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

[heirloomgal]

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.

.hahaha, I'll be ready......

 

[heirloomgal]

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

Madeira Maroon

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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 SmithView attachment 69406


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
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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
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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.

Your photos @Decoy1 are marvelous - do you use a special type of camera? The green pod photo of Hamby looks almost hyper realistic!!! Like it's growing right here in my livingroom...

 

[heirloomgal]

Because there is a 98% chance of rain tomorrow the fam & I spent the day pulling out a lot of the garden, and getting pods either picked or put under cover. We even put the used poles through the shredder, whose blades promptly broke. Craptacular made shredder, at least the blades can be easily replaced. Ridiculous though, we've barely used this new one since the last one (that we exchanged for this new one) broke. Anyway, at least I got 5 bags of bean shells and pea vines shredded and a few loads of leaves. It really is the last days before the garden is shut down for the year.

I took a few photos of what's left. Here's a pic of Siebenburgener something, can't recall without the tag. Another bean whose plants all totally died, except for one that died right down and seemed to be on the brink between this world and the next. I almost yanked it out many times, but some little nudge said just leave the stub. And that stub did eventually grow; I doubt I'll get any beans from it, it recovered too late, but I like the flowers this time of year and it's testament to resilience & resurrection!

I noticed the pods of Marmortener Monde (or something close to that) turned a lovely shade of plum. I shelled one of the dried pods out of curiosity. I always forget what the seeds I plant look like.

Stripped the pods of network bean Aunt Maggie, boy that bean can produce!

The last 2 pole beans left in this bed, network bean Blue Gold Star and Sicvek. I'm sort of glad that it'll rain from the perspective that the bean leaves will stick to the ground and not blow off, I really want the fertility they add in the soil. Most of the leaves are very dried up at this point and easily blow away. There'll be lots of forking over and soil mixing when the rain ends.

This will likely be a bush bean bed next year, and the soil was new last year. Highly fertile at the beginning of the season but it really dropped off as things went along, so I super amended the bed in preparation for next year's beans with the shredded leaves and shells. Was not easy to mix! I'll need to have another go at this bed later in the week and try and get the additions further down in the soil. Bit small to maneuver the tiller in here, too much hard turning.

Another bean miracle, the Leslie Tenderpod beans, which seemed really, really set back, finally caught up. A few of the pods have even dried! If I wasn't seeing it, I would never have believed this one would make it. Reminds me so much of the Monstrance bean, only a WAY better yielder!!

Slightly better group pic of @Blue-Jay's Gabarone Sugar.

Today's pole removal results. Let the shelling truly begin!!

 

[heirloomgal]

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.

I'm going to post a pic of them maybe with navy beans, so it gives some context. Adzuki beans might be close in size to these, but it's been awhile since I cooked adzukis so not sure.

 

[flowerbug]

Your photos @Decoy1 are marvelous - do you use a special type of camera? The green pod photo of Hamby looks almost hyper realistic!!! Like it's growing right here in my livingroom...

fantastic clarity i wish i could get. please post details @Decoy1

 

[Neen5MI]

Does everybody know the Sesame Street song, "One of the things is not like the other. One of these things doesn't belong."? Well, it's been stuck in my head due to this discovery while shelling Old Time Golden Stick, a network bean. The planted seed was small, approximately spherical, yellow/gold, and many harvested pods produced similar (though quite disappointing productivity).

Tennessee Mountain Climber was growing just across the aisle, and I wondered if vines had snuck over (though I would have redirected or pruned if I had witnessed it). But the seed doesn't match those either.

They're beautiful beans, but I think I have sufficient use for my time and space nurturing already established and named varieties. Nature in general, and plants specifically, are amazing!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

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.

I've a few that are even smaller than that, but yeah, below that, you sort of reach the size where the utility of growing them becomes questionable.

On the flip side, I have seen some sort of Azuki that made seeds the size of pinto beans (I just wish I remembered where.)

 

[Hornad]

I had help shelling the Bond runner beans

 

[heirloomgal]

Opened a few pods of 'Gold und Silber' today! I forget what the seeds I planted looked like, but fresh they seem like something I've never seen before. Even though the colors seem like the bean seeds are not done drying, the pods were crispy dry. I'm guessing that this is one of those seeds whose coloring appears as it ages. The photo on Belle Epoque Meisse shows beans that are a slightly darker pink than these. I wonder where the gold and the silver come from?

Does anyone know where the Mona Lisa bean originated? Shelled almost all my ML pods today - my goodness that bean is so gorgeous. There are lots of very beautiful beans out there, but for me, I think that one about takes the cake.

 

[Branching Out]

Potomac bean pods at sunset.