardly a beetle to be found on the snap beans... so apparently runner beans are a good JB trap crop once they begin to flower.

That is interesting. I tried scarlet runner beans once in Arkansas and reached the conclusion they were meant for cooler moister climates. Productivity was extremely poor.

Beans have a perfect flower, both male and female parts, so they can self-pollinate. But I believe they need to be shaken a bit to get the pollen to transfer. I've also read that the time of day they are pollinated could have an effect on them setting pods. Not sure how important that is, might have something to do with someone's climate. Anyway, when mine are blooming but not setting pods I often shake them to try to help them get going. I don't know if it does any good or not but it makes me feel like I'm doing something.

You said you blasted or forcefully sprayed them, not misted them. I wonder if it is a combination of things that's having an effect, timing, shaking, and the cooling effect of the water. I expect you occasionally have some pretty strong afternoon thunderstorms in Wisconsin, do those have the same effect?

I dream if those days the dew point is only in the 60's, maybe in another month or two. Today is the first day in a long time our projected "feels like" is supposed to be below 100, it's predicted to be 98 because of the cooling effect of the thunderstorms.

Just a little update....
Ralph's Italian Pole a.k.a "Only the Lonely"... A strong healthy vine that keeps growing and growing and growing but no beans forming yet but, we think we can see a few flower buds starting to form, fingers crossed. it's planted in a spot I can cover if needed if the weather turns before I can collect seed. Hoping to pass this along to someone who can grow it out and share next year.

Piekny Jas (runner).....I'm getting a good crop of beans from my three plants, pods starting to dry down now so I should be able to spread a few of these around if all goes well.

Sarah's Old Fashioned Black... only had 5 plants in as I have already shared a good part of the seed I received to another member of Seeds of Diversity, don't want to lose this one, mild flavor and some have to be stringed BUT one of the sweetest beans I've ever eaten. We ate more than we should have but hopefully we can keep our hands off the rest and be able to collect a few seeds.

One disappointment so far "Juanita Smith" the vines looked healthy enough but the few I had in only grew about three feet, the pod were small and the seed collected was smaller than those planted. Scratching my head over this one.


I have a fair amount of seed for "Cherokee Trail of Tears", "Emelia's Italian" and "Barksdale" so we get to eat those. Growing samples of several others "Breck's Italian" I'm growing this one to compare as best I can remember to one I lost many years ago, so far it's matching up pretty good. I'm afraid the other "Piekny Jas" that turned out to be a lima isn't high on my list, I think it's been a tad neglected, hubby has been doing the watering for me and I'm afraid it got missed a few times .
The commercial "Nuna Popping Bean" I grew it last year, they grew as true bush beans. This year one plant is acting more like a half runner, will be collecting seed soon and maybe try popping a few .
Almost lost "Polish Freidank" could only get a couple to germinate, my seed was old and it looks like storing seed in the fridge isn't the best idea, the gal who I got them from has lost hers, fingers crossed. A few pics from the year I grew them...

"Buenos Aires Roja" a new one to me, no pics other than one of the seed I bought.

Nothing to report on this one yet.

Annette

Our weather has been so terrible most of the season I was getting worried about my network beans. I have my quota, just barely, of Small Speckled Bunch but they look to be perking up to produce more now that it has rained. I didn't think they looked right either but I looked up their picture and they are what they are supposed to be, yea!

Limas have finally also started with lots and lots of flowers. I think Mrs Mauds should be fine although not as many pods as I would like to see so far. On the other hand I am always anxious about Limas but they generally come on good later.

Just found these high up on the Madagascar, nice looking pods. Gonna need a step ladder to pick em, or maybe if they don't have a tendency to shatter I can just wait and pull the trellis down. Those pink flowers are an unruly runner bean that escaped it's own pole.


Even that poor Dr. Martin's vine has a few pods and quite a few flowers so fingers crossed on it.

Snowstorm and Rosie Clare bonus beans are looking pretty good but they are growing too close to my Lima collection to save as pure seeds. Rosie Clare has produced a few dry pods already, I like that, faster you get a harvest the less chance something will happen too it!