The 2014 Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans On The Cheap

[Blue-Jay]

Hey Everyone,

We have a new Beaniac from Canada. She is also a member of Seeds Of Diversity Canada. I talked her into coming on board with us. Her screen name is Aftermidnight. Let's all put on our cleanest dirty gardening clothes and give her a big welcome.

Hey Aftermidnight. This welcome goes out to you too from me. Hope you will be with us often and forever.

Blue Jay

 

[baymule]

@aftermidnight you might have to send out bean seeds like @Bluejay77 does. We will be happy to help you grow out your seeds and keep them viable. It is a fun project for me. I have a VERY small garden and have to find room for the beans, but it makes me feel like I am helping to keep part of our human food history alive and growing.

 

[PhilaGardener]

Welcome, Annette! Looks like a great collection that you have!

 

[digitS']

I can make a somewhat sketchy report and have a question. The beans from Russ are just starting to come up. Venda amounts to only a few plants and they look weak. It may be just small seeds getting started and nothing for me to be concerned about.

The Green Kidney and Purple King, however, there is no sign of them! It's early and they may just be slow.

I have grown Purple "Queen" and that made me wonder if this variety may be similar. Here is what I came up with for the "King": (LINK)

If this is the variety I'm gonna breath 50% more easy! I'm not an "official beaniac" but some of what I got from Russ looks like I better mention them in prayer every night!

Oh, and the rabbit is back. The neighbor flushed him out of his raspberries a couple of days ago and I went through those raspberries early this morning and he high-tailed it outta there again!

The beans are not very near the raspberries and I will continue to make hanging around in the bramble patch difficult for him. Nothing has touched the beans yet and my pole beans, in a vulnerable corner, haven't been touched, either.

Now, about those Purple Kings . . .

Steve

 

[aftermidnight]

Thanks for the warm welcomes, although I'm not in Russ' grow out as most of you are I do have a couple of beans from his collection, one I'm growing this year, two are slated for next year. Russ has some very interesting beans in his collection, OH, if I only had acreage LOL.
In the fall after I've harvested my seed I'll come back and list what I can share, the more people growing these varieties the less chance of them disappearing. I hesitate to share other beans in my collection until I have grown them out, one I got in trade a couple of years back "Soissons Vert", when I planted them this year they turned out to have a virus so I turfed them.
We were searching for "BABY Fordhook Lima Beans" awhile back, they seem to have fallen off the face of the earth. By any chance is anyone growing this one? Russ helped me find "Selma Star" one that Seeds of Diversity have listed as extinct, I'm happy to say that at least 3 people up here beside myself are growing them now.

Annette

 

[journey11]

I'm 3 for 3 on the Molley's Zebra now! Still waiting on the Star 2054's, but I do have plenty extra of them for backup.

 

[aftermidnight]

Forgot to add to my list of what I'm growing this year, trying for the first time...

Aeron Purple Star... a purple podded runner bean bred by a fellow in Wales. They germinated in just a couple of days, good strong healthy seedlings, now planted out. I'm really looking forward to growing this one, tender and stringless. I grew up eating runner beans, in fact back then they were the only beans my family grew, oh how times have changed.

Senegalese Purple Cow Pea... bought these from Richters a couple of years back, I just put them to germinate in damp paper towel in a plastic sandwich box. I don't know if they are bush or pole, time will tell.

Annette

 

[Ridgerunner]

I had total failure on my Cape Sugar #3. The first three I planted failed to sprout. I tried to help the last three in a warmed open Ziploc and moist paper towel but nothing there either. The other four varieties I have are looking good but this is a bummer.

Russ, they were a sort of ivory color with a dark brown spot. If they were supposed to be white with brown, I'd call them dark.

 

[Blue-Jay]

The website for the Purple King was an Italian one. The package said Nano Purple King. Nano means dwarf. People overseas often refer to bush beans as dwarf types. So this site is showing a bush type prurple poded bean. I the Purple Queen I sent out might have been a pole bean. So not the same bean. That's what I would say.

Everyone is doing such a great job with all the beans. Thanks, My hat is off to you all. Like I've said before it is possible we are gonna find a small number of varieties that might not grow. Seed looked a little dark on some inidicating that the seed could already have had some years on it.

Hey Aftermidnight,

The purple poded runner bean sounds amazing. Is the seed large like other runner beans. I'm curious what the color of the seeds are. I've noticed most purple podded beans tend to have a light tan colored seed. I've never seen any fancy colors or patterned seed on purple podded beans. This Welch fellow must have crossed the runner bean with a purple podded Phaseolus Vulgaris bean. It is something that is probably not easy to do.

 

[aftermidnight]

Russ, the seed looks like a lot of other runner bean seed, mauve with black speckles although I think the mauve might be a little darker in color, it's from a 'Polestar' cross. I'll email you the information on it and a picture of the seed, not good at posting pictures. I can share seed once I have enough, the only stipulation is he doesn't want it sold commercially, passing it along to gardening friends is O.K.