I'm in the midst of having the most nightmarish experience with a Sandhill Preservation order for beans seeds. I don't think I'll do this again. And it is so hard to get a hold of them through e-mail. Thus far, almost nothing has worked out and tonight I found out the tracking number they sent me for my parcel is invalid. It's going from already bad to worse. I think I'll have to call them on the phone. My gosh what a headache.
I had ordered some of Curt Burroughs limas from Sandhill only when I couldn't get them from Curt anymore. Curt is the Iowa lima breeder who really isn't active with his lima beans anymore. Curt has told me he gave Glen Drowns of Sandhill a sample of his beautiful limas. Glen lost every one of them to rabbits. I think Curt told me that Glen lost everything he got out of Tom Knoche's freezer too. You would think at some point Glen would have done something about pest control. I have definitely gotten the idea the Glen is sloppy and just doesn't put in the effort to do a professional job of what he grows. I don't order anything from him anymore.
Pale Grey Lavender - Pole Dry. I got this bean from Guy Dirix in 2018 and it's been a favorite of mine since. Sometimes it does well and sometimes not. I think it's the season or the soil. This past summer I planted a 16 foot row of the bean in one of my offsites and I got a little over 4 pounds of beans (1927 g). Some years it's a highly requested bean. It's one of my gray beauties.
Pandora - Bush Dry. I don't know if the bean is totally stable. It takes after one of my orignal beans Pawnee except Pandora is not dependant on soil or weather for it's seed coat color and pattern is constant where ever it's planted.
Pale Grey Lavender.........................................................Pandora
Piatella - Pole Dry - This bean came to me from Joseph Simcox in 2015. A beautiful flattened dry bean. It has a long history in Italian cuisine. Very productive. This past summer 7 plants produced just under 2 pounds of beans (850 G).
Peinsipps Zwefarbage - Pole Dry. From my Austrian bean friend in 2013. I've seen good producing years with this bean and bad ones. This past year was another poor year. Soil was a bit too hard and dry for the bean but it did produce some nice quality seed. I think that was amazing for what the plants put up with.
I had ordered some of Curt Burroughs limas from Sandhill only when I couldn't get them from Curt anymore. Curt is the Iowa lima breeder who really isn't active with his lima beans anymore. Curt has told me he gave Glen Drowns of Sandhill a sample of his beautiful limas. Glen lost every one of them to rabbits. I think Curt told me that Glen lost everything he got out of Tom Knoche's freezer too. You would think at some point Glen would have done something about pest control. I have definitely gotten the idea the Glen is sloppy and just doesn't put in the effort to do a professional job of what he grows. I don't order anything from him anymore.
This is very interesting. I tried to call them on the phone today too, and it won't connect. No ring or sound on the other end. It's seldom I call the US so I don't know if it might be an issue with my long distance provider, but I called Bill Minkey a week ago and reached him no problem, and I think they're both in Calamus. I don't really know what to do at this point, aside from wait and hope they return my email.
ETA: Good news. They contacted me in email this evening. The tracking number they sent was incorrect, and they gave me the correct one. What a relief. I put quite a bit of dough on that parcel and I was having visions of everything evaporating into thin air.
Pawnee - Bush Dry - This is one of my original beans from the early 1980's I discovered it in solid brown seed bush bean called Brown Kidney, Pawnee needs to be either grown in soil with lots of organic matter or just the right soil for it to display itself at it's best. To me it's best is with more white on the bean. On the right is Pawnee grown in 2025 and on the left Pawnee grown in a different soil in 2014. Both soil types are here in the county where I live. Same bean differnt soil.
Piros Feher - Semi Runner. It's a Hugarian bean that I purchase from Heritage Harvest seeds in Canada in 2011. Those were the days when the company was still willing to ship beans to the U.S. It usually produces fairly well. It did produced ok this past summer. I don't get a lot of requests for the bean and the 2025 crop will last quite a few years.
Pinktip Greasy - Pole Greasy. This bean is very productive. Greasy beans do not have the very fine white hairs or fuzz on the pods. Some greasy bean pods look very glossy. As the beans in the pod matures the spur on the end of the pod turns pink. An Appalachian bean that originates in the Bethel area of Haywood county North Carolina.
Piros Feher - Semi Runner.....................................Pinktip Greasy
Pistrick 198B - Pole Dry. This beautiful two-toned bean—white and yellow was brought back from a Romanian village by Dr. Klaus Pistrick a curator at the renowned IPK genebank in Gatersleben, Germany during an expedition. Late maturing but said to be very productive. The struggled in my 2025 garden. Perhaps soil or weather isssues.
Polka Dot - Bush Dry. This bean had been traded a lot among Seed Savers Exchange members in the early 1980's. I had also grown it then. I acquired this bean through John Withees Wanigan Bean Network in Lynnfield, Massachusetts in 1978. The bean was bred by John Raymond Hepler, horticultural professor and plant breeder at the Univesity of New Hampshire in the 1940's. Hepler's 12 year old son sold the bean in his seed company that he started around 1950.
