2024 Little Easy Bean Network - Growing Heirloom Beans Of Today And Tomorrow

[Decoy1]

Zuni Shalako is one of the A-Z beans I got this year but never found room for it in the end, but I am planning to grow it in 2025. That is another bean I've wanted to try for awhile and am looking forward to. I see the seeds in your photo have lots of gold, and it seems that varies. Probably a soil sensitive variety? I wonder if some beans respond to high fertility with more color on white, and others get less color with the white? My Eden Valley beans from this year are not nearly as colored as the ones in the Bean Collector's Window, and that was high fertility soil I planted them in. I know when I grew Vaquero in 2021 the seeds were very black and white like cows, but the seeds I harvested were very very white with only minimal black patterning.

I enjoyed growing Zuni Shalako two years running in 2020 and 2021 and had good yields. Interestingly the degree of whiteness varied considerably between the two years. So if it’s soil conditions rather than climatic conditions, it must be quite localised as they were grown in the same garden but different beds.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Zuni Shalako is one of the A-Z beans I got this year but never found room for it in the end, but I am planning to grow it in 2025. That is another bean I've wanted to try for awhile and am looking forward to. I see the seeds in your photo have lots of gold, and it seems that varies. Probably a soil sensitive variety? I wonder if some beans respond to high fertility with more color on white, and others get less color with the white? My Eden Valley beans from this year are not nearly as colored as the ones in the Bean Collector's Window, and that was high fertility soil I planted them in. I know when I grew Vaquero in 2021 the seeds were very black and white like cows, but the seeds I harvested were very very white with only minimal black patterning.

A couple of years ago Guy Dirix posted a photo of Pawnee he had grown in soil where he mixed in a lot of compost. So he raised the organic matter. His Pawnee when he harvested the seed had lot of white with a decent size brown patch around the eye and small spotting more than what I get when I plant Pawnee is some soils around here. Many time Pawnee grown here is nearly all brown. Guy Dirix's Pawnee is what I wished mine looked like every time I would grow it. Same difference when I grow Ernie's Big Eye here and @Decoy1 grew me some in the UK.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I thought it would be fun to post all the Network beans that have come in so far. I spent all day yesterday photoing these beans.

Anakin Kuvalli Giant - Pole Dry. Left Photo. This was a bean that Joseph Simcox brought into the country from Europe. I think Bevin Cohen of the Small House farm in Michigan was the first to get a hold of the bean and he added his sons name Anakin to the beginning of the beans name. Nice bean and productive of large seeds. The grower of this bean from Janesville, Wisconsin turned in really nice beans.

Aunt Jeans - Pole Dry. Right Photo. I came across a little seed dealer online from Minnesota that says this bean is a Canadian heirloom. Before this I hadn't known hardly anthing of the bean except that is was a pole dry bean and some say it also makes a decent snap bean. I orginally acquired this bean in 2012 from the California fellow who thought I should start this thread. The grower of this was also the Janesville, Wisconisn grower and this seed turned in really pretty seed of this one also.


Anakin Kuvallii Giant...............................Aunt Jeans

 

[heirloomgal]

Week #3, no mail service yet @Blue-Jay. I checked the news tonight to see if there has been any progress, I was hoping for a back-to-work mandate of some kind. No luck. Canada post is laying off some of the strikers it looks like. Doesn't seem to have had much effect though. My gosh, so frustrating!

On a more comedic note though, the utility company left a message tonight looking to have us set up an online account because we haven't been delivered the paper bill. Hahaha, nope.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Alma's Pa - Network Bean. Pole Lima. Left Photo. Dark purple almost black looking seed. Very productive. This bean has been grown by the Pennsylvania Dutch in southeast and south central Pennsylvania. Originally collected this bean from a fellow in Kingston, Masschusetts. Grown this summer by a grower in Witchita, Kansas. The grower returned 1.25 pounds (576 grams) of the bean. My gosh I almost fell of my chair when I opened his package. I never expected anyone to send back that much in beans. The beans were beautiful too.

Aussie Purple King - Pole Snap. Right Photo. Purple pods. Australian bean. Sent to me by Alan Reynolds of Hercules, South Africa in 2013. Grown this summer by a woman in Blyth, Ontario, Canada.


Alma's Pa..............................................................Aussie Purple King

 

[Neen5MI]

Alma's Pa - Network Bean. Pole Lima. Left Photo. Dark purple almost black looking seed. Very productive. This bean has been grown by the Pennsylvania Dutch in southeast and south central Pennsylvania. Originally collected this bean from a fellow in Kingston, Masschusetts. Grown this summer by a grower in Witchita, Kansas. The grower returned 1.25 pounds (576 grams) of the bean. My gosh I almost fell of my chair when I opened his package. I never expected anyone to send back that much in beans. The beans were beautiful too.


Alma's Pa..............................................................Aussie Purple King

I love hearing stories, even tiny slivers of stories, about those participating in the network grow outs. Thanks for these kinds of posts!

 

[flowerbug]

i'm at the end of the most recent bag of shelling. i tried something different which turned out to be a mistake. normally i would shell out each pod by hand. this time i took my hand and squished pods in the bag before shelling so i could in theory make it a bit faster or easier. nope.

what it did instead was create a lot more very wispy bits of the skins from around the seeds which then take me a lot more time to clean up, and they go flying way too easily. if it was warmer weather i could deal with this by going outside and doing a sort using a breeze to blow them away, but it is too cold for that.

so i still have some beans in a box with bits of that chaff that i'll have to go through again, but i also have to go through it again anyways to sort the fuzzy or not quite done or too small beans anyways.

then eventually i will go through them again to remove the stickers and to sort them. there's not a huge amount of different beans to sort from each other in this bag, they are almost all Purple Dove, there's only a few of the outcrosses mixed in and i'll get those put aside eventually.

progress, only two more bags to shell out.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Barry Island - Pole - Left Photo. Network Bean. I'm not sure of the beans useage. I acquired this bean from Annette Barley of Nanaimo, British Columbia in 2016. This years grow out was done by a Network grower in Auburn, Indiana. This grower always turns in nice quality seed.

Batumi Giant - Pole Dry. Right Photo. Network Bean This is one of the beans that Joseph Simcox brought in from around the area of Batumi in the country of Georgia. I had acquired this bean in a trade with a young fellow who was a high school student in Marion, Iowa in 2017. This years grow out of this bean was done by a Network grower in Hallowell, Maine. This grower also turns in pretty seed.


Barry Island..........................................................Batumi Giant

 

[Branching Out]

Last year I grew out a small oval white seeded Network bean called White Coco. It's origins are in France. In the hot dry summer of 2023 it took forever to flower, set seed, and dry down so I was harvesting pods in late November. Just for fun I decided to try growing it again this summer, which turned out to be not as hot and not as dry. I planted them in two different gardens, and these beans still took forever to flower, set seed and dry down. A couple of days ago I harvested a whole tray of pods. It's December!! None of the pods fully dried on the vines, however I think they will dry down okay indoors. The pods are slender, and about 3-4" long. And while many of the pods look ugly the seeds inside are pristine and pure white, so good rain resistance on these pole beans.

 

[heirloomgal]

Oh, it's bittersweet but the temperature is plummeting hard right now so my beans in the outdoor dry room are finally getting a good hard freeze. Not great for the humans, but the seeds are in good shape. Last year because the winter was so mild this took longer since that room is not quite as cold as it is directly outside.

Now the fun really begins with trying to decide what beans to grow for next year! I have about 10 to grow for you @Blue-Jay and the rest is to be decided. I'm not sure how many I'll grow, I can fit more than I did last year though with the front yard cedars gone. I'd like to try 150 and set a record for myself. I've been going through my bean box and it's amazing how things sort of pile up over time, even a few short years. Some were gifts, some I bought on a whim, some I got long ago and never grew for whatever reason, lack of interest I guess.

DH has asked a few times this year about a gift I might like under the tree. What I want most of all is the falling of a tree in the backyard for this spring, the one casting shade on my main garden. With that accomplished almost all my garden areas will be henceforth liberated ---.