2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

This is not something I expect to see in northern gardens! Beautiful!

You could definitely grow these jb! My seed came from Manitoba, and this variety ('Blue Grey Speckled') apparently does well even there - and they have a very challenging climate. I'm not sure yet how productive they are, since there are more plants out there to collect pods from, but it's looking good. And they don't need support either. I like them much more than I thought I would, it was just a fun little experiment.

Your beans! Wow! I'm curious how much kabouli's your going to harvest 😀 the plants sure are pretty.

 

[meadow]

I made bundles of 2-3 plants each to maximize airflow (we're having a lot of clouds) and hung them across some cattle panel trellising.

So much for effortless sun-drying of beans here! Drizzle started in the morning and beans were moved to hang in the shed. There had been no warning in the forecast... just glad I happened to be outside when it started (it continued off-and-on to the afternoon). We should have sunny days on Tuesday and Friday, so I'll probably be waltzing the beans in and out from under cover this week to avoid any more unexpected drizzle. 😅

Northern Pinto is an interesting bean. A few pods on one plant swelled to the point of popping their seam! Doesn't seem like a desirable trait to me.

I'm eager to have the pinto taste-off! It will be between Northern Pinto, GaGa Hut and Bolita.

 

[jbosmith]

You could definitely grow these jb! My seed came from Manitoba, and this variety ('Blue Grey Speckled') apparently does well even there - and they have a very challenging climate. I'm not sure yet how productive they are, since there are more plants out there to collect pods from, but it's looking good. And they don't need support either. I like them much more than I thought I would, it was just a fun little experiment.

Do you know which tepary variety they are? Literally all I know about these beans is that they're from the desert and won't make many beans if they get too wet. That might make them a good fit for the sand at my house! Also, a random confession - at some point that word made it into my head as 'tep-i-ary' and I can't unlearn it.

Your beans! Wow! I'm curious how much kabouli's your going to harvest 😀 the plants sure are pretty.

Here's the sum total of what I've harvested so far. The 1-2 beans per pod thing makes them a lot of work to do by hand. Whether or not I harvest more of these is mostly going to depend on how long the frosts hold off.

Here's some of the pintos that I harvested yesterday, spread out to dry a bit so that they shell easier and don't get moldy while they wait. I shelled a shelf worth before thinking to take this pic. There's roughly 4-5 gallons worth of pods on each shelf.

I'm really impressed with how clean these pods are this year. I don't think it's anything I did, but probably a combination of a dryish summer combined with the variety.

 

[flowerbug]

it's always great to have clean pods. as time goes on and i have more and more beans of the bulk kind i've gotten more generous with the worms and let them have the pods that look the worst instead of me going in there and getting that one bean from that pod where all the rest of the pod is rotten from dragging in the dirt too long or getting rained on too much. i do make an exception even still for certain rows of beans where i know i've planted a lot of odd seeds because i do want to see each and every seed i possibly can from that row...

@jbosmith when i have a lot of pods that i've picked and some of them are dry enough and others aren't quite ready i sort them out and leave them to dry in the sun for a day.

this serves two purposes, one is to let the bugs that might be in there to crawl away and the other is to give the pods one last blast of sunshine before they get put into large paper bags. the paper bags will let them breath out any remaining moisture without rotting and they can be stored that ways for however long it takes for you to get around with shelling them out.

the not quite dried pods i'll either leave in flats/aka box tops until they dry enough to shell out or i might even shell them at that stage to make more room for what i'm in the middle of harvesting next. the beans themselves from the shelly stage take up much less room and i rotate them once a day so they won't start rotting, but again i don't put them into plastic containers, i use cardboard flats that will let some moisture wick away and breathe better than plastic.

by the time the middle of winter comes around pretty much everything is dried well enough to then go into more closed up containers and i won't open many of them until it is time to eat them or whatever else i might be doing with them.

 

[jbosmith]

it's always great to have clean pods. as time goes on and i have more and more beans of the bulk kind i've gotten more generous with the worms and let them have the pods that look the worst instead of me going in there and getting that one bean from that pod where all the rest of the pod is rotten from dragging in the dirt too long or getting rained on too much. i do make an exception even still for certain rows of beans where i know i've planted a lot of odd seeds because i do want to see each and every seed i possibly can from that row...

There were maybe a half dozen moldy pods in 60' (well, 55' after the bull incident) of trellis, which I just tossed over my shoulder into a different row. In every case it was a pod that was sitting under decomposing leaves that have fallen off. Red Turtle, growing a few hundred feet away, lost maybe 10% of its pods to mold. I think the lower leaves falling off from Seneca Allegheny early is key to saving those pods but that's a guess.

@jbosmith when i have a lot of pods that i've picked and some of them are dry enough and others aren't quite ready i sort them out and leave them to dry in the sun for a day.

this serves two purposes, one is to let the bugs that might be in there to crawl away and the other is to give the pods one last blast of sunshine before they get put into large paper bags. the paper bags will let them breath out any remaining moisture without rotting and they can be stored that ways for however long it takes for you to get around with shelling them out.

the not quite dried pods i'll either leave in flats/aka box tops until they dry enough to shell out or i might even shell them at that stage to make more room for what i'm in the middle of harvesting next. the beans themselves from the shelly stage take up much less room and i rotate them once a day so they won't start rotting, but again i don't put them into plastic containers, i use cardboard flats that will let some moisture wick away and breathe better than plastic.

Luckily, my zone 3 gardens have never had any bugs that I cared about! (knocks on lots of wood) When I harvest from my community garden, which has all the bugs, the beans get shelled, their pods dumped back into that same garden, and the beans go into the freezer, all pretty quickly so as to minimize the risk of introduction to my house where other beans are drying.

Otherwise, your method is pretty similar to what I do. I also collect a lot of pods in empty beer flats, especially of the varieties where I don't have a ton, and sometimes put them in the sun early on. I usually just leave in front of the AC's fan to keep the air moving around them unless they're extra wet or have been frosted, which makes the wet pods turn to mush pretty quick.

I got home late last night and everything stayed in the same paper leaf bag until this morning, so they were all in the 'not quite dry' stage, the dry pods having absorbed moisture from the not-so-dry neighbors. None of them are super wet though. This whole batch should be dry in a few days. The paper towels are also under there for the wicking you mention. In the past I've used wire shelves for added airflow, but these are bigger, were easier to move, and should be good enough.

Sometimes, when an early frost threatens or I otherwise have bushels of pods to deal with, I'll also stack field crates on top of each other with a few inches of pods in each and paper towels at the lower levels to keep beans from falling all the way to the floor. That doesn't work quite as well but I only have so much space for shelves.

by the time the middle of winter comes around pretty much everything is dried well enough to then go into more closed up containers and i won't open many of them until it is time to eat them or whatever else i might be doing with them.

Same, though once it gets cold and/or dry, I also start canning a bunch whenever I have a free evening. I eat 1/2 to 1 cup of beans a day with my partner eating them on occasion, so it takes a lot of jars to get us through the year. It's nice to know where they all came from though!

 

[heirloomgal]

Do you know which tepary variety they are? Literally all I know about these beans is that they're from the desert and won't make many beans if they get too wet. That might make them a good fit for the sand at my house! Also, a random confession - at some point that word made it into my head as 'tep-i-ary' and I can't unlearn it.

Here's the sum total of what I've harvested so far. The 1-2 beans per pod thing makes them a lot of work to do by hand. Whether or not I harvest more of these is mostly going to depend on how long the frosts hold off.
Even View attachment 51801

Here's some of the pintos that I harvested yesterday, spread out to dry a bit so that they shell easier and don't get moldy while they wait. I shelled a shelf worth before thinking to take this pic. There's roughly 4-5 gallons worth of pods on each shelf.

View attachment 51802

I'm really impressed with how clean these pods are this year. I don't think it's anything I did, but probably a combination of a dryish summer combined with the variety.

They're called 'Blue Grey Speckled'. Very small seeds! This is my 1st year trying them and my conclusion thus far is they are tough little guys! What I read was they handle drought quite well; that said, I kept mine very well watered plus we had a good amount of rain this summer. So, I think that they're likely adaptable. I grew them in pretty rich soil too. The only downside I can think of with them is the size of the seeds, and that to get a big crop you'd need to plant intensively since they were fairly small plants & low growing.

Those black chana are so distinct 🤩 that pure black is a sight! Growing cicerchia this year, I feel the '2 per pod' pain. P.vulgaris spoils us with all those big beans in a pod. I still have more cicerchia to shell, when I find 3 or even 4 in a pod it's a mini celebration.

Nice haul of beans! 🥰
Eta: lots of clean, unblemished pods? It's in the stars I think! I've had the same thing with so many varieties!

 

[jbosmith]

... Growing cicerchia this year, I feel the '2 per pod' pain. P.vulgaris spoils us with all those big beans in a pod. I still have more cicerchia to shell, when I find 3 or even 4 in a pod it's a mini celebration.

Ohhh I want to hear all about this! I was eying those on Uprising Seeds' website last winter but didn't order them. Are they the same as grass peas?

 

[Zeedman]

Ohhh I want to hear all about this! I was eying those on Uprising Seeds' website last winter but didn't order them. Are they the same as grass peas?

Yes, they are grass peas. I grew them last year, but my climate was apparently too hot for them. They flowered, but died in the heat before they could set seed. It didn't help that I planted them late, along with beans & other warm-weather crops; they might have succeeded had they been planted earlier.

 

[jbosmith]

Yes, they are grass peas. I grew them last year, but my climate was apparently too hot for them. They flowered, but died in the heat before they could set seed. It didn't help that I planted them late, along with beans & other warm-weather crops; they might have succeeded had they been planted earlier.

Are they frost hardy? What qualifies as 'hot' there? Uprising's site says 90 days, and if that's to dry beans I could try them in my zone 3 gardens where 85F is rare!

 

[heirloomgal]

If I hadn't planted them next to my space hog rat tail radishes, I would have gotten a bumper crop for sure, but I still did alright considering they were so squished. You would probably love them jb! Even if they didn't grow food, I would grow them for the incredible abundance of flowers. Each plant can really bush out too, I think I only planted 7 or so and they formed a large mass. The foliage is unique, somewhat like pepicha leaves. Next year I'm going whole hog with them!

@Pulsegleaner mentioned they like an English type of climate. Mine did pretty well and we had some real hot spells, which for us is real feel 37 C. Our whole summer bobbed in the low 30''s, high 20''s, and that didn't seem to bother them in the least.
I'm curious too @Zeedman how hot your average summer is? I'm surprised to hear they floundered for you, that must be some hot temp's! Not sure about frost hardiness, but we had cold (hovering just above 0) in early June and wet and they were fine.
Eta: I did transplants too.