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

[Triffid]

I've just filled up my raised bed but will try and get a small poly tunnel in for beans. It will be a challenge because the winds we have here. I have grown these sort of beans before.

I was hoping to find a way to grow the haricot bean and other beans that are similar . Would you know if this possible in UK?

Oh I may have misunderstood you Marie, if you were referring to people growing drying beans in particular. If that's the case, I concur; I also know of very few that grow them for that purpose outside of seed-saving groups! But goodness knows why not, as it is indeed very possible. Folk normally end up with a glut of runner beans, but I've never known anyone to leave some to mature for the dry beans 🤷‍♀️

If you want white haricot types exclusively, Real Seeds in Pembrokeshire stock Lazy Housewife and its sub-variety Coco Sophie. For butterbeans, they have the runners Czar and Gigantes.

In Vilmorin's The Vegetable Garden, the former are given the following descriptions:

White Coco, or Lazy Wife, Kidney Bean. - Stem green, about 6 1/2 ft. high; leaves of medium size, stiff, rather long and pointed, of a dark, rather dull, green, and slightly crimped; flowers white; pods of medium length, rather broad, green, each containing five or six white egg-shaped seeds, about 1/2 in. long, nearly 1/2 in. broad, and over 1/4 in. thick. This variety, although ranking amongst the Edible-podded kinds (especally when the pods are young), is more esteemed for its seeds, which are used in the dried state.
The Sophie Kidney Bean is considered to be only a sub-variety of the White Coco, from which it differs in having rather larger pods (which are sometimes tinged with red, like those of the Prague Kidney Beans) and somewhat larger leaves.

Thanks to a generous soul on the Continent, this year I'm growing the Dutch equivalent to Gigantes, known as Boerentenen - it's coping well with the non-summer we're experiencing. I believe a few people on this forum grow Piękny Jaś, which appears similar. You may be able to find some at your local Polish shop.

The Dutch have a number of landrace dwarf drying beans that are resistant to cold rains and winds. Blokkerder, Wieringer, Friese Woudboon, Groninger Strogele, etc.. Lekatt is from a recent cross with Wieringer, and it's the first bean to flower this year.

For outstanding flavour I must recommend Carol Deppe's Beefy Resilient Grex. Remarkably delicious umami and quick to ripen, taking less than 3 months here in Sussex. 🐮

 

[Triffid]

Many thanks for the greatly informative comments in response to my query regarding nitrogen. I have been relucant to give any N to my beans as I had read in the past that it could inhibit the association with rhizobia, as you mentioned @Zeedman , similar to how excessive phosphorus inhibits mycorrhizal association. But their slow early development is confusing. Perhaps it was just not warm enough for them to form nodules? I planted them in ground that had been under a yellow trefoil green manure for a year. The peas nearby are fine so must have nodulated. The vetch was luxuriant too. It's very difficult/near impossible to get small packs of inoculant here, as there's no demand, but a new company is now marketing to farmers. Apparently it increases yields even though the bacteria is native.

 

[flowerbug]

The learning curve of everything. So, we had mega rain for awhile and some cold too, and a few bean plants suffered/croaked for it. That startled me a bit since the only problem I've ever seen in beans was from overcrowding them when planting. After the rain I swung hard in the opposite direction of water worry, and I think I let them dry out a bit too much now because I saw a few drooping ears yesterday. (Mind you, we are having a heat wave again.) I'm wondering what people's thoughts are with watering schedules for beans? I am feeling unsure of myself now, as I've always been quite generous with water for my beans. I've watered 2 days in a row now as the soil seems dry, but I'd not like to stress any plants either. I'd love to hear how people gauge need and frequency for water in their plants.

I should mention maybe that garden culture here has pretty much been the tradition of watering everyday, in the early morning or evening. I've never done that much, but probably close.

not having read other replies yet, but i think it is better to water deeply once in a while instead of a little every day. for us with clay that means if it is dry and hasn't rained much i'll water two to three times a week. it depends upon how much wind there is and how hot it is getting or in the forecast. with the recent rains we've had i've not watered much recently at all and the forecasts are for more rains today and for the rest of the week so i probably won't have to water at all.

 

[flowerbug]

Are you getting lots of rain?

enough that i'm not having to water much at all. which is unusual for mid-July.

 

[flowerbug]

as far as nitrogen goes also consider that rainwater has some small amount of nitrogen and other trace nutrients in there. it depends upon your location as to what you might get. 30lbs per acre per year? hmm, not sure what the actual average would be for here.

in looking around this post is interesting:

Post-rain growth flush from nitrogen in the rain or nitrogen from the soil | Asian Turfgrass Center

The other day it rained at ATC南店. I knew that the grasses would grow at a faster rate after the rain than they had been growing prior to the rain.

www.asianturfgrass.com

basically, the effect of the nitrogen in the rain is not nearly as much as that which will be encouraged by soil mineralization and the added moisture itself.

in places that have enough rains and agriculture around you are probably getting a good amount of nitrogen via the rains. i know this for myself here because my base rate of fertilizer application is very low because it comes from the worm farm here that i have set up. i only use the worm results for the heaviest feeding plants and then rotate plant through those gardens for the next few years until i get back to them again. after 15yrs of gardening here the soils keep improving gradually as i can add other organic materials and some more sand and wood ashes to this clay, but my main crops have always been pretty productive (tomato plants between 20-40lbs per plant).

beans are my fill in crop when i have decided what else is being planted. some do better than others, it varies directly with what bean type i'm planting. often i have a lot of beans that don't do much at all. they are experimental varieties or my own cross breed testing that i do in the various soils here.

peas are also used as a soil conditioning plant along with others that i can grow and then bury at the end of the season. it is rare i discard anything grown from a garden patch, very few diseases discourage me enough to do that. i'm much more likely to discard a seedy weed or a severely diseased (something new that i've not seen before) to keep them from spreading, but even the seedy weeds just get tossed on the weed pile instead of being thrown away in the trash. only a few of those happen and not too often.

 

[flowerbug]

...I planted them in ground that had been under a yellow trefoil green manure for a year.

trefoil is a pretty heavy N percentage plant (i think it is only second to alfalfa) so depending upon how much you turned in and how long it had to get digested by the soil community...

 

[flowerbug]

...
For outstanding flavour I must recommend Carol Deppe's Beefy Resilient Grex. Remarkably delicious umami and quick to ripen, taking less than 3 months here in Sussex. 🐮

if you are after early beans i think it was Early Warwick which was a bean that came over to this side of the pond from someplace in England. it has seemed to be pretty good here in the better soil gardens, but not as productive as i think it would be in a bit cooler climate.

after reading the OSSI terms i decided i could not grow OSSI seeds here (because i cannot always verify what has crossed with what and i have other beans that look similar to those in the grex).

 

[Artorius]

If you want white haricot types exclusively, Real Seeds in Pembrokeshire stock Lazy Housewife and its sub-variety Coco Sophie. For butterbeans, they have the runners Czar and Gigantes.

@Triffid
Thanks for the link, I will also use it. I am interested in the Czar runner bean. Czar is a Polish word related to magic, in English "spell". I will order this bean in the fall. Rhondda Black too.

 

[Triffid]

Interesting, had no idea czar had this meaning in Polish! The Czar runner bean was introduced by Laxton in 1885, and was named for Czar/Tsar Alexander III.

Real Seeds won't ship to the EU anymore thanks to Brexit. If you don't already have a UK intermediary, I could help with shipping. I'm also interested in the Rhondda Blacks

 

[Triffid]

trefoil is a pretty heavy N percentage plant (i think it is only second to alfalfa) so depending upon how much you turned in and how long it had to get digested by the soil community...

I did cut the tops and put them on the compost, while the stubble and roots were loosely chopped with a spade and turned under. The bed did get about a month of rest before I transplanted the beans, but it rained throughout so perhaps much of the N was washed away.