grandma roberts purple, first of the year
 

it has been a weird bean year. early june was cold and rainy, so most of the beans
went in late. i hedged my bets by planting a few seeds of several varieties in doors
that were several years old. seven out of eight grandma roberts sprouted, and are
now the first to produce beans enough for picking. this is one of the varieties that
darrel jones got from his grandma down alabama way. i am happy to report they
are doing well several hundred miles north. it should be easy to save seed from this one.

i have lots of blossoms on my other beans, both bush and pole, but not much in the way of bean development.
i have been having bad luck growing yellow beans lately. green beans grow with no
problem. yellow beans, most just don't come up. i am puzzled.




keith

A challenging year for beans here. I planted Grandma Roberts in my rural plot, got great germination, and the plants were off to an early start. Then had 12"+ of rainfall in the space of 3 weeks; the garden became waterlogged (part was temporarily flooded) and all the beans which didn't die outright yellowed. The remaining Grandma Roberts were just beginning to recover... then this week, another 6"+ deluge. :?: At this point, the best I can hope for is to get enough seed to replace what I planted, for all 6 beans grown on that plot.


The good news is that I sent some seed for Grandma Roberts to someone in Texas, and they have done very well there.