Beans are coming to the end of their growing season locally and starting to form full and (potentially) dry pods for us to harvest and store for next year. The photos this month show just a few of the thousands of varieties out there. ‘Cherokee Wax’ from South Carolina USA 1947, ‘Magpie’ from Suttons Seeds UK 1909, ‘Anto’ which is of unknown origin and the bright red ‘Tongue of Fire’ from Tierra Del Fuego in South America to us via Spain and then Italy. ‘Cherokee Wax’ is a productive smaller bush form that has very reliable yellow bean pods with black seeds inside. Wax is the name often given to yellow coloured beans – in Australia the term Butter is often used in the same way. This bean was developed in the research department of the Clemson University in South Carolina USA and first sold in 1947. Most of the stringless pod beans we see growing today are all fairly recent origin in breeding programs in the late 1800’s. This was done to enable better eating of the pod itself rather than just the beans. The older varieties can be identified fairly easily as they are usually climbers or ‘half climbers’ which are small bushes but tend to have lots of long tendril growths that wander out from the main bush and also have tougher pods that have strings along the edge of the pod. They are all great for growing in your garden and improving the soil being legumes that have root nodes that host bacteria and fungi that convert and ‘fix’ nitrogen that the plant uses to grow. Remember to leave the base of the plant and roots and all that bacteria and fungi in the ground to get the most beneficial results when you are cleaning up the garden at the end of the bean growing season.
It’s that time again!
This is just a quick reminder that the next scheduled meeting for the year 2022 of the Mid Blue Mountains SeedSavers is on at the Bullaburra Progress Hall this coming weekend.
Sunday 17 April 2022 from 10 am till Midday
Help celebrate the Blue Mountains Autumn!
Yes it’s still raining… but we still have a chance to recover as we move into our potentially calmer long Mountains Autumn period.
And there is a lot to catch up with.
We are still following generally recommended social distancing guidelines to help everyone stay safe.
Come along and talk about growing things with like minded people.
Hope to see you there celebrating the current productive growing season!
The address for the Mid Blue Mountains Seedsavers website is:
https://midbluemountainsseedsavers.org/
We do now have a Facebook page as well:
https://www.facebook.com/Mid-Blue-Mountains-Seed-Savers-1629533990602860/
These regular notifications are sent out directly from the website if you subscribe to that email notification list.
Mid Blue Mountains Seed Savers 