Garden Journal

[Jeremy Weiss]

Long beans are actually a different subspecies Vinga ungicuata sesquipidale

The one I referred to as the little one was leiosperma. I tend to think of hevola as the "normal" fuzzy bean, since it is the one that grows wild here (or semi wild, since they add it to erosion control mixes, it's hard to te3ll what was always there and what was sown. The edges of the railroad tracks are COVERED with it). And yes, the fuzziness of the seeds does vary quite a bit.

Yeah they don't cross a lot, but it can happen. I almost grew (and almost got seed from) something I was semi-sure was a cross between a common bean and a lima, I know someone who pulled off a common-runner cross, and there is a possibility that the "Landmaster" incident on another site came from am cross between a cowpea and a Bambara groundnut (Vigna subterrenea*) 

I'm about really to put out my rice bean seedlings (except for the wild rice beans, I'm holding those for later and will grow them separately, same as the wild mungs.)

*To abbreviate the story, someone got a mix of Bambara groundnut seeds from someone in South Africa. among those was one red seed that didn't look quite like a groundnut (while round, it looked a little too flat cross section). When the person planted those seeds, that red one was the only one that really grew, but BOY DID IT GROW (the vine from that one seed ended up covering the entirety of the side of his house, and produced several HUNDRED new seeds. I don't think he re-grew them (he said they were a pain to thresh) but I assume some of that seed is still around. 

[Garrett Schantz]

I've tried growing Bamabaras and other tuberosus Vignas before in Pennsylvania.


That didn't go over too well.

I had two go's at common beans lately. Before I moved in PA and again when it decided to pour everyday for a month here.


Powdery mildew. Ended up going through some packets.



But, I do have some descendedants of a Runner X Common bean.


I got them years back now, from Deaflora. Got a phytosanitary thing from them.



I'm not going to try what I have left, until it's warmer / drier.


Rainy season seems to start slightly before the optimal planting time for legumes.


What I have left here, they aren't the cooler purple seeded types.


The flowers may or may not be red. They're "Dwarf" types. Hestia or whatever it's called is also a stable hybrid if I remember correctly.


I'd just like to get some Phaseolus and Vigna crosses at some point.



As for interspecific crosses, Cowpeas don't seem to outcross much with Asian species. Or the outcomes aren't viable.


So, the second best option would be a standard cowpea crossed into a noodle bean.




I don't think that I have any rice beans. Those are neat.



I'm waiting a bit longer to plant my Phaseolus seed.




Planting things very closely together, and having a ton of pollinators, seems to increase the chances of ourcrossing.


With different species it can increase the chances of diseases spreading as well.


I also ordered The Experimental farm networks Melothria pendula "breeding mix." I think it's a breeding mix, only due to the crop being grown near M. scabra.


Melothria species have male and female flowers. They're self compatible, only in the sense that they can have their male and female flowers pollinate themselves.


I'm planning on getting seed from a local type of pendula that I saw last year, and growing it intermixed with the other M. pendula, and M. scabra.


A hybrid would possibly have more vigor, sour fruit and fruits which ripen to yellow or black.



The local type isn't sour. So I'd say that it's not a garden escapee.




But yeah, I've been finding that when I grow beans together on a trellis, then plant them all out. I can usually find a few crosses.


Selecting for beans that outcross, and Vignas that outcross, does sound like fun.

[Jeremy Weiss]

I think the problem is that there is a major split in cowpea genetics, same as there is with hyacinth beans. The African populations and the Asian populations have been separated so long they have trouble re-mixing. Nearly all of the cow pea types found in the Americas are Africa based, since they came over with the African slave trade. if you tried crossing a long bean with an Asian cow pea (like one from India) it might work a bit better. I'd off you some Sky Pointers to try with (a small red cow pea whose pods grow against the force of gravity, so they stick straight up.) but, do to a bad harvest combined with a storage error, I'm almost out, and the company I got them from switched types (same as with the Owl's Eye.)

Mine rice beans tend to look even neater, since I specialize in the alternate colors (i.e. not solid red). It is, however not a crop I recommend buying randomly, even from a market. There are two major types out there, the commoner can't flower or pod here, and it takes some experience to be able to tell which you have visually.

And it's hard to find ANY alternate colors in bags anymore. Now that all of the food packers use those computerized electric eye sorters to get junk out, pretty much the only thing that gets into the bags is what is supposed to. I think my non pure tan mothe bean experiments are done, the last "scribbled" (black mottled) one I had got its top bitten off by the cat (I think) and every bag since then has had nothing but tan (I haven't seen pure black seeds in about seven years, so that's WAY past working on.) Probably the same with fresh black or white horse gram (trade color is tan, but dead white does exist), what I put in this year plus what I got last year is probably all I'll have to work with from now on.     

[Garrett Schantz]

I haven't seen much about any cowpeas hardly ever crossing.

Or people growing the ones that split at whatever point.


I don't think they diverged long enough ago, for things to matter.

[Garrett Schantz]

But yeah. It could just be that those rarely cross, and there usually isn't enough reason to grow both types.

And not a lot of people look for or mess with hybrids / off types. So, I think it's worth playing around with.

A Pretzel bean crossed with a long cowpea, could be interesting.

There's also cowpeas with semi purple / red pods.




I also noted, that I didn't make numbers or a chart for some of what I've planted.



2 green ripper 2 Jan's

4 wildling

4 HR Woolly Currant

2 black bumblebee 2 Wagner blue green

2 Prudens Purple, 2 Eva Purple Ball

4 Arcanum Pink Cherry

1 Fuzzy Peach, 1 Neon Peach, 1 Garden Peach, 1 Wapsipinicon Peach

4 Reisetomate

4 bowling pin

2 livingstons honor bright, 2 silvery fir

2, woolly blue wine, 2 woolly kate

2 Saraev M-22, 2 Aladdin's lamp

4 BH Series

4 Wildling

4 Orange exserted

2 Exserted orange, 2 Wildling

4 Purple Smudge



2 Douchoua pepper tomato, 2 velvet red cherry (no germ yet)

4 wild hairy tomato

4 Alberto Shatters

4 Wild Currant Tomato From Peru


12 Lycium andersonii

12 Lycium berlandieri

12 Lycium exsertum (one sprout / seedling!)

12 Lycium chinese

24 Lycium ruthenicum (4 germ, type 2), (3 germ type 2)




Type 1 / type 2, just refers to Tradewindsfruit and The Experimental farm networks seed.

The seeds were all different colors.

There's a cold front moving in, I covered some volunteers with leaves.


Volunteer beans and things. Some tomato seeds that I planted, have been coming up.


The cold front may cause it to be in the 30F range for about an hour. Or low 30s.



I moved my trays of seedlings into a protected area indoors.




I don't think it'll get nearly cold enough to damage anything.



But back to the cowpeas and long beans.

Humans haven't been around for long enough to cause anything to diverge from what I can tell.

Unless the flower structures are horribly different, then things should be fine.


Cowpeas and the like, rarely ourcross.



And, most people who grow cowpeas in their native countries, don't grow long beans - because they are basically the same thing or things.

That goes foe Asia and Africa - elsewhere.



There's also the chance that a completely different subspecies or variant was brought over when these were domesticated.


Some wheats can't cross due to ploidy counts, or there's a few barriers.



But, since there's a population of cowpeas which may have spawned from chance outcrosses.


I see no reason not to grow them near long beans, and hope for the best.



In the future, I may try and grow Holstein cowpeas and some red / purple podded ones. Sorta striped.



It could be fun. I'd imagine that you could select for larger and longer beans. Maybe larger pods.



And then the progeny would be growing near other Vigna species in my case.


I honestly don't know a lot of people who grow cowpeas and long beans in North America either.

Or Adzuki beans and whatever else.



Many of these have the exact same usages. Or they just aren't used here.


But I'll see what happens.

[Jeremy Weiss]

I also found one with a white pod (not that light greenish sliver like some of the long beans are, the same off white as a wax bean pod is), but I don't have it anymore.

And there actually IS one place where they grow both; China. In general, the Chinese will grow pretty much any legume that will grow there, if not for their own use, then for export (I have seen Chickpeas that were grown in China).

There is also some long bean out there I bumped into once (in the form of actual pods being sold, where I simply picked the floppiest, most overripe bunch I could and extracted the seed from that). I'd love to find again. Not only was it huge (not so much in length, but it was way thicker than most of them) but the pods had this odd rugose (wrinkled/bumpy) appearance to them. The only clue to identity I have is that its the only time I ever saw a black eyed long bean seed.

There are a few other cow pea quirks I'd like to find again, like the one whose pods were sweet (sort of like a sugar pea). But, of course, the downside of getting seeds by finding them in other things is you never know when, or if, you'll find another one.

And ALL off type stuff is a lot less commonly found now, since, by this point, pretty much all of the companies that pack seed for food or planting run it through one of those computerized scanners with the electric eye a few times, and that catches pretty much everything that doesn't look "standard".

I also have some ideas for some strains I'd like to work out, like the "Golden Dawn" pea (a pea line that is homozygous for the "orc" (orange cotyledon) trait, so that the inside are the same color as a red lentil. I think such a pea might be of benefit to those who eat a lot of dried peas with regards to their beta-carotene consumption. If they could do it with common vetch, I can probably do it with peas. Or "Amaidaizu", a soybean with the same "ss" wrinkled trait that makes peas become sugary and wrinkled (I have seen the odd wrinkled soybean, and think the gene might be there as well) for the edamame market. 

[Garrett Schantz]

A sweet cowpea would be very nice.

All sorts of nice traits being mentioned.



We had a cold front. Some Canna lilies coming back, are semi damaged.


I cover the beans with leaves, they're still small.


I didn't plant a ton of them, not a ton of volunteers in the other case.




I didn't mention this, but as I was late on planting tomatoes and things, I went ahead and scavenged soil.


I got it from a plastic herb planter bed. We moved twice last year. So, that screwed a lot of things up.


Maybe had some dill and basil going.



Everleaf Emerald Towers, and some sort of sweet basil from Bonnie's plants. Plus I started some Blue Spice Basil in there as well.



I used soil in there, just because I figured it was newer soil and likely had few weed seeds.



I've now been noticing little seedlings popping up with my tomatoes. I've been going "hey those remind me of basil seedlings!"


I've now sorta went "Oh, those probably are basil seedlings."



The tomatoes and things didn't coin out since we moved so late.


Didn't use much of any basil.



Didn't remember to even bother with the basil, the planter thing, wasn't handling the move very well. Herbs were dying off and I didn't have much of a use for basil by itself.


But, it's possible that the two basil's I grew hybridized. Then there's the Blue Spice Basil, which also happened to be flowering.


But yeah. It seems like I have basil seedlings in some trays with my tomatoes and things. I'm not complaining. They'll probably be easy to thin out.





I also figured that I'd mention that everything looks fine.


I may keep everything covered tonight. It's not supposed to be quite as cold, but yeah.


I'll likely be refilling the herb bed up again, where I borrowed soil from.


I'm not used to basil volunteering in this manner. Especially these types of basil.



The Wisterias which I was worried were infected with Agrobacterium are coming back.

One is flowering a bit. Not a ton, we trimmed them back a ton. So that's to be expected.

A purple / black flowered relative, is also coming back. Different genera.



I think these would be fun to grow around redbuds.


I see a few redbuds that still have blooms. I walked up closer to one and see little pink dots. Meaning that it likely blooms in profusions.



I've never seen Wisteria till this point. I added some images of those.


The one with growth by a fence, is the distant relative. I saw it flowering.


The flowers are way smaller. Still large as far as legumes go. The leaves are glossy, and a bit different. These also flower at different times.



I don't know what species of Wisteria is here. I didn't take a far away image of the blooming one.





If I get enough basil, I may try some "companion planting" with tomatoes.

Basil isn't a heavy feeder, appreciates some shade. May be toxic to some insects / insects may not want to be near them.


Bees like basil and the like. Dunno if it would help or mess with promiscuous tomato things.



Lot of stuff here.

[Garrett Schantz]

Some legumes which I covered, didn't like the cold weather.

Others, seemed fine.


It hasn't been consistently warm enough for everything to germinate anyway. I saw like two bean plants die off. Seedlings.





Tomato seedlings which I sowed, they're fine. Some older ones which came up prior to others, have some purplish "leaves."

But, it's getting warmer. The first official date to plant tomatoes, is March 27th. As I've said before, I'm late on things.


There's a wide range for planting tomatoes here. There's actually two seasons or grow outs of them that you can sort of do here.




I believe that my Solanum carolinense or whatever, is coming up as well. I planted some seed for the heck of it.

The seedlings, look like tomato or solanum seedlings. The stems seem red, and hairless. I tried to direct sow some Kangaroo apples around them as well. I'll probably try the same with Litchi tomatoes.



One Litchi tomato, proved to be a perennial here. I planted one, way late into the season last year. I had a few remaining seed. It's still going, it died back but it's coming back to life.



But yeah. Stuff is going.






I planted seed, a few seeds. Some cucumbers. Lemon cucumber, dragons egg. Bhutan-meets-greg.  About one mound or corner of the first two. Two for these others.

These aren't in the garden which isn't tilled yet. Bit behind on that.


Some neighbors should be doing the initial stuff.


I'd just like to get that in, so that I can plant cucumber seed and other things soon.


And I'd prefer not to have it immediately tilled, and then have to start planting in whatever.





The longer growing season, does help me out with messing up and planting things late. Well, the tomato seed. But, they're developing leaves.


The ones I planted in trays.


And I have enough tomatoes planted, that lower production shouldn't matter. Not too happy about that.


I could care less about the Gojis producing this year or not. They aren't known to produce a lot in their first year.


I did try to plant some spare seed in a spot last year.


I also moved the Litchi tomato. Why not.


If not, it gets pulled and dies. It's not looking too great. I wasn't delicate.



I also need to work on the perennial goji block. I'm not doing stands of black gojis, next to or surrounded by black gojis.


I'll be planting these different species, in different positions, all around and in between or next to different species. Some may be near their own species.


Some of these species, produce within a year. Some have very edible fresh berries.


If any of these are able to cross, then I'd assume that this would help them to do so.



Kangaroo apples and Litchi tomatoes are also hardy here. So, I have a few plans. Maybe I'll set up areas for them, and hybrid populations of whatever.


Kangaroo apple hybrids or something. Dunno.

[Jeremy Weiss]

My cowpeas are kaput (looks like it was too cold to leave them outside yet). So I guess I'll have to find something else climbing for that pot. Maybe the tinga; let the hyacinth beans have both side pots all to themselves. Or maybe I can put the horse gram there rather than the round pot I did last year (I don't know if horse gram will climb if given a chance, or it always just scrambles along the ground.) With four long pots, I have four spaces to fill. And I know I DON'T want to do wild soybeans again. Here, they're so vigorous they verge on invasive, and it looks like the seeds CAN overwinter. Plus, the local birds don't like them much) so they are a yard takeover waiting to happen. I already have rice beans and senna as permanent parts of the lawn (not due to re-seeding, but due to seeds being able to stay dormant in the soil for ages) and they are enough of a headache (the rice beans by potentially showing up were I plant other ones on purpose and messing up my selection plans, the senna because senna stinks to high heaven when you cut it or mow it over.)   

[Garrett Schantz]

Yeah, it seems like a lot of people got that cold front.


Some of my legumes weren't happy, others didn't mind a bit of cold.


I did notice, that I forgot to mention the corn varieties.



And yeah, I planted them too close together. I want some varieties to cross.


I can grow others together, they may or may not cross.




I did the same four corners thing.


I don't plan to let cucumbers grow up them, maybe eventually. Otherwise I wouldn't have sowed them at the same time.


The first date for sowing corn here, is around a week away.



In one area, I did a few seeds of Japanese Black Sticky.

One corner, I added Dobranoc. Another, I added Gigante Hominy Self Feeding Corn Grex. And the other corner, Speckled Parching Self-Feeding Corn Grex.


A lot of the seed, are from whatever different years.

Japanese Black Sticky, was packed for 2020.



In the other area, pretty much next to this one.


Dzit Bacal Ancient Mayan, on one of the corners, mixed with Independence Corn.


Another corner, Gigante Hominy mixed with Dzit Bacal Ancient Mayan.




On the other corners, more Dobranoc, and whatever else.



I didn't plant these for production. And I planted them early.


I'll do actual corn rows when actually planting whatever.



I've mentioned some of these before. The self feeding trait, is very nice.


Then, the anthocyanin. And Sticky corn trait.


There's sticky forms of many crops, usually found in Asia. I've even heard of sticky sorghum.



So, I want to mix Dobranoc and Japanese Black Sticky. Japanese Black Sticky, has an iridescent blue color. When dry, I guess.

Dobranoc, looks a lot like Succotash beans.


Dobranoc also has earliness traits and whatever other things. It has Peruvian, Mexican and other blue corns mixed into it.


Bred by Frank Kutka.



That's just a start.





'Aonsu Pä-sakun'a'-mon Lenni Lenapi' (Lenni Lenape Blue Pulling Corn) Corn, Montana Morado.


These, are also pretty cool. One, is a native american corn.



The other is cooler to me. It has a Navajo corn mixed in with it.

It's said to be 100% Native North American Corn.


It's said to have more anthocyanin than types found elsewhere.



So, Montana Morado Maize. There's other anthocyanin types out there.


I'm pretty sure, that it's possible to make a deeper anthocyanin type of corn, using it as a base.


Dobranoc and Montana Morado Maize, are both early anthocyanin corns.


Their kernels and things look different.


I'd imagine, that crossing these corns together could be pretty fun.



As for Black corns from Peru. All sorts of types.


They're usually ground up, and said to have a weird cinnamon / bacon taste. Others went with fruit tasting hard candies. Spiced bubblegum.



I'd say that different types of or genes responsible for anthocyanin, have different flavors to them.


Purple popcorns, are prepared differently than other purple corns.

Then there's regular dents, flour and maybe sweet corns.


The flavor is different, boiling, popping. Yeah.



But, some websites claiming that Montana Maize Morado, is 100% North American or Native American.


I'd be interested, in trying out some further breeding. Dobranoc just felt like a good candidate to me.


Similar traits and all.



I may or may not, try to pick up Montana Maize Morado this year.


I could just focus on trying to mix Dobranoc and Japanese Black Sticky.


Sticky corn, may look different kernel wise as well, even with whatever other traits.



I'd want a sweet, high antho sticky corn, while also trying to pull in other nice traits.


Hearing that a lot of these corns have a spicy or fruity taste. Maybe it differs in whatever places in Peru. Or some native american ones have whatever flavor to them.


I haven't heard of a ton of purple or blue sweet corns.


I've done some thinking, and decided that this sort of corn, would be very cool.

Especially with the sticky trait. You can prepare sticky corn in a few ways, and it's pretty different from other types of corn. Mixing that quality with the sweet, fruity / spicy whatever.



I think they'd all pair well. I don't know if anyone else would be as interested in all of this as I am.



But, it's a goal.

[Jeremy Weiss]

The only difference is it sounds like you are trying to get the corns to mix (at least within the populations you selected, while I am trying to KEEP them from mixing at the moment. How well your setup will work, I can't tell it would depend on how big an area you are working with. My issue is that I am working with a space that is four feet by four feet max, and I am trying to fit four separate types of corn in there without them mixing (I've explained why I am doing this before.)

I'm not planning for ANYTHING to climb up the corn, since I'm sending all of the climbing legumes to the back patio to use the railing, and using the favas in with the corn instead. Though I just realized that my wooden contraption is sort of going to prevent my idea of sticking a watermelon plant in the dead center of the corn; I can't plant something on a space the device physically occupies! Guess I'll find somewhere else for that (I wonder if I can plant it on the edge of the area and then train it to go around the whole thing? No wait, if I did that, any corn pollen that got on the vine would end up crossing sections of the device as the vine grew, and potentially contaminate the next section.

Though that bit may be moot anyway, given how old that watermelon seed is now, it may not even germinate.

[Garrett Schantz]

Yeah. I stuck my corn into a small area as well.


Nice to see others are doing that.



Some sources also say that waxy / sticky corn, has amylopectin.

Or that's its starch. It stains red with iodine or something. Normal corn is blue?

Dunno. But, I'm pretty sure that whatever I cross over, the kernels won't look the same.



Amylopectin, is used as a thickener. And it has other usages.


Someone else suggested to me, that if the corn had any form of a fruity or spicy / candy taste, that sticky corn is sometimes made into candies or used in other ways in Japan, and has unique properties.


A corn candy, sounds like it would be fun. I think they mentioned mochi or whatever you call it.



My issue is that a lot of corn, they don't have their flowering dates listed. Normally, you can plant some corn at different dates, and that can change up the flowering times enough.


Other corn varieties, are earlier, or whatever else.


So, I do need to probably document some of that.



I'm planning on having my cucumbers and things, some legumes sprawl out around the little area.

Legumes get the inner areas.



I'm still trying to think of the possibilities of what I could do with waxy corn. Let alone, one with weird fruity or spicy tasting things in it.


And I don't know how everything would develop with how the corn structure and everything like the different type of starch, would effect other traits.



I've also noted, that a lot of sweet corns are bland. They're sweet. I like corn on the cob.


It's not bad or anything. I like it.


But, you obviously have things like Joseph's carotene corn. Carotene has a flavor to it.


And, the carotene taste can have the same flavors that typical corn has - sweet corn.



A lot of people in Mexico, and Peru, seem to dislike yellow corn. It's sweet, and that's about it.



A high carotene waxy corn, is probably going to taste much different than a high anthocyanin waxy corn as well.


And, I'd assume that people would have preferences with taste.


Then there's the normal / standard flavors and types of corn and things.



But yeah, I've been thinking a lot more about the garden this year.



I'm also not 100% sure on how tall all of my corn gets. So, climbers may not be a great thing.


I know that the Mayan popcorn will be small. It's like four feet.


I'm not going to try planting my watermelon early.

Nor regular melons.



But, they'll be in the garden. I'm usually a fan of them, since they tend to grow faster than weeds.


I'm also planting some varieties close together in those cases as well.


Living in zone 8, gives me some advantages with growing certain crops or growing some day length sensitive varieties successfully as well.



I've also considered that a bean paste could be made using Adzukis and waxy corn.

[Garrett Schantz]

I noticed that one of HR's Woolly Currant tomatoes, with is a Hairy Galopagos tomato or something, possibly crossed with a cherry tomato or a Currant tomato.

One of the cotlydeons is very hairy. I don't know if the phone camera is picking that up.


I don't know if it's possible to get hairy fruit and hairy leaves, or that I need hairy leaves to get hairy fruit.

I haven't really grown the hairy tomatoes from over there.



I tried a visual look next to Woolly Blue Wine and Woolly Kate.


They don't quite have that fuzz, but I can possibly use this in the future to immediately tell if this trait is present.



I'd like to try and cross a more stable woolly tomato, with another type of woolly tomato.


Livingstons honor bright, I took an image of those seedlings. And yes, I way overseeded them.


I won't use all of the seed anyway, and I still have leftover.

I doubt I'd be able to give it away either.



Those have started to turn a sickly yellow color. They're also easy to see if the first true leaves have the gene.

I don't mind chartreuse plants, but this variety is one of the only yellow leaved tomato varieties out there.


If the leaves didn't slowly turn yellow, I'd imagine the plants would just die off.


I'm planting those as ornamentals at best.



I've also wanted to try and cross them with a variegated tomato or whatever else.




The antho tomatoes are showing some blue coloration, due to the cold weather.


Antho tomatoes seem more susceptible to cold, as per usual.


Hopefully they aren't blue stemmed or stunted for their whole growing period.

[Kadence Luneman]

Just found out OSU has a growing degree day calendar. I think this is just for Ohio but I'm sure other websites have something for other states/areas/countries.

https://weather.cfaes.osu.edu/gdd/

[Garrett Schantz]

https://www.almanac.com/gardening/planting-calendar/MS/Jackson


I use this site. It's helpful enough.


It doesn't list some obscure plants and things.