Balsam Soup Beans

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This year my Balsam Soup beans were "October" Beans in the truest sense. They are only now ready with shellies (plump just-about-to-shrink seeds). As a "fall bean" or "october bean" they are daylight-length sensitive, and will usually only set pods late in the year (no matter how early you set them out). I've certainly learned that beans will fruit when they are good and ready, and planting them early tends to reduce yield or lead to poor germination (so be wary of "average days to maturity"). A typical mountain garden would have had a few different types of beans, which would bear at different times. "Bunch" beans (sort of like bush beans but they run a little) would come in first, to be followed by a mid-season bean like greasy cutshorts, to be followed by a fall bean like these. You'll also note the diversity in seed shape, pattern, and color. Like the Yona Soup Beans, Balsam Soup Beans are a bean community, rather than a single landrace, but they've been saved mixed together like this for untold generations. #beancommunities #heirloombeans #octoberbeans #fallbeans #seedstewards

A post shared by Song to Seed (@songtoseed) on Sep 30, 2020 at 6:17am PDT