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

[Ridgerunner]

The 38’s I planted were a fairly solid dark brown bean with a few light brown markings. They were supposed to be pole beans and all were. I planted 14 seeds and got 9 plants in two different areas. The vines all grew pretty well 7 to 9 feet but were very slow to start blooming and even slower to set pods. Production was pretty poor. The blossoms had pink banners and white or yellow wings and keels. The pods were solid green.

38-1 is an ivory bean with dark brown markings. Cedar Creek flowed across the back country to where it entered Norris Lake. I’d sometimes hike about a mile and a half through the woods and ridges from the house as a kid using old logging roads to get to where the creek flowed into the lake. I caught some nice catfish and bass there, but one reason I remember it was I was playing in the water there while the boys I was with were involved in a mud fight. I stepped off into a low spot where the creek had eroded a channel. I couldn’t swim at the time but since I knew those boys were paying no attention to me I thought it might be a real good time to learn how to swim. So I did, at least well enough to get out. I’ll call this one Cedar Creek. I’ll mail you 10 seeds.

38 – 2 is a pinkish brown patterned bean. I only have four of them and they aren’t really in good shape, but they are what I have. The town I grew up outside of was called Stinking Creek before they incorporated and changed the name to something more appealing. I kind of like Stinking Creek so I’ll give that name to these beans. I’ll grow this one out next year since I only have four seeds and will not send you any.

38 – 3 is a wrinkled red bean with a few dark markings. I have a very few of those too but I’ll send you all I have, which is 7. I’ll call this one Flat Hollow after another boat dock in the county.

38 – 4 is a fun bean. It’s white except for a tanned hashed area at the hilum. I’ll call this one Tartan after a project I once worked on in the North Sea. I’ll mail you 20 seeds.

38 – 5 is very similar to Tartan except the area at the hilum is a solid dark brown. I’ll call this one Hogeye. Hogeye is a community near here, not much more than a wide spot in the road where two highways cross. The claim to fame though was the Hogeye Mall. There used to be a quick-stop gas station at that highway intersection that billed itself as the Hogeye Mall. That’s all it was, a gas station quick stop. I think a place with that attitude deserves to have a bean named after it. I’ll mail you 44 seeds.

And the composite shot.

 

[Ridgerunner]

39A was a medium brown bean with very slight dark brown markings. I had a lot of trouble getting this to grow and wound up with only two producing plants. It was supposed to be a pole bean but both were bush. One had white flowers and solid green pods. The other had pink flowers and striped pods that were beautiful when they started to dry, pink and yellow.

The 39 A-1 white blossom produced a white bean with a very light tan at the hilum. The high school I went to drew students from three areas with three different elementary schools, West End, East End and the area I was from, Up the Valley. Up the Valley might play West End in football, tackle with no pads, on a Fall Sunday afternoon. We were free to recruit from East End to fill out our teams. Or we'd mix up which the teams were called. The boys that played on the High School football team were banned from these games by the coach, he did not want them to get hurt. I have some good memories from those games. So I’ll call this bean Up the Valley. I’ll mail you 52 seeds.

39 A-2 pink blossom is a mostly light tan bean with some dark brown markings. My elementary school wasn’t actually called Up the Valley, that was just the description of the area. The school’s name was Valley View. So that’s what I’ll call the sibling, Valley View. I’ll mail you 45 seeds.

And the composite shot.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The 39B I planted was a dark brown bean with black markings. They were supposed to be a pole bean and all were except for one bush. They all had beautiful Lavender blooms. Some pods were green, some striped.

39B – 1 was a pole plant with solid green pods. The beans look black but there is a purple shade to them. A project I worked on in the Danish sector of the North Sea was the Tyra project. Tyra was the name of a Danish king in history so I’ll call this bean Tyra. I’ll mail you 18 seeds.

39B – 2 is a white bean with an interesting touch at the hilum. It has a black pattern, not solid, with a touch of tan in it. I’ll call this one Karachaganak. That’s a project I worked on in Kazakhstan and means Dragon. I plan to grow Karachaganak out next year. It’s a pole bean with solid green pods. I’ll mail you 7 seeds.

39B – 3 is a tan bean with dark purple markings, a pole bean with striped pods. I’ll call this one Jas, my grandson’s social media nickname. His Mom does not like putting her kids’ names out on social media so I’ll respect that. But if I can get something to stabilize the real names may come out. So for this one, Jas it is. I'll grow this one out next year. I’ll mail you 12 seeds.

39B - 4 is a black and white patterned pole bean with a striped pod. The area where you turn off the main highway to get to the area I was raised is the Glade Springs area. So I’ll call this one Glade Springs. I’ll mail you 60 seeds.

The last 39B was a bush bean with solid green pods. The bean itself is black. One project I worked on in Angola was the Banzala project. Supposedly it’s the name of a certain tree in Angola but we could never find out what the tree looks like. It may be a local tribal name for that tree. But now Banzala is also the name of a bean. I’ll mail you 9 seeds.

And the composite shot.


I’ll mention 39C. That was an extremely dark red bean, almost black. I only had 5 seeds and only one grew. It’s still growing. It took forever for it to even bloom, then forever again to start setting pods. Those pods are just not making seeds. From my ten day forecast time is just about up. I’ll keep an eye on it and give it every chance but this one may be gone. Annette, you, and I discussed this recently. That's my only total failure.


This is the final installment of my bean show this year. More to come next year.

 

[Tricia77]

Wow! Great bean show Ridgerunner. You got a lot of interesting varieties from your growouts. I understand your concern about naming them without knowing what the next generation will look like. I struggled with that too. I love the names you picked. I really like the looks of Tartan, Karachaganak and Miss T. I look forward to following your results next year

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah, next year can be a whole 'nother box of chocolates. Out of all these I only saw a couple that look much like the bean I planted.

Since some people like photos I'll show the ones I plan to plant next year.

Miss T

Jas

Raspberry Ripple

Karachaganak

Stinking Crek

 

[Blue-Jay]

Yeah Ridge you got a variety out of those beans. The Karachaganak is really some different. I'll have to practice trying to pronounce that one. Care A Chag A Nack. Sounds native American.

 

[Blue-Jay]

The Big Bean Show Day #4​

About two years ago I grew a bean called Jacob's Cattle Amish. The pods were longer and narrower than JC, and the seed was a little rounder in the cross section, but marked like JC. Later that summer I got a white bean out of it with a little spot of color on each side of the eye. I gave it a working title of Amish Soldier.

This year I tried growing some of those. The area I grew them in (11 miles to the southwest of here) was having more severe droughty conditions than I had here at home. So out of 10 Amish Soldier's I planted only one came up and survived. This photo is what that one plant produced.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yeah Ridge you got a variety out of those beans. The Karachaganak is really some different. I'll have to practice trying to pronounce that one. Care A Chag A Nack. Sounds native American.

Your pronunciation is perfect. It's a Kazakh word.

 

[aftermidnight]

Nice beans everyone, @Bluejay77 I only named one, one of the two that turned out to be pole beans in the #45's. This is a few pics of 'Chase River' I managed to harvest 35 dry seeds to send back to Russ...

Seed just before I planted it, and the flowers it produced, the vine grew to 7'


This is a pic of one of the beans it produced and a pic of the dried pod


A sample of the seed it produced, I sent back the 35 seed from this one, seed pretty much all looked the same


I did manage to send back back 60 seeds from the 'Witsa' pole bean


The rest of #45's turned out to be either bush or twining bush, only a couple of seeds from each plant. These I did not name, hopefully someone else will grow them out again, should have better results with fresher seed, I'm sending back 47 seeds. I don't have the space to grow many bush beans.
Annette

 

[aftermidnight]

@Bluejay77 A few pics of the other #45's, taken with a flash with the exception of the second one to show the subtle differences in the seed coat colors, not much different to the seed I planted, all bush or twining bush and mostly produced yellow pods with the exception of one, I was laid up for awhile so my record keeping hit the skids.



Annette