Mostly a wonderful year here, despite the wet beginning.

All of my common beans bore seed except for Fortex, which had heavy losses in Spring & had to be replanted. All of the remaining plants were devoted to snaps, and have done well... the plants are currently racing the frost to put on a second flush, and we've already begun picking again. On all but two of the rest, every pod ripened, and seed production was heavy... at least a pound or two each. I'll be tallying the complete results later this month.

Scotia was - and is - very late, but I'm picking dry pods now, and the freeze is not due for at least a week. The plants showed possible crossing (flowers of different colors), but I'm waiting to check out the dry seed. Hope I can offer it, because my original 2005 seed is nearly dead (only had a few seeds germinate this year) and no one in SSE is currently offering it. The one failure is King Horticultural, which appears to be diseased... I will (regretfully) be dropping it from my collection. SSE is again offering it, so I may try again in a few years with fresh stock.

The German Butterbean lima produced plenty of seed, all remaining pods will be used for food. Sadly, the lima which was to be named Pan-Pacific Black & White appears to be daylength sensitive. Growth really took off in September & numerous pods have set, but they will not have time to ripen before the freeze.

Both runner beans have done very well. Dry seed harvest is nearly complete for Tucomares Chocolate... and the good news is that after several years of trying to eliminate a white-seeded impurity that was present in the original stock, it appears I've succeeded, since all 30 plants produced brown seed. And after several years of growing Gigandes with poor results, seed production has been heavy this year, and still continues. The vines suffered no die-back as pods matured, and are now re-blooming furiously... chances are these will be the last snaps I harvest this year.

All the cowpeas but one did really well, and produced plenty of seed. The one exception was Grey Adzuki (really a small cowpea) which was overwhelmed by thistle; I collected enough seed to grow it again, hopefully under better conditions. Yardlongs were not as healthy as usual this year, but they did OK, and also produced quite a bit of seed. The adzuki & mung beans have done well, and thanks to the late frost, the mung harvest continues. Sadly, the bush rice bean I obtained in a trade several years ago is daylength sensitive; the semi-vining plants are lush & beautiful, but there is still no sign of flowers... so obviously, it will not have time to produce seed. It was an interesting plant to grow, though.

Velvet bean didn't make it either, although it does have a few flowers. It too appears to be either daylength sensitive, or very long season. The vines are rambling monsters that overran everything within 6 feet.

Only 3/6 peas did well it this year, due to heavy Spring rains. A 4th produced enough seed for another attempt.

The tepary beans - my first attempt with the species - did surprisingly well. I was able to germinate nearly every seed I had received, and planted them all... in retrospect, not very wise, since the tiny pods are very hard to find in the dense, mat-forming foliage. I have been fortunate that the weather recently has been mostly dry, so very little of the moisture-sensitive seed was lost to spoilage. In the end, on the advice of a grower in the southwest, I pulled up up the plants entire, and hung them in the garage to dry. I will thresh out the beans when the vines have fully dried.

Soybeans were my biggest disappointment, since they were the most heavily affected by the heavy Spring rains. About half of the varieties I planted rotted in the ground, and were complete losses. Still, 7 varieties did very well, and 3 more produced enough seed to share. Two more are just now beginning to dry down, and should have time to mature before the freeze.

All things considered, not a bad year for seed saving. It was a banner year for tomatoes & peppers, my best year ever... yes, hard to believe, but I do grow other things besides beans. ;-) I'm almost looking forward to the frost, so I can begin putting the garden to bed for the year.

All my fresh eating beans in the main beds started out strong, pickled up several jars of dilly mad spicy beans... Then for the first time ever, I had Mexican beetles- had to look them up to figure out what the freaky little yellow things were devouring my plants.... And so I lost all my fresh eating plants and zero seed stock. Now I have to start over again from scratch with yellow and green beans... Dang beetles! I did get some top crop seed while it was on sale-it is my old stand by bean- but it might have been too late for that second crop, frosts will be coming soon and the plants are just starting to flower.

White marrowfat was a total failure, made me want to weep. I've been dying to try them, finally got some in a swap... Then critters got to the few sprouts I had. I'll be patient till I see them show up on someone's trade list in offering.

Mayflower- started with a dozen seed... Got three plants to survive the spring weather... That ended up being only one plant that hung on through the season. Fortunately, it gave me about ten pods or so, enough for another years seed stock.

Tigers eye started out with a strong 20 or so plants. Cutworms got them while I was gone over a weekend, but enough plants survived to give me a gracious plenty seed stock, even though I got nothing for eating.

Succotash was this years winner. Out of a dozen plants planted, about eight survived. I got a couple two three pounds of beans so far, with at least another pound drying on the vines yet. I just let those go on the fence along with some of my huge white tomatoes, and they seemed to love it.

i tried a handful of midsummer planting season of various beans, all but one failed, pretty badly too. All of them non sprouters, which was a bummer. I got one that did sprout, and is growing in a hanging pot, I would have to check my garden notes to see which one it is.

My my spring shelling peas did great! For the first time ever I got to eat peas I grew, and boy were those green arrows tasty... Never growing them again because they sucked up waaaayyyy too much space and it was too much work shelling them... I grew out a few petit provincial peas in a pot this spring and they gave me a goodly amount of seed stock to container grow next spring. I got some sugar snaps going in pots right now from summer planting that are doing beautifully, and if they aren't ready by the time frosts hit, I'll bring the pots into the solarium to extend the season.

It was a banner year for tomatoes and peppers more than beans and peas for me...

It was a great year for beans for me. I have a new bed with an 8' deer fence around it, so I figured I could greatly increase my trellises if I planted 3 sides with pole beans. I figured I might have to protect them from deer but kind of waited to see what happened. They got to the top of the fence and one night the deer came and nibbled off a lot of leaves. They didn't seem to get to the vines themselves, and only what they could reach, so I put bird netting over that area and hung a couple of sheets of plastic for more areas, and that has worked the rest of the season, so I got lots of beans there plus the beans in the adjoining bed that were growing on 2 long trellises. Most of my beans were Uncle Steve, Zelma Zesta, and 2 kinds of runner beans, IWK and one I got from England that is very long. US and ZZ both pumped out the beans all seaon, as did the runner beans. Grandma Roberts Purple Pole did well too, and really hangs in there early and late, but seems to take a long time for the pods to dry out to save seed. I had smaller amounts of Red Eye Fall beans, a few bush beans, and some unknown beans that have cropped up at various times and I have kept them going. I was supposed to be growing Tennessee Greasy this year but my markers I put in the ground when planting got buried or ? and I couldn't identify them, unless they are a mystery bean that is short, only 4", and has not very meaty smooth green pods, 4" with

urple streaks, but when the beans get big the pod clings to them tightly. They were taking a while to dry out so I shelled some still a little moist, and was surprised to find some black seeds and some light with grey-black streaks, perhaps also a few brown seeds. That seems to fit with Tenn. Greasy since Sample Seeds says they are very variable in color. So I'm attaching a photo of one that is finally drying out alongside an Uncle Steve's, and also the seeds in the pod, if anyone would like to comment on whether it looks like Tenn. Greasy.Thanks, Hannah

Hannah, I'd say Tennessee Greasy, looks identical to some of the seed I harvested last year.

This year all the Tennessee Greasy seed harvested so far have this seed coat pattern, just a slight difference to the ones in the above picture .

Annette

Thanks, Annette, I guess I really did manage to grow some Tenn. Greasy then. Perhaps they are more for shellies since the hulls were so thin. They were very late compared to most of the beans, too. I guess I was most impressed with Zelma Zesta, such big meaty pods, and runner beans.

I just picked a whole lot of the long runner bean today, there are 3 tiny Tenn. Greasy pods in the upper left corner. A lot of the green beans on the upper right are late planted bush beans I thought might fill in late in the season, probably mostly Yer Fasulyasi. There were just a few Annelino Giallo, the curved yellow bean near the bottom, that did fairly well, they are a tasty tender bean in the full bean stage I forgot to mention.