Margaret shared some of her experiences growing edamame in Montana and it is a crop that I've been interested in for the last few years. Soybeans are absolutely not grown commercially in this area! Are they elsewhere in this region??

A kind gardener in Wisconsin sent me some seed that he thought might do okay in this kind of environment. NOW! I see that Victory Seed had a great big offering of different varieties I could have tried in 2012! I gotta start ordering from Victory regularly so that I pay a little closer attention to them . . .

Of Victory's offerings, only 2 varieties have I already tried. One was Manitoba Brown. Many of you know that I am influenced by variety name - well, Manitoba or not - I immediately realized that this variety would mature too late for my garden. Victory lists it as 80 to 100 day.

The other Victory offering that I have probably grown is Bei Liang 11. I only knew it as Bei. Victory's idea on its days-to-maturity . . . ??? I went thru all the other edamame soy varieties they offer, and it is a whole bunch (!), Bei Liang 11 is the only one that they don't bother to give a days-to-maturity rating. Criminetly! Well anyway, the picture of the seed looks right and the description seems right.

I did find Bei productive even tho' the seed count per pod was low. It is a great big plant. I ran it head to head with contenders for 3 years and it did best. Still, I came against like the last 2 weeks of the season for harvest and way too many slipped past me and went on to the dry stage where I'm being forced to make tofu out of them . . . yes, belatedly, I realized that freezing green pods was an option.

Anyway, I'd like to come up with 1 or 3 to try that are, at least, as early as Bei . . . now, which ones??? Envy and Butterbean look like possibilities! Oosodefuri looks like it might be another! I mean, edamame pods are pretty much all "O so furi" but that don't bother me at all . . .

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: Victory's Soybeans