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

[Blue-Jay]

yes, @Blue-Jay i have seen some of those variations. i'm not growing out VBE that often any more though now but if i see that color/pattern come up i'll save them for you.

I think from now on I will grow only the pink one with the red eye patch. That's the one I would really like to have stabllize.

 

[Artorius]

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 49​

Tres Hatif De Massey - Bush Snap (Photo Right) This is a French snap bean. Nice flavor and stringless. William Woys Weaver set me out to find this one. I obtained it from my European contacts and I believe they acquired it from IPK the German seed bank. I sent some to Will and he wrote back and told me that it is not correct that Tres is a white seeded bean. Maybe I should give that bean some sort of name and leave it go at that. Will says he knows German and is going to look into the IPK website and try to figure out what is the correct name of this bean.

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@Blue-Jay, these seeds look exactly like Fin de Villeneuve, the second variety you received from IPK Gatersleben.

With your permission, I kept five seeds each of Tres Hatif de Massy and Fin de Villeneuve as network beans. Last year, I sowed three seeds of each and kept two as a reserve. The seeds I harvested in the fall matched those I sowed. The Tres Hatif de Massy were white. This year I will have more plants and I hope that in the fall I will have 60 nice seeds of both varieties for you.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Blue-Jay, these seeds look exactly like Fin de Villeneuve, the second variety you received from IPK Gatersleben.

With your permission, I kept five seeds each of Tres Hatif de Massy and Fin de Villeneuve as network beans. Last year, I sowed three seeds of each and kept two as a reserve. The seeds I harvested in the fall matched those I sowed. The Tres Hatif de Massy were white. This year I will have more plants and I hope that in the fall I will have 60 nice seeds of both varieties for you.

I can't remember who supplied the beans to me from IPK and did I somehow get the names of the blue one and the white one reversed? Set me straight did I rerverse the names? I think I planted some of the white ones as a pole bean and none of that seed germinated. I thought the bluish seeds did very well considering I had them planted in an area where the hours of direct sunlight was quite low. The bluish seeds made a nice stringless snap bean.

The bluish looking seeds grew as a bush bean. I harvest probably over 300 seeds of the blue bean.

Atrorious I certainly didn't mind that you kept a few seeds. To start with they were not eventually going to be for me. I was going to do a grow out for the food author William Woys Weaver in Devon, Pennsylvania who asked me to find him a number of beans he lost in his seed collection. However if I could know more of these beans history I might also include them in my collection and grow them more.

 

[Artorius]

@Blue-Jay I'm not suggesting anything. I sent you these seeds, and Guy Dirix ordered them earlier from IPK Gatersleben. Perhaps I made a mistake when repackaging the seeds before shipping them to Linden. If that happened, I will be able to fix it in the fall. I didn't have any Tres Hatif de Massy outcrosses last year.

 

[Rillowen]

Hello Everyone !

Here we are now in 2026 beginning our 14th year in this Network. At some point in time it felt like a family to me and I’m sure to many of you as well. Helping each other by posting our collective knowledge has been an amazing thing for me to enjoy, learn and observe as I will soon begin my 80th summer in this world. From the thrill and enjoyment of my first garden of radishes at the age of 3 in 1949, to my high school gardens in the 1960’s to the amazing discovery of John Withee’s Wanigan Associates bean network in 1978. I take great enjoyment in the discovery of new bean varieties nearly each year and seeing the coming of new members to our family of bean growers, lovers and enthusiasts. Yes plant a garden and water your soul with the discovery of all the knowledge, beauty and love that is here.

For all the details on how the Network functions. Go to my website www.abeancollectorswindow.com and click on the link Network near the top of the page.

So below is a list of what I call priority beans that need a grow out more than any others listed on my website on all the Network pages Net 1- Net 11.


Priority List 2026

Awasoh’s Bear -- Pole From the 2022 Appalachina Seedswap
Barksdale -- Pole Snap – From Annette Barley of Nanimo, BC
Beurre Dore -- Bush Snap - Green, Yellow pods ?
Bobis d’ Albengo -- Bush purple podded snap bean
Brown Eyed Bobby -- Bush Snap – Only One Sample
Ferrat -- Bush? Maybe snap bean from UK
Flynn -- Pole Dry
Gorema -- Pole Dry Bean from Tennessee
Grand Mere -- Pole Snap
Hobb’s Goose -- Pole Dry traces back to the early 1800’s in Lee County Virginia in the Appalachian
Mountains
Joe Bean -- Pole
King City Pink -- Bush
Krupke -- Pole
Lucy Cantrell -- Pole Snap Stringless
Njano -- Growth Habit Unknown
Purgatorio -- Pole Snap Italian Origin
Robert Hazelwood -- Pole Half Runner
Striped Double Hull -- Pole

Hello! I'm absolutely new to growing beans. I am interested in trying this though, and I have a decent amount of space to work with. I am already planning on growing scarlet red runner beans and rattle snake pole beans, but the idea of helping some that need to be grown is very fun. As a bonus I homeschool and woild love to teach our kids anout this.
I need some basic teaching though.

How far away should varieties be planted to keep from crossing? Or should I only grow 1 cultivars a year??
How do I know which ones are safe to eat green (low enough in lecithin) does the "snap" name denote that? Do "bush" beans still need support?
There is probably more i need to know, I just dont know to ask it! Teach me your ways!

 

[Million Bells]

Woot! Last frost was this morning! All last week it was in the 80s and 90s (Fahrenheit), today it dipped below freezing. But the forecast is smooth sailing for the rest of the month, so I can start planting early this weekend!

I've already been harvesting dandelion greens and garlic greens. Lost all my tender perennial herbs to a sub-zero (Faherenheit) cold snap and very icy snow storm in January, so I'll have to buy more.

*spring planting happy dance*

 

[oxbow farm]

How far away should varieties be planted to keep from crossing? Or should I only grow 1 cultivars a year??
How do I know which ones are safe to eat green (low enough in lecithin) does the "snap" name denote that?

Frequency of crossing depends on how large your wild pollinator populations are. If you have very healthy populations of wild solitary bees you will likely see some crosses between different bean varieties. If you live in an area with lots of agricultural spraying etc, then likely you only need to separate beans enough to keep them from physically mixing. If you have lots of wild bees (sweat bees, bumblebees, mason bees etc.) Then you need 50 feet or more between varieties. But crosses aren't that big of a deal imo.

AFAIK all beans are SAFE to eat green. Lecithin is not an issue with any cultivated beans, the issue is mainly if the variety has been bred/selected for low fiber in the pods, otherwise they are very quickly too fibrous to be edible. I don't think lecithin is a thing you need to worry about.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Blue-Jay I'm not suggesting anything. I sent you these seeds, and Guy Dirix ordered them earlier from IPK Gatersleben. Perhaps I made a mistake when repackaging the seeds before shipping them to Linden. If that happened, I will be able to fix it in the fall. I didn't have any Tres Hatif de Massy outcrosses last year.

I had both the white seed and the bluish seed you sent. I planted the Blue seed as Tres Hatif De Massey and the white seed and Fine de Villenuve. I'm just wondering If I switched the names. So when I sent the seed to William Woys Weaver and he saw that I had the bluish seed marked as Tres Hatif De Massey he was very confused. Actually the white seed did not grow for me. So when you send me seed in the autumn of this year are they going to be the same seed with the names reversed opposite of what I thought they were. That is all I'm trying to figure out. I might have the correct seed just maybe
I am using the wrong name on each one.

 

[Blue-Jay]

@Rillowen In regards to crosses. I only plant my stringless bush snap beans only with other stringless bush snap beans. No pole beans in the mix and no dry beans of any sort in the mix. No semi runner beans in the mix. I do the same for stringless pole snap beans. No pole dry beans in the mix. No bush or semi runner beans of any sort. Pole dry beans are planted only with other pole dry beans. You can also grow a row of flowers on either side of a row of beans. Guy Dirix in Belgium has said he has done that and has hardly ever seen beans crossing.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Russ's 2025 Big Bean Show Day 51​

White Robin - Semi Runner ( first photo left) An original named bean by Robert Lobitz realeased through the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook around 1999. This years grow produced an off type with the same shade of color around the eye as Serenity just a shorter fatter seed.

White Robin Off Type (second photo right) Probably a semi runner like the seed mother White Robin.

Super Bean - Pole (third photo left) came from White Robin in 2014

Serenity - Semi Runner (fourth photo right) came from Super Bean in 2020.

White Robin is mother and grandmother to light eyed beans.