2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

No dry pods on Lilaschecke here (east England) yet either. But not far off I think.

Thanks for chiming in on the Lilascheke maturity @Decoy1. My plants too are rounding the corner, I pulled the pole yesterday and hid them in my carport from the coming rains. Really hoping for some good quality seeds from them, not an easy one for perfect specimens I have found.

 

[heirloomgal]

I think there is a very good possiblity that you will be bitten by the, I will name and make new bean varieties bug. Especailly when you start finding beans with different patterns and seed colors that are just too beautiful to pass them..... bye ! Reminds me of that old Gloria Gaynor song "Never Can Say Goodbye".

@Bluejay77 I love how you can find a musical correlation to these situations in life! I remember last year you were talking Dixie Chicks and their Wide Open Spaces! You must be a music lover along with the beans!

 

[meadow]

The Wanigan
A Newsletter - All About Beans
Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1977

Here's a tip for those eager to get in a real early row of beans. Warm the soil before planting, using sun power. As you know, bean seed often fails to sprout in a soil temperature below 60 F. Limas need 65 F. All that's needed is a mini greenhouse, or "cloche," placed over the row for a period of weeks prior to normal planting time.

Place a 3-foot strip of black mulching plastic along the row to absorb the sun's heat. Over this stick low arches of wood or wire at 4 or 5 foot spacings along the row, across the black plastic. Roll out some clear polyethylene film wide enough to cover the bows and long enough to anchor firmly at each end. Tie strings over the film at each bow or arch to keep wind from ballooning it. This mini greenhouse will heat rapidly.

Test soil temperature at a 3" depth and when at 60 F remove the black plastic (or punch and plant beans through slits), but leave the clear film in place. When sprouted, regulate heat by lifting the sides of the cloche. The strings over the bows will hold the film on windy days.

 

[Decoy1]

Thanks for chiming in on the Lilascheke maturity @Decoy1. My plants too are rounding the corner, I pulled the pole yesterday and hid them in my carport from the coming rains. Really hoping for some good quality seeds from them, not an easy one for perfect specimens I have found.

Thanks for the warning about the difficulty of harvesting good seeds. Mine are still outside growing, and still full of younger beans too. It’s impressively productive and has become a favourite. Our weather is still dry at the moment but I’ll keep an extra careful eye on them now that you’ve alerted me to the quality issue.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Bluejay77 I love how you can find a musical correlation to these situations in life! I remember last year you were talking Dixie Chicks and their Wide Open Spaces! You must be a music lover along with the beans!

Yep I'm a music lover too besides beans. I have a collection of cds and vinyl records that go back into the late 1950's. For radio listening. I listen to Pandora internet radio on my computer from time to time and when I'm going somewhere in my minivan I have the Pandora radio app on my phone. On September 30 when I go to Berea, Kentucky for the seed swap I'll listen to Pandora all the way there.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@heirloomgal the weather people are predicting a temperature here Friday morning by 7 am of 38 F. What is it going to be doing where you live? I'm hoping we are going to get that long range weather prediction of above normal for October. My Pole beans could use a long extended period of warm and dry. The bush bean plot will soon be all harvested out.

 

[ducks4you]

We are expected to bottom out at 45 degrees F. With today's heat I don't think that low is gonna make much of a difference. I saw that prediction for an above average October, too. @Bluejay77 , you live 3 1/2 hrs north of me, and I think you are in zone5b. We live just to the south line of the border between 5b and 6a. Doesn't Really mean much when we drop below -20, but if there is protection, I can grow some things that you cannot.
STILL, I will buy perennials that are meant for zones 3-7.
That protection is iffy, too. My property is flat as a pancake, although I could map the dips and tiny hills, if necessary. We get some Wicked winds that knock things over, during the Spring, Fall And winter. Our 100+yo house was wisely built so that you climb 5 steps to the first floor, therefore the first floor won't flood. Just paid to have my gutters cleaned so that I won't get water in the basement, which takes 7 steps down from ground level.
The 2nd floor has NO windows facing west. You don't see that done in modern home building.
I suspect that the first REAL freeze we will get Here is gonna be the beginning of November. All of the Fall planting I did I believe is going to pay off. HERE IS MY QUESTION:
I have "raped" the 12 purple bush beans for some 6 weeks now. They look terrible, suffering from drought, though I have watered them, getting eaten up by grasshoppers--I have seen them--still they continue to produce, though they have slowed. down.
I have just started to get a decent harvest from my later planting, especially from the Kentucky pole beans, which had nothing a week ago,now nice big beans hiding out (but that's bc I really overplanted!)
Should I stop harvesting the purple beans and let them grow nice, big pods to harvest seeds from, like in the next month? I could use some advice, bc this is New to me.
Thanks!

 

[jbosmith]

@heirloomgal the weather people are predicting a temperature here Friday morning by 7 am of 38 F. What is it going to be doing where you live? I'm hoping we are going to get that long range weather prediction of above normal for October. My Pole beans could use a long extended period of warm and dry. The bush bean plot will soon be all harvested out.

Good luck! My zone 3 gardens are likely to get frosted Friday night, if not sooner. The forecast that night is for 35F but they're at ~1300' elevation...

 

[flowerbug]

... HERE IS MY QUESTION:
I have "raped" the 12 purple bush beans for some 6 weeks now. They look terrible, suffering from drought, though I have watered them, getting eaten up by grasshoppers--I have seen them--still they continue to produce, though they have slowed. down.
...
Should I stop harvesting the purple beans and let them grow nice, big pods to harvest seeds from, like in the next month? I could use some advice, bc this is New to me.
Thanks!

of course, if you want seeds you should leave some pods alone to finish. i hope they have enough time to properly develop.

i prefer to actively select for some traits so i work with each variety i plant (even the bulk ones i do i'm usually planting from seeds that i've selected during shelling out or even from some plants that i've noted in the gardens and left mostly alone because i want those particular seeds).

is this a particular variety that you've got planted or some generic purple bean or?

are there any goals you might have for them?

 

[ducks4you]

I am pretty sure that the package was labelled heirloom.
I am sure that my later planted beans ARE heirloom, Kentucky Wonder Beans. I have an order from Baker's Creek that includes Cherokee Trail of Tears, so I will be planting purple beans next year, plus we do have a variety of box stores that sell heirloom purple beans, too.
Hoping that the deep purple beans Are heirloom, but I don't mind practicing seed saving on them.