The Little Easy Bean Network - Get New Beans Varieties Nearly Free

[Hal]

Hal, I agree that preservation of all vegetable varieties is important; to our future and the ecosystems. I hope to get into heirloom preservation some day, so it all brings me one baby step closer to my goal. My 25 include runners and one garbanzo variety along with common beans. Can't wait until Bluejay puts pictures of your Australian varieties on his website, I'm excited to see them!

BJ, my guess is if there are anything to the beans at all, that they'll still be viable. Just not as vigorous as they would be harvested fully mature.
For some drought tolerant varieties try Native Seed/SEARCH. They have many heirloom Mexican/South Western bean varieties that were traditionally dry farmed and so can take the abuse that your climate can throw at them.

One of my favourite Australian varieties I sent to Bluejay was Anderson's Wonder. It is a green podded snap bean with large kidney shaped seeds that dry to aubergine purple. It used to have a yellow version but that seems to be long extinct.
I sent him an odd mix with mostly Australian varieties but a few from else where, when my growing season is done I should be able to pass on many more as I already had my seed in the ground for the growing season here.
I am interested to see how the seed coat colors turn out in that amazing dark soil of his and to see who adopts any of them in the future.
At 25 beans your already doing some preservation, more than most people do just for beans.

 

[Blue-Jay]

I thought this would be fun to put up some photos for those who like interesting seedcoat colors in beans
Just a little something to keep you dreaming of new colors and patterns. This one above is a lima. Reminds
me of a Zebra.

Another colorful lima. Pehaps Hal has seen these beans before. Can you believe this bean is for real?

I have no idea the name of this bean. Oh how lovely this one is. Kind of beats the heck out of the
beans you find on the seed rack in your hardware store in the spring !

I have never seen a bean with such bright neon green coloring like this one. I think the quickest way
to get these beans is to copy the photo, warm up your brush, and paint them yourself.

(Edited for spelling errors)

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

I pulled my eyes out and wiped them of after my first look at those "Zebra" limas!

And the first P. Vulgaris bean down, pretty as a picture! If I was royalty I'd have a crown with beans! No joking, I don't need any jewels.

Are these from the group from South Africa?

 

[bobm]

Are you sure that those are not grubs ???

 

[Blue-Jay]

I found these on the CIAT website. I think the beans are part of Columbia's seed collections. I agree. With beans like these you don't need jewels. The beans are far more precious to me than jewels and gems could ever be.

 

[897tgigvib]

OH

MY

GAWD

RUSS!

My kingdom for 3 seeds of each of those varieties!

What would John Withee say about the internet making it possible to show and collect such unheard of and only imagined beans?

Living jewels! And practically anybody can grow them!

 

[bj taylor]

what incredible beauties. my first year has been less than stellar. today, I pulled my big pile of pole beans out from the barn where they have been for a month. I had to pull the vines because of a freeze that came in. I've been waiting for them to dry, but I pulled the pods off today because a hard, long cold spell is coming starting tomorrow (I understand "hard, long cold spell" is a relative phrase ). some of the pods are still not dry enough, so they're laid out on the dining table now on wire racks. I'm just trying to get enough out of this first foray into bean raising to send bluejay his beans & have some to plant next year. next year I WILL DO BETTER!

 

[897tgigvib]

On thinking about those amazing, unique, and absolutely stunning beans, and of course there are others, seems to me that if they really really wanted those to be increased, they would be selling packets of just like 5 seeds to the packet to collectors, seed companies, and seed savers.

We know that good increases usually happen, but let's say each seed only produces 20 seeds. Let's say 80% germination. In one year 5 seeds becomes 80. At those rates, they multiply by 16.

Year after that is 80 seeds planted. 80 x 16 = 1,280

Let's say in other words, 5 seeds received march 2014. By October 2014 the 5 seeds turned into 80. 80 seeds planted march 2015 by october 2015 they have increased to 1,280 seeds.

Let's say the collector continues to plant 20 seeds every few years thereafter to add to his or her stock for fresh seed, but continues the tradition of trading out plenty of packets to get others started going on the increase.

Soon, small 3rd world farmers are growing these beautiful beans; varieties like DALMATIAN, DAPPLE GREY, These you just posted, TARAHUMARA PURPLE OJOS... And these small farmers then sell their crops to tourists, some of whom then grow them.

=====

This coming year Russ, I'm going to LITTLE EASY BEAN NETWORK just about every bush bean you offer, and if need be, I'll only put in 5 plants of each variety, well spaced and beasty protected. Only ones I won't need will be the ones I already have.

Getting jazzed up for next year's bean planting. Can you tell?

 

[Hal]

Oh I sure have seen the beans CIAT have! They have bean germplasm from world wide with the main focus seeming to be South America and Africa.
I have been drooling over that green and black lima for months and the white, yellow and black vulgaris you linked as well.
There are many others in their collection that I would do almost anything to get!
Our germplasm bank has some CIAT donations but a lot are missing the CIAT accession numbers or seed descriptions so I can't match them all up to the CIAT database to get a picture and yes Bluejay I did check for the green and black lima and anything else amazing looking.
It took almost a day of browsing records.

 

[Hal]

I found these on the CIAT website. I think the beans are part of Columbia's seed collections. I agree. With beans like these you don't need jewels. The beans are far more precious to me than jewels and gems could ever be.

Bluejay, CIAT also have photos on Flickr most you have seen but some you might not have.