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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 14, 2022 19:44:19 GMT -6
Good drying weather is a blessing this time of year.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 24, 2022 20:43:50 GMT -6
I picked another 9 ounces of Woods Mountain Crazy Beans today. They were a range of sizes from quite large and filling out to some quite small that I really picked accidentally, but all of them sautéed nicely as part of our Thanksgiving Day feast. I took the opportunity to check once again on the drying beans in my kitchen, and they’re looking good. It has been a damp week here in Texas, but the humidity in the house has only come up to the low 40’s, so the beans are still drying nicely. I’m pleased that there has been no sign of spoilage.
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 24, 2022 21:53:41 GMT -6
I lost mine to the freeze, I yanked them and waiting for the pods to dry. They hadn't started to dry down, so it will be a nice surprise to get a handful of seeds.
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Post by woodeye on Nov 24, 2022 22:33:15 GMT -6
Definitely looking good, chrysanthemum. I'd be quite proud to have a picking like that on Thanksgiving Day. Very nice...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 27, 2022 10:39:42 GMT -6
It was just a beautiful morning weather-wise today, so I took some pictures in the garden. Here’s an updated photo of the Woods Mountain Crazy Beans in long raised bed. The Oregon Sugar Pod peas in the back are beginning to climb well, and they’re flowing and setting some pods. It’s a little embarrassing, but I mistakenly thought they were Sugar Snap peas rather than snow peas when I ordered them. If we get a harvest, we’ll enjoy them anyway, but I was disappointed when I realized that I hadn’t ordered what I had intended, especially as these seem to be doing so well, and I thought I’d get my first good harvest of Sugar Snap peas down here.
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 27, 2022 11:16:35 GMT -6
You go girl! The rest of us are living vicariously through you!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 28, 2022 8:22:36 GMT -6
Thanks, hmoosek. Frost or freeze will get me sooner or later, but I’ll try to keep going till it does.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 9, 2022 21:03:21 GMT -6
I don’t have a picture, but I wanted to update this thread to say that I picked a couple of handfuls of WMCB yesterday. That was my first picking since Thanksgiving, and it wasn’t really enough to make a meal or dish, so I just left them on the table and told kids they could snack on them.
It dawned on me only after I had picked them that I perhaps should have just left them to try to develop more seed. I did pick one more pod for seed and have that drying with my others that are all dried down by now on the outside.
I’m not seeing any more flowers on the bean plants at this point. We’ve been having a lot of gray but warm days, and I wonder if they’d like a little more sunshine than they’re getting. I’m not sure.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 14, 2022 21:32:27 GMT -6
It’s time to update this thread since I shelled out dry bean seed from my first round of saved pods of Woods Mountain Crazy Beans. I have only a couple more pods harvested later that are still drying, but my plants are still alive. I think the cold will get them, though, before any pods fill out completely with seed. In the trough at the top are the dried pods for shelling. My daughter helped me make quick work of getting them shelled. They looked nice but lighter than I expected. They’re not white but a pale beige. I thought they were really pretty. We got forty-eight saved seeds. Some were a bit on the small side, but all in all I’m very pleased. I’m really looking forward to planting these again.
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Post by macmex on Dec 15, 2022 7:01:03 GMT -6
Those seeds look just right! I spent some time looking for my 2011 garden records and discovered that I have lost them. Then I went looking for the Houz thread on this bean, hoping I had made notes there and... couldn't locate it. Dropping in on Houz did remind me why I don't go there much. I typed in a search for Crazy Bean and they suggested posts from forums on furniture, housewares and any number of unrelated topics, but not the thread in the Oklahoma Gardening Forum. I should still drop in there, though. There are some very dear friends there who don't drop in here very much.
Anyway, all that to say that I can't find my written record on the first year I grew this bean. I do recall that I had something like four plants survive to produce seed and that I covered them with a cold frame, hanging a light bulb in there to get them to mature seed. I had planted my seed sometime in July, if I recall. And... If I recall correctly (not often the case, these days) I harvested something like 48 seeds that first year.
Getting started with a new variety can sometimes be kind of touch and go, but once you get that quantity of seed, you're probably home free!
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Dec 15, 2022 7:48:18 GMT -6
Thought I’d try my browser and see what popped up, but pro boards won’t let me post a link. There’s a thread 8 years ago where you harvested a batch of these in the month of July.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Dec 15, 2022 8:01:31 GMT -6
Let me see if it’ll let me post this universal thread from a long string search:
This one
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Post by amyinowasso on Dec 15, 2022 10:36:45 GMT -6
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 15, 2022 19:24:05 GMT -6
macmex, I’m excited to have possibly saved 48 seeds from this. I still have some left in my original Sand Hill packet, and I’ll plant to plant some of those and some of mine next year. @frostyturnip, your page got me to the same one that amyinowasso later linked to. That was such a fun read, especially as it seems to be the place where Sherry Hill officially chose the name of “Woods Mountain Crazy Beans” to designate the seeds that she shared.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 18, 2022 17:10:10 GMT -6
My Woods Mountain Crazy Beans are officially done for the season. My husband cut out the plants for me yesterday, finding only two beans, one that was filled out that I put in my drying basket, and one that my youngest got to eat as a snack. The temperature was forecast for 33 last night, but according to my thermometer near the garden, we dropped to 30. This week, though, we’re supposed to drop to the teens, so there was no chance for the beans to do anything more other than nourish my soil with their decaying roots and nourish my compost bin with their stems and leaves.
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