2016 Little Easy Bean Network - Gardeners Keeping Heirloom Beans From Extinction

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay I still have the rest of July, August, September and possibly October of growing season so I think I will experiment a bit, take one seed from all the #45 plants that I've been able to collect seed from, plant each in a pot and finish them off in the greenhouse if necessary. I'll stick a bamboo stake in the pots of ones that want to climb. See what happens using fresh seed.
Annette

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm just going to be patient and see what happens. The 39C is the only one in danger and it has an easy two more months here, maybe more. I'm pretty confident something good will happen with it. The others, well I'll get something. I already have. I don't grow them in pots so moving them inside is not an option. I will not be planting any more beans this year.

For some of mine I'm not going to have many seeds, with some I will have a lot. Even with 38 being slow and 39C trying to get dramatic, I'm confident I'll have some of every segregation I planted. Some are just too pretty to not plant again. How does a raspberry red bean sound? I'm waiting for that one to dry out so I can see final colors but I'm pretty sure I'll plant that one again. Of course I'm wanting to plant about all of them again.

 

[VA_LongBean]

I can report successful seed production for both Botosani Cyclops and Passage to India.

Botosani Cyclops has yielded 4 dry seed with more ripening, though they didn't vine much. Not sure if it was cultural conditions or just being a half runner. Pods look like a stubby Roma type.

One of my Passage to India plants has grown as a bush, and has produced all of the seeds I've collected from this variety so far. Passage to India Bush Variant? All of the seeds look like the original sample. The other plants are true poles and are still ripening their seed. This one has fairly tiny seeds with small pods. Any idea what they would have been bred for?

The Large Chocolate Tepary and Orange Speckled Paiute Tepary are both making moderately clingy masses of vines. They are doing well on the chickenwire trellises, but are only just now setting flowers. Given the odd spring and summer we've had in Virginia I'm not surprised.

I'm not sure if my decision to only plant half of each of the 4 kinds of seeds was prudent or not as the ones I planted largely came up after some worrying. If I'm still at this address next year I could plant the remainder and return seed samples from them to ensure a good gene pool.

My cowpeas, longbeans and other pole beans are really only just gearing up into production. Normally I'm flush with more beans that I can eat by now, but so far have only had a single small meal off of one kind of bush bean.

The less said about my sad attempt at limas this year the better.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have not been talking about my Kutasi Princess or Malawi Pinto, the two varieties I'm growing out in addition to the numbered beans. The Kutasi Princess are on the right, pole beans topping out around six feet or so. They are loaded. I already have a lot of them drying with a lot to go.

The Malawi Pinto are on the left. This trellis is 12 feet high, they topped that really quickly and went looking for more room. These were late blooming and setting pods so I don't have many seeds yet but these vines are also loaded with a lot of very long pods. This is five plants of each. I have five more plants of each in another location, equally loaded with beans. Both of these have been wildly successful.

 

[baymule]

Ridge, I would be interested in knowing just how many dry beans you wind up from these two beans and how many you planted.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I planted 10 seeds of each, all grew. Five here, five in another spot. I'm a long way away from the end of harvest but I'll try to remember to post a photo.

 

[baymule]

Great, maybe you have a super producer dry bean!!

 

[Blue-Jay]

I like your hog panel setup there @Ridgerunner. Looks really neat. Really gets all the plants pods (except for a few the form down low) off the ground and really spread out up in the air for great drying. Sounds like two very productive varieties for soup and baked beans.

 

[aftermidnight]

Here's a sample of #45-4

Seed I planted it's flower


Dried Pod Dried seed

To the naked eye seed looks identical, another twining bush.

#45-9

Seed planted It's flower


Dried Pod Dried Seed
Bush Habit, dried seed looks the same as one planted.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I looked at pink colors on the internet and I think the 45-4 could be called bright pink. 45-9 has a real interesting blossom. A twinning bush. Maybe what we might call a semi-runner. Neat stuff. Will be interesting to see what the next generation produces.