bits of January (dry beans)

 This is my produce of dry beans from 2014.

I'm still keeping some of the varieties alive..still surprised by others.

We used all the string beans we needed out of the Shackamaxons and Providers while they grew, and I saved the rest of them for dry seed.

The ones I know for certain:

Kenearly Yellow Eye (Steuben yellow Eye) --bush - supposed good for soup beans, still working on growing out enough that survives our land.

Ireland Creek Annie --bush -- new grow out last year, got a half-pint jar grown out from a short row.. very nice.  Will grow them again if we have room.

Jackson Wonder Lima Bean --bush  Mainly grow these for pretty.. didn't eat any.

Provider bush beans - our best provider for green beans.. we always have too many!

Blue Black Shackamaxon beans -- backup longer provider for beans, didn't eat as many last year as usually, made less soups because of less zucchini to go with it.. but they did not fail to produce lots of dry beans.

Tongues of Fire (Lingua de Fuoco beans or Taylor Dwarf Horticultural?) --bush -- these look like a cranberry bean to me, will continue to grow out.

Florida Speckled Butter Peas --climber -- decorative, grew out very well, will continue

Rattlesnake beans --climber -- didn't eat many, they grew okay, didn't save many dry

Bosnian beans -- climber  Nice string bean, green pod with white flowers.   Even as a dry bean the shape, color and the white spot that stays white as the rest of the bean gets orange and black is a telling sign of which is this breed and which are not among the other 'speckles'.

Hyacinth beans (decorative climber) in the cup below, not edible, but pretty purple flowers

Brown speckled Whipporwill cowpeas  climber : I did cook some of the older beans last year, not bad.. very unlike the canned 'field peas' in taste.. very much like them in look, though.  I would prefer the from dry to the canned ones anyday. 

Cherokee wax beans --bush

and three I'm not so sure of:

White climbers - they stay pure white long after they dry...I didn't plant any last year and I still got some...not sure.  They tend to be small and flat, and very confusing which thing they are popping up out of.

White speckled climbers :  These are roundish beans -and have been consistent to form when I plant them (except see above).  They develop a golden yellow to dull brown 'coat' around the back opposite the helium.  I need to plant these again in a place by themselves so I can really see the differences and if there is anything else popping up when I plant these.

Tennessee greasy variant - black and white speckled large beans similar to the Bosnian, but without the white spot or the same shape..they are more flat like the Rattlesnake beans.  They turn dark orange the longer they dry..keeping their speckles under the orange.  They are purple and mottled as string beans - very waxy, with a thick string.  They are fairly good as small string beans, but they are very very late to produce and get thick quickly.  I did not like them as shelly beans (but maybe didn't cook them long enough) and have not tried the dried beans in anything.

I tried to keep the Providers, the black-seeded waxes and the decorative one separate just to make sure...

Jewels from the Garden - beans and corn drying for the year

 Esme helping sort the corn and break out dry pods of beans onto a plate.  She was so bouncey, and wiggly, and overexcited - she wanted to wash everything and dance and jump and splash water everywhere... finally calmed down some.  I told her a joke because she was scowling at me - and said I had tricked her into looking happy... well.. after that she continued to smile, because she actually was having a little bit of fun.

 Breaking out the whipporwill cowpea pods - which are very long, narrow and crispy. 

A lot of the corn seen here was 'volunteer.'  It came up without my knowing what was there or how... we had ornamental corn there last year but grew all of our other corn elsewhere in the garden this year.  I planted a few seeds of Smoke Signals and Peaches and Cream corn in between each of the volunteers to make a full row that we would not step on - as they were naturally scattered a bit here and there and not quite in a straight line.

Upon examining the outcome - I think it was a cob of Hopi Pink and one of Glass Gems that got mixed in, or some cache of seeds some animal had buried from last year we hit with the tiller.    I have them drying out to shell into containers and label for the year.  The pictures don't do any justice to the blues and greens that are present in real life.. .a whole range of color - which is where I say they are our jewels from the garden.

 

And this is the bean crop so far.

The large buff colored beans are Ireland Creek Annie - which did very well.  I started with nine of those seeds and have 30+ and have more to break out in the coming weeks.  The Black Shackamaxon has a showing already and there are gallons of that coming later.  The red and white speckled ones are Taylor Dwarf Horticultural - something I didn't have room for last year.  

The Ireland Creek Annie and the Taylor are both my first 'major' expeditions into full rows of "reserved to dry" bush beans - as most of my harvests have come from pole beans up until now.  There are also some tiny white climber beans, whipporwill cowpeas and black eyed peas.  I planted some unlabelled Pinto beans (which I thought the white climbers were when I gathered them...odd...always have some odd ones out, right?)   Kenearly Yellow Eye (a semi-climber that says it is a bush), black seeded wax (one of those seeds is one, but I've lost it in the mix!), Bosnian and Provider seeds all drying out in the cabinet.

I've also got a decent collection of Mammoth Striped and Lemon Sunflower seeds this year... partly for the chickens, partly for next year.