2021 Little Easy Bean Network - Bean Lovers Come Discover Something New !

[flowerbug]

my attempt to capture the various stages of drying down of the Spotted Pheasant. mainly i wanted to show the pattern and the pink color in contrast to how it looks when it dries all the way down to the golden color.

 

[Artorius]

Cool! I have not seen such a pattern yet. At least on beans from the north.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

oh, ok, i must have seen the smaller version as it was bright green. i tried to grow it but no luck on getting anything from it. i only had one seed that was a stray in a mixed soup bean package. i didn't have any return from the few lentils or chickpeas i planted either.

I usually tell them apart by looking at the alternate version where the green is missing and the bean is gold. In the larger type, the gold is a sort of dirty mustard color. In the smaller, it is bright yellow (@Zeedman in case you are reading this, your yellow mung bean is the larger type).

The smaller is also often flatter on the ends, as the beans are closer together

Larger

Smaller ( I think)

 

[flowerbug]

@Artorius,

i've been growing speckled Yellow Eye beans for quite a few years so i'm pretty sure it is a cross from those to another bean i grow which has the pattern i call Pheasant which was a new bean to me too a few years ago. Pheasant is new enough that Speckled Pheasant may just be a part of the beans working out from the cross that happened or a seperate event, but Pheasant itself has maintained it's own pattern too. i just have way too many projects here...

for the full resolution picture instead of the thumbnail check out the bottom of my bean project page (i provide a link to all the pictures i post here most of the time to the bigger resolution pictures - the actual raw image of some of them from the camera is usually four to six times bigger than what i post as the jpg versions).

 

[Pulsegleaner]

OK here is a photo of the lima bean flowers/nasecent pods

I see that lima bean pods develop flat from the beginning, as opposed to common bean pods which usually start round.

 

[flowerbug]

now with the weather change i will get back to shelling more beans again. tonight i started by doing some flats of odds and ends and then started on the bag of painted pony that has some other beans mixed in there too so it's at least not just doing the one kind of bean.

some of the odds and ends included some more Yed pods and a few had the splotchy pattern which i hadn't been seeing too much in spot samples as i was going along when picking so at least that pattern is not completely lost, but Yed so far has not given back too many of those so i was wondering if that was a fluke or not ever going to be stable enough.

 

[jbosmith]

Well, here is some of the first shelled network bean 'Vaquero' @Bluejay77 .
As you can see, it is quite different! Bean size is bigger and much less flat, and colouration doesn't look so 🐄. The pods I've shelled since this photo are of the whiter type. I grew it in 2 locations, and the beans seem to have grown the same. I'm curious to see what you make of this?

@heirloomgal I grew out some of Russ' Vaquero beans this year as well and here's what mine look like. I'm also attaching a screen shot of the last soil tests I had done in that garden, though the results are two or three years old now.

 

[jbosmith]

i had a bucket of melon rinds to feed to the worms, which meant i had to pick up all the flats of beans drying and move them out of the way so i could get at the worm buckets. i also pack any bean pods that i have into the worm buckets as then they get repurposed back into plant food eventually.

@flowerbug How long do dry bean pods last in your worm bin? I was eying some today and thinking they might make a decent brown source but then was worried they'd be like Avocado skins that take months to break down.

 

[flowerbug]

@flowerbug How long do dry bean pods last in your worm bin? I was eying some today and thinking they might make a decent brown source but then was worried they'd be like Avocado skins that take months to break down.

this varies by conditions and variety of the pods themselves too. some will be gone quickly because they don't have much fiber in them compared to others. if you have an active worm colony (i guess that is what i would call them in a bucket or bin) and the pods are down in the place where there is enough moisture the worms should do a pretty good job on them within a month or two at the most. the real feathery/fine pods will be gone within a week. avocado skins are really much tougher in comparison. i'll find those in the worm bins for quite a long time (wine corks last much longer). IMO they make an excellent brown source or worm bedding material because they also usually have some dirt from the gardens plus bits of fungi/molds so that is adding diversity (as say compared to shredded white office paper which is probably to a worm like trying to chew on styrofoam or tinfoil to us) into the worm bucket at a time when food is getting scarcer, but also because they can be kept dried and stored for use all through the winter if you have to room for them. i'll keep a few bags, but i don't have room for all of them. i keep ten buckets in my room here.

the main thing i do when shelling beans and sorting is get the rejects and beans with mold set aside because those are going to be great worm food for the next few feedings.

p.s. welcome to TEG and the LEBN threads!

 

[jbosmith]

the main thing i do when shelling beans and sorting is get the rejects and beans with mold set aside because those are going to be great worm food for the next few feedings.

p.s. welcome to TEG and the LEBN threads!

Thanks for the welcome! I'll give the bean pods a try! I have 4 10 gallon tubs in my basement which don't even come close to denting my food and garden scraps but are still fun