2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

[Decoy1]

Can I ask where you found the root trainers? I searched for them a few years ago and the only place I found them available had a minimum order amount of over $200 I believe.

Roottrainers have been available in UK for years. They’re not very cheap but I guess affordable. They’re a great design in most ways but the snag is that they’re quite thin plastic and for the money don’t last long. I ended up with piles of half roottrainers because the hinges broke, so I eventually went over to more substantial deep trays of 40 modules which last for ever.

Of course, the Canadian version might be more robust but if they’re made by the same company, just be prepared for them to collapse after a few uses - or be extra careful.

 

[flowerbug]

i looked at those and thought that perhaps that was very thin plastic and not metal. nowadays you get many garden plants in very thin cells which almost collapse if you look at them wrong - which is good in terms of not wasting materials but is bad for not being able to reuse the containers again.

thanks for the review/info.

 

[Anniekay]

Unfortunately Vesey's no longer ships to the US.

Yep. Thank the Orange Emperor for that !!

 

[Branching Out]

is that gray box a part of the purchase?

Yes, the gray box is part of the purchase. It's made of exceptionally sturdy plastic. The assembly also comes with a vented dome cover. Vesey's offers a 10 year guarantee with this product, and I can see it lasting a really long time.

And good news-- it looks like they are available in the U.S. too, via Gardeners Supply.

 

[Decoy1]

Yes, the gray box is part of the purchase. It's made of exceptionally sturdy plastic. The assembly also comes with a vented dome cover. Vesey's offers a 10 year guarantee with this product, and I can see it lasting a really long time.

And good news-- it looks like they are available in the U.S. too, via Gardeners Supply.

Looking back at your photos, your roottrainers are definitely not the same as the version which has been sold under that name in UK. They certainly look much sturdier. And they don’t operate with a hinge which has always been a weakness in the UK version, as once the hinge goes there’s no way of fastening the two halves together.
The Canadian version looks a great improvement.

 

[flowerbug]

...And they don’t operate with a hinge which has always been a weakness in the UK version, as once the hinge goes there’s no way of fastening the two halves together.
The Canadian version looks a great improvement.

duct tape won't do it?

 

[heirloomgal]

I put my first and only beans straight into the ground today, the Sakaguchi Kang Wong runner bean seeds. I overplanted just in case, and I have quite a lot of seed now so I can manage that luxury of overplanting. The weather has been pretty decent at night, going mostly as low as 14C/52F. Of course, now now that I planted the seeds tonight we drop to 5C/41F, lol. My hope is that runner beans are more tolerant of that kind of cold dip. But I also started some in pots, just in case.

I am about 1/3 done with getting saplings for the beans, it's been very mosquito rich in the forest so the trips have been fairly brief. I've been wearing my puffy winter coat and DS who has been helping haul the birch poles out, has his on too with a balaclava. I'd wear gloves if it didn't make holding the cutter slippery, my hands get bitten. But the garden beds are all ready, and all the beans have been planted in pots in the sunroom. Tonight I put a heater on for them. I am loving this potting mix, it's so light and airy. The beans will germinate well in it, and there is very little chance of oversaturation. My new sprayer is working great to moderate water application too.

So now...I sit on a pin and wait to see sprouts!

Oh! Also! If anyone knows the growth habit of these beans, please share. I received them in a trade and there is no growth habit listed on the packages, and they are rare enough to not get any google hits. So I'm trying to figure out where to put them relative to their growth type.

*Cranberry Onondaga
*Tennessee Indian Purple Pod
*Brown Eyed Bobby
*Black Snake (P. vulgaris type)

 

[Blue-Jay]

Oh! Also! If anyone knows the growth habit of these beans, please share. I received them in a trade and there is no growth habit listed on the packages, and they are rare enough to not get any google hits. So I'm trying to figure out where to put them relative to their growth type.

*Cranberry Onondaga
*Tennessee Indian Purple Pod
*Brown Eyed Bobby
*Black Snake (P. vulgaris type)

Wow ! Where did you get Brown Eyed Bobby. I got that bean from a Tennessee woman in 2018 at the seed swap in Livingston, Tennessee. I still have it in my freezer and still haven't grown it. This woman tells me it's a Bush Snap Bean. I don't know why she called it Brown Eyed Bobby because the bean doesn't seem to have an eye patch, but is a mottled patterned bean like Tendergreen.

I found a seed seller called "Seeds Of Plenty". They sell a bean called Snake Bean - Black Seeded. I wonder if that would be your Black Snake Bean.

I asked in my bean group on Facebook if anyone has heard of the Tennesse and Cranberry beans you mention.

 

[oxbow farm]

Hello!

Just discovered this forum recently after reading about it on flowerbug's Anthive blog. I've been planning a slightly larger dry bean grow-out this season and had actually purchased several beans from Blue-Jay on the Bean Collector's Window site. I was looking specifically to find seed for Golden Lima (which I purchased from Blue-Jay) and Octarora Cornfield which unfortunately he didn't have.

I used to grow Octarora Cornfield a lot, but for some reason didn't freeze a sample and my jar of unfrozen seed gave me 0% germination when I did a test.

Fortunately I got an ounce from Krista Rome at Resilient Seeds. I had sent her some many years ago and she sometimes offers it for sale.

I used to be a SSE member and many years ago I started growing Dolloff. It is one of my favorite eating beans, and now its available from a couple of seed companies, especially Fedco. On Leigh Hurley's Extreme Gardener blog she mentioned her speculation that Dolloff was possibly related to Horticultural Lima, a bean described in Beans of New York. She also speculated that it was a close relative of Golden Lima, since the pictures she'd seen of Golden Lima were nearly identical to Dolloff. Both beans easily match the description of Horticultural Lima in Beans of New York, supposedly.

I have grown Dolloff many years and it is a great and productive pole dry bean, and I got weirdly curious about Golden Lima and wanted to compare them. So after finding it on Blue-Jay's page, I bought it and planted an entire 50 foot row of both, with some runner beans as a spacer between them so I don't get them mixed.

After recieving the Golden Lima from Blue-Jay and looking at them side by side with Dolloff, they look practically identical. MAYBE Golden Lima is a little paler and with more contrast between the two colors of the tan mottling? But that could easily be because they grew on different soils.

I'm curious if there are any differences between them grown on the same soil and planted out on the same day, or if they are just the same bean with different names? Probably no one else wants to know the aswer to this, but I was curious.

As of this morning, a couple of the Golden Lima have just poked their hooks out of the ground. Nothing from Dolloff yet.

 

[Vanalpaca]

Topnotch Wax Bean and Mother Stallard along with Monte Gusto yellow wax and the Scarlet Runner beans are all up or sprouting. Haven't seen the KOTG Limas or the Oriental Yard Long Beans pop. I almost made it to planting stage last night but a beesting took me out. So yesterday's priorty is back on the schedule this afternoon...