2015 Little Easy Bean Network - Old Beans Should Never Die !

[Hal]

@Bluejay77 Okay that seed is almost as old as me, it has held up quite well though. I'm surprised you don't run some sort of bean museum.
I've got the darker Soldier bean and I've got Jacob's Cattle so I can try and do a cross this spring.
Soldier is quite a huge seed but that cross is gigantic. I'm certainly going to attempt it because it would be a fantastic huge dry bean to cook with!
I need to remember to get some two pairs of really fine forceps with the sharp point so I can emasculate the flowers easier this season.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

It almost looks like Hashuli (another giant bean with the soldier pattern)

is the figure on a soldier bean supposed to be a solid color, I ask only because I have seen a few (both in photos and my finds) where the figure has a sort of reverse horticultural pattern (maroon with tan streaks) and have never figured out if they are true soldiers or something else.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Pulsegleaner I just have to assume the figure on the soldier bean that crossed with Jacob's Cattle was probably just one solid color and no other colors mixed in the red maroon figure. This soldier cattle cross seed is just a single color.

Yeah @Hal, I thought a bean that size would be nice to cook with. I can almost feel a bean like that rolling around my mouth now in a soup or baked bean dish.

I got to try my bean "Candy" sometime in soup and as a baked bean. Candy is even a little bigger than this soldier x cattle.

 

[Hal]

@Pulsegleaner I just have to assume the figure on the soldier bean that crossed with Jacob's Cattle was probably just one solid color and no other colors mixed in the red maroon figure. This soldier cattle cross seed is just a single color.

Yeah @Hal, I thought a bean that size would be nice to cook with. I can almost feel a bean like that rolling around my mouth now in a soup or baked bean dish.

I got to try my bean "Candy" sometime in soup and as a baked bean. Candy is even a little bigger than this soldier x cattle.

I could certainly see it suiting both of those quite well. How big does Giant Red Tarka get for you?

 

[897tgigvib]

I kind of thought Bumblebee seemed just about the biggest bush bean.

 

[Hal]

I kind of thought Bumblebee seemed just about the biggest bush bean.

I'd totally forgot about that one!

 

[Blue-Jay]

Giant Red Tarka is hard to judge for me because it's rounded and the last time I grew them was in the drought of 2012. My Tarka seeds were very small that year. I'm growing some new one's this year. Will have to see how they turn out. The ones I received from my donor were fairly nice size. They were smaller than Bumblebee. Bumblebee doesn't ever grow well in my climate. Seems summers here are too hot for it. I think it likes Maine, Massachusetts, Rode Island. Those parts of the country the best.

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 , I'm growing your "Candy" for the first time this year, I was given a sample in trade a couple of years ago and thought I should refresh my seed. "Candy" is alive and well in Canada, Salt Spring Seeds has it listed and I think I've seen it listed one or two other places just can't bring them to mind at the moment. "Blue Jay" is up and growing gangbusters, looking forward to the first feed, so tender and sweet. You have a real winner in that one.

That Aeron Purple Star runner I'm growing this year, all I can say is WOW! The flowers seem to be outnumbering the leaves at the moment and to top that off the vines are covered with small beans even in this unusual heat we've been having. Just had a taste last year as I got them in late and only grew 4 plants, they were delicious and didn't have to string them.
June is usually wet and coolish here, not this year we've even had some high 80's. I don't know if it's the amount of hummingbirds we have here this year having a go at the flowers or if it's just the way this particular runner performs.

We are on level two water restrictions here for the first time, can only water on Thursdays and Sundays but not between the hours of 10 and 4 during the day, we can water by hand other days. This has been one of the warmest winters on record and there's no snow pack in the mountains, I hope this is not a sign of things to come.

Had two or three disappointments, one being the Big Mama pole snap/shelly/dry bean I bought turned out to be a bush bean, have no idea what it really is but I lucked out and got a couple of packets from Sunshine Farm here in B.C. they didn't have it listed but still had it, it looks like another bean that needs preservation. I planted a few around a pole yesterday so even if I don't get seed at least we'll have a taste. I had a couple of no shows, I don't know how old the seed was when it was given and I'd had it a couple of years. All in all the rest of the beans are lookin' good.

Annette

 

[Hal]

@aftermidnight Glad to hear your beans are doing well. Blue Jay is delicious, I ordered some seed for a Canadian friend's birthday and their whole family loved them and couldn't get enough.

 

[Blue-Jay]

And I can still remember the sunny afternoon in early September 1977 when I cracked open a couple of pods in the Comtesse de Chambord section and held those first few Blue Jay beans in my hand. It was a thrill to see my first outcrossed bean. In 2011 when I got back into bean growing and saw them on the internet for the first time it was truely a jaw dropping experience. Very neat feel though, and a thrill to know they were still alive.

A fellow from Maine sent me my Kisswaukee Green back in April. A bean I thought for sure must have been gone. There is a farm stand grower in Maine who has grown it probably (from what I read in my converastion with the fellow who sent the bean) over 20 years.

So @aftermidnight is getting the warm Junes we usually get and we now have your coolish wet June this year. The winters here have been getting colder and snowier here and I think that might be the case for the entire eastern half of the country. There is a fellow who wrote a book called "Dark Winter" who claims there is no global warming. He said the recent warming of the 70's, 80's, and 90's came to an end around the end of the 90's leveled off for awhile then started a steeper decline in 2007. He claims the change in the sun's energy output will cause the earth to go into a cooling period for the next 30 years.

It will be interesting to hear what you think of Candy. A bean called "Big Light Red Trout" is the seed mother of Candy. There is also one called "Big Dark Red Trout" Seed Savers Exchange has accession numbers on both of these beans. I hope they will offer the beans sometime in the yearbook. Would like to grow the seed mother of Candy again. The bean is as large as Candy and looks just like Jacob's Cattle but the colors are a bit lighter and slightly washed out looking.