Vigna "Cortona del tresimero"

[ferdzy]

Okay, reporting back on these thus far: I planted them at the beginning of June and they popped up within 3 days. Then the weather turned cool and they sat there, and sat there, and sat there. Presumably whispering to each other "Joe! Joe! Where the hell are we?" "In Italy, you dummy!" "Joe, are you sure? It sure doesn't feel like Italy." "We've been Italy for 4,000 years, where else would we be?" etc, etc.

Then they finally started to grow and I am seeing a number of pods formed, although only on about half of them. The other half are just starting to stretch out and flower now. The early flowers all seemed to be purple, although I think I've seen pink and white since then.

And okay, who said they were 1 foot tall?! Holly, that was you! Mine are more like FIVE feet long. They are a mess, and I cannot get down the path on either side now. Assuming I get ripe beans, I will definitely grow these again next year - and trellis them!

[12540dumont]

I've harvested 2 brown grocery bags full of pods over 3 weeks. Okay, mine were 18" tall this year. Steev is right, 3 colors of flowers, 3 colors of beans. (And they cross back and forth). My Sicilian friend came over and was truly annoyed that she came too late to have shellies. But I gave her a half a pound of dried to eat and she went home mostly happy.

Ferdzy, I've heard that if you transplant Italian children to Canada, they get 7' tall.

Joe also told them last year that they were only vacationing in California. Just goes to show, you can't always believe what Joe tells you.

[ferdzy]

That Joe, he thinks he knows everything, but he's usually the last to figure out what's going on. Although he was right about only vacationing in California! And at least Italian children transplanted to Canada don't get 20 feet tall!

[steev]

My brother, whose mother's parents were from around Pisa, Lucca, only grew to 5' 6" (like Doc Holliday), but his shoulders are half again as broad as mine. I've read that he's what was the average Roman soldier, while the Romans were still raising their own, before they started depending on levies from the provinces entirely.

[iva]

Aug 12, 2013 11:16:17 GMT -5 cortona said:

i'm growing a second crop of fagiolina this year after the first dont produced so much due to a cold a rainy spring, so i think i can have seeds to share with you Iva!
side note, the exact name is dolico and not d'olico,
use the fagiolina as shellies are a bit conterproductive but....experiments are the key to success!

Thanks so much, I'll PM you with my address. Is there anything I can offer in return?? Something special you are looking for?

[cortona]

i'm looking for everithing is imteressant Iva, anithing that taste good, or have drought resistance; nice tomatoes are ever welcome!

[ferdzy]

Well on closer examination I was wrong about half of them flowering and setting pods earlier. It looks like some other kind of bean, a regular phaseolus vulgaris, got mixed in witht them. That's what set pods. I can see now that the others are finally doing their thing that they look very different. We'll see if they actually ripen before frost this year - I'm afraid my prediction is that we are going to have an early one. We'll see. The patch is small enough I will try to cover it if frost is predicted and they are still going.

[steev]

I picked a quantity of dry Tresimeno pods, today; I'll thresh them next week-end, and doubtless pick an even greater quantity. Must remember to harvest some young pods for "green-beans".

[steev]

The weather having turned too quickly for "green beans" I've been harvesting these for dry beans. Due to their tendency to shatter, they are quite a lot of hand-work to harvest, though very productive. I should give more thought to not being so anal about getting all the seeds, and perhaps just let them mostly mature, pull the plants, dry them, and thresh. I would certainly lose a fair quantity of seed in the field, but how bad could that be, to maybe have self-seeded cowpeas sprouting in late Spring?
The worst that could happen is that they'd sprout and be killed by frost, but I'd not be counting on them for my crop, so no loss.

I cooked a batch, having floated off the remaining trash and soaked them overnight, adding a large chopped onion, some celery, and some crushed garlic, all sauteed in bacon grease, of course, and a nice smoked ham-hock. Yummers! Definitely a staple of my garden from now on.

[hortusbrambonii]

So, I gather they need a lot of heat and would not grow more Northern in Europe?

[ferdzy]

Bram, they do like heat. Still, they grew all right even in my fairly cool summer - sometimes. As the season comes to a close, the race is on for them to produce some pods before the frost hits.

The bigger problem, it seems to me, is I think they are day-length sensitive. Mine seemed very confused at the beginning of the summer - yes I know they're plants, but really, they just looked CONFUSED. Then, later in August, they finally started to grow and flower. Pods are forming NOW, but it's pretty late - we got down to at least 3°C last night. I will likely get enough seeds to plant again, and perhaps the next generation will be a bit better adapted. I really do want these to work! However, I note that I have only 2 kinds of seeds that I'm picking so far, and I'm pretty sure there were at least 4 colours when I planted them. Can anyone confirm that?

I'm gettng dark red ones, and a larger buff-white that seems more like a regular bean, not a cowpea. Can anyone confirm on that too?

[steev]

I have white, blackeye, dark red, buff, white-and-orange/brown, and almost black.

[ferdzy]

Thanks Steev. I have white, buff, and red so far so only half of the colours. We'll see; no frost forecast in the next week and I expect to quadruple my haul in that time. But it's still cutting it pretty short...

[steev]

I paid attention to the colors/patterns of those I threshed from last weeks picking (so much easier to deal with really dry pods) and I note a very great range of color, not so much of pattern; I think some of the colors fade away as the beans dry; too bad. Someday, I'll try Joseph's vinegar trick to see if I can set the colors; I think they'd be very striking in a salad, if so. I really like these beans, but gray-brown, when cooked, is so...drab. I'd settle for keeping the "pinto" pattern.

I spent much of this week-end's farm-time picking these and urd beans, as they're getting so mature and dry that they're starting to shatter (takes a bit of technique to pull them off without losing the seed, and a container they can't jump out of). Found one Blue-Speckled Tepary plant sprouted among the urd beans. Blueadzuki cautions that urd beans may be allergenic, but I've noticed no such problem. I admit that I am notoriously insensitive (you could ask my sweetheart).

[zeedman]

This sounds like an interesting cowpea. Looking back over this thread, there are no photos of the seeds... is it possible for someone to post one?

Urd beans... probably the only bean I've grown that was more difficult to harvest was mat bean (which I grew only as an experiment). In my climate, I need to harvest urd beans as they ripen, or they will rot in the rain. Still haven't found a good use for them, they are harder to digest than green gram.