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

[Blue-Jay]

@Ridgerunner, The Malwi Pinto and Kutasi Princess Produced a lot of nice seed for you. They look great. Plus now we know when the seed was grown. Before they were among one of those unknown seed years.

Like your drying rack. Looks like you get nice air circulation above and below the beans.

In past years I've harvested dry pods and dumped them in open cardboard boxes in my garage with the corresponding row number that they grew in for drying for another month or so. Then shell them all out by hand and have completed all the harvesting by about mid October and shelling by Mid November. This year I've placed pods (whatever one of these plates can hold comfortably) as I harvested them every few days on styro picknick plates and line them up about three rows wide about six feet long in front of a floor fan running on slow speed for several days for further drying. Sometimes over night, or In about two to three days the pods are nice and crisp for hand shelling. The continuous flow of air from the fan really pulls moisture out the pods pretty quickly. Of course the pods I've harvest are very brown and quite dry already, but sometimes a little moist yet. Then place the shelled beans on the same type of styro picnic plates for continued drying of the seed in my house. Here we are early October and all my harvesting is close to being complete and all my shelling is just about done too. I'm about a month ahead of it all this year. This is a photo of some of the styro plates that I've used for pod and seed drying.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I've had a strange bean growing this year too. A fellow from Kentucky gave me one of his original beans to grow. He calls it a semi pole that likes support. Climbs to about 5 feet then spreads out a bit. I would probably call it a half runner. Obviously he's grown it before where he lives. So I planted it around poles in the second row with one row to it's south about the 25th of May. It germinates and comes up about the same time as everything else does, but as time goes buy this bean is really taking it's time and as the pole beans to it's south are beginning to climb and create a little shade. This bean just stays low to the ground. It popped up some very short tendrils but never tried to wind around anything and the plants just spread out in the space between the row. It started to bloom around the middle of September but has yet to set any pods. The plants are still lush and green now. Just as good looking as a bean plant can be. All my pole plants are longer season than my bush plants and most of them are already completely harvested and the leaves dropped off and vines are all dead and brown about two weeks ago. We could be anywhere from 5 days to two weeks from our first frost and these beans do not have enough time to produce any dry pods and mature seed. I'm thinking this bean might just have a longer season that we don't have here. First time I've experienced a bean like this. I'll have to quiz this fellow from Kentucky about when he plants it and when he harvests dry beans from it.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Bluejay77 here's a picture of the Ugandan Bantu Beans I'm sending from Salt Spring Seeds, there's more than 50 so will divide into two pkts. There's a few speckled ones along with the other colors.
View attachment 16504 View attachment 16503
Second picture taken with a flash.

Annette

Wow speckled beans in Ugandan Bantu's too. I wonder if each of those colors could be grown seperately and produce their colors true to type as planted seperately without any segregations. Then we might have Pink Bantu, Blue Bantu, Green Bantu and so on.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Wow speckled beans in Ugandan Bantu's too. I wonder if each of those colors could be grown seperately and produce their colors true to type as planted seperately without any segregations. Then we might have Pink Bantu, Blue Bantu, Green Bantu and so on.

I had a similar idea about the purple off type from the Fort Portal Jade. If it HADN'T gotten mixed into the Bantus, I was going to call it Fort Portal Amethyst (I guess the blue one would have been Fort Portal Sodalite, it's closer to the color it was than the obvious Sapphire)

 

[journey11]

@Bluejay77 here's a picture of the Ugandan Bantu Beans I'm sending from Salt Spring Seeds, there's more than 50 so will divide into two pkts. There's a few speckled ones along with the other colors.
View attachment 16504 View attachment 16503
Second picture taken with a flash.

Annette

Those just may be the prettiest beans ever.

 

[Tricia77]

I have plenty of the Ugandan Bantu beans I grew if anyone would like to do a trade

 

[journey11]

Let me get my ducks in a row and I'll get back to you!

 

[journey11]

I've had a strange bean growing this year too. A fellow from Kentucky gave me one of his original beans to grow. He calls it a semi pole that likes support. Climbs to about 5 feet then spreads out a bit. I would probably call it a half runner. Obviously he's grown it before where he lives. So I planted it around poles in the second row with one row to it's south about the 25th of May. It germinates and comes up about the same time as everything else does, but as time goes buy this bean is really taking it's time and as the pole beans to it's south are beginning to climb and create a little shade. This bean just stays low to the ground. It popped up some very short tendrils but never tried to wind around anything and the plants just spread out in the space between the row. It started to bloom around the middle of September but has yet to set any pods. The plants are still lush and green now. Just as good looking as a bean plant can be. All my pole plants are longer season than my bush plants and most of them are already completely harvested and the leaves dropped off and vines are all dead and brown about two weeks ago. We could be anywhere from 5 days to two weeks from our first frost and these beans do not have enough time to produce any dry pods and mature seed. I'm thinking this bean might just have a longer season that we don't have here. First time I've experienced a bean like this. I'll have to quiz this fellow from Kentucky about when he plants it and when he harvests dry beans from it.

Russ, I think what you may have there is an Appalachian type bean referred to as a fall bean or October bean. They are a late season multipurpose bean. Bill Best in KY has a few in his collection, so see his site; maybe yours is one he has listed there. http://www.heirlooms.org/store/c18/Fall_or_October_Beans.html

This site below has more info on what they are and how they are used. I hope you'll at least get enough to try them, even if they don't make seed. http://www.nantahala-farm.com/october-beans-seeds-s.shtml

 

[Blue-Jay]

@journey11, This bean that is taking it's time blooming right now is an original bean that this fellow supposedly bred himself. I checked the seed packet and apparently I had just enough seed to plant around two poles. Don't remember what the original seed looks like, but I do vaguely recall the bean was not a fall or cranberry type seed. This fellow's parents were plant breeders for the Cargil company for about 25 years. He himself wants to be a plant breeder too and is in his sophmore year at a college near where he lives.

 

[Tricia77]

This is the outcross I got from one of my Ugandan Bantu vines this year. I will be growing it out next year to see what I get.

Ugandan Bantu Outcross by Tricia Rosamilia, on Flickr