2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[Blue-Jay]

@meadow was that you that told me that someone in Seed Savers Exchange is sharing a bean called Bullet Bean. I was suspecting that it might be the Walcherse Bruine Kogel. I wrote to them and got a response today and this is what they said. They sent me a photo and I would bet that it is probably the Walcherse Burine Kogel.

Hi, Russ,
I obtained my Dutch Bullet seed in 2012 from Lonesome Whistle Farm (Junction City, OR,lonesome-whistle.com), a small grower of organic grains and seeds for CSAs, farmer's markets. etc. I do not know their source. Lonesome Whistle Farm is still in operation but, to my knowledge, they have not grown Dutch Bullets for sale in a number of years. A photo of seed from my 2020 lot is attached. 2020 was a very hot and dry growing year here, and the seed is a bit smaller than other years. I still have seed available if you'd like a sample. Good luck with your search.
Karen Yoerger
OR KL YO

 

[meadow]

@meadow was that you that told me that someone in Seed Savers Exchange is sharing a bean called Bullet Bean. I was suspecting that it might be the Walcherse Bruine Kogel. I wrote to them and got a response today and this is what they said. They sent me a photo and I would bet that it is probably the Walcherse Burine Kogel.

Hi, Russ,
I obtained my Dutch Bullet seed in 2012 from Lonesome Whistle Farm (Junction City, OR,lonesome-whistle.com), a small grower of organic grains and seeds for CSAs, farmer's markets. etc. I do not know their source. Lonesome Whistle Farm is still in operation but, to my knowledge, they have not grown Dutch Bullets for sale in a number of years. A photo of seed from my 2020 lot is attached. 2020 was a very hot and dry growing year here, and the seed is a bit smaller than other years. I still have seed available if you'd like a sample. Good luck with your search.
Karen Yoerger
OR KL YO

View attachment 49175

Yes, that was me and the photo does look like what I was expecting for Walcherse Bruine Kogel! Yay! I'm so glad that she turned out to be a good lead for obtaining seed.

 

[heirloomgal]

i have three fine sprouts of Fort Portal Jade growing. they got their first dose of real sunshine today and are starting to unfold their first leaves.

since the other seed failed to sprout i decided to plant a seed of Purple Dove and another seed of a cross in the extra spaces. i hope i can get them all to cross. i will be watching for flowers and hoping it will work out.

when i go back out i should make sure to mark which plant is what because while i know that FPJ is white-whitish flowering and i know Purple Dove is purple flowers i don't know the cross flower color (i also don't know if that is going to be stable or not but we'll see ).

i'm a bit paranoid about these beans in these pots being outside because we have so many chipmunks running around.

You've sold me on Purple Dove. One vendor in Canada is carrying it, so I got some. Hope I have some room to plant them this year.

 

[heirloomgal]

My apologies, this will not be the most upbeat post.

I didn't want to think there was a problem when it came up 3 days ago, because we've never seen this before. There have been no rabbits bothering anything, no voles, no bears that stepped on anything important. But a groundhog showed up out of nowhere; these have not been in this area, ever. All of us along this stretch of the street thought he was just a fluke passerby since no one has ever even seen one before. He ate all my cabbages and kale. I was okay with that so long as I never saw him again, they weren't precious to me. Today, as we all sat outside on the swing in the backyard he showed up again and was perusing my garden, making his way over (I believe) to my now good sized fava bean plants.

I knew at that moment what needed to happen. Though, aside from a few mice, I've never killed for my garden. And this guy was the size of a cat. We, with the help of our beagle, cornered him in the greenhouse under the floorboards. The deed was done, and sadly it was not nearly as smooth as I would have liked for this guy. I feel like the beans are much safer now, as well as everything else, but that whole thing took all the reliable joy and fun out of my first day of planting. Feel pretty terrible.

 

[Jack Holloway]

My apologies, this will not be the most upbeat post.

I didn't want to think there was a problem when it came up 3 days ago, because we've never seen this before. There have been no rabbits bothering anything, no voles, no bears that stepped on anything important. But a groundhog showed up out of nowhere; these have not been in this area, ever. All of us along this stretch of the street thought he was just a fluke passerby since no one has ever even seen one before. He ate all my cabbages and kale. I was okay with that so long as I never saw him again, they weren't precious to me. Today, as we all sat outside on the swing in the backyard he showed up again and was perusing my garden, making his way over (I believe) to my now good sized fava bean plants.

I knew at that moment what needed to happen. Though, aside from a few mice, I've never killed for my garden. And this guy was the size of a cat. We, with the help of our beagle, cornered him in the greenhouse under the floorboards. The deed was done, and sadly it was not nearly as smooth as I would have liked for this guy. I feel like the beans are much safer now, as well as everything else, but that whole thing took all the reliable joy and fun out of my first day of planting. Feel pretty terrible.

Don't feel bad about it. You didn't do it for a trophy, but to protect your garden. An eagle, hawk, falcon, coyote, wolf, car, etc. would have gotten it eventually.

I've got a raccoon wandering around in the day time (10 AM today) raiding the cat food. Fish and Wildlife told me years ago that if they are out in the daytime, they are sick. The neighbor, who likes them, says that urban raccoon know they are safe out in the daytime. Ugh. Can't shoot it as one, I live in the city, and two, don't have a gun. My brother tells me to get an air pellet gun and that should do the trick.

 

[heirloomgal]

Thank you @Jack Holloway , I feel a little better reading your post.

 

[meadow]

My apologies, this will not be the most upbeat post.

I didn't want to think there was a problem when it came up 3 days ago, because we've never seen this before. There have been no rabbits bothering anything, no voles, no bears that stepped on anything important. But a groundhog showed up out of nowhere; these have not been in this area, ever. All of us along this stretch of the street thought he was just a fluke passerby since no one has ever even seen one before. He ate all my cabbages and kale. I was okay with that so long as I never saw him again, they weren't precious to me. Today, as we all sat outside on the swing in the backyard he showed up again and was perusing my garden, making his way over (I believe) to my now good sized fava bean plants.

I knew at that moment what needed to happen. Though, aside from a few mice, I've never killed for my garden. And this guy was the size of a cat. We, with the help of our beagle, cornered him in the greenhouse under the floorboards. The deed was done, and sadly it was not nearly as smooth as I would have liked for this guy. I feel like the beans are much safer now, as well as everything else, but that whole thing took all the reliable joy and fun out of my first day of planting. Feel pretty terrible.

I'm so sorry that you've gone through that. Your story of the Junco reflects how deeply you care for creatures, so I'm leaving a basket of unlimited hugs right here that you can access whenever you'd like. 🧺💕

 

[flowerbug]

if you see one groundhog there are probably others around. i usually have to hunt several a year. they are very sturdy creatures, by all rights i should have a 22 to hunt them, but my .177 caliber air-rifle will work. it's sad to me too. i don't want to have to kill animals to garden.

the good news about them and beans is that they rarely kill bean plants entirely. you may lose some growing tips due to their grazing but they normally graze up high enough that your plants will still have some nodes to resprout from. the bad news is that some are small enough that they may graze lower and it ends up being like the rabbits which do often kill the whole bean plant.

fence. a good fence. it's my mantra for a reason. with a good fence i'd not have to hunt the rabbits or groundhogs and it sure has been working well for the deer. a super good electric fence would cost a lot more but also keep the chipmunks and raccoons at bay. not too likely i'm going to be doing that. we'll see...

 

[flowerbug]

You've sold me on Purple Dove. One vendor in Canada is carrying it, so I got some. Hope I have some room to plant them this year.

i have given away a lot of them so far and plan on continuing to do that. they're well established around here. i gave a sample to Bevin at Small House Farm so they may get a wider exposure from there too. i'm just happy that they do so well and that people like growing them.

my question this year was how well they'd do further south and so far a grower in eastern TX is doing well with them and says they'll keep growing them. she said she pruned some of them (i've not ever done that intentionally) - we'll see how they do. i've encouraged her to keep planting them to see if they'll go through the mid-summer heat or if they need to wait a few weeks/months before replanting more. southern FL growing didn't work out for my Dad for his first planting. not sure why or if he got them going a 2nd time. he doesn't have much shade so i suspect that if he does have any plants going now they're not going to last much longer. i'll catch up with him in a few weeks.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I got something accomplished today. My larger of the two backyard garden plots got tilled and planted to 9 varieties of pole snap beans. I haven't grown pole beans in the backyard since 2013. The planting of the seed went so much faster than 10 rows of bush beans in previous years. This plot is 11 feet wide (3.35 meters) and 22 feet long (6.70 meters). My backyard consists of tiny little bits of ground that I had landscapers did out the clay and put in top soil. This larger piece of ground where these pole beans will grow has always grown good beans. I'm going to try completely mulching this ground with grass clippings this year instead of using weed barrier fabric. I don't have any fabric cut to these lengths and row widths so I decided it would be mulch this year. I got a new neighor next door and he will give me his grass clipping if I want them. His backyard is about 2 and half times the size of mine.



The second smaller piece of ground 10 feet wide (3.04 meters) and 15 feet long (4.5 meters). Currently covered in grass mulch will be the site of three tomato plants and two rows of Zinnias. It took me about 3 years to realize that this piece of ground does not grow good beans. Last year when I put tomatoes here they grew great.

Tomorrow I plant the south flower bed with two varieties of pole beans which shouldn't take me very long. Then it's off to my largest plot where you have seen my rabbit fencing erected before. That plot will consist of 65 varieties of pole beans. It's a redo of last years pole bean grow out.



My backyard flower bed that I dug out 9 years ago myself 2 feet wide (.60 meter) and 22 feet long (6.7 meters) and filled it with top soil from Home Depot. It has grown acceptable pole beans but I wouldn't grow them here again the hours of sun are not long enough for the pole beans. However tomatoes do very well here and of course very good carrots.