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

[flowerbug]

My first experience with shelly beans. I hope they taste as good as they look! These are unidentified varieties.
...

i've found that every bean can be quite different in how it works as a shelly (if at all). some may need cooking for 15 minutes or even less (but at least 10 minutes to neutralise the lectins) and be great and others may take longer (45 minutes or so) to get the skins tender.

so mixing them together may not work out well until you know they are all compatible in cooking time.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I got a bunch of bush beans from SSE's Legacy Grow Out in 2016. Among those beans I especially wanted to reaquire Big Light Red Trout as it is the seed mother of Candy. I also had grown Big Dark Red Trout in the early 1980's which I also originaly obtained From John Withee's Wanigan Associates. These two beans were donated to John Withee by Ernest Dana of Etna, NH. When I got the beans from SSE. I did get a Big Light Red Trout bean but it was in a packet marked Big Dark Red Trout and it was not light but darker and about a normal size and shade of Jacob's Cattle. The Big Dark Red Trout I received from them was no longer dark but light and it was big just as I had remembered BLRT. It makes me wonder if a some things in their collections got messed up when they made the move from Princeton, Missouri to Decorah, Iowa in 1986 or if when they have done grow outs at the Decorah location if some of their new employees did a sloppy job of keeping track of varieties proper names at seed harvest time.

In the days before SSE had a web presence there was a woman named Joanne who typed up everyone's listings for the coming yearbook. She did this every single year before she retired. I bet she was busier than a cat on hot tin roof. Also most of my outcrossed orignal named beans that I had listed in early yearbooks got donated to SSE. I had donated and listed a bean called Pecatonica. It was in the days when Joanne was still typing up everyone's listing's. Well SSE used to have a link on their early website called History. There you could search for a bean name and you could see every listing that had happened in any of the yearbook years. Many of the listers would have their source as part of their listing. You could actually figure out how and to who a certain variety circulated to and from over time. When you did a search for a bean or any variety of anything. If you didn't have it spelled exactly as it was in their data base their system would show you the closest spelling of the variety that they listed. I wanted to collect again the Pecatonica bean, but their system kept showing Pecatonia. The only thing missing in the spelling was the second c between the i and the a in the name.

When I told them what I knew about the Big Dark and Big Light Red Trout beans and that what I found in their legacy packets didn't jive with what I knew I experienced the first time I grew the beans. They told me they would keep a look out on any inconsitencies in their stored beans. That was 5 years ago. I think once something gets entered in their database even if it's wrong. I think it will stay that way permanently.

I had sent the bean Candy to Ralph Stevenson in 1984. Their history shows that Ralph Stevenson of Tekonsha, Michigan had acquired Candy from Russ Crow in 1974. That is a year before SSE even existed. I never had even known about Ralph Stevenson until I started my membership in SSE and saw his name in their yearbooks. Makes you wonder about information about varieties how that information get messed up and where all the screw ups in their opertion take place. I'm not knocking SSE for this. They have so much to keep track of and it does happen I'm sure. I even discover mistakes I make in my own files as to what I have stored in my freezers. When I find those mistakes I correct them. I think SSE is so much bigger and more bureaucratic and mistakes will probably stay that way for a very long time or maybe even forever.

 

[jbosmith]

I think SSE is so much bigger and more bureaucratic and mistakes will probably stay that way for a very long time or maybe even forever.

I can't imagine what it's like to manage their collection. I have enough trouble keeping the 10 or so varieties that I maintain straight! One year I grew out both Littleton and Smith's Vermont Cranberry, someone spilled some that were drying, and put them back in the wrong box. I can only really tell those apart by vine height so I canned all of them and re-grew them from older seed later on. Imagine scaling silly things like that that up to a collection that has a walk-in freezer! I also can't imagine that all the hands they have touching their collection make things easier to organize.

I also think they struggle with their own technology at times. For example, I know they have their own database separate from the Exchange and I think sometimes problems get reported, corrected in the Exchange and then they re-upload their listings from their other database and overwrite them. They said that was likely what happened with the problem that both Zeedman and I reported.

I did notice in the 2020 yearbook that they mentioned having a grant to hire some historians. Hopefully good things come of that!

 

[Artorius]

I got a bunch of bush beans from SSE's Legacy Grow Out in 2016. Among those beans I especially wanted to reaquire Big Light Red Trout as it is the seed mother of Candy. I also had grown Big Dark Red Trout in the early 1980's which I also originaly obtained From John Withee's Wanigan Associates. These two beans were donated to John Withee by Ernest Dana of Etna, NH. When I got the beans from SSE. I did get a Big Light Red Trout bean but it was in a packet marked Big Dark Red Trout and it was not light but darker and about a normal size and shade of Jacob's Cattle. The Big Dark Red Trout I received from them was no longer dark but light and it was big just as I had remembered BLRT. It makes me wonder if a some things in their collections got messed up when they made the move from Princeton, Missouri to Decorah, Iowa in 1986 or if when they have done grow outs at the Decorah location if some of their new employees did a sloppy job of keeping track of varieties proper names at seed harvest time.

@Bluejay77
Do you think these beans are already lost?

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Bluejay77
Do you think these beans are already lost?

Actually I think the bean they had marked as Big Dark Red Trout that was big and light. After growing it and harvesting new seed I think that one is actually Big Light Red Trout. I think the packet was miss marked. What happend to Big Dark Red Trout. I have no idea. It might still exist in their collection somewhere in their seed inventory. I don't know if some of the newer people that work there would know what it is if they found it. It too might be in a packet with a wrong name on it. I've noticed that a lot of the SSE employees don't seem to stay around along time. The faces look constantly youthful. Like they hire new people fresh out of college with their horticultural degrees and many of them find other opportunities and leave after a few years. Seed Savers Exchange does seem to me to be a stepping stone job for many. There are a couple of people that I met there 10 years ago that are still there.

 

[heirloomgal]

Anyone grow a bean this year that turned out either to be a wonderful new favorite, or grow a variety that reminded you of why you like growing it so much?

 

[jbosmith]

Anyone grow a bean this year that turned out either to be a wonderful new favorite, or grow a variety that reminded you of why you like growing it so much?

I was really impressed with Red Turtle and think it's going to be a great addition to my rotation. It's productive and fun to grow but passes for mainstream enough that people won't look at me funny when I share it.

Bird Egg #3 was super cool too. I'm not sure I'll regrow it but it was fun once at least.

How about you?

 

[Zeedman]

Anyone grow a bean this year that turned out either to be a wonderful new favorite, or grow a variety that reminded you of why you like growing it so much?

"Jembo Polish"; it is one of my favorite pole beans for shellies. Large seed size, good flavor, and was amazingly productive this year.

I grew "Piekny Jas" for the first time; based upon its HUGE shelly size & great flavor, it could easily become a favorite. The only problem I had with it was relatively low productivity... but unfortunately, that seems to be the norm for the large white-seeded runner beans I've grown. "Bianco de Spagna" and "Gigantes" fared not much better. Maybe if I focused on just one & grew it year-after-year, it would become better acclimated.

I believe @Artorius and @heirloomgal also grew "Piekny Jas" this year. What were your opinions on its productivity?

 

[Michael Lusk]

@Bluejay77 Just wanted to let you know I finally got the beans shipped off to you today, hopefully you'll have them by the first of next week. If you don't let me know and I'll try and track them down. Thanks again for all your work with this project, it means a lot!

 

[flowerbug]

Anyone grow a bean this year that turned out either to be a wonderful new favorite, or grow a variety that reminded you of why you like growing it so much?

it is so hard to have favorites when growing so many. my new cross-breeds are really fun and i'm looking forwards to seeing how they work out next year. Purple Dove i just got a call from an uncle that i gave some seeds to last year and while he didn't plant them right away eventually he planted some in some spots where other plants didn't make it. said he didn't pay them any attention until they went out to do some other gardening and then all these purple beans were there. they picked them and cooked them up and said they really liked them. both him and my aunt decided they're not going to bother with the other kind of green beans they grew because they liked PD so much better. he had gone out and picked some pods to let the seeds dry in and my aunt saw them and thought that he just didn't bring them all the way in yet so she cooked them up. he has some new pods that he said he's going to hide until they are more dry. i told him i have plenty of seeds no matter what. i didn't even know until today that he got around to planting them at all. he says that his grandson likes to help him in the garden and that is good to hear.

Yellow Eye, always happy to see those round plump beans come out of the pods and this season was no exception to that at all. also they showed me that my expectations can sometimes be really wrong. i thought they'd not do great with this heat we had and strange weather too aside but they did pretty well.