2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

Decoy1 said:

An interesting post. I’m intrigued by these varieties with Lima in the name. There’s a discussion in Beans of New York to the effect that some growers had previously thought that a cross between P. vulgaris and P. lunatus had produced such Lima lookalikes but that at the time of writing this was no longer thought to be the case. I hadn’t realised that there are vulgaris varieties with Lima in the name. I’m assuming that those you mention are vulgaris varieties?

It will be interesting to see whether Golden Lima does in fact turn out to be similar in all its parts to Dolloff. Do you value Dolloff mainly as a shelled bean? And is Horticultural Lima a specific variety which is still available?

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oxbow farm said:

I use Dolloff as a dry bean, but it is supposedly very good as a shelly. I've never in my life cooked shelly beans, which is probably something I should do.

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oxbow farm said:

As far as I know Horticultural Lima is not available as a specific named variety anymore. It does seem possible that either Golden Lima or Dolloff (or both) might be Horticultural Lima with a different name. Beans get renamed a lot. And Horticultural Lima was a bean originally from Vermont, as was Dolloff. Pretty difficult to know for sure.

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Decoy1 said:

Roottrainers have been available in UK for years. They’re not very cheap but I guess affordable. They’re a great design in most ways but the snag is that they’re quite thin plastic and for the money don’t last long. I ended up with piles of half roottrainers because the hinges broke, so I eventually went over to more substantial deep trays of 40 modules which last for ever.

Of course, the Canadian version might be more robust but if they’re made by the same company, just be prepared for them to collapse after a few uses - or be extra careful.

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Branching Out said:

After two weeks in the root trainers several types of pole beans were large enough to plant out. Pretty amazing 4" long roots, with lots of branching. I often use a slender rectangular trowel, and it happened to be the perfect size for transferring the plugs to the ground.

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Branching Out said:

After two weeks in the root trainers several types of pole beans were large enough to plant out. Pretty amazing 4" long roots, with lots of branching. I often use a slender rectangular trowel, and it happened to be the perfect size for transferring the plugs to the ground.

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oxbow farm said:

I haven't personally used these, but many veg farmers in the Northeast US are switching to them seems like. I've always used tobacco float trays for my seedlings.

These don't have the same volume of the roottrainers though.

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