Hi Everyone,

I have a squirrel that has developed a taste for my butter beans. I'm afraid he will bring his whole family over for daily dinners. So I'm gonna trap him and release him across the Indian river on the Canaveral National Seashore.

My mutilated beans

He gets on top of my trellis and extracts the beans from the pods/shells.

Luther

Hi Luther,

I feel your pain - we have squirrels that have been decimating our pears this year. Last year they started on the pears, moved to the tomatoes and wiped out the harvest - we got a few dozen out of 30 plants. :( We tried trap and release - they got wise to the trap. I wish you luck!

Cindy

Cindy, That is why I'm taking them across the wide Indian river. This way they can't find their way back.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck with the critters. Sounds like they wiped out your tomato crop. I guess I'm lucky just to have some butter beans eaten.

I hope everyone is getting their share of rain. We are getting a deluge here almost daily.

They did manage to launch the last Shuttle thru the clouds today, before the rains set in. I just barely could see it from my yard. Had to go inside to see the launch again on TV.

Luther

I'm in a drought here, ungodly humid and mid 90's every day. My BJBB's have a lot of pods,about 2 inches long, for over a week now, no beans. The plants are healthy and I have been watering them deeply 2 times a week. Is the heat keeping the beans from developing?

Wertach, I noticed mine this morning and they are full of new blossoms. Altho we are getting rain daily. Everything is lush and green. This is my 1st year of growing them. They aren't full grown yet. They will be 3 inches long before they start filling out. Look at the picture above with the inch scale and you will see the mature size. The heat will stop them from putting on new blossoms/beans when it stays in the mid ninties daily. Our temperatures are in the low ninties daily, due to partly cloudy skys.

Luther

Thanks folks for the photos and information on butter beans. I'm going to grow the BJBB in 2012. I only grow yard longs now because they thrive in the heat around these parts. The information in this thread will help me with my novice butter bean garden next year!

DL

DL, The BJBB will produce in extreme heat we have here in Florida. Also the Alabama pole black butter beans. They are very prolific. In 3 or 4 days it is time to pick the mature ones again. The Florida speckle pole butter beans, I planted during the hot summer, only produced a limited amount. They are suppose to produce in the heat but didn't for me. If you need some seed I have a few extra I will share with you.

Happy gardening to all,

Luther

Luther,

Thanks for the offer. Another member of GW is sending me some BJBB seeds. I would like to have the Alabama pole black butter bean seeds if you have a few to spare. I can send a SASE. I will email you.

Cheers,
DL

DL, when I get your email with your address, I will get them in the mail to you. No need to send me a SASE. I'm paying it forward.
Oh yes, I see in another post where Silvia is sending you the BJBB. She is a very kind generous individual. She has given me all types of seed. Also flintknapper/Harry has given me a lot of different types of seed. We have quite a few good gals & guys on this website.

Happey gardening to all,

Luther

Hi Luther

You are so nice! and having you at the house for the garden party with your lovely wife was a real pleasure.
Your garden looks so good and probably you are harvesting a lot of butter beans still. I just harvested today some good amount to go in the freezer. Hope to share some seeds with the local community garden next summer.
And I agree with you about Harry, he is a very nice man who shared the seeds with us.

Silvia

Hi Everyone,

I didn't plant any white nor green limas in my spring garden. So in my fall garden I planted pole Big Mama, King of the garden and Bush Thorogreen Limas.

My Fall Addition

I still have other butter beans/limas and cow peas growing.I will plant some Helda pole green beans/snapbeans next week. They only take 50 days to make in this warm weather.

Happy gardening to all,

Luther

DL, I did not get an email from you. I have checked my span catcher daily and it did not come thru. I don't think GardenWeb will forward emails anymore. So you are going to have to post your email or whatever.

Luther

If DL does not have an email in profile, then maybe GW can't send an email from him, without a return path. DL can put an email in his profile and try again, before posting an email in the thread. You don't have to make your email public in the profile, you can set it so only GW and the people you send emails to can see it.

I don't think emailing through GW works anymore, I suspected it wasn't working so I had someone email me through GW a couple of weeks ago, I never got it. I even tried emailing myself through GW, it didn't get through either. You'll either have to post your email addy here or find some other way.

Annette

Hi Everyone,

Here is a picture of my fall garden. I have an assortment of butter beans, limas and snapbeans. This planting will give me beans up until the end of the year. Have other vegetables growing also.

My Assorted Beans

Hope everyone made out OK from the storm Irene. I'm sure some of you got too much rain.

Luther

I thought mine were done for the year, since they quit producing any blooms last month. Hot, humid, and no rain. But the vines stayed green.

I was planting cabbage yesterday and noticed they are blooming again and have loads of small pods!

It has cooled down a little the last week or so and we had some light showers.Can't wait for my next batch!

I did my BJBB and other limas from Flintknapper a disservice by planting them on the corners of spring peas, just as a test, then got some high-nitrogen Miracle Grow on the peas by mistake and they vined like crazy and did not set hardly any peas...anyway they shaded the BJBB and other limas till I pulled the pea plants out in midsummer.

So the BJBB got half a summer instead of a full summer, yet they are about 5-6 feet up the trellis and they are blooming now!

There may be a real chance that they can grow this far north. Next year they get the whole trellis to themselves and maybe a clear plastic greenhouse dome of some kind to get them off to a good start in spring.

I'm itching to try some up here next year. An early start in the greenhouse and then depending on what the weather's like, it'll be wait and see how much protection I'll have to provide. Nothing ventured nothing gained :).

Annette

Hi everyone,

Wertach, they will make until a freeze kills them. They never stop making, just slows down when we get the extreme hot weather.

Annette, you will make them in your hot house and possible to make in your garden if it gets in the eighties.

Here is a picture of some of my fall beans.

Assorted Beans

I went out for the 1st time in over a week today. Had to have a Lumbar Fusion. So I won't be able to do much for the next two months. My wife is keeping everything harvested and freezing what is required.

Luther

Luther, best wishes for a speedy recovery and do take it easy, that kind of surgery isn't fun.
We are still enjoying nice weather, warm days but the nights are getting cooler. Most of the beans I grew this year have done extremely well, starting them early in the greenhouse did the trick. I have dried seed from most and we are now eating the tobacco worm I planted late.
I'll try growing the butter beans in the greenhouse and outside next year. It will be another first for me :).

Take care,
Annette

Get well soon, Luther. Will a lumbar fusion make it easier to weed?

Thanks everyone,

happyday, weeding is back breaking work. Due to my limited space I always jam everything too close together, so that should emulate some of my weeding. I have noticed my outside rows grow over the sides and produce more than the inside rows. That is telling me a story.

Happy gardening to all,

Luther

I just wanted to let Harry (flintknapper) know that this year I have been able to harvest a few seeds, plus taste the BJBB as shellies. Thank you for the seed!

WOW! they are seriously good. I am still not getting enough of them to freeze, but enough to have a couple of meals with them, and save lots of seed for next year. I have them interplanted with butternut squash and climbing some tee-pe-ed pecan branches. They do not look as vigorous as some of the beans shown in this thread, but I do have difficulty growing some hot weather crops (forget the cow peas, forget watermelons) so very glad to see that I can grow this type of lima here.

I will report when they quit producing, they just started producing shellies and seed. I did plant them late, but our season for beans can extend into December, so here I am hoping for more BJBB shellies. Yum......

I think my second crop is going to be much better than the first one! They are about 2 1/2" long now, I can see the seeds developing, and the vines are full!

I also want to thank Harry for the seeds, he hasn't posted for a while, I hope everything is OK with him!

Something that I am wondering about. Deer have devastated my garden this year. They ate everything but the tomatoes, jalapenos, and my BJBB's.

Toms in cages, so that makes sense, jalapenos hot, but they are eating my bells, kinda doesn't makes sense. Why not the BJBB's? Is it because they are the only thing that is on a trellis?

I'm not a hunter and I don't really like deer meat, I will eat it. I am fixin to turn loose my deer hunting coworkers loose on them. Bow season starts the 15th......

I picked three pounds of BJBBs the other day - after all shelled, we had 1 pound of beans. Ate 1 serving and froze the rest. I don't know if anyone else weighs their harvests? It seemed like we were a little light on actual beans - but conditions have been intense this summer. Now that it's cooled off some, all of the beans are getting their grow on, so I am hoping the next harvest will be bigger.

And yes, thank you Harry! I'm sharing seeds with a couple of different folks this year so your find will be spread even further through GA and Virginia.

Wertach - sorry to hear about the deer. I'm fenced and that makes a big difference. They're grazing on the tomatoes on the outside of the garden and eat every cowpea or squash vine that sneaks through the fence.

Last year the deer ate the few bells that I had planted outside the fence as I had too many pepper plants and couldn't bear to compost baby plants. So the deer would trim the tops. Which made them branch and grow even more peppers... I tried pinching out a few peppers this year and it stimulates growth!

Cindy

Hi Everyone,

I really enjoy reading about your gardens. At least I don't have your problem with the deer. If the BJBB,S can put on new runners they will just keep adding more beans. So they need something to run on. Also a little additional fertilizer will stimilate new growth

I also was worried about Harry. He is a senior citizen with a heart condition. He lives out in the edge of the area of Texas where they have had all those wild fires and smoke. I sent him an email and hope to hear that he is OK.

Happy gardening to all,

Luther

Thanks to GW, every time there is a bad weather event, I wonder if I know a gardener there. Harry is near water, near the ocean. That might help him. Hope that he and all the other Texas gardeners are Ok.

You good people can stop worrying about the old man. My ticker is running good again thanks to a pacemaker implant and a catheter ablation procedure.
I'm glad everyone likes the BJBB and I hope all of you share seed with other gardeners. Mine had the most severe test this year growing in a extreme drought with record high temperature and they are still producing. happyday I planted a few Ma Williams seed and they did well until the high temps killed them. They are very pretty and taste great. We had cold fronts until May and every thing I planted this year was late. I hope to plant them early next year. I also tested a red bush lima that really did good until it had 104 degrees abort the remaining blooms. I have two short rows of them planted now. They taste as good as the BJBB and are a keeper.
I had to limit what I planted because of the drought. I'm fortunate I have two good shallow water wells, but with two acres to take care of I couldn't plant all of the beans I wanted to test.
I was lucky and got 3.5 inches of rain from the tropical storm that went inland about 40 miles east of us last week. It looks like the rest of Texas is going to burn down before they get some rain. We need a tropical storm, not a hurricane, to center punch Texas and refill all of our dryed up lakes and resevoirs and put out the fires. There is another storm in the gulf now but they predict it to go in Mexico.
cabrita, You said your BJBB vines were not vigorous, remember they came from a jungle and need plenty of water. I don't ever let mine dry out. This year, with very little rain I have watered nearly every day.
Luther, have patience with your back as it will take time to heal. I had my heart procedure in March and I'm operating at about 50% of what I could do before things went haywire last October but I don't have the pain to endure like you probably have.

Hey Harry!

Good to hear from you and so glad you are doing better. And thank you again for the BJBBs. They are the first pole lima types that I've ever grown and I love the plants. Fascinating to watch them grown.

I feel for you with the drought issues. We haven't had more than about an inch in two months. Fortunately I can pump water out of our lake - my garden would have blown away otherwise...

Stay healthy!
Cindy

Good to hear from you Harry!

I have been sharing seeds with my co/workers. I took a pot full to share at work one day and everyone loved them, the gardeners that I work with are begging me for seed! I gave them all I could spare.

The speckled ones that you sent to me have a lot of white seed and the black ones have a few speckled seeds. I separated them and cooked some of each to see if there was any taste difference, I couldn't tell any difference.

I got better germination and production from the speckled but that could be due to micro climate and soil differences since I planted them about 100 yards apart.

Thank you again for the seeds! These are keepers!

Hey Harry, I got them to grow up here, and in only half a summer! They made pods but the pods are not filled out yet. Next year I'll plant again in full sun from the start and see what happens. It was hotter than usual in July and that helped.

Hi Luther!

I hope that you are feeling better and get your health back asap and that you and Dottie can come to the next garden party.

Hi Harry!

I am so happy that you are doing well and to hear from you, I was also worried about you. Each time that I see my BBJB beans I think of you and I am sure a lot of other gardeners are growing them thanks to you.

Here are my BJBB beans today

Silvia

Silvia
your BJBB sure look great.I have been growing them about 16 years and thanks to the drought this years crop is the worst production I ever had. The bad news, according to the forecast, is we can expect the same weather pattern for another year. The sweet potatoes I got from you have done well. One variety has large dark green leaves and the new growth is purple and the flesh is sort of yellow color. Do you know it's name. The bush porto rico is a winner. Thanks to you I have been eating home grown sweet potatoes for about two months.
Harry

Harry, you have turned out to be the Johnny apple seed of BJBB Distribution. They will have covered the entire country this year. We will have given all our friends seeds by next year.

Hi Silvia,

Beautiful picture of your BJBB. As usual, everything very well manicured. My medical procedure turned out to be very painful and has kept me housebound. I read all the central Florida posts and see you have been very active. But for the next two months I will be inactive.

Everyone keep us all posted on your garden developement. I find it interesting as the zones change in the next few months.

Luther

Harry, I am sorry to hear about the weather. I am glad that you got to grow the sweet potatoes. I have been eating them too together with the BBJB. The purple leaves potato and yellowish flesh is the Beuregard. Last time that I went to Echo I got another variety Colorette and some of them weighed about 6.5 pounds,lol.

Luther, thank you and hope that you are feeling better, you have to be completely healed before you can do any gardening. Between the community garden that I am helping and my own garden keeps me very busy these days.

Last night I did some shelling of the BBJB while I watch the whole movie, today more shelling to do, I harvested the other half today. It will go in the freezer.

Silvia

Harry, your BJBB's have even found their way to Canada :). Next year I'll plant a few in the greenhouse and a few outside, right now we're experiencing temps near 90, if we have a repeat summer next year they just might make it.

Annette

Silvia, thanks for the information. I started digging the tubers when the plants were only two months old and was really supprized with the results. Every thing I read about them said it would take three months or longer. I don't know what I would do with a six pound sweet potato.
Annette, your climate sounds similar to northern California. Jana Ulmer lives there and is growing BJBB and they produced ahead of several limas that she plants every year. She sent an email last week, thrilled with the results sofar and said they are the best tasteing limas she has grown.
Harry

Harry, these higher temps we are experiencing right now are not the norm, supposed to hit 90 today. These are the kind of temps that usually hit us in July and only for a couple of weeks. In a normal year the highs in September are closer to 70 or it can be very wet and chilly. This has been a very weird year weatherwise I'm not complaining tho, the longer this warm weather lasts the shorter winter will seem. I'm hoping the coming winter isn't a repeat of the last one where it continued on right through spring.

Annette

Annette, If you are looking for a lima to make a good, fast crop, I may have just what you are looking for. Last fall Jana gave me seed for a bush red lima she called German bush red lima. I researched the name and found a post on GW about Pennsylvania Dutch red lima that looks the the same as the German red lima.I would say they are the same bean with a different name Do a search on GW and you can find a picture of them. They grow like a weed, bloom quick,most bloom spikes are above the vines, are easy to harvest and best of all they are as tasty as the BJBB.I will plant them and the BJBB every year. I have a few seed that I will be happy to share with you if you would like to try them.
Harry

Harry I'd love to try a few, I don't see an email addy for you on your member's page so you could try emailing me through GW, unfortunately that hasn't been working for me lately I seem to be able to send but not receive. If that doesn't work Luther and Andy both have my email addy.

Annette

Hi Annette,

Send me an email and I will forward it to Harry. I just tried to email you and the address bounced. So I have yours wrong.

Luther

Is this the same German red limas ?

Here is a link that might be useful: German Lima

wertach. They look like the same bean to me.
Harry

Wertach, hard to tell from the dark photo but that German Lima picture looks similar to the Dixie Speckled Butterpea (halfway down the page) The DSBP grew as a half-runner for me. Seeds are rounded, plump in the middle.

Wertach
I'm glad to hear you and your co workers like the BJBBs and that your are shareing the seed. I only planted two of the speckled beans seed to see what they would do. They don't look anything like the seed I planted. The plant they came from was fairly close to some willow leaf limas and probably crossed with them.I saved about a hundred seed that are tan with dark speckles. I have not planted any of them yet and may not ever. If you would like a picture of them post your email address and I will send it to you. If anyone else would like a pic you can do the same
Harry

Mine shouldn't have crossed with anything. The only other legumes I planted were white Dixie peas, blue lake green beans, and Hercules southern pea, which the deer ate. They were at least 50' away from any of the BJBB's with tomatoes, corn, squash, and other things planted in between. The closest garden to me is about 3/4 miles away.

I am going out to pick some more as soon as the shade gets in the garden. They are hanging full of beans that are starting to turn yellow! I like them better if they aren't quite dry.

I will try to post a picture tomorrow after I shell them out.

I would like to see the pics! My e-mail is tk062@juno.com

Thanks Harry!

Hi,

I've been lurking and learning on GW for quite a while now, and finally decided I'd better post something. Harry shared the wonderful Black Jungle beans with us and they are producing delicious beans here in Northern California. Typically, we don't get limas until August/September, and this year the BJ's were first. We've had a very cool summer. We are also starting to get Gigandes (the lima, not the runner bean), Speckled Calicos, Dreer's Improved, and Illinois Giants, but haven't yet eaten Dr. Martin's or any of the bush limas, which we got in later (German Red Bush, Fordhook, Dixie Butterpea and Jackson Wonder). Does anyone here grow the Gigandes lima? It is the largest seeded lima that we've grown, and yet it seems to cook more quickly than other limas. As soon as it hits the water, the seed coat splits, and the beans I cooked tonight (from yellowing pods) were done in 15 minutes! This is the first year here for both BJs and Gigandes.

Also, I wanted to mention that the German Red Bush lima is different from Dixie Speckled Butterpea. I got the German Red Bush seed from a place in Pennsylvania (http://www.landisvalleymuseum.org/2011seeds.pdf). This is our second year growing the GRs. Hope we'll get some beans to harvest soon. Glad you got to enjoy some, Harry!

Jana

Here is a link that might be useful: Landis Valley

Harry - thanks to aftermidnight, your beans have made it to Southwestern Ontario - and thanks to you, of course! Planted indoors and set out 3rd week in June, they have come along to produce very well. Most of the pods have filled out and I shelled them this morning, photo is of yield from 3 or 4 plants. A nice surprise as I thought I was wasting my time with a warm-weather variety. Next year, I'll try getting them planted earlier and setting them outdoors earlier too.

LoboGothic, it is amazing that one person has spread a butter bean so far in such a short time. I'm glad to hear they have been a success for you. I'm more amazed that you were able to grow them in your location. Good luck to you this next year and you will be more successful with your acquired knowledge.

Luther

LoboGothic - what a great yield! I continue to be amazed at how productive the HBJBBs are. I didn't deliberately plant any this year, but the plants came up anyway and have vined all over my fence - climbing horizontally. From 5 or 6 plants with marginal growing conditions - I've picked about 2 quarts of beans and there's close to 1/2 quart still on the vines. They are fabulous beans!