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

[ducks4you]

We just got out of that heat advisory. Sorry that you have more to come!
I wouldn't worry too much about the beans. I started My bean adventure planting for a Fall harvest and I was able to freeze and can quite a bit, with a shorter growing season than yours.
If they don't like this heat, replant in September.

 

[ruralmamma]

We just got out of that heat advisory. Sorry that you have more to come!
I wouldn't worry too much about the beans. I started My bean adventure planting for a Fall harvest and I was able to freeze and can quite a bit, with a shorter growing season than yours.
If they don't like this heat, replant in September.

Happy to report they made it through the day unscathed. Planning to put a few more out tomorrow.

I'd honestly have to research a bit before I replanted at this point. I encountered a bean last year that took 90 days before flowering and I was constantly covering it from frost so I could harvest seed. I do have a few seeds of each of the network beans left but I'm protective.

I will have to say I've had nearly 100% germination from all of the network beans!

 

[heirloomgal]

Bean progress pics! I had to redneck it a bit with some temporary "fencing" until the plants are a bit bigger and I can remove it all, because a little brown furry beast has been hanging around for 2 weeks. I'll give him this - he has eaten nothing in my garden and seems only to be interested in the clover in the lawn. But still. Thank heavens he's a true old bush rabbit, so he likely has never eaten a garden plant. My dog has chased him off a few times, as have I, but he always comes back. No matter, soon enough the plants will be big enough that he won't be a concern. Plus, the fox is after him and visiting regularly.

These were extras that I couldn't part with. To be fair, I planted a bush bean in 6 pots that didn't sprout for nearly 2 weeks. I put all those pots aside and forgot about them, thinking I'd throw them out when I got a chance. And low and behold nearly a month after planting, in the driest pots imaginable, I see sprouts! So I wound up with 6 precious bush bean plants and no home for them! So they went into pots. Along with some others that I had no in ground room for. The box planter got moved to the driveway because ants were taking up residence in there in the backyard. I discovered if you bug the heck out of ants, they do eventually leave to get away from your incessant whacking & moving of their intended dwelling, and stomping on their friends at every available opportunity helps. It took 2 weeks, but they finally gave up and left.

Look left.

 

[flowerbug]

it is up to the queen, if you've been getting rid of her workers and disrupting them enough she may move, but more likely you may have just killed off enough of the workers that she's just started more up and they will be back once they are old enough to start foraging again.

if you'd dumped out the dirt and gone through and found the queen(s) and gotten rid of them they might be gone, but even then if you missed some they might not give up. most ant species start out from nothing other than themselves and they have enough energy to start over on their own again if needed - a few species will have a few workers tag along or they can be more community hive types, but those are few.

 

[flowerbug]

i think i have all the network beans up and growing. and then the many other beans i planted. i did not keep a list of the various out crosses i planted because there were a few dozen selections and almost none of them have even tentative names.

as usual my main bulk bean planting were the Yellow Eye and Purple Dove beans.

 

[flowerbug]

adzuki bean domestication

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads2871

 

[Blue-Jay]

I have two different beans that already have developed pods and the pods look very advanced. A bean I got from a young woman in BC. I thought it might be a pole bean. But it might be a bush I don't see any climbing tendency yet. It has green pods that already look very seedy . She called the bean Margot. I think it was some beans she picked out a bean that someone sent her. So I started Margot early in styro cups like the pole beans. So I may have given Margot a big boost in maturity time. The other bean that has pods already is Bigaradda Gris Negre. I believe it's a pole bean and it's being very early with blossoming and green pods.

 

[flowerbug]

@Blue-Jay how do you manage to keep up with watering your bean patches when it gets so hot out?

 

[heirloomgal]

I have two different beans that already have developed pods and the pods look very advanced. A bean I got from a young woman in BC. I thought it might be a pole bean. But it might be a bush I don't see any climbing tendency yet. It has green pods that already look very seedy . She called the bean Margot. I think it was some beans she picked out a bean that someone sent her. So I started Margot early in styro cups like the pole beans. So I may have given Margot a big boost in maturity time. The other bean that has pods already is Bigaradda Gris Negre. I believe it's a pole bean and it's being very early with blossoming and green pods.

Bigarradda Gris Negre! Such a great bean! I'll be curious how it produces for you, that is the highest yielding bean I think I've ever grown.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Blue-Jay how do you manage to keep up with watering your bean patches when it gets so hot out?

The largest amount of bean growing ground I have is of course my offsites. One is 2,214 square feet (205 square meters). Three miles from my house which I watered yesterday June 28th. I watered the 42 foot rows with a watering can. Refilling the can from a hose each time I emptied it. I must have used 4 to 5 cans per row. The can hold 2.5 gallons of water (9.4 liters). I think it took me about 2 hours to water this plot. I have 10 rows of beans there. My second offsite called Bean Acres behind my deer fence 9 miles from home, is two raised beds totaling 1.920 square feet (178 square meters). I watered that one Friday June 27th. I think that took me about 3 hours. Same method with my watering can. I don't know why this one takes me longer. There are 18 rows 25 feet long (7.3 meters) of pole beans and semi runners.

I seem to have a greater ability than most people to stay out in the sun and put up with the heat. I do take some 10 to 15 minute breaks sitting in chair in the shade drinking water about once every hour. Saturday June 21st I started weeding all my bean plots and I weeded for about 5 hours each day in the 90 degree heat (32 Celsius) through June 26th. Often I don't realize how much I am sweating. I do take a gallon (3.7 Liters) of cold water with me in an Igloo cooler which is packed in ice. I drink close to that gallon of water each day. I wear a hat with a brim all the way around the hat. Last year I had something on the top of both of my ears. I forget what it's called. It wasn't cancerous. It's caused by sun exposure, but if continued to be exposed to the sun can become cancerous. A dermatologist gave me something called healing ointment which cleared it up quickly. So I have this hat to keep my ears from being exposed to the sun.

The plots look so nice now with the weeding done. I decided not to put down the weed barrier fabric this year. Remember about 5 years ago when I had all those outcross variations of Victoria Brown Eyes? I planted 6 variations of these crosses this year. Hope they work out well. Wow ! Just ask me a question and sometimes I can turn it into a long production.


Semi Runner row at Bean Acres


Pole bean row at Bean Acres


2,214 sq ft plot 3 miles from home. Bush dry Beans


2,214 sq ft plot 3 miles from home. Bush dry Beans