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

[ninnymary]

I've enjoyed following you guys on this bean post. I have some soldier beans that are starting to ripen. Do I have to wait until the pod is super dry and crispy? Or can I pick them when the pot is yellow but still kind of soft? I'm a little anxious to pick them so that I can plant something else or a second crop.

Marshall, do you think I could get a second crop of beans up here in my cool weather area?

Mary

 

[897tgigvib]

Mary, think about what the weather 3 and 4 months from when you put the seeds in is like, and how much sun they'll be getting.

I kind of think you probably could plant now.

It really is better to wait until the pod is crispy. But that advanced soft and yellow is ok enough usually. Ok enough to satisfy a curiosity. Germination is usually still good, but only after they dry I find. Early picked bean seeds might have a slight pinching around the edges, or not quite as big as they could be. I sometimes pick a bit early if the pod is laying on the ground where it could get wet.

Bean plants that are grown to seed will often make more flushes of flowering. Depends on the variety and how generally healthy the plants are. You can use your gardening instinct to tell that.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Severe drought here!

I may have to begin watering by the bucket in a few days!

Marshall how do you normally water? Do you have a well at your place where you can water with a hose, or perhaps a big rain barrel. Which of course is not getting filled for you these days. Where are you going to fill your buckets? How far do you have to haul those buckets.

I just got done with my annual mulching job yesterday on my large bean garden. Mulched with grass clippings that I can mow in the area where my big bean garden is located. It took me 11 days. I normally start about 10:30 am and finish around 5 or 6 pm each day. I must have mowed 4 acres of grass with my 21 inch power mower that has a bag on it. I drink about 3 quarters of gallon of water each day working in the sun, and still lose about 5 pounds of water weight. I'm soaked to the skin when I'm finshed with the days work. Of course at the end of the day it's always a pleasure replace the water in my body with more water, decafinated tea, beer and wine coolers. This bean plot also takes about 2 days to thoroughly weed an cultivate before the mulching job commences. The last two days I got the idea of pinning down a large plastic tarp where I'm mowing and load the tarp up with a big pile of grass, and drag the tarp to the garden site and the apply the clippings. I think next year this will speed things up for me. As for now it will keep me from weeding the rest of the summer, and when it comes time to harvest dry seed pods. I won't have to have wet soil clump up on my shoes after a rain. Makes the harvest more pleasant and the health of the plants is greatly increased without bare soil between the rows splashing on the plants during a rain event.

 

[ninnymary]

Wow Bluejay, that's a lot of mowing! Is it possible for you to start earlier around 6:00am so that you can finish before the heat of the day?

Mary

 

[Blue-Jay]

Hi Ninnymary,

Yeah maybe I could get out there around 3am with a miners hard hat with a light on it, and my mower could be the wake up in the morning for the neighbors instead of the rooster crowing. Something new and different for them.

Actually it's not good to start handling and touching the bean plants alot when they are damp with dew to early in the morning. Makes them get diseased. I leave them until they are dried off by the sun after 10:30 in the morning.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Last year I think we had 10 participants in the Little Easy Bean Network. This year 12. I'm going to type a list of the participants below. Let me know if I left out anyone.

Marshall Smyth
Honeycomb
Murphy's Ranch
Journey11
Smart Red
DigitS
Buckabucka
Thistlebloom
SeedObesser
Solucky
Baymule
Ridgerunner

I think it would be nice to have at least around 30 growers in this bean network.

Did I leave you out Ninnymary, and what did you grow from this network?

 

[897tgigvib]

Yesterday our 2 main water tanks ran dry. 4th of July is our biggest week, and this was the most populous one we ever had. (The boat regatta was also bigger and better than ever, a lighted boat parade. You have to see one to believe it.)

Very luckily one of our campers owns a water truck as part of his trucking business. He filled it and brought it up.

I water by a system of hand held hoses. Gravity feed from the main tanks. But we now have the water truck tied in.

Normally our water comes from a spring which fills a very small reservoir. The spring is on Orchid hill about half a mile south of the tanks and 200 feet higher. At the very small reservoir at the spring is an inlet with a screen, attached to abs pipe, half a mile long, that goes to our tanks. The plumbing there is complex but is simplified somewhat with an inlet manifold and an outlet manifold.

The main water tanks hold 10,000 gallons, plus another for fire emergency only, which is of course full and does not count. There is also one other 5,000 gallon emergency use tank which we had dipped into via a sump pump.

Campers need water for the bathrooms, and many also have personal 55 to 200 gallon personal use tanks at their camps which are filled by spigot systems that run from the main tanks' exit manifold from 2 main lines.

=====

This year my garden is mulched with the white plastic. I did add clay soil and puffed silicon absorbent to my garden soil.

I've been ration watering my garden carefully, this year using less than 1 half the water of other years, actually more like a third.

So far I've lost about 6 plants.

Looks like 2 NICKELL half runners, 2 of the YELLOW BIRD. The third Yellow Bird is doing fine, WHEW!

The BIZANA African first planting group of 3 are giving me a good first flush, have not yet bit the dust, but look like they will not make it to flowering for a second flush. There are 2 more of them in another section that look good.

Thank goodness I spread the varieties by planting them twice.

A couple or 3 of the Pole varieties so far have each lost one of 4 plants.

=====

Backup plan involves the hard work of filling my 10 cubic foot lawn tractor's trailer with water from the lake, driving it to my garden, and watering by the bucket. THAT would be a ton of work.

 

[ninnymary]

Bluejay, I said to possibly start mowing around 6:00am not 3:00am for heavens sake! Ha If your mowing, does that disturb the beans. You mentioned it's not good to handle beans while they still have dew on them but I'm talking about mowing not touching the beans.

No, I didn't participate in the bean network. I only have room for about 6 plants that I squeese in my perennial bed. I planted some soldier beans that I got from Digit's and I can't wait for my preschoolers to open them and see them. Maybe next year I can participate. That is if one can participate with only 6 bean plants. But I sure wouldn't want you to trust me with anything semi valuable!

Mary

 

[Hal]

Yesterday our 2 main water tanks ran dry. 4th of July is our biggest week, and this was the most populous one we ever had. (The boat regatta was also bigger and better than ever, a lighted boat parade. You have to see one to believe it.)

Very luckily one of our campers owns a water truck as part of his trucking business. He filled it and brought it up.

I water by a system of hand held hoses. Gravity feed from the main tanks. But we now have the water truck tied in.

Normally our water comes from a spring which fills a very small reservoir. The spring is on Orchid hill about half a mile south of the tanks and 200 feet higher. At the very small reservoir at the spring is an inlet with a screen, attached to abs pipe, half a mile long, that goes to our tanks. The plumbing there is complex but is simplified somewhat with an inlet manifold and an outlet manifold.

The main water tanks hold 10,000 gallons, plus another for fire emergency only, which is of course full and does not count. There is also one other 5,000 gallon emergency use tank which we had dipped into via a sump pump.

Campers need water for the bathrooms, and many also have personal 55 to 200 gallon personal use tanks at their camps which are filled by spigot systems that run from the main tanks' exit manifold from 2 main lines.

=====

This year my garden is mulched with the white plastic. I did add clay soil and puffed silicon absorbent to my garden soil.

I've been ration watering my garden carefully, this year using less than 1 half the water of other years, actually more like a third.

So far I've lost about 6 plants.

Looks like 2 NICKELL half runners, 2 of the YELLOW BIRD. The third Yellow Bird is doing fine, WHEW!

The BIZANA African first planting group of 3 are giving me a good first flush, have not yet bit the dust, but look like they will not make it to flowering for a second flush. There are 2 more of them in another section that look good.

Thank goodness I spread the varieties by planting them twice.

A couple or 3 of the Pole varieties so far have each lost one of 4 plants.

=====

Backup plan involves the hard work of filling my 10 cubic foot lawn tractor's trailer with water from the lake, driving it to my garden, and watering by the bucket. THAT would be a ton of work.

Mother nature is helping you select for drought hardiness.
What time are you doing your watering Marshall?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Marshall, one trick I've used to cut the labor of bucket watering is to set up a 55 gallon drum near where I am watering and run a hose to that. it's a lot easier to fill the bucket right there instead of carrying it for a long distance. The other big advantage of filling the the 55 gallon drum instead of filling the bucket from the hose is time. You don't have to stand and wait while the bucket fills up. Just dip it in the drum and go. The hose will be refilling the drum while you are watering.

Knowing how they ration water out there, is it possible to set up a pump in the lake and run a hose to where your beds are? That may not be legal but lake water should be real good on those beans.