2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[meadow]

Thank you @meadow @heirloomgal and @flowerbug for you posts. I try to search, but unfortunately I usually use the wrong search terms. When I did a search for "ringwood bean", I didn't get anything from theeasygarden. It is a curse I try to live with. I will also try the advance search here. The non-advance search just gave me errors, meaning it wouldn't work for me. I'm up to page 41 of last year's thread and I see the 2020 one is only 70 pages, so I'll read that next. And I'll read the search that meadow did and posted above. I had several filberts cut down this past fall, so I might can use those as the post for the pole beans.

Again, thank you all for your kind help.

I got curious to see what might come up for Ringwood. I used Advance Search, and noticed a tab to limit the search to "threads" (instead of the default tab, which is "everything").

I selected the "Fruits and Vegetables" thread and its sub-forums (since the Bean Network threads are all subforums of "Fruits and Vegetables"). The search term was "ringwood." Here is the list of hits. Looks interesting!

Search results for query: ringwood

I hope this helps.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Now, having said that, @Bluejay77 how tall are your poles and how far apart are they, in this post from 2021? Also, is it a teepee set up, or a single pole? If a teepee set up, how far apart are the poles in the setup?

My poles in recent years have been about 3 feet apart. Set in single rows about 55 inches apart. So my pole system is single poles straight up out of the ground. I use 8 foot furing strips with 16 inches cut off them then a well tapered point cut in one end with my jigsaw. Poles are driven into the ground about 12 to 14 inches with the flat side of the head of a carpenters hammer. I place a couple of short screws in the sides of the poles and leave them stick out a little but from the wood as insurance for the vines to catch onto in case a high wind event might cause the mature heavy vines to slither back down on the ground in a pile. I don't know if that would actually happen but the screws are there just to insure they don't.

This year I am going to place poles 4 feet apart in the rows and keep vines from growing over to the neighbors pole by clipping any traveling runners. I am also considering planting two poles at 24 inches apart then space the next set of two poles at 4 feet since I devote two poles for each variety anyway. There are all kinds of ways to grow poles beans. You just have to plant and experience and see what you prefer to do. I sure don't minnd sharing my planting schemes as someone one else might like my systems. I've done this single pole system for over 40 years and I don't think I would do it any other way. I think it also allows me to grow a lot of beans in the spaces available to me.

In the last few years after I cultivate the weeds I rolls out weed barrier fabric down the middle of the rows for weed control then all I have to do is hand weed the small amount of exposed soil around the plants. I do save the weed barrier fabric so this year I will not be rolling out the fabric in the middle of the rows but unfolding the fabric I have saved and folded up and stored in boxes. I have fabric cut to length for each of my bean plots.

Plus I don't think anyone asks to many questions or makes two many posts. So just post away. We love anyone's questions and garden and seed photos.

 

[meadow]

My poles in recent years have been about 3 feet apart. Set in single rows about 55 inches apart. So my pole system is single poles straight up out of the ground. I use 8 foot furing strips with 16 inches cut off them then a well tapered point cut in one end with my jigsaw. Poles are driven into the ground about 12 to 14 inches with the flat side of the head of a carpenters hammer. I place a couple of short screws in the sides of the poles and leave them stick out a little but from the wood as insurance for the vines to catch onto in case a high wind event might cause the mature heavy vines to slither back down on the ground in a pile. I don't know if that would actually happen but the screws are there just to insure they don't.

This year I am going to place poles 4 feet apart in the rows and keep vines from growing over to the neighbors pole by clipping any traveling runners. I am also considering planting two poles at 24 inches apart then space the next set of two poles at 4 feet since I devote two poles for each variety anyway. There are all kinds of ways to grow poles beans. You just have to plant and experience and see what you prefer to do. I sure don't minnd sharing my planting schemes as someone one else might like my systems. I've done this single pole system for over 40 years and I don't think I would do it any other way. I think it also allows me to grow a lot of beans in the spaces available to me.

In the last few years after I cultivate the weeds I rolls out weed barrier fabric down the middle of the rows for weed control then all I have to do is hand weed the small amount of exposed soil around the plants. I do save the weed barrier fabric so this year I will not be rolling out the fabric in the middle of the rows but unfolding the fabric I have saved and folded up and stored in boxes. I have fabric cut to length for each of my bean plots.

Plus I don't think anyone asks to many questions or makes two many posts. So just post away. We love anyone's questions and garden and seed photos.

Will you be doing 4 beans around each post this year? Or did you decide to do fewer (after Zeedman's results with more spacing)?

 

[capsicumguy]

Hello all, I've received a bean from a friend; she calls this 'borlotti' but I'm familiar with borlotti beans being big fat egg-shaped things with red horticultural stripes. (Could be that they were red before they aged; I do see a bit of red in some of the darkest beans.) Can anybody ID it? She describes it as a tall pole with some solid purple pods and some striped pods.

If nobody knows what it is, I'm happy to share some with you once I grow them out @Bluejay77 as a new addition to your collection.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Will you be doing 4 beans around each post this year? Or did you decide to do fewer (after Zeedman's results with more spacing)?

I may do a mixture of both wider and my current spacing scheme

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hello all, I've received a bean from a friend; she calls this 'borlotti' but I'm familiar with borlotti beans being big fat egg-shaped things with red horticultural stripes. (Could be that they were red before they aged; I do see a bit of red in some of the darkest beans.) Can anybody ID it? She describes it as a tall pole with some solid purple pods and some striped pods.

If nobody knows what it is, I'm happy to share some with you once I grow them out @Bluejay77 as a new addition to your collection.

The trouble with just looking at a seed and saying you got such and such a variety. That's not really possible with 100% certainty. I don't know why people don't keep track variety names they grow. Plus the speckled pattern of borlotti, cranberry, horticultural beans is repeated over and over in so many varieties. Once you lost the correct name I would say you are not going to find out what it's really named. So I would suggest you name it yourself and always keep track of the variety names you grow. You can question your source as to where they got it and where their source got it. Maybe you will get lucky to find out what it's called. That is a long shot in the dark.

You will find out what pods and seed colors it definitely has upon a grow out.

 

[capsicumguy]

@Bluejay77 your answer is totally unsurprising -- browsing your website this winter, I was surprised by just how many borlotti/cranberry/horticultural beans there are out there! It's also not surprising that they get renamed or de-named either . I'll talk to my friend and see if she has any more details.

 

[meadow]

I may do a mixture of both wider and my current spacing scheme

It will be interesting to hear your observations at the end of the season!

 

[VA_LongBean]

It's been a while since I've said hi. Last year involved a long distance move in-state and getting settled. I'm living near Petersburg, VA and am finally in a position to start a garden. The soil here is very soft and sandy, former farmland, but only the areas immediately next to the house have enough organic matter to please me so I'm getting some (a lot?) compost in next week. My plans include growing King of the Garden Lima, Jim Su longbean, Kentucky Wonder brown seed and Striped Greasy cutshort pole. There are others I want to plant too, but will have to wait and see how much space I will have to play with.

 

[Zeedman]

My plans include growing King of the Garden Lima, Jim Su longbean, Kentucky Wonder brown seed and Striped Greasy cutshort pole.

Wow, I haven't heard that mentioned for awhile; not much since it was offered on Gardenweb 14 years ago. I believe you were the original source, and that we once traded? I still grow that yardlong occasionally, it is highly productive.