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

Decoy1 said:

Yes, wouldn’t that be wonderful. Perhaps eventually DNA testing will become more available and origins and development of varieties will be at our fingertips! A little time to wait though, I imagine!

Click to expand...

it surely would be interesting. i can pick two i would start with, the Red Lima bean and Montezuma Red along with several of the mountain varieties from a few places in Mexico and the other parts of South America where beans may have originated. they've probably already done some of those sequences anyways.

well here is some interesting reading for a morning cup of coffee. i sure don't know what many of the terms used mean or the abbreviations but it is still interesting to read through.


this is another one worth reading through for various tidbits.

Bluejay77 said:

If you have 50 seeds then you have more seed than a single sample that I send out. If you have deer problems then you need to do something to stop them from feeding on your gardens. Deer like beans and once they find a spot they like to feed they will keep coming back for more and more often. I had a garden spot that was occasionally visited by deer for two growing seasons. Then the third season they chewed down an 3200 square foot bean garden to just about 2 inches above the soil. There was not a single bean plant they didn't chew to almost nothing. I stopped gardening in this spot because of the deer.

Click to expand...

We will have 2 gardens in the spring. One behind my house in the city, so no deer issues. Our big garden is out at my folks house in the sticks where the deer are. However we will be putting up game fence. Again, do you all have a program to grow and thrive the Kutasi Princess beans?

Spork said:

We will have 2 gardens in the spring. One behind my house in the city, so no deer issues. Our big garden is out at my folks house in the sticks where the deer are. However we will be putting up game fence. Again, do you all have a program to grow and thrive the Kutasi Princess beans?

Click to expand...

I do have a program to increase the Kutasi Princess if I don't grow them myself. I have my network growers sometimes will choose this bean to grow. I will send them about 12-15 seeds and they will return 60 or more if they like of new beans in the autumn. When the beans are dry enough to enclose in a jar or ziploc baggie without becoming moldy or spoiling.

Bluejay77 said:

I do have a program to increase the Kutasi Princess if I don't grow them myself. I have my network growers sometimes will choose this bean to grow. I will send them about 12-15 seeds and they will return 60 or more if they like of new beans in the autumn. When the beans are dry enough to enclose in a jar or ziploc baggie without becoming moldy or spoiling.

Click to expand...

I definitely will plant some, if not all of my seeds. And if my source in Serbia offers them again, I will be more and plant more. I've wanted to have a program myself for the Kutasi Princess beans. If and when I have lots of seeds dried up, I'd love to send to your program to up the supply.

Spork said:

I definitely will plant some, if not all of my seeds. And if my source in Serbia offers them again, I will be more and plant more. I've wanted to have a program myself for the Kutasi Princess beans. If and when I have lots of seeds dried up, I'd love to send to your program to up the supply.

Click to expand...

You would probably want to send seed next year in the autumn. I don't know if I would take a chance and plant all my seed. You can never be sure what the the seasons weather might have in store. For you I might plant 30 of them. In a good season 30 plants will probably produce close to 4 pounds of seed. Probably wiih out any seed spoilage from weather. You would probably wind up with over 2,600 beans.

Artorius said:

This year I was growing Stoltzfus String beans. I probably received and planted the crossed seeds, because now I have a mix of colors. Which ones are the most similar to the true Stoltzfus String bean? If you can, please help me.

I sowed these seeds.

View attachment 33913

I harvested such seeds.

View attachment 33914

View attachment 33915

View attachment 33916

View attachment 33917

View attachment 33918

Certainly these are not seeds from pics 3 and 5.

Click to expand...

I received a response from Tim Mountz, owner of Happy Cat Farm. Stoltzfus String bean is on photo number 4

Artorius said:

I received a response from Tim Mountz, owner of Happy Cat Farm. Stoltzfus String bean is on photo number 4

Click to expand...

I figured in your array of photos. That one of them had to be Stoltfus String. I could not imagine that your seed was so completely outcrossed that you would lose the variety entirely. Good news that Tim Mountz could identify the correct seed.

the break is over so i've gotten back to more sorting today (happy camper ) and almost finished up what i wanted to get done today. making more space and getting rid of yet more box tops (stacking them so i can reuse them next season is what i mean, i don't get rid of anything if i might be able to use it again).

Monster is even more chaos than the name implies. i have 14 small containers (not all completely full just how i segregated them to start with) of beans from those i planted along with about 1/4lb of generic brown and marked beans that we'll eat.

2 of the 14 containers were full of "leftovers" from the initial sort and there's enough in those two containers to look at again so i tried to do that today under better light.

i gave up and put them back for now. i think if i were to try to group them further i'd end up with another dozen solid colors from steely purple/grey to greenish grey along with some variation in shapes too. i wouldn't know until i grew them all out if they were actual segregations or not.

i'm not sure i'll do those grow outs as there were plenty of easier segregations in the first sort which are readily apparent. including a green that is almost as green as the Fort Portal Jade color but the bean is longer and bigger and not as round as the FPJ (which shape i really like so i'm sad i've not had very good luck with FPJ yet).

the other part of Monster bean children is that all the children are larger beans like the Monster parent bean which are about the opposite of what i'm aiming for with a lot of beans. i like smaller beans which have a good chance of being fully formed no matter what the weather is like. downsizing monster beans would be an interesting challenge, but i'm not sure i really want to spend that much time on these as i already have so many others to work with.

maybe i should call these beans the Addams Family beans?

yes, eventually pictures...

flowerbug said:

it surely would be interesting. i can pick two i would start with, the Red Lima bean and Montezuma Red along with several of the mountain varieties from a few places in Mexico and the other parts of South America where beans may have originated. they've probably already done some of those sequences anyways.

Click to expand...

It would also be handy for me, since I have in my hunts found some beans where I am unsure as to exactly what species they are, and I have a nagging feeling that, even once I grow them out (assuming they germinated, and go through their whole life cycle) I STILL wont be sure.

Incidentally, since you mentioned wax beans, I should point out that, assuming it can grow enough of it I can share (the critters love it like crazy) , I have an interesting item. The bean I call Coals in the Candle is a wax COW PEA. The people on the other forum I used to use said they had never heard of such a thing.

Bluejay77 said:

You would probably want to send seed next year in the autumn. I don't know if I would take a chance and plant all my seed. You can never be sure what the the seasons weather might have in store. For you I might plant 30 of them. In a good season 30 plants will probably produce close to 4 pounds of seed. Probably wiih out any seed spoilage from weather. You would probably wind up with over 2,600 beans.

Click to expand...

Hey Russ, it seems that I actually have around 80 seeds. I'm super stoked about the garden next year. I don't mean to tie up this forum. I sent you a conversation link on this site if you would like to talk more.