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

[Blue-Jay]

Summer Bean Show 2024 Vol. #29

The Esta core e demais coloring reminds me a little of my Pink Emperor bean. Frijol Habita is very pretty. It is a Phaseolus Dumosus species. The Maine Yellow Eye are beautiful specimens grown in the Ukraine. Pink Blackberry was also grown in the Ukraine. Last but not least is @flowerbug's bean Lemon Slice. Flowerbug is beginning to make his mark on the gardening and bean world with this beautiful bean just like Russell Crow and Robert Lobitz. Is Lemon Slice a bush or a semi runner in growth?


Frijol Boca de Angel..............................................Esta cor é linda demais



Frijol Habita...........................................................Maine Yellow Eye


Pink Blackberry.....................................................Lemon Slice



A Neat Looking Runner Bean.

 

[flowerbug]

@Blue-Jay it sure is a beautiful bean when it comes out right. alas it does mark if the conditions get too wet.

Lemon Slice is a later season semi-runner.

it also is not as reliable as i'd like and i'd also want it to be earlier and a true bush bean like the rest of what i prefer to grow. oh, and it also oxidizes so the yellow becomes brown and the light tan background gets darker. in order to keep those bright colors they may need to be kept in the freezer... i haven't tried that yet, our freezer is always pretty full.

i'm not growing it every season since i found Purple Dove but i did have some show up this season even if i did not explicitly plant it. i think it came from some half white and tan beans i planted which may have crossed with LS. that's at least two beans now that snuck in their genes this year (so far, i'm still a long ways from all of the beans being shelled out or even picked and dried down).

 

[Blue-Jay]

Lemon Slice is a later season semi-runner.

I wonder if you crossed it with a white true bush bean. The white seed coat is recessive and maybe the Lemon Slice seed coat would be dominant. With enough segregations a bush type should show up hopefully with the lemon slice seed coat.

 

[Blue-Jay]

it also oxidizes so the yellow becomes brown and the light tan background gets darker. in order to keep those bright colors they may need to be kept in the freezer

Yes freezing will keep Lemon Slice from darkening. I have had some beans in my freezer since 2012 and they still look new and bright.

 

[flowerbug]

I wonder if you crossed it with a white true bush bean. The white seed coat is recessive and maybe the Lemon Slice seed coat would be dominant. With enough segregations a bush type should show up hopefully with the lemon slice seed coat.

if i had more acreage, fences and minions i'd get it done in a few years. now, not much of a chance of that happening. i will keep growing it from time to time, but i've largely moved on to other easier beans that are more reliable and shorter season. if anyone else wishes to take this on as a project you certainly have my blessing. i don't feel any ownership once the bean is out in other people's hands to be grown as they wish. i just hope they have fun and enjoy their gardens and beans.

so far i've seen no other crosses that are likely from LS even if i grow Venda and a few other mostly white beans from time to time.

 

[flowerbug]

Yes freezing will keep Lemon Slice from darkening. I have had some beans in my freezer since 2012 and they still look new and bright.

thank you! that is good to know and the next time i update my bean web pages i'll include that with those so anyone who wants to keep them shiny and clean will have that chance.

 

[heirloomgal]

Went out today and did A LOT of pod harvesting, this is probably the second major round. Considering the dreadful start to the season I had, I'm astonished at how much I'm able to gather. I actually feel really grateful about that. All the 'Tega Gnocca' plants I put around a pole died, but I had one single extra 4th plant and decided that instead of throwing it away, I'd let it grow on one of the bare electroculture poles. That plant turned out to be the only one who survived. What luck!

The 'Galopka' beans have turned out to be a truly marvelous variety, such production for smallish plants. I feel rather excited to be able to share that bean with other people. @Artorius I'll probably be sending you a question or two about that bean for my seed listing description! Purple Dove really shined as well. If there is any motto I have for gardening it would go something like 'you never know', or 'wait and see', because there seems to be wonderful surprises every single year with the beans. Other things too. The 'Santa Maria Piquinto' - a network bean I was worried about as it is a long season one - is all drying up so nicely. I was able to crack open a good number of pods today for the first time, and they turned out very well. It is a VERY tiny bean seed, the smallest I've ever seen. Smaller than most dry peas, which is unusual not just because that it an uncommon bean size, but because most beans I grow are bigger than the seeds I planted. My garden soil seems to enlarge seeds, but not these. Very dainty little things, and not as sort of 'triangular' shaped as the ones I planted. THIS is a big relief to know I can easily return 60 of these. Like most small seeds, the yield is very high too.

The fall has turned out to be so mild that every single plant will mature it's beans, probably all of them more or less on the poles outdoors, or in the dry room. Last year the whole house was overcome with drying pods on box tops with fans blowing everywhere - I don't think that will be the case this year. By funny coincidence I put in a single pole bean in the front yard, sort of front and center to the entrance area, and if it isn't the only one that is staying good looking of every single pole bean. Almost all poles in the backyard now have either dropped most leaves, or what leaves are left are yellow. Not this one for some reason, and yet the other one of this variety that I planted in the garden is ageing out. Haha, what are the chances.

This bean, 'Brunhilde' - an improvement on 'Blauhilde' - has remarkable holding properties. The beans are too advanced for fresh eating now, but 2 weeks ago these would have been fine. Now that is a long season bean!

For the LEBN bean records, and future network bean growers, I wanted to get a picture of Gabarone Sugar, as I didn't post a photo of it last year when I grew it as a network bean. It was more crowded in 2023 I think, and these lovely colors didn't show up so well. It really grew well this year compared to last year.

The lucky star 'Tega Gnocca' bean! First pods opened today.

'Sivcek' - a bean I need to research. I have no idea where it comes from or what the name means, I think it may be a fresh eating bean - if that's what 'stake princess' means translated from Dutch. Reminds me of 'Gold of Bacau' but in a different shape. eta: I think this bean is named after someone's last name.

'Mauchlebohne' has lovely colored purple seeds, I think it's from Germany. Really good production. The curved pods are nice and easy to shell.

'Enfant de coeur de Arnald', aka, 'Alter Boy from Arnald' from Italy. A very pretty seedcoat.

 

[Decoy1]

Some beans that I've been shelling in the last couple of days

Madeira Maroon

Needs a medium length season. Just drying down here now. Probably best as a shelled and/or dry bean. It was originally from Beans and Herbs in UK. They say, ‘Beautiful red striped pods. Shelling only ….Bought from a market in Madeira in 1995. Produces lots of tasty mottled maroon bean seeds, larger than usual haricot types.’


Juanita Smith

These are very small, attractively frosted beans, from a small pod. They are good as snap beans but have an easily removed string. The pods start green and then turn purple. Quite productive. Originally from Guy Dirix.


Hamby

I tried a few Appalachian type beans this year. Several didn’t seem at all happy with my climate or conditions. Hamby was an exception though. It was quite early, grew well, produced very good snap beans in a flattish pod and dried down well and in good time.



Merveille de Piemonte

I love these beans. They’re a delight to shell and the beans are large and attractive with splashes of black on a light cream background. They produce large flat pods with splashes of red on a slightly yellowish background. They can be used as snap beans as well as shellies.

 

[Blue-Jay]

'Sivcek' - a bean I need to research.

Neat looking bean. Wow large seeded and love the shape. The color reminds me of the snap pole bean I have called Weaver.

So Santa Maria Pinquito is the smallest bean you have ever seen. Next time you get beans from me there is one I'm going to give you that has a really, really small seed. I won't tell you anymore about it. It will just be a surprise.

 

[flowerbug]

the smallest bean i grow is a red adzuki bean that has viable seeds of 1-2mm but also some bigger ones up to a few mm larger.