Post by macmex on May 10, 2017 18:15:11 GMT -6
Back in the mid 90s I was in contact with Mark Futterman of Berkley, California. Mark had adopted almost all of the bean varieties I had in my collection, when my family and I headed into missions in Mexico. The plan, in part, was that he would maintain them as well as pass them on to others. By 1993 our family settled in the State of Hidalgo, in the Ixmiquilpan area, where I taught in a bible institute and worked in their agronomy program. The climate and our living conditions were more suitable for growing beans, than it had been for the last six years. So I contacted Mark to ask for some seed for Barksdale Wax Pole Bean, an heirloom from my wife's family. Mark responded by sending me A LOT of varieties, most of my own and some which he had, which he thought might interest me! Tarahumara Pink Green Bean was in this collection of bean seed.
The Tarahumara Indians live in the northern central part of Mexico. It is commonly held that they were the original cliff dwellers in places such as Mesa Verde, NM. They live in an arid, often harsh environment. Any Tarahumara bean that I have tried has turned out to be quite hardy. I grew this one near Ixmiquilpan, probably in 1994. It did fine. It didn't grab my attention at the time. The vines were somewhat restrained, reaching, perhaps, 7.' The pods, though usable for snaps, went tough so quickly, that I discarded any idea I might have had about growing it for snaps. But the seed, wow! The seed was quite large and beautiful! The seeds were shaped like a kidney bean and they were bright pink with black speckles. I was impressed. But one of my daughters, a little girl at the time (and a lover of all things pink) was even more impressed.
Jump ahead some years. By 2002, our family was back in the USA, putting in our first garden, in years, on US soil. My daughter Emily insisted that we plant Tarahumara Pink Green Bean. I did. It grew and grew... But it didn't flower. Well, it didn't flower for months. Then, when I had almost given up hope, the plants burst into clouds of bright pink flowers and went on to produce an abundance of pink seed! We learned that it would produce in NJ. Unfortunately, my garden records for this time are spotty. So I don't have record of how many times I planted in in NJ. My daughter carried the jar of seed with her, when we moved to Oklahoma in 2005,... and, we never saw the jar again! God only knows what happened to it! It might be in some kind of "Bermuda triangle" type eddy, somewhere in Pennsylvania.
By 2009, not finding the jar, I began to worry that we might well have lost it for good. Going through my seeds, I found a couple (2 I believe) seeds at the bottom of a drawer, which looked like they might well be from this bean. I planted them on May 29, 2009. They were! The plants grew so strongly that they broke and tore down a regular bean pole. So I put up another pole. They covered the two poles and then jumped onto a planting of tomatoes, covering several (four, I believe) 5' tomato cages and smothering the tomato plants. Very late in the season, they suddenly burst into clouds of pink flowers and,... just like in NJ, they produced a whole lot of seed. Those two plants, in fact, produced 3 1/2 quarts of dry seed, and that was after I cooked some up!
By the name of this bean, one might think that its primary use would be for snaps. I seriously doubt anyone has grown it primarily for snaps. The snaps are quite good. In fact, they are sweet. When I tried them, I thought "This would be a great bean to serve raw with a dip!" However, they are tender for only a few days. Pretty much every pod on the plants turned tough within just a few days of reaching full size, and probably 95% of them started out at the very first flush of flowers, all reaching maturity at the same time. When frost arrived, the bean seeds, in their pods, were mature, but not fully dry. I yanked the vines and brought them indoors. There, I shelled some of them and tried them as "shellies" (immature, plumped out seed, cooked as one would cook a lima bean). They were good. But what excited me most was the extremely large quantity of dry beans produced by just two plants.
I let the seed dry for some time and stored it in quart canning jars, which I sealed. According to my gardening notes, I may not have tried to grow this bean again, until 2013. It sprouted and grew well. But… 2013 was the year of the grasshopper. I lost almost all our beans (all of this one for sure) to grasshoppers. The next couple of years I tried to grow it, but none of my seed would sprout. Apparently there was something not quite right with how I stored my seed. It should have had some germination, even now. But there was zero germination. I looked, but I could not find any other seed, than what I had stored in those three jars, none of which would sprout.
So, this year I contacted Native Seeds Search, the original organization which brought this variety to public attention. My friend, Mark Futterman passed away years ago. I could not find record of anyone, to whom I had given seed, who still had it. So, I called Native Seeds Search and spoke with someone in their en sitio store. We had a great conversation and she said she’d speak with Sheryl Joy, their collections curator, and see if I might not be able to receive some seed in return for growing some out for them.
A few weeks ago Sheryl contacted me. After some communication we arranged for me to get some seed and grow it out. A sizable amount of that seed will go back to Native Seeds Search. This is a good thing! Native Seeds Search distributes these hard to find varieties to people who are interested in growing and preserving them. Many of these people probably live in or close to their original habitat. But, as I have found, sometimes these seeds do exceptionally well in a totally new environment. Two years ago I grew Tarahumara Purple Ojos, another Tarahumara pole bean. That one also did excellently here in Tahlequah. I will, however, retain enough seed to be able to share with others in this region.
So, stay tuned. Since I last grew this bean I have developed the habit of taking lots of pictures and videos. This bean will probably fill a niche for gardeners in this part of the country, those who don’t mind planting on support, for higher yield in a smaller area, who want dry beans and, perhaps would like to experiment with sweet snaps eaten raw with dip!
The Tarahumara Indians live in the northern central part of Mexico. It is commonly held that they were the original cliff dwellers in places such as Mesa Verde, NM. They live in an arid, often harsh environment. Any Tarahumara bean that I have tried has turned out to be quite hardy. I grew this one near Ixmiquilpan, probably in 1994. It did fine. It didn't grab my attention at the time. The vines were somewhat restrained, reaching, perhaps, 7.' The pods, though usable for snaps, went tough so quickly, that I discarded any idea I might have had about growing it for snaps. But the seed, wow! The seed was quite large and beautiful! The seeds were shaped like a kidney bean and they were bright pink with black speckles. I was impressed. But one of my daughters, a little girl at the time (and a lover of all things pink) was even more impressed.
Jump ahead some years. By 2002, our family was back in the USA, putting in our first garden, in years, on US soil. My daughter Emily insisted that we plant Tarahumara Pink Green Bean. I did. It grew and grew... But it didn't flower. Well, it didn't flower for months. Then, when I had almost given up hope, the plants burst into clouds of bright pink flowers and went on to produce an abundance of pink seed! We learned that it would produce in NJ. Unfortunately, my garden records for this time are spotty. So I don't have record of how many times I planted in in NJ. My daughter carried the jar of seed with her, when we moved to Oklahoma in 2005,... and, we never saw the jar again! God only knows what happened to it! It might be in some kind of "Bermuda triangle" type eddy, somewhere in Pennsylvania.
By 2009, not finding the jar, I began to worry that we might well have lost it for good. Going through my seeds, I found a couple (2 I believe) seeds at the bottom of a drawer, which looked like they might well be from this bean. I planted them on May 29, 2009. They were! The plants grew so strongly that they broke and tore down a regular bean pole. So I put up another pole. They covered the two poles and then jumped onto a planting of tomatoes, covering several (four, I believe) 5' tomato cages and smothering the tomato plants. Very late in the season, they suddenly burst into clouds of pink flowers and,... just like in NJ, they produced a whole lot of seed. Those two plants, in fact, produced 3 1/2 quarts of dry seed, and that was after I cooked some up!
By the name of this bean, one might think that its primary use would be for snaps. I seriously doubt anyone has grown it primarily for snaps. The snaps are quite good. In fact, they are sweet. When I tried them, I thought "This would be a great bean to serve raw with a dip!" However, they are tender for only a few days. Pretty much every pod on the plants turned tough within just a few days of reaching full size, and probably 95% of them started out at the very first flush of flowers, all reaching maturity at the same time. When frost arrived, the bean seeds, in their pods, were mature, but not fully dry. I yanked the vines and brought them indoors. There, I shelled some of them and tried them as "shellies" (immature, plumped out seed, cooked as one would cook a lima bean). They were good. But what excited me most was the extremely large quantity of dry beans produced by just two plants.
I let the seed dry for some time and stored it in quart canning jars, which I sealed. According to my gardening notes, I may not have tried to grow this bean again, until 2013. It sprouted and grew well. But… 2013 was the year of the grasshopper. I lost almost all our beans (all of this one for sure) to grasshoppers. The next couple of years I tried to grow it, but none of my seed would sprout. Apparently there was something not quite right with how I stored my seed. It should have had some germination, even now. But there was zero germination. I looked, but I could not find any other seed, than what I had stored in those three jars, none of which would sprout.
So, this year I contacted Native Seeds Search, the original organization which brought this variety to public attention. My friend, Mark Futterman passed away years ago. I could not find record of anyone, to whom I had given seed, who still had it. So, I called Native Seeds Search and spoke with someone in their en sitio store. We had a great conversation and she said she’d speak with Sheryl Joy, their collections curator, and see if I might not be able to receive some seed in return for growing some out for them.
A few weeks ago Sheryl contacted me. After some communication we arranged for me to get some seed and grow it out. A sizable amount of that seed will go back to Native Seeds Search. This is a good thing! Native Seeds Search distributes these hard to find varieties to people who are interested in growing and preserving them. Many of these people probably live in or close to their original habitat. But, as I have found, sometimes these seeds do exceptionally well in a totally new environment. Two years ago I grew Tarahumara Purple Ojos, another Tarahumara pole bean. That one also did excellently here in Tahlequah. I will, however, retain enough seed to be able to share with others in this region.
So, stay tuned. Since I last grew this bean I have developed the habit of taking lots of pictures and videos. This bean will probably fill a niche for gardeners in this part of the country, those who don’t mind planting on support, for higher yield in a smaller area, who want dry beans and, perhaps would like to experiment with sweet snaps eaten raw with dip!