2023 Little Easy Bean Network - Beans Beyond The Colors Of A Rainbow

[heirloomgal]

oh wow, i wish i had the time and the energy to be able to do things like that. so the answer is mostly no. the thing i may do is pull plants and put them up on a pile of other bean plants that have already been cleared of pods so they can stay drier, but more often i will just pull any pods that are that close to drying and bring them in to finish inside. when i go through the day's catch i'll sort the pods apart so the dry ones can go right into a paper bag until i can get them shelled out and then the rest of the pods which are still cool to the touch (i.e. they have some moisture left in them) will go in flats to dry further. a few days in the sun can make that go faster but i don't always have time to do that. mainly i just want to stir those once a day or so to make sure they're getting air on all sides so they won't get fungus on them.

if i have time i may shell some of those pods that are still moist enough to be cooked and eaten as shellies.

I actually don't have the time or energy...but I dig deep 🤣

 

[Blue-Jay]

BlueJay, very nice harvest. I'm looking forward to seeing the dried beans. ❤️

Me too!

When all the beans are dried and shelled I will take photos and show them here. It will be a smaller bean show this year.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Does anyone else strip their bean plants of some leaves once they start to yellow?

Yes I think I reported it last year or the year before that if it's getting later in the season and a lot of the beans pods have yellowed I will strip the leaves off and I even cut the vines at the soil level to keep the plants from uptaking any more water. Facilitates more rapid drying. Bush plants get cut at the soil line and hung on poles with longer screws stiking out of the wood to hang bush plants in the sun and wind. Rain doesn't hurt the pods once the plants are well away from damp soil. I try to trim off most of the leaves from the bush plants too.

Unless we suddenly get a shift in the weather I don't think there is going to be damp soil to contend with this year.

 

[nune]

My beans (I couldn't grow the network ones) are all going well!!! I'll let you guys know when I get dry pods. Just in case you guys forgot, they are Black Kali Mung and Yessica's Inca Bean.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Black Kali Mung

Since it is clear that this has the wrong name (everyone online seems to have pointed this out), let's start correcting this now. Black Kail is an URD or URAD bean, not a mung bean (It's Vinga mungo, not Vinga radiata. And yes, I know it's confusing that the one that isn't a mung bean has the species name mungo, but that's the way it is.)

 

[heirloomgal]

Since it is clear that this has the wrong name (everyone online seems to have pointed this out), let's start correcting this now. Black Kail is an URD or URAD bean, not a mung bean (It's Vinga mungo, not Vinga radiata. And yes, I know it's confusing that the one that isn't a mung bean has the species name mungo, but that's the way it is.)

I had no idea they were different species. I thought they were the same for some reason; maybe because the split urad dahl looks so much like the split mung dahl, only in flesh color. Now that I think about it though, the tastes of those two are worlds apart.

 

[heirloomgal]

Yes I think I reported it last year or the year before that if it's getting later in the season and a lot of the beans pods have yellowed I will strip the leaves off

That must be where I got the idea from. I know I never stripped leaves until last year, and I was wondering this year where I came up with that? I dunno, as I get older I don't keep things as straight as I used to. My daughter smiled sweetly and asked the other day what dinosaur it was that I had when I was a kid.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I had no idea they were different species. I thought they were the same for some reason; maybe because the split urad dahl looks so much like the split mung dahl, only in flesh color. Now that I think about it though, the tastes of those two are worlds apart.

I tend to think of them as the five minor beans, Adzuki (V. angularis) , mung (V. radiata), Urd (V. mungo), Moth (V. aconitofolia) and Rice (V. umbellata).

Since I'm usually working with non standard colors or sizes, I tend to use the hilum (seed scar) to tell them apart; azuki has a line, mung has a square or rectangle, urd has a rough patch, moth sort of looks like mung (but is a lot smaller) and can be a bit tapered, and rice are not only a very different shape (long and thin) but look like they have two "lips" on top of the hilum.

 

[heirloomgal]

Starlite ’60’ is done! ✅ I decided to photo the lot of them because all pods are shelled, and not a single seed turned out poorly! 4 plants total.

Zargana of Zestos ’60’ is done! ✅

Some pods for shelling soon. It’s interesting once you start shelling a lot of beans how much the variations in the pods stand out to you. I call some necklace pods, some the curvy dagger pods, snake pods. Some of the pods are so dry right now they’re shattering and I’m finding them on the floor. A Beefy Resilient Grex pod sitting in a box outside in the sun blew open (and up) the other day while we were on the swing! At first I was baffled at what it was. 🤣

Annelino di Trento

Harwig’s Belgium Heirloom

Mongeta de Talarn

The first fingerprint favas of the season! It’s a start anyway, since there was 8 seeds in the packet. Will grow again next year whatever number of seeds I get. Lots left on the plant, definitely a later type. Luckily no blanks yet, I read some don’t show the print.

Little better pic of Diamont beans. Not an easy bean to get a good pic of!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

The first fingerprint favas of the season! It’s a start anyway, since there was 8 seeds in the packet. Will grow again next year whatever number of seeds I get. Lots left on the plant, definitely a later type. Luckily no blanks yet, I read some don’t show the print.View attachment 60130

It sort of varies from variety to variety, they have different ratio's of the pattern showing up. "Ojo de Dios" (the one I can get most easily) has about a 25% fingerprint rate, other's have close to 100%.

They also vary as to clarity and number of whorls (I'd say yours are about medium.)