The Bean Project 2012 and beyond

So, out of my 133 varieties of beans:
The Maria Zellers - of which I had 2 left, have landed safely in the US of A to be grown on by a fellow Bean Nerd. No offence. If he gets a decent crop in a couple of years, I may get some back but I had a total fail with these and was worried about losing them all.

The Sweet Lupinos, which are edible beans from the Lupin genus in the Fabaceae family; are incredibly hard to germinate and grow in this climate so with my 3 remaining seeds, I am going to try and crack them this year.

I also want to crack the Hopi Yellow, which are from a packet of seeds found at the bottom of a box in the HSL 'too old to share with members' pile. I really really REALLY want to grow these as they look fantastic and I am totally in love with these.

I want to bulk up the ones given to me by my US of A fellow bean nerd; he has been growing beans for a long time it would seem and has stable crosses so the Vermont Appaloosa, Scarlet Beauty, Italian Rose, Blue Jay and Littlefield's Special - all bush beans - will be given pride of place in the plot.

I will be growing Montezuma's Red and Rognon De Loise at home for the Heritage Seed Library in our new 'Heritage Seed Only' garden. And Malawi Red which I also got from a box of 'too old' at HSL

I have a mystery bean which I cannot name where this came from, once it's grown and I know what it actually is, I'll share but until then - I cannot say.

Also, I want to get some beans from the Gigandes - I grew one plant this year and got 4 whole beans from it; so now that I know how it likes things, I will sow those and see if I can bulk them up to maybe 16 or even, 20 if I'm lucky.

I also have some lovely beans from the US of A through the A4A Seed Circle so those will also be grown and bulked up.

I have quite a few non-heritage varieties and I have decided to [shock horror] grow these for the green bean stage and eat them.

Quite a few I think I am down to my last small bag of seeds but this is because I have grown them, bulked them up and now want to get rid and leave others to do so. So I may get rid and drop them completely from the list.

The rest - I'll pick and choose what I want to grow on the day - so stuff like Royal Red, Canadian Wonder, Black Valentine, Black Coco, etc etc - I'll bung 8 in a large pot and just grow them to keep myself in soup for next winter - or the next as I still haven't eaten any of this year's dried beans yet. I am giving a fair few away for people though - so spreading the Dried Bean Love, so to speak.