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

[flowerbug]

as i'm weeding today i'm finding bean plants that look like pencils covered by the purslane. they were chewed off by rabbits or groundhogs and they left enough stem that the stem survived but they have no leaves and haven't grown at all other than sitting there since whenever they were chewed off.

 

[Blue-Jay]

One other thing I failed to mention to you or @Neem5MI, is that the pods seem to have a papery husk similar to onion skin on the inside. Something I'd never encountered before but sure did make shelling the dry seed a bit messy

All beans have that inner white membrane inside the pods. I think that is to help the growing pod maintain moisture while the seeds are developing. When the pods become dry some varieties the white membrane breaks up easily and it flys all over during shelling. Some varieties the membrane stays intact very well and doesn't come lose. Those are what I call clean shelling pods.

 

[heirloomgal]

It's an interesting year because I'm doing a 2nd grow out of several bean varieties I grew last year. I don't often do back to back grow outs like that. I had made assumptions about how they grew because 2024 was not a good bean year on the whole (compared to more ideal years) but I can see now that not all my conclusions were right.

Robert Hazelwood is a VERY early bean, my goodness it may just be the earliest semi-runner I've ever grown. It already has a lot of advanced pods on the plant, and the plants are lovely this time. I assumed it was quick to produce last year because of stress but that is only somewhat true. It just produces very early, and it's a low semi-runner too. And network bean Zambezi #2 is growing much like it did last year, like a low semi-runner. I think it may not be a pole @Blue-Jay. Network bean Botosani Cyclops though is definitely a pole, and is growing as such. Last year it barely climbed, but this year it's doing much better. My Polish 'Aura' beans though, despite what the lady who sent them to me said, are not bushes - they're climbing!! And climbing tall too, gosh I don't like those kinds of surprises!!

Despite a very tumultuous start to the year with pests, things are all growing so nicely now. Wonderful to see all the beans growing so high!

 

[Decoy1]

Robert Hazelwood is a VERY early bean, my goodness it may just be the earliest semi-runner I've ever grown. It already has a lot of advanced pods on the plant, and the plants are lovely this time. I assumed it was quick to produce last year because of stress but that is only somewhat true. It just produces very early, and it's a low semi-runner too

It is my experience too that it’s very early. It’s a favourite with me. I love its cheerful earliness and also very much like its lovely frosted seeds.

 

[Branching Out]

An early sowing of Sunshine (yellow pole snap bean) that is growing in a hot, dry spot under the overhand of our neighbour's cherry tree has started to dry down. I intended this primarily as a seed crop, and it looks like a bumper year. The cattle panel that they're growing up is leaning a bit, which makes it really easy to see the pods. My Orca dry bush beans are drying as well; that one has been early for me in the past too.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I think I'm having a rather odd bean year. Early part of the season was dry and I watered. We have gotten more rain lately and I have not watered in about two weeks. However I planted in my backyard 8 varieties of snap beans early in June. Usually those snap pods a pickable by the 7th or 8th of July. Almost all the plants are blooming heavily but the the pods in some of the blooms that have bloomed already are just barley beginning to show tiny little green slivers. One of my bush snap beans Medal Refugee hasn't even begun blooming yet.

 

[heirloomgal]

It is my experience too that it’s very early. It’s a favourite with me. I love its cheerful earliness and also very much like its lovely frosted seeds.

Have you ever tried eating them as green beans @Decoy1? If I had planted more I would try them, but given how few plants I put in I feel like I shouldn't eat any, lol.

 

[heirloomgal]

I think I'm having a rather odd bean year. Early part of the season was dry and I watered. We have gotten more rain lately and I have not watered in about two weeks. However I planted in my backyard 8 varieties of snap beans early in June. Usually those snap pods a pickable by the 7th or 8th of July. Almost all the plants are blooming heavily but the the pods in some of the blooms that have bloomed already are just barley beginning to show tiny little green slivers. One of my bush snap beans Medal Refugee hasn't even begun blooming yet.

Some of my bush beans are also oddly slow to make pods this year too. Not all of them, but a fair few. My Babcia Aniela bush beans haven't even flowered yet.

 

[heirloomgal]

An early sowing of Sunshine (yellow pole snap bean) that is growing in a hot, dry spot under the overhand of our neighbour's cherry tree has started to dry down. I intended this primarily as a seed crop, and it looks like a bumper year. The cattle panel that they're growing up is leaning a bit, which makes it really easy to see the pods. My Orca dry bush beans are drying as well; that one has been early for me in the past too.

Wonderful pod set @Branching Out!

 

[flowerbug]

it's been such a crazy year here that i've not hardly even looked for the first harvest of fresh beans. i'll try to remind myself to get around to it this weekend somehow.

i did eat one green bean off a plant today and it was ok but not from a known or named variety. i think it might be a cross from the Yellow Eyes that was growing up the fence last year as it is not growing in a planted row but in the middle of a pathway. the seed coat pattern was definitely Yellow Eye so to have an edible version of that for fresh eating would be good but i'm not sure how many of those seeds i will get back. i have some seeds of that set aside from last year. i'm not hoping for pole beans though so if i grow it they will not be a main planting just a few here or there to cross with other plants...