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

[heirloomgal]

Had a Wren's Egg plant struggling for the last week and it finally succumbed. Dug around to see if voles were an issue and nada. Thankfully the other plants are flourishing.

I find it much more common to have a random bean plant fail to thrive than most other vegetables. It's like they have quite variable genetics plant to plant, and so there is more chance of a weak plant showing up in a bunch. I find peas like that as well. Lots of plants if they manage to sprout they are on their way, but the legumes are more finicky.

 

[Decoy1]

I find it much more common to have a random bean plant fail to thrive than most other vegetables. It's like they have quite variable genetics plant to plant, and so there is more chance of a weak plant showing up in a bunch. I find peas like that as well. Lots of plants if they manage to sprout they are on their way, but the legumes are more finicky.

I have a kind of sudden death issue. Sometimes one plant in a row which seemed to be doing fine, will look sick and all the growing points wither and die. This often happens quite late on when they have lots of flower buds. I pull them up in case it’s catching, but there’s no obvious sign of why one or two plants should sicken and die, apparently quite suddenly.

 

[flowerbug]

I have a kind of sudden death issue. Sometimes one plant in a row which seemed to be doing fine, will look sick and all the growing points wither and die. This often happens quite late on when they have lots of flower buds. I pull them up in case it’s catching, but there’s no obvious sign of why one or two plants should sicken and die, apparently quite suddenly.

my guess is vascular collapse from warm weather and the plant roots can't keep up with the demand. it is sudden.

this year i'm getting a lot more raiding from a likely groundhog but as of yet i've not been able to see it out there at all. most of the bean plants now that remain are big enough that the groundhog isn't too likely to be that interested in them any more but it has been trying to dig a burrow right inside the fenced bean gardens for several years and i've managed to head it off before it gets established in there but it is still very annoying. i need a better fence. :/

 

[heirloomgal]

I have a kind of sudden death issue. Sometimes one plant in a row which seemed to be doing fine, will look sick and all the growing points wither and die. This often happens quite late on when they have lots of flower buds. I pull them up in case it’s catching, but there’s no obvious sign of why one or two plants should sicken and die, apparently quite suddenly.

I've had 2 in a row of 6 bushes do this, rare ones. What you describe is exactly what happened, they were growing wonderfully, leaves were smooth and healthy, vigor normal, and then this week the growing tips/newest growth turned brown and died. Just out of the blue after about 6 weeks of normal growth. I wonder if weather is part of it? We've had high mid to high 80's for a while now, maybe that heat is more than certain beans can handle, poor underlying individual genetics?

 

[heirloomgal]

my guess is vascular collapse from warm weather and the plant roots can't keep up with the demand. it is sudden.

this year i'm getting a lot more raiding from a likely groundhog but as of yet i've not been able to see it out there at all. most of the bean plants now that remain are big enough that the groundhog isn't too likely to be that interested in them any more but it has been trying to dig a burrow right inside the fenced bean gardens for several years and i've managed to head it off before it gets established in there but it is still very annoying. i need a better fence. :/

One of the symptoms I read of vascular collapse in beans is wilting, but in my case there was none of that. The plants were perfectly healthy. What's left of them now even still looks good. All my googling seems to point to sunscald or overwatering. So, between the heat and all the rain that is entirely possible.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I have the same thing happen in my bean plots. However not on a mass scale. It's usually one or two plants here and there. It's happened to both bush and pole beans. The plants seem just as normal as the rest of the variety and they just wilt, dry up and die. It's been very dry here. I water the plants but I'm sure they are not getting over watered. Everything else looks lush and normal. Nearly all the bush beans are in bloom and some of the pole beans are blooming.

I reported earlier that Biggareda Gris Negre had pods but it wasn't that one. Two of my beans have developed pods. A bean that I got from a grower in BC. The bean is winding up being a bush called Margot and the other bean that has developed some pods is an outcross with light red seed and black stripes.

Last night we got a major rain event. Biggest amount of rain since April 1st. The owner of the property where my deer fence is (Bean Acres) told me they were having torrential rain. I asked how much and he texted me back in about a half hour and said 2.5 inches (6.35 cm). We had steady rain here from about 5 pm in the afternoon and it could have continued until midnight. I went to bed at 10 pm and it was raining as a steady shower. We got 1.5 inches here (3.8 cm). Wouldn't you know yesterday and the day before I watered all the bean plots.

 

[flowerbug]

we're about to get some more rains here.

i just planted Purple Dove beans in what i had ready of the garden i'm working on. hoped to have the rest of this half planted but now doesn't look like it.

 

[Blue-Jay]

In 2023 I early started In Styrofoam cups about 8 varieties of pole limas. They did great. This year in general the best beans are the ones that have been direct seeded.


South Flowerbed June 29th.


South Flowerbed July 11. It's amazing the the beans can grow as
fast as they do.

I have never had a bad crop of plants or seed out of this flowerbed
4 seeds around each pole. Missouri Wonder 4 poles, Mr Tung 2 poles, Delicous Giant 3 poles,
Green Savage 3 poles, and San Fiarce 1 pole.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Went out to my Bean Acres offsite today behind the deer fence to see what 2.5 inches of rain in about 30 minutes did to my pole beans. I looked at my Rain Gauge that I put there at the beginning of spring. Wow 3.3 inches of rain in about a 30 minutes. I probably won't have to water the rest of the season if rain events become even slightly more regular.

Some of the pole beans that haven't started climbing yet are laying over in the mud. I don't want to walk into that mud until it dries a bit so I'll wait for some drying on the surface so I can prop up as many of these beans as possible. Hope they don't die in the meantime.

 

[heirloomgal]

Went out to my Bean Acres offsite today behind the deer fence to see what 2.5 inches of rain in about 30 minutes did to my pole beans. I looked at my Rain Gauge that I put there at the beginning of spring. Wow 3.3 inches of rain in about a 30 minutes. I probably won't have to water the rest of the season if rain events become even slightly more regular.

Some of the pole beans that haven't started climbing yet are laying over in the mud. I don't want to walk into that mud until it dries a bit so I'll wait for some drying on the surface so I can prop up as many of these beans as possible. Hope they don't die in the meantime.

Seems like many of us are having plentiful rain this year, that is a lot of water in 30 minutes. I haven't watered my main bean garden yet this summer yet, except for when I put the transplants in and I spot watered with a can. When it rained early this week I had long puddles left in my walking rows that lasted several hours, so that probably got absorbed very deeply into the adjoining beds. It's almost like trench watering. Even now the color of the soil in the slightly raised beds is dark with moisture. It's actually so nice to not have to water so much.

This was last Monday.

Finally figured out a way to outsmart the rabbit, who has been enjoying many of the leaves from these plants.