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

[Smart Red]

So, I have two 'volunteer' bean plants that survived our extremely cold winter and self-seeded. I allowed them to grow. The one I have harvested is Kentucky Wonder Wax. What a fantastic harvest from one lonely plant. The second is still in the green bean stage and was growing in an area where I opened my beans rather than where I had planted them so I don't have a clue as to what kind they are other than a pole variety -- may even be another KWW for all I know right now.

Is the fact that these survived the cold and self-sowed make them special for my area? Could I look forward to fall sowing for the earliest of harvest next spring? Or will beans usually survive the winter in zone 4-5?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Got it, Bluejay. Oh well, guess it's a guilt I'll have to bear.

 

[Blue-Jay]

So, I have two 'volunteer' bean plants that survived our extremely cold winter and self-seeded. I allowed them to grow. The one I have harvested is Kentucky Wonder Wax. What a fantastic harvest from one lonely plant. The second is still in the green bean stage and was growing in an area where I opened my beans rather than where I had planted them so I don't have a clue as to what kind they are other than a pole variety -- may even be another KWW for all I know right now.

Is the fact that these survived the cold and self-sowed make them special for my area? Could I look forward to fall sowing for the earliest of harvest next spring? Or will beans usually survive the winter in zone 4-5?

It's not the freezing cold that harms bean seed. You could freeze bean seed down to hundreds of degrees below zero and they will be fine. It's the period of when the seeds are subjected to moisture in the fall when it's too cold for the seed to start it's life processes and grow but moist enough for the process of decay to set in. Then the seed goes through another period like that again in the spring when things are slowly warming up. How some of these seeds survive this is beyond me.

I planted a bit too early this year and about 10 to 20 percent of my seed just rotted. It varied with particular rows, but then I had 14 volunteer beans that survive those two periods of moist and cold that would easily have rotted most bean seeds.

I think you would have to save seed of your particular KWW that survived all these changes in temperature and moisture and plant them perhaps in October and see if grow and come up in the spring next year. This particular KWW plant might have some of those attributes that it can pass on that allow it's seed to survive enviornments that other beans can't handle.

 

[897tgigvib]

Above is a photo taken a few minutes ago of the PURPLE HULL PINK EYE TOP PICK COWPEA, doing it's second crop.

The date in these photos is wrong. Just forgot to set the camera. Photos are taken today, a few minutes ago.

Above is a photo taken 20 minutes ago of 3 BIRD EGG plants, flowering now and making small pods. Came into its own after others were done and gone. Should be season enough for a decent seed crop.

Above is a Hanna Hank pod developing. This one got a bit warped by the fencing. This pod is not even a quarter of the size of the biggest one. Hanna Hank's pods can probably be the most massive vulgaris pods of all. Certainly in the running.

Above is a pod of Black Turkey. One plant made it! WHEW! There for a while I thought I lost all the Black Turkey plants. This plant snapped out of what I thought was a moribund/grave condition! Survivor! Pretty pods!

One of the EVENING MOON old outcross plants was very late to flower. This is the one, a moderate sized, strong sprawling determinate bush, and these are most definitely WAX pods, slowly developing, still firm to the touch, no hollowness. They appear to be shaped like many dry seed varieties, but also have the ripening ways of a snap/wax. The Stevenson's did this in a similar way with one plant. Too late to photo those though. Oh, the Evening Moon plant that made the gloss black seeds is still kicking and may well give me a few late pods.

I sure hope I did these images right, and this post clicks in!

 

[897tgigvib]

Wall, thought I'd add a photo of a Chardonnay cluster I took while taking these, and, let me add some TUNES!

http://player.liquidcompass.net/KSXYHD2#

 

[Smart Red]

Glad you mentioned that the camera was off. Here I was thinking I'd somehow missed Halloween.

 

[897tgigvib]

The plants of this outcross of African Premiere each made different seeds. One weak plant made one pod only with black seeds before the heat and drought got it. A good plant made the same cranberry colored seeds, another made seeds with faint markings.

 

[Hal]

View attachment 4330

The plants of this outcross of African Premiere each made different seeds. One weak plant made one pod only with black seeds before the heat and drought got it. A good plant made the same cranberry colored seeds, another made seeds with faint markings.

That dark eye around the hilum is beautiful.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Looks a lot like the seed I was getting in our heat and drought in 2012. Some seeds fill out nice, some look shriveled, and you get seed of various sizes. The plants really have a hard time when it's so hot and dry. It's amazing they do as well as they do. It would be nice to see you get some good rain Marshall. We all need to do rain dances for you.

I also thought the red seed with black eye ring was rather pretty. I didn't grow that one this year. I grew the one the looked similar to African Premier but the seed was glossy. I think the seed was a bit longer and more kidney shaped that I grew this year rather than the shorter plump seed like African Premier.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

That hilum ring actually seems a pretty common trait in African beans. FPJ, Bantu, MG and FPM/AV all have it, though in the case of FPJ/AV and the part of MG that aren't mottled, the ring is cryptic and only visible if the beans are harvested underripe (sort of like my "black" black eyed peas.). In fact, it was the presence of the ring that led me to determine that the mustard colored seed that showed up in my original bantu sample WAS a bantu or relative, rather than a stray Bellaluna that had gotten into the wrong packet back at Ricter's.