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

[heirloomgal]

Yes I have heard of Connecticut Wonder and had grown it once in the early 1980's. Seed Savers Exchange is offering the seed in their online and printed yearbook for 2022. If you don't obtian them from SSE I can do it and send them up to you.

This variety was originally developed circa 1919 by Reverend Frank Abbott (1887-1983) of Bolton, Connecticut. Rev Abbott later told his granddaughter Deborah that the beans were a ”gift from the bees” indicating that bees had cross pollinated bean plants in his garden. Rev. Abbott named the new variety 'Connecticut Wonder' and believed it was a cross between 'Kentucky Wax' and 'Cranberry Pole' beans. The exact year of this cross is unknown, but seeds were saved, grown, and soon became a family favorite. Rev. Abbott shared it with his granddaughter Deborah Abbott, who in turn shared this variety with bean collector John Withee in the mid-1970s. Seeds were donated to SSE in 1981 by John Withee of Lynnfield, Massachusetts and the Wanigan Associates.

It's amazing how much you know about bean varieties @Bluejay77 ! So awesome! There is a seed company here offering that bean, and I was really surprised to see that since it isn't hard to roughly know what is out there in the seed market and I've never seen this one until last night. I suspected it had some kind of history associated, but I wasn't sure. Thank you for the info @Bluejay77 ! And thank you for the offer, but I can buy it up here; I'm already cooking up my network bean list for next year and those are the ones I'm really drooling over...

 

[heirloomgal]

Got back into the spirit of bean photos lately.
This may well be one of the prettiest bush beans I grew this year. It did very, very well considering how poorly so many other bush beans did. There is some mystery associated with it though. One plant turned out to be a pole. And I got 4 different seed coats (crosses really) altogether....but it doesn't seem like two of the seed colours were from individual plants. There simply isn't enough of them. And no plants withered on me, all the pods dried up nicely with almost no wasted seed so it isn't like the unusual ones I got were all that made it from certain plants. I know it isn't possible, but it almost seems as if one or two plants put out two different kinds of seeds. I really have no logical explanation for what happened.

Here is 'Bamberger Blaue', the correct version.

I believe this was the pole version -

Here are the 2 other variations I got. The pictures show nearly all the seed I have of both - not much which is very strange. The multicoloured one I had a bit more of but they had popped their seed coats so I tossed them. The purple one I had 2 other seeds but they were not super good quality so I tossed those as well. It was hard to capture the colour of the purple one, but it looked like light purple grape juice, or a light plum shade, not quite as dark as the photo shows. I don't believe it's a seed mix-up as I was very meticulous with my network beans being kept separate.

and

 

[heirloomgal]

Couple more, less mysterious, bean pictures.

'North Star Pinto'. I've finally found the pinto of my dreams. I've tried a few, and most of them are semi-runners or poles, and the beans are on the smaller side. These ones are true bushes and the seed is considerably larger, which is what I've been looking for. I grew another pinto this year, 'Othello' and it couldn't compare with this one.

'Lavender Bush'. Such a unique colour! It barely made it through the summer, but somehow I managed to get a crop good enough to return 60 and try again next year.

'King's Knight' bush. Produced 2 types of seed coats, and was another bean that did very well and produced quite a lot of seed. The bean was a good size too. I liked how the plant held it's pods quite high from the ground.

'Berry's Best'. This is such a charming little bean. It struggled a bit with the humidity and moisture, but most of the surviving seed was in pretty good shape. I will probably grow it again next year. I'm very fond of this kind of patterning.

'Sacre Bleu' pole. Just one of those bean types that seems to produce consistently well formed beans. I had no throw away beans from this variety. It didn't produce as much as many others, but the seeds were very uniform n each pod without exception. And I'm CRAZY for the colour of this bean. True blue!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

The seed cleaning & sorting is winding down. Oddly enough, cowpeas & soybeans were really the stars this year; they mostly recovered from this summer's heavy rains, while most of the beans did not. These were this year's cowpeas:

View attachment 44951 View attachment 44952
"21 Peas". Possibly a.k.a. "Red Ripper"; long vines that I trained up a trellis. They were initially stunted by heavy rainfall in the rural garden, but recovered & still put out a decent yield - 2 pounds from 10 plants.

View attachment 44953 View attachment 44954
"MN 13". True bush habit, so rows can be spaced closely. These too were heavily stunted by summer rains, to the point where some plants died... but aside from a delayed DTM, the survivors recovered almost completely. They even produced a second pod set, which thanks to our warm October, ripened almost completely. 24' of row produced 2 pounds 9 ounces of seed, which given the conditions, was not bad.

View attachment 44955 View attachment 44956
This is the (as yet unnamed) black cowpea sent to me by @Bluejay77 . We thought it might be a purple-podded yardlong bean; but the immature pods are green, 10-11" long, and IMO poor quality as snaps. The pods turn purple as they ripen. The dry seed yield from 20' of row was phenomenal - 5 pounds, as heavy a yield as I would expect from pole beans! This is a great cowpea, and I hope to share it widely - but it needs a name. It could be "Black Crowder" , based upon the description... any word back from your source, @Bluejay77 ?

I can not find the person who sent me the cowpea. I was certian it was someone on Facebook. I never saved the envelope it came in. I believe I sent all the seeds to you as I had no interest in them. I put out a message weeks ago on Facebook asking who sent me cowpeas this year and no response. I do remember that the sender said in a note enclosed that they didn't know the name of the variety. No information as to where they got from either. I have asked a couple of my out of the country Network growers if they sent the cowpea, but no the didn't.

I think this is one you are going to have to name.

Assuming Black Crowder is accurately named, That CAN'T be it, as that is not a crowder cowpea (a crowder is called that because the beans are crowded in the pods, so a crowder's seeds will have flat ends)

It kind of looks like the Thai or Vietnamese cow peas I used to get in Chinatown, but that probably isn't them, unless some of those seeds have green cotyledons. (with five pounds of them, you should be able to sacrifice one or two and see. )

 

[Ridgerunner]

There is some mystery associated with it though. One plant turned out to be a pole. And I got 4 different seed coats (crosses really) altogether....but it doesn't seem like two of the seed colours were from individual plants. There simply isn't enough of them. And no plants withered on me, all the pods dried up nicely with almost no wasted seed so it isn't like the unusual ones I got were all that made it from certain plants. I know it isn't possible, but it almost seems as if one or two plants put out two different kinds of seeds. I really have no logical explanation for what happened.

Here is 'Bamberger Blaue',

It certainly looks like there has been some genetic crossing going on but you are right, that is mysterious. The way I understand it, pole is dominant over bush so it the cross were totally with a pole all the crosses should have had a pole or at least climbing growth habit. So does that mean a cross with a pole but also a cross with a bush? If climbing is dominant that second one just about has to be a cross with a pole.

When I first read that, especially the small quantities, I thought, "Oh, you got a reverse". One of my Will Bonsall segregations, Jas, throws a lot of reverses, pods as well as beans. But those colors don't look like reverses so I don't think so.

The patterns on the last two look similar. A fresh bean can look different in colors from one that has aged. Often that is white changing to an off-white or even a tan. The pink bean in this photo became an ugly dirty light brown and the purple one became so dark it looks black. You are looking at them, I'm not, but that does not look like what is going on. I don't see colors changing like that.

Rwanda Rainbow from Russ's website shows distinct different beans from one variety. If I had room to grow anything other than my segregations I'd try these to plant the different colors/patterns separately just to see what I got. I've grown some that can produce different patterns from the same plant but I've never grown one that produces different colors off of the same plant. From what I've read on here over the years I think there are a few that do.

That's all I can think of this morning. To me none of these sound that logical. It will be really interesting to see what some of the experts have to say.

 

[Zeedman]

Assuming Black Crowder is accurately named, That CAN'T be it, as that is not a crowder cowpea (a crowder is called that because the beans are crowded in the pods, so a crowder's seeds will have flat ends)

It kind of looks like the Thai or Vietnamese cow peas I used to get in Chinatown, but that probably isn't them, unless some of those seeds have green cotyledons. (with five pounds of them, you should be able to sacrifice one or two and see. )

I crushed a few seeds, the cotyledons were white. But I wouldn't discount the possibility that Russ's black cowpeas are "Black Crowder", based only upon the lack of flat ends. Note the "White Cream Crowder" in my cowpea post, and search for images of "Black Crowder" - neither show flat ends in the dry seeds. Those flat ends might be visible in shelly stage (when the beans are much larger in the pod) but may disappear or be less prominent when the seeds shrink down to dry. I've seen that phenomenon in some of my bean shellies (see photo below). Unfortunately, because I haven't been eating cowpeas as shellies, I never thought to check the black cowpeas in that stage. That will become part of my process for all future cowpea evaluations... and if these cowpeas prove to taste as good as they look, it won't be long before I grow them again.

"Striped Cornfield" shellies. The beans are packed tightly into the pod at this stage, but the blockiness mostly disappears as they dry..

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I crushed a few seeds, the cotyledons were white. But I wouldn't discount the possibility that Russ's black cowpeas are "Black Crowder", based only upon the lack of flat ends. Note the "White Cream Crowder" in my cowpea post, and search for images of "Black Crowder" - neither show flat ends in the dry seeds. Those flat ends might be visible in shelly stage (when the beans are much larger in the pod) but may disappear or be less prominent when the seeds shrink down to dry. I've seen that phenomenon in some of my bean shellies (see photo below). Unfortunately, because I haven't been eating cowpeas as shellies, I never thought to check the black cowpeas in that stage. That will become part of my process for all future cowpea evaluations... and if these cowpeas prove to taste as good as they look, it won't be long before I grow them again.
View attachment 45009
"Striped Cornfield" shellies. The beans are packed tightly into the pod at this stage, but the blockiness mostly disappears as they dry..

It is also possible that, as this is a trait caused by pressure, not genetics, it may vary in expression. I have certainly seen cowpeas that were very flat ended. It may vary from type to type, like it does on peas (where you have everything from a little dimple on each end of a sphere to the Indian material I have that is basically a cylinder). I was just giving my best guess.

 

[jbosmith]

The seed cleaning & sorting is winding down. Oddly enough, cowpeas & soybeans were really the stars this year; they mostly recovered from this summer's heavy rains, while most of the beans did not. These were this year's cowpeas:

View attachment 44951 View attachment 44952
"21 Peas". Possibly a.k.a. "Red Ripper"; long vines that I trained up a trellis. They were initially stunted by heavy rainfall in the rural garden, but recovered & still put out a decent yield - 2 pounds from 10 plants.

View attachment 44953 View attachment 44954
"MN 13". True bush habit, so rows can be spaced closely. These too were heavily stunted by summer rains, to the point where some plants died... but aside from a delayed DTM, the survivors recovered almost completely. They even produced a second pod set, which thanks to our warm October, ripened almost completely. 24' of row produced 2 pounds 9 ounces of seed, which given the conditions, was not bad.

View attachment 44955 View attachment 44956
This is the (as yet unnamed) black cowpea sent to me by @Bluejay77 . We thought it might be a purple-podded yardlong bean; but the immature pods are green, 10-11" long, and IMO poor quality as snaps. The pods turn purple as they ripen. The dry seed yield from 20' of row was phenomenal - 5 pounds, as heavy a yield as I would expect from pole beans! This is a great cowpea, and I hope to share it widely - but it needs a name. It could be "Black Crowder" , based upon the description... any word back from your source, @Bluejay77 ?

Does heavy rain affect cowpeas more than beans? How do they react? Do they just seem to sit there? Cause that's what most of my plants did this summer. They put on beans right when it started getting cooler but a long wet streak ended then too.

Here's a random pic of some beans at the hotel I'm staying at in Alabama this week. I don't know anything about them except that was nice to see since it apparently snowed back home in new england today. Sorry for the harsh late day light.

 

[heirloomgal]

It certainly looks like there has been some genetic crossing going on but you are right, that is mysterious. The way I understand it, pole is dominant over bush so it the cross were totally with a pole all the crosses should have had a pole or at least climbing growth habit. So does that mean a cross with a pole but also a cross with a bush? If climbing is dominant that second one just about has to be a cross with a pole.

When I first read that, especially the small quantities, I thought, "Oh, you got a reverse". One of my Will Bonsall segregations, Jas, throws a lot of reverses, pods as well as beans. But those colors don't look like reverses so I don't think so.

The patterns on the last two look similar. A fresh bean can look different in colors from one that has aged. Often that is white changing to an off-white or even a tan. The pink bean in this photo became an ugly dirty light brown and the purple one became so dark it looks black. You are looking at them, I'm not, but that does not look like what is going on. I don't see colors changing like that.

View attachment 44995

Rwanda Rainbow from Russ's website shows distinct different beans from one variety. If I had room to grow anything other than my segregations I'd try these to plant the different colors/patterns separately just to see what I got. I've grown some that can produce different patterns from the same plant but I've never grown one that produces different colors off of the same plant. From what I've read on here over the years I think there are a few that do.

That's all I can think of this morning. To me none of these sound that logical. It will be really interesting to see what some of the experts have to say.

The strange thing is, I vaguely recall (though it could be an imagined recalling) the one plant of 10 that was a pole - that those first dry pods I opened were the multicoloured ones, and they hung low on the vine. But as I picked pods higher and higher up they when I shelled them they were the blue and brown seeds. But in hindsight, I ask myself - were the pods low on the pole plant or did I get mixed up picking pods off the bush next to it? Could it be possible that a few lower pods were different than the rest?

It doesn't help that there is quite a hole in my pod collecting method I learned this year. I keep a cardboard flat for each network bean, write the name on it, and then as dry pods appear sequentially I harvest them and deposit in the flat assigned to that variety. The problem (or riddle) occurs when something like this happens. I only know the variety row the pods came from, not the particular plant as they all get put into the same flat. So if a cross occurs, it's impossible to know for sure what plant it came from.

@Bluejay77 I'd be curious to know how you harvest dry pods over time from your plants (if you do that) and keep them all separated? I don't always harvest my pods totally dry, sometimes with the possibility of rain I pick almost dry pods to save them from the moisture. So I'm often harvesting pods off plants for a month or so, sometimes even longer.

The last two bean photos I posted of the 'Bamberger Blaue' cross - and this is really weird - it's almost as if they are actually the same bean. The upper ones have a light brownish overlay on beige speckled plum, but without the brown overlay they are exactly the same as the lower ones which are just speckled plum

 

[heirloomgal]

More bean photos.
Good Mother Stollard - pole, red & white variety. Haven't grown this one in a long time, so I put one or two old seeds in to see if they'd sprout. They both did and i got a handsome little crop from 2 plants, though I put it in a bad spot so it was in partial shade. My crop quality would have been better with more sun exposure.

Climbing French - semi-runner. Not a good year for this one, but I have enough seed to try again in 2022. The seeds are so smooth and such a beautiful deep, deep burgundy. (They look a little black in the picture, though they aren't.)

'Tennessee Greenpod' - semi-runner. Nice variety that produced a tidy crop of beans. It was not an aggressive semi-runner, only a mild twiner which didn't get especially tall. The quality of the seed was quite good despite the plants looking a bit scraggly.

Speckled Algonquin - bush. The seller said it was a large plant, but I found it to be actually regularly sized. I grew only 6 plants in a small planter box, and despite that not being the most ideal location, they flourished and I harvested a good amount of seeds regardless. Hot pink splashed pods were pretty when medium-dry.

Mazeppa - bush. Didn't have fantastic success with this one so I'm going to try to grow more in 2022. Such a pretty bean! I think sandier soil will bring out it's colours better. Something about that tan speckled brown on white is so eye catching. A little sad I didn't do better with it.

Good Mother Stollard - semi-runner, black & white variety. These are reversal beans, I just thought they were sorta different and rather uniquely coloured so I took a picture of them.

Gout Chataigne de Echanans - pole. I wonder if they will turn even more brownish as time goes on? They seem to be shifting a bit as you said they would @Artorius , from lavender to beige. Are yours looking like these?

Buckskin Girl - bush. Another of my favourite bush bean colorations this year. So distinct! I'm so glad to have this one in my collection. It has some kind of Rorschach blot effect on my brain - for some reason when I look at them the thought 'mascara' comes to mind immediately, every time. Which is bizarre as I don't even wear mascara!

Ferris Heirloom - pole. Delicately pink on white, reminds me so much of yogurt covered raisins. A bigger, and less pink speckled version of Schneebohne it seems. I believe this one comes from Holland.

Reade Krobbe - bush. Another sweet little jelly bean looking bean. For a bush bean the seed was amazingly well formed, perfect little bean beads. Almost no throw away beans due to malformations. A very nice healthy variety. Anyone know what the name translated means?