2026 Little Easy Bean Network – Plant A Garden, Water Your Soul, Join Our Family

[Blue-Jay]

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 37​

Monachelle di Norcia - Pole Dry. From a grower in Valpiano, Italy. Not too bad in the productivity department but it didn't set any records. Enought beans to fill 4 - 3 x 4 ziploc baggies. The seed coat pattern reminds me of Hobb's Goose.

Mr. Tung - Pole Green Snap. The snap bean Mr. Tung brought from China in 1906 and grew in the gardens of a well to do family on Victoria Island for 25 years. They hired him to take care of the family's gardens and after his 25 years he retired to his homeland of China. The family conitnued to maintain the bean and obviously must have shared it with others as the bean is still around in North America. I acquired the bean from a grower in Lebanon, Tennessee in 2018. The bean is as productive as Delicous Giant and has produced a nice quality of seed everytime I have grown it. It is also an enjoyable green snap bean to eat.


Monachelle di Norcia - Pole Dry..............................Mr. Tung - Pole Green Snap

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 37​

Mrs. Martin's Heir - Bush Lima. I recieved this bean from my Lima breeding contact in Iowa in 2019. Previously I had never noticed any of his beans being anything but pole types. Perhaps he had it on his seed packet when he sent me this bean marked as a bush but I must have been oblivious to that fact. So I planted it among Phaseolus Vulgaris pole beans this past summer of 2025 and was of course surprised to see it grow as a bush bean. I had emailed him recently to see if he could tell me anything of it's history. He told me that when Former SSE member Tom Knoche passed away in 2018 in Ohio. HIm and Glen Drowns of Sandhill Preservation Center found the bean at the bottom of Tom's freezer when they paid his home a visit. So when I grew this bean this past summer I thought the seed was rather pretty since most bush limas I've seen are the boring whitish slightly tinged green seeds. Mrs Martin's heir did produce one off type a pure white seed that I decided to call Mrs. White. I will always think of this bean as a connection to Tom Knoche who I had known and met at early Seed Savers Exchange campouts in the early 1980's.


Mrs. Martin's Heir - Bush Lima............................Mrs. White - Bush Lima

 

[heirloomgal]

Wow ! It sure looks like Turkey could this bean. The colors on the seed coat are formed in the same pattern and even the slight orange eye ring looks about the same and a little info about the bean too. I have never left the seed of Turkey out long enough at room temperature to see if it does what the description of Sar Taneli Sera says happens to the seed coat colors. That color darkening could take maybe even take up to a year or more. That looks like Guy Dirix's website.

I will have a look at my jar of beans tonight, and see what they look like. I'll post a photo, I grew my seeds in 2023.