Usually I grow dwarf runner beans, too (Scarlet Bees, Hestia) - but I didn't get them planted in time this year.

Chevrier Vert bush beans
Tarbais pole beans
Garden Soy edamames (2 kinds from U of Illinois)
Pink Eyed Purple Hull southern peas

I have seeds on hand for several more, but ran out of space. Beans aren't the only thing I grow, although perhaps the most important to me. :-)

Jim

The Stickless Wonder plants are still alive and look to be putting out new leaves and buds. The flowers are huge and almost orchid-like. I got a decent crop off the Maxibel planting but everything else I planted a bit too late. Add in the early heat we got and I had a too-short bean season.

In about 6 weeks I'll make a fall planting of Maxibel and Brittle Wax, and maybe a couple others.

Then I'm growing Snow On The Mountain, a butterbean from eastern Tennessee that I got from John Coykendall. And Red Ripper, an old-time cowpea found all over Appalachia.

Friend wife has three double rows of a bush soybean.

Once the alliums are lifted in another week or so they'll be followed by Bailey's Six Week bean, an heirloom from northeastern Kentucky that starts bearing in only 43 days, give or take. This one also came from Gary Perkins.

Dragon Tongue and Provider just now getting down to business and providing some good beans. Among the poles...Rattlesnake is full of flowers. KW and MC42 are a bit slow...but that's okay.

Really love Dragon Tongue...great taste. Provider is good as well.

Pole beans - "Bird Egg" (shell), "Champagne"**, "Czechoslovakian"**, "Fortex" (snap), "Jembo Polish"**, "King Horticultural" (shell), "Madeira"**, "Ma Williams" (shell), and "Trionfo Violetto" (snap).

Limas - "Hija"** (large) & "Hopi Pole" (small)

Runner beans - "Black Coat" & "Tucomares Chocolate"**

Yardlong beans - "Black Seed" & "Chinese Red Noodle"

Cowpeas - "MN-157" & "Fagiolino Dolico Veneto"

Winged bean - "Day Neutral"

Hyacinth bean

Asian beans - Rice Bean (V. umbellata), Adzuki "Buff" & "Murasaki", Green Gram (from Asian market)

Peas - "Blackeyed Susan" (soup), "Carouby de Maussane" (snow), "Mesa" (shell), "Limestone" (snow), "Sugar Lace" (snap)

Soybeans - 29 varieties, mostly trials & seed increases (although there are several edamame, and I test them _all_ as edamame when green)

Those marked ** are just seed increases, for trial & preservation.

My most ambitious year... but already, many disappointments. Another yardlong was planned, but seed was all dead (from a company, which agreed to send me good? seed this fall). A dry bean obtained in a swap was likewise all dead. Two runner beans obtained through SSE turned out to not be runner beans at all; one was a lima (which I am increasing) and one an unknown, probably a dry bean. Four pole beans had _very_ poor germination (all from exchanges, all endangered), and I am just trying to save them.

Rabbits went from being annoying last year, to intolerable this year, destroying many of my early soybean transplants before I put a stop to it. Fortunately, I had sufficient seed to replant... but some of those varieties were "iffy" for my climate (hence the transplants) and now may not fully mature. Note to all... soybeans are candy to rabbits.

Like Jimster, I have many other varieties that didn't make it into the ground. I collect seed all year... varieties I have read about or tasted, obtained through swaps, or observed growing on Heritage Farm (Seed Savers Exchange's headquarters). When I find them, I obtain them, because they could disappear next year (many have). And I have a long "want list", which I have yet to post (note to self - kick self in butt). I prioritize what I grow each year, based on rarity & trial projects, so they don’t all make the cut.

Most are doing well, and I hope to post many photos this summer. Jimster, I told you I was a legumaniac! ;-)

You make me look like a piker.

You know, I already was giving some thought to growing more beans and less other stuff.

Jim

- Pole Bean Romano
- Bush Bean White Half Runner
- Soybean Butterbaby (Bush Shiratori)

So far so yummy. Everyone else's lists look terrific which makes me realize it's time to start searching out beans for next year.

Regular snap bush beans- Contender- very early bean, stringless
Derby- new trial

Heirloom pole beans- Grandma Roberts Purple Pole Bean- earliest, strings, usually rallies for a fall crop
Jeminez- 9" red-streaked very tender stringless broad pods
Uncle Steve's- 7-8" long curved pods, purple speckled, stringless
Tobacco Worm greasy cutshort- short fat bumpy beans, excellent beany flavor, strings

I have problems with deer and rabbits eating bush beans, and have had tall pole beans nipped off at the ground by voles. I have tried pepper spray on the foliage, and to foil the voles I put a 3-4" galvanized nail into the ground at the base of each pole bean, then wrap the stem with 9" tall x3" wide strip of aluminum foil.

I'm one of the two people who have popularized Tobacco Worm (it's the standard against which I judge all pole beans). The other is Bill Best.

But Tobacco Worm is neither a greasy nor a cutshort. So I'm wondering what you have, and where it came from.

"Cutshort" describes beans which are crammed so tightly into their pods that they get deformed---like crowders. The most usual case is that their ends square off, as though they had been cut off. Thus, cut-short.

I don't recall whether Fusion got his from me or Bill. Does't matter, as it's the same Tobacco Worm, coming originally from Virginia Jones, of Waco, Madison Cty., Kentucky.

One of the things that makes Tobacco Worm special is that it doesn't get tough or fibrous no matter how big, or how filled out, it gets. So long as it's green it remains tender.

But you're right. They are a later bean than most. Worth the wait, IMO.

I'm growing Ruth Bible for the first time this year, and it seems to be one of the earliest. It was flowering before other vines really took off, and I've been harvesting for the past week. Meanwhile, some of the others, like the Bates Greasy, are first setting flowers.

So, even though I usually could plant in late April or early May, I don't like taking a chance. I figure mid-May to be safe.

See my comments under the cross-polinate thread, though, on the odds of cross pollination happening. Basically they range from slim to none.

Now I grow mostly pole beans, and they seem to cross more easily. Before I began to semi-isolate them (put them in different corners of the garden when saving seed) I had a few crosses. And an heirloom pole bean I acquired through a trade this year, "Jimenez", was so badly crossed I couldn't tell what it was originally supposed to be! 6 or 7 major variations in pod or seed. Fortunately, as Gardenlad pointed out, such extreme contamination is the exception, rather than the rule.

I have had good luck using 50-foot separation between varieties, with flowers between for the bees to "wipe their feet". I also try to trellis other flowering vegetables (like limas, scarlet runners, yardlong beans, squash, or gourds) between different pole bean varieties, if saving seed. So far, no crosses.

Other than that, every pole bean I've grown continues to grow true to type. And I grow from 8 to 12 varieties annually.

Sometimes there is the appearance of a cross when none has, indeed, taken place. Cherokee Cornfield, Socks, Faulkner's Cornfield and several other varieties have such extreme normal variances in color and pattern it's like growing a 15 bean mix. But that's the way they are supposed to be. But 6-7 major variations with Jimenez definately indicates a problem.

So different people around the country can make completely opposite claims about crossing - and each be right, for their own area. Tomatoes are the same way... but that is another topic.

I suspect that most often, these differences are due to variations in the local pollinator population, and the availability of other pollen & nectar sources nearby. My main pollinators are bumblebees (which are quite common here), and "sweat bees". The good news is that bumblebees pollinate everything, including my limas & scarlet runners, which do nothing until they appear. The bad news is that they can _cross_ pollinate everything.

For me, crosses are fairly frequent, unless I take preventive measures. My garden now is perhaps 25-30% vertical; I trellis everything I can, and where I have a choice between bush legumes & pole, I generally choose pole. I plan the trellises to create "baffles" to confuse pollinators, and as windbreaks to protect tender crops (another topic).

I have observed bumblebees feeding. Unlike honeybees, which will generally visit only one specific type of flower at a time, bumblebees work the whole garden... so interplanting different species as baffles to one another, and interplanting flowers that are "bee plants" throughout the garden, is very effective for me.

I use a combination of marigold, cosmos, cleome, sunflowers, basil, and a blooming mallow (Malva sylvestra). All but the marigold & basil have naturalized, so I just transplant them as necessary. And some of the trellised cucurbits are also good bee plants; bitter melon (Momordica charantia) and the vine sold as "Mexican sour gherkin" (Melothria scabra) seem especially attractive to bees, and tend not to attract cucumber beetles.

As gardeners, whenever we save seed, we walk a fine line; we want to attract pollinators for our outbreeding plants (like squash, melons, cukes & cabbages), but not allow them to contaminate our inbreeding plants (beans, peas, peppers, tomatoes).

The Jimenez bean, I suspect, has some trait that makes it more susceptible to cross-pollination, much the same as some tomatoes (cherries & potato-leaf) are more likely to cross. Larger or more open flowers, perhaps. I have heard good reviews of the variety, so I may try it again (hopefully with pure seed) and will study the blossoms closely.

You may be right about certain bean varieties being more prone to crossing. I just don't understand why that would be, because beans drop their pollen the night before the flowers open. So, by the time a bee (or other pollinator) visits pollination already has taken place.

Propensity to crossing would likely be a varietal thing, rather than geography. Consider the Cherokee Cornfield and the half dozen others like it. They would quickly degrade into one pattern with minor variations if geography played a role. But no matter where they've been grown, the patterns stay separate.

As to vertical growing, I'm with you 100%. I've long promoted the idea, as, among other benefits, you get to utilize the unlimited freehold above the garden.

What I really lose patience with is people who complain how small their gardens are. Then you visit and find a jungle of sprawling tomatoes, beans, cukes, etc. If they'd get those vines up in the air they would at least triple their growing space. And enjoy greater production as well. Trellised cucumbers produce up to 300% more than the same variety left to sprawl, according to some studies.

I'm not certain that is the case. For me, "Pole 191", "Goldmarie", "Fortex", and "Wren's Egg" have all crossed at least once. These are all stable varieties. Granted, I am not talking about widespread crossing here, just an occasional hickup. Still, it demonstrates the broad _potential_ for crossing.

The more I contemplate it, the more I am certain that there is something about beans we are missing. Having the right pollinators is certainly a factor... but it doesn't answer the question of prior self-fertilization.

The pollen is dropped before the flower opens... but is the ovum fertilized, or is it still receptive? I wonder if in some cases, the relative strength of the donor pollen (or weakness of the parent pollen) is a factor.

Also, there are conditions that promote blossom drop in beans (another topic). One has to wonder... is there a point just prior to that, where either the release of the pollen, or the receptivity of the stigma, is affected? If the self-fertilization process is impaired (briefly or partially), it could open the door to greater cross-pollination.

I know we have wandered a little off-topic here, but this is a fruitful discussion.

Such as difference in blooming periods?

Is there data available about blooming periods? Has anyone here kept records? If so, it should be possible to figure out some of the unlikely crosses.

Jim

>The pollen is dropped before the flower opens... but is the ovum fertilized, or is it still receptive?<

Zeedman, just guessing now, but I'd say that if pollinators are, indeed, responsible for crossing then the ovum would still have to be receptive after the pollen dropped. Could be a matter of partial fertilization. Or maybe the ova stay receptive for a much longer time if they haven't been self-fertilized.
But that raises the question: If ova remain receptive after partial or non-fertilization, why aren't we seeing a greater degree of crossing?

Another possibility. You take a particularly persistent bee who bores into an unopened flower. Then does it again, thus transfering pollen.

Odds are the bee does it on the same plant or group of plants, so we don't see a cross. But sometimes he carries the pollen of bean A to bean B, and a cross does happen.

I'm not taking a position on that. But I know it is used as an argument by many tomato growers to explain minimal crossing.

You're absolutely right. This is a fruitful discussion, and maybe we should move it to it's own thread??

Good idea. Can someone copy and repost the relevent posts to the Cross Pollination thread and carry on from there?

Jim