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

[897tgigvib]

There's no Fort Portal Jade in there.

Flageolet beans are that soft chartreuse green, but the shade they have looks so much like immature beans color, even though fully ripe, that it seems like what flageolet beans do while maturing in their pod is hold their chlorophyl somehow.

Those jade beans have a different deep green that is so cool!

 

[Hal]

Last Year when I sent Hal beans I put "Flower Seeds" on the customs form on his package and they got through, as he has ordered flower seeds from places in Europe and it seems they go through without any problems in Oz. Actually sent two packages to him. I've sent beans to people in Europe last year and put "Beads" on the customs form. People in Europe have been sending me beans without any problems and they even put beans on the form. This is the first time I have ever had a bean package confiscated. I think it would have been nice if they had just sent the package back to Hal. I sent a package to Germany last year, and their customs officers opened the box. Then reclosed the box and sent the package with it's beans inside back to me. I thought that was really very decent of them. Eventually I found a gardener in Germany on Facebook who's local customs people don't open overseas packages. That person was willing to forward the package for me. Like I told Hal. Had it been a different day and the package went through the hands of another customs officer. The package would have probably gone through. No it's not the end of the world. It's just sad to see the seeds wasted away after someone puts in all the effort to growing them.

Just curious. Did the Botanical Explorer send you a sample of the green seeded "Fort Portal Jade"? Never in all my years have I seen a green seeded bean. Can you imagine what kind of cross possibilities that one might make. I can't wait until I get my seed numbers up on this one so I can plant it next to just about everything.

I saw some similar green seeded beans in the CIAT database, they all seemed to be African in origin from Uganda and Burundi mostly.
I wonder how the green color works, maybe it is a combination of colors and might be tricky when it comes to inheritance?

 

[aftermidnight]

I grew 'Fort Portal Jade' a couple of years back, a real cool looking bean. I passed my seed on to Dan Jason at Salt Spring Seeds for their Seed Sanctuary.

By the way Russ, I'm growing a few of 'your' Comtesse de Chambord SSE Bean 226' in a tub this year, good strong healthy plants, all are loaded with flowers except for one which has decided to climb so have given it something to climb on. Were any of yours half runners?
I don't grow too many bush beans, small garden, but always have space for a couple of good ones, Blue Jay is a real winner and is on my grow list again for next year. Do you have the Woods Mountain Crazy Beans (from a gal in Arkansas), fantastic, prolific, tasty bush beans, supposedly a good canner too. My seed stash of this one was getting pretty low so thought I'd better get them in the ground this year. All going well I should have a few seeds to share in the fall .
I'm also growing 3 plants of 'Senegalese Purple Speckled Cowpeas' from Richters, of the 7 seeds only 3 germinated, they're planted out now but I make sure to cover them at night, if it's not slugs or snails, it's the da*m earwigs. Only having 3 plants I didn't want to take a chance.

Annette

 

[aftermidnight]

...I forgot to mention, I bought my 'Fort Portal Jade' seed from Richters a couple of years back http://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=./SeedZoo/seedzoo.html
I hope this is allowed to post here? Rather pricey for a few seeds but they have some interesting stuff. Once they are sold out of something it's gone, gone, gone.

Annette

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Aftermidnight,

You are allowed to post anything here except profanity, but I know you wouldn't do that.

Joesph Simcox-The Botancial Explorer was the fellow who discovered the bean around Fort Portal Uganda several years ago, and named it Fort Portal Jade because of it's color and where he found it growing. The local people simply referred to it as a bean. He arranged the shipment of this bean for Ritchers Seeds. I think after they sold out their quantity. That was it. They had no more of them to sell. I have acquired the bean from a fellow in Europe this past winter and have it growing this summer. I was just curious if Joe had sent the bean to Marshall. If not I'll send some to Marshall in the autumn when I send him some other varieties. It's good to know you have this bean too in case we have trouble with the ones we got.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Aftermidnight,

Interesting about the version of Comtesse de Chambord I sent you. Never have seen this bean climb. No half runner types out of it ever. I was the one who donated the seed to SSE of this bean back in the 80's. I reaquired it this past winter from SSE from my donations list. I don't know if SSE had regrown it since then. I have gotten seed from them that has been in long term storage since the mid 80's and some of it actually grows still. It may very well be that the seed they sent was some of the original seed I sent to them. Sounds like there is a possiblity that this past year in '13 when I grew it I may have grown some F1 hybrid seeds and sent you at least one F2 seed. It will be interesting to see if you get a new seedcoat out this climbing one when you harvest a possible F3 seed from it. You should let a few of the pods on this climbing one or half runner mature their pods and check the seed to see what happens. The CdC BN 226 is rather a nice bean, and I have a few of them growing in my little kitchen garden in my back yard this year. Will be interesting to see if any of those develop runners.

I do not have the Woods Mountain Crazy bean. Is that a bean with multiple seed coat colors?

 

[897tgigvib]

Russ, Joseph did not send me those fort portal Jade beans, but in his letter to me he mentioned that he would be happy to send me more varieties when he is not so busy with his gardens across america project.

Aftermidnight, sounds like you have a climbing outcross among your comtesse de chambord, and I do hope you save seeds from it. As I'm sure you know, that is how new varieties happen with beans. And with you, I am sure they are in the best of hands for selecting from, as I can tell you are knowledgeable and experienced with beans.

I am sure hoping that this fall and winter we can do some trading.

=====

Oh boy I am going to need much more than 700 or so square feet for next year's garden!!! (That is actual raised bed square footage). I may be able to squeeze 125 more square feet in my gardens next year, but beyond that will need more actual room.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I also grew Fort Portal a few years ago. It's not quite as green as the Richter's picture leads one to believe, more of an olivey color. Alas I no longer have it (at least I don't think I do, see below). It produced pods quite readily for me. Only problem it, it also grew incredibly short. And that's why I don't have it anymore it was SO short that the chipmunks literally were able to stand up on their hind legs and one by one pull off and eat every single solitary pod as it got big! So I never got a chance to get seed back.
That being said, I have had experience with some of Joe's other beans he offered through Richter's and have had good results. In particular I got good results from the Bantu bean, which is actually very, very similar to the FPJ differing mostly in seed color. FPJ is green (mostly again see below) Bantu is occasionally the same shade of green, but is more often shades of tan, maroon and purple. I planted those last year (in pots on pedestals this time, to keep the critters off) and was favorably impressed. For a bean that originates only half a degree from the Equator, Bantu is surprisingly cold tolerant, as is the Fort Portal Mixed, which despite the name is not all that similar to FPJ; being more of a kidney bean (and probably not actually mixed). I actually got a decent amount of seed off them (though not quite enough to share at the moment).
Only odd thing concerns the seed colors. While the Bantu that went in were all of those tans and browns, all the seed that came back is the exact same color; bright pink when it came off the plants, lavender-purple when dry. Same thing happened with the Mixed; tans browns and blacks went in, bright purple alone came out. So Fort Portal Mixed may be more accurately describably as Fort Portal Variable in Color".
Actually, there is a tiny chance that there is some FPJ in my stuff as well. When I got my two packets from Ricters a couple of years ago, there were actually two non green seeds in them, one purple, one steel blue. I contacted Ricters to make sure I had gotten the right stuff (between that and the difference in color, I though they might have sent me Bantu by mistake (which I hadn't tried yet, and so had no idea of the appearance of) They confirmed I had gotten the right stuff, but also said they were rouging out any non greens from the packets they still had to make sure no one else got confused (so theoretically somewhere in their offices could be a little pile of Fort Portal Not Jades lying around even now that the stuff is sold out). However I didn't toss out my off type pair. The blue one I misplaced (pity as I have never seen another bean that color either) But I managed to hold onto the purple one and it got planted at the same time as the Bantus. Problem is I also got planted in the same POT as the Bantus, and since they look so similar I have literally NO WAY to know if it was one of the ones that survived or produced. Out of the 30 or so beans planted 9 lived long enough to make one flush of beans (kind of normal for the Joe stuff from Richter's it's getting old and they don't regenerate it) and one of those lived on to make two more flushes before conking out. The long lived ones MIGHT be the FPJ (or since it's purple Fort Portal Amethyst) or one of the bantus, no way to tell.
This year I have Three FPM's still growing (the wind chewed the hell out of them) and I'm trying my hand with another of Joe's beans, the Mottled Grey which, I think Richers still has a tiny amount of (tough germination for thiers currently stands at about 25%, fair warning)

 

[aftermidnight]

I don't have any of the 'Fort Portal Jade' seed left as I sent it all to Dan Jason but here's a picture of a few of the seed I harvested when I grew it a couple of years back. The Richters seed I planted were all the same color as the darker ones in the picture.

Annette

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Yeah, that's pretty close to the color I had as well.

BTW with regards to the varios sizes of the beans in the pic, did those come more or less in phases? It's just the same thing happend to me with the Bantus. All of the beans in the second flush of pods, while fully mature, were only about 1/3 the size of the ones in the first. I though maybe the plant was actully running out of steam (remember, the other 8 were dying at this point, so for all I knew, that was the natrual way of this bean, and the small seeds were a plant going for quantity over size to maximize it's progeny in a last gasp). But the third flush went back to the seed size of the first.