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

i did my first germination check for most of the gardens. with a few exceptions most beans have some representation growing. now i just hope i can get them down the road to bearing seeds. a few of the seeds i planted i wasn't expecting much since they'd last been grown quite a few years ago, but i was hoping for a few to make it.

in about another week i should be able to know better but i may replant some sooner than that.

i was annoyed to find two leaves chewed off a plant and they were laying right there next to the plant. like your basic move a malcontent would pull just to annoy someone else. they didn't even eat the leaves... grrr! probably a chipmunk.

the really fun thing is that the two beans i'm working with the most this year have some rows that were 100% germination so they are well adapted to our clay, but i think even in some of the sandier soils they seem to be doing ok. i have to wait a bit yet for the last few gardens to catch up...

the Victoria Brown Eyes that was chewed off still had the cotyledons on it and now i see small leaves sprouting from it right at the juncture of the cotyledons with the stem. suprised the heck out of me - but that is why i sometimes do things because you never know what you might learn. since the stalk did not wither and die it was able to make enough energy from the stalk alone to recover plus whatever energy it could still grab from the cotyledons... the plant right next to it is not doing that great and i'll probably remove it and poke another seed in there next time i go outside.

Jembo Polish
Mona Lisa
Ijevan King
Black Bear continues to impress me! Last season it was it's incredible poductivity. This year it is its speedy germination. Presoaked Saturday on papertowel, planted later that day, and today it's coming up! Other beans from earlier last week that were also presoaked and rooted before being planted are still taking their time!

BeanQueen said:

There are a few seed coats for Ijevan King. (see image below, I noticed seed pod correlates with seed coat) I grow them as the mix I got them as. Do you want to exchange in the fall when I have fresh seed?
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We don't have to trade in the fall when you have fresh seed. My Bomba won't be any fresher. I'm not growing Bomba this year. If you got a space in your garden you could still grow Bomba this season and have a nice crop for that bean.

I have no more room, lol.

The pole beans I planted the weekend before this past one are coming up. Many others will be up in another couple of days I'm sure.

This is Graines De Cafe


Tremento Di Trebua. One Of our Network beans.


Cassie's Purple Pod. You can already see the purple stems it's developing.


Today I erected all the hog panel supports for Four 40 foot rows of semi runner beans today. 5 varieties in each row. Each variety got planted to their own 8 foot hog panel. I tilled the planted area twice today so the soil was worked deeper than it currently had been. Then erected all the hog panel supports. Then planted all the beans. I think I finished up about 7:30 this evening. Got started about 11 this morning. A couple of photos of the project below. This is one of my offsites. The people that own this property have 3 acres in a rural subdivision near the edge of the city limits. Semi Runner and pole bean plot.






Semi Runners planted are

HODSON GREENPOD - An outcross found in Hodson Wax
CANOE outcross - Something new I found in Canoe in 2018
CHEROKEE BEAN - Large seeded dry bean looks like a red horticultural type.
MIDNIGHT BLUE - One of Robert Lobitz's original named beans.
PURPLE FACE outcross - Something new I discovered in Purple Face in 2018.
CANOE outcross #2 - Two plants in Canoe grow out in 2018. Each developed a different seed coat.
SEBRINA - A good size seed like a large snap seed. Purple and white divided diagonally in the center. The bean has a true bush counterpart named SEBASTIAN. SEBASTIAN showed up in 2015 after planting outcrossed seed from Will Bonsall. The original outcross seed came from a Robert Lobitz bean called Early Stearns. SEBRINA showed up in 2016 in a grow out of SEBASTIAN. Only one plant threw runners and I saved the seed. Both of these beans have the same seed coat.
KARACHAGANACK - Another product of the Will Bonsall outcrosses. This one grown out and named by our very own Ridgerunner. 2016 was the year I let growers request the second half the 52 outcrosses from Will Bonsall. Then the growers had the fun of naming anything that was produced in the grow out.
MISSOURI BILL'S - Semi Runner horticultural type. I think I acquired this one from the Arkansas seed bank.
BRAUNER BAR - Got this bean from a Seed Savers Exchange member 8 years ago. It grew true to type the first year and then my next grow out it threw off all sorts of stuff. Then again last year more off types. I've been trying to grow it until it's true to type to itself again.
PURPLE FACE - One of my named beans from the early 80's. Reacquired the bean from SSE's Heritage Farm and the last two grow outs it been throwing a lot of off types. It seemed very stable back in the 80's.
MENOMENEE - Small white bean which I named back in the early 80's and it seemed stable then. It's been throwing off types last couple of years. I reacquired it from SSE Heritage Farm.
MARICO - Very pretty bean from Marico county in South Africa. Another one throwing lots of off types lately.
MINNESOTA 1940'S - Acquired this bean back around 2011 from Heritage Harvest Seeds when they were still shipping beans to the U.S. This one two started throwing off types into the second grow out.
RABBIT'S FOOT Segregation - There were three outcrossed beans I discovered in a shipment of Jacob's Cattle that I purchase from Rancho Gordo in California. I bought the Jacob's Cattle to try out for a soup bean. After I got growing these three odd beans for a couple of years. I think so far it's produced about 15 segregations. I keep at them til I get something to settle down.
DRAYER CREEK - One of the Robert Lobitz legacy beans that I acquired since Robert's death in 2006. All the legacy beans that I acquired of his had just numbers that Robert had given them. I haven't the slightest idea what the numbers mean. So I have been naming the beans with the same formula that he used in naming his beans for places and land marks in and around his county in Minnestoa. This bean is a white dry bean type. I think it may already be stable. This year is the second grow out.
SHOSHONE - Another one of my named beans from the early 1980's. I reacquired from SSE. It seemed stable back in the 80's. Lately it is also throwing off types.
HUDSON YELLOW POD - Another of the off types found in a grow out of HODSON WAX which is a very old wax type that was popular in the early part of the 20th century. HODSON WAX is a true bush, but this HODSON YELLOW POD as I gave it a working name is a semi runner. Has long large pods, and seed that looks exactly like HODSON WAX.
RICE LAKE LITTLE WHITE - Another of the Robert Lobitz named beans that he was able to name and release through the Seed Savers Exchange while he was still living.
PURPLE JESTER - Another of my named beans of recent vintage. The last few times I grew it....it was true to type. I had purchased ORCA bean from someone on Ebay back in 2011. The ORCA'S had a definite black eye patch when I received them. Upon harvesting new seed of this ORCA. Most of the seed now had a definite purple eye patch. I thought oh is this a joke when you grow this bean you now get a purple eye on it. Thus the name PURPLE JESTER.

That's my semi runner grow out for 2019.

Pic of the ICS

I was a little worried the cage might impede them (but at the same time, one bean had already grown through it, so I couldn't remove it if I wanted to.) but they seem to have found the holes.

As you can see, the net is already up behind them for them to climb on.

@Pulsegleaner,

I don't know what happened but your photo doesn't show up.

They're not going to get squished in the cage?

That's what I was worried about. However it looks like the node between the ground and the first leaves is fully extended, so all growth is from the tips, which have pushed through the holes in the cage just fine. All the cage is doing right now is protecting the base of the plants, which is a good thing ( I just have to hope that no deer decide to try and browse the top between now and when the vines are long enough to attach to the mesh.)

In any case, now that the vines HAVE pushed through, the cage is sort of "locked" in place. I certainly wouldn't want to try pulling the plants backwards through it to try and get the cage off!

It's not in the photo, but my one remaining fava bean (under another cage) looks like it is getting flower buds. Good I suppose, but the thing is so short I ma frankly worried that the pods may be longer than the plant!