2019 Little Easy Bean Network - Come And Reawaken The Thrill Of Discovery

I'v got beans sprouting! Witsa and Wide Pod White Greasy were first. I'm a little surprised as I expected some of my own to be first, they were planted the day before and come from generations of my own seed. Thinking about it though I don't really have good reason to have expected that.

We are having a below average cool spell, nothing close to frost so I'm not terribly worried, just well below the 85 high / 65 low range of previous couple weeks. Then supposed to go back to high 80s by end of week, not especially looking forward to that. I still have more beans and corn to plant, afraid they will get caught by the hot dry that I have little doubt is just around the corner. Plus with idiotic daylight savings, I'v lost my time to do garden chores in the cool morning before going to work.

I got my first dried beans of the season today. Taking advantage of my location I was able to plant the first of March and I got great germination rates. These are a few of the segregations I got from the Will Bonsall beans I got from Russ a few years back. I'm trying to stabilize them. All these beans came from crisp dry pods but I expect them to shrink some as they dry.

First is Banzala, a boring black bush bean. It is not good for a snap bean only as a dried bean. It's fairly productive and a decent size. It's the second time I've grown it since the first segregation so I'm not calling it stabilized yet.





Next up is Jas, one of my favorites. It's a pole bean, good only for a dried bean. Again fairly productive and a relatively large bean. I describe it as creamy when it is cooked. The first photo is what I opened today. The one below that is what the seed I planted looked like at about a year and a half. I like the appearance of the older seed myself.








Then there is Tartan. Another pole bean that grew true the first time I planted it but not so this time. This is just off one plant, I still have a few others to see if it breeds true in those. I'd like to keep trying to stabilize what it looked like originally. The first one below is what I opened today, the bottom photo is what I planted.







My intentions are that once I get enough dried beans to plant (with spares) I'll try to get a second crop in the ground this year to see if I can speed up the segregation calendar.

@Ridgerunner, Wow first dried beans of the year. That is something. I won't see my first dry beans until August about the middle of the month. Also the first little bean show too. Really neat.

Your Tartan might have one of those seed coats that take awhile to develop after you shell them. I've had some varieties take almost a year to show up all the detail in their seed.

I'm going to plant your Tranquility this year and two of your unnamed ones you sent back. Wb-PKT #27.1 & 27.2. Someone requested another of your unnamed ones WB-PKT #27.3

I'm convinced that the Tartan above is a new segregation. The other pattern was very clear on the fresh beans before. I have a few other plants and hope to get that original pattern to keep trying to segregate for it.

The 27.1, 27.2, and 27.3 are from the Will Bonsall #27, obviously. Tranquility is a segregation from 27.1 to keep the parentage straight. The 27's seem unstable, they seem to keep segregating. It will be interesting to see what you the other person get. Some of the 27 segregations make a pretty good snap bean.

All of the beans are up good now with true leaves getting big. Of the network beans one kind Veneese, I think was, took it's time with none up when all the others had at least five out of eight. I had actually dug one up and found it apparently likes to grow a pretty good root system first and it's sprout later.

That's a pretty handy trait in corn, means it resists being pulled up by birds and maybe has drought tolerance, never though about it in beans before.

Talk above, about stabilizing out crosses has me thinking of planting the the ones I found in Refugee, the ones I called Escapee. I don't do too work trying to stabilize, takes too much space and too much attention to recording but my Hoosier Wonder is very close to stable, maybe I can spare room to start a new one. I actually have 1/2 a dozen or more out crosses saved but doubt I'll ever get around to trying to stabilize them. I do add them to my "survivor" mix but I haven't planted it this year yet, not sure I'm going too. If I do it will be in a brand new, never been garden before spot and planted late, they will truly have to be survivors to make it.

I'm loving the, new to me semi-runner types and in future may move almost entirely to them. Most all are noted as for dry use but assuming the new ones produce well enough I'll sample them all as green beans. Refugee, that I rave about and my favorite so far is a great green bean. A long row of it is what displaced my "survivor" mix this year. I hope to get a nice big harvest to archive a nice bunch of seed for me and to send some out to others to try.

@Bluejay77 i have less fence space than i was planning so i think my final list will be pretty close to what i posted before, but i still need to get some bonus selections on there and perhaps a few others too.

i hope to get my list to you in the next few days.

i'm in the middle of getting a fence run put up along the north hedge and trying madly to get it done before the honeysuckles start to bloom. i just squeaked by the lilac tree in time as it is just starting to bloom.

the good news is that the edge and corner i did first were where most of the deer and groundhog traffic have been coming from. i hope it goes more quickly now as i don't have to remove any large honeysuckle bushes, but we'll see... sometimes i think something is going to be simple and then get into it and ...

flowerbug said:

@Bluejay77 sometimes i think something is going to be simple and then get into it and ...

Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth!

Ridgerunner said:

Ain't that the truth!

Click to expand...

oh ya... spent an hour on the roof with the roofing contractor this morning... hope we got the leak solved but won't know for some time... i'll put more in my other thread where i've been putting updates...

Got some new bean mail yesterday. Did some trading with a fellow in Drevhostic, Czech Republic. Received 12 varieties. Thought you might enjoy seeing them.

''MALA ZELENA A SEDYM PUPKEM" Bush from Czech Republic. Maybe a dry bean type. This one reminds me of Sulphur beans with the subtle gray eye ring.



''CERNA TANECNICE'' I think this might be a pole bean. It's name means "Black Dancer" From the Czech Republic. Reminds me of a bean that was passed around Seed Savers Exchange in the early 80's called Hobb's Goose.



''SAXA" Bush snap bean. Bean was bred by German man David Sachs of Quedlinburg, Germany. David's seed business I believe was known as Seed Nursery of David Sachs. Descriptions of this bean appeared in German seed catalogs as early as 1913. This bean was also used by Sachs to breed another European snap bean called Conserva which was a cross of Alpha and Saxa.



"BEZOVA ZE SMOLIJANU" Pole. New bean mail today from Drehostic, Czech Republic. Did a little bean trading with a fellow from that town. I believe this bean is a dry type. Will probably not grow it until next year. This years bean planting has pretty much been all planned since last November.


'DLOUHA PULENA ZE SMOLIJANU" Pole bean also from the Czech Republic. Probably a dry bean type. "Long Half from Smolijanu" Half meaning it's been hybridized with a bean from Smolijanu



''VULKAN'' - Pole - Another dry bean type. Pretty seeds. From the Czech Republic. I believe it's name means Volcano. The design on the seed coat was imagined to be like a volcano eruption.

This post is the other six beans from Drevhostic, Czech Republic.

''KRASAVICA" Bush dry bean. Very pretty seed is almost like the bush version of Kutasi Princess. From Czech Republic. Supposedly looks much like a bean from Belarus



SLAVONSKI ZELENY" - Bush maybe a dry bean type. Coloration reminds me a bit of the Sulphur bean. Pretty seed with a prominent eye ring. From the Czech Republic. Slavnoski is a place near Croatia. Decades ago Czech and Croatians did a lot of trading. "Slavnoski Green"


"DALMATIN" - Bush dry bean type. From the Czech Republic. Reminds me of the Orca bean.


"DH 16" - Bush. Also from Czech Republic. Seeds are smaller narrow. Would suggest probably snap bean type similar to Magpie.



"ANDIKOVE" - Bush dry bean soldier type. Seeds seem good size and fairly long. Perhaps long pods also. From my bean trader in Drevhostic, Czech Republic.


"ETNA" - Bush dry. This is also in todays mail. This bean was one of a number of cranberry beans bred by Horticultural professor Elwyn Meader at the University of New Hampshire. American beans to get around the world.