If anyone else is interested please email me for my list as I'm unable to update the list here on GW.

I am a new member to gw and hope I am not intruding here but Wow! We are attempting this exact same thing right now. We moved to 82 acres of sand and sage brush just over a year ago and are starting with absolutly nothing but what we brought with us and can provide or build on our own. We are 38 miles from the edge of town and we are 100 percent off grid. We have no address, so no fire , police, or medical services of any kind out here. When we moved here our plans were to gradually build up to a self sustaining life style over a period of a few years. We had a savings and job options all lined up. Instaed, the economy tanked and I lost any hope of working due to my health. We were kind of forced to decide on the spot if we realy wanted to do this or if we were going to go back to the city. We decide this realy is what we want to do and have been sticking to it. We haul water, we are building solar panels, have a very small geni for night time power and heat with scavaenged wood and use straw for insulation for both us and the animals. It took a full year for my partner to find any kind of work at all we lived off of saving and my tiny disability income until then and now most of his pay goes for fuel to get to work(79 miles round trip every day) . I was not able to get a pair of goats until Aug 25th of last year. We still need two more does so that we can keep a clean heard of 3-5 goats going at all times for both meat and milk. We have chickens ( the first thing we put out here, Reds, Amercanas,Siklies, and Bantoms) as well as Ducks and Pheasant. We plan on Turkeys and Geese this year. We also plan on rabbits in the future ( the new zelands )but have a large wild population to hunt for now. We will be saving for American Guinea Hogs and Irish Dexter Cattle. If we must, we will do a Dexter / Jersy cross for the cattle. We only want the smaller heiratige breads of the larger livestock since they are much nicer to the land ( I can comfortably range 3-5 dexters on the same amount of land as 1 of the standard breads of cattle and that 3-5 animals is all we will need ) and they can comfortably handle our major temp swings with out health issues. I only managed a small experimental bed last year. It was to see if I could grow all of the things that the folks here has major dificulty with since they are some of the mainstays in most home gardens (tomatoes , peppers, beans, greens, and mushrooms ). With a lot of creative gardening , it worked. So this year will be my first real garden attempt. A large percentage of what others have posted is on our list of things to plant or grow. This is not an all inclusive list but we have also added things Quinoa , flax , sorgums, sunchokes, sunflowwers, barley, oats, rye, buck wheat, soybeans, alfalfa, millet, wheat and clover ( because all of these they are good for both human and animal consumption). Most of these things can be grow together because they devolpe and mature at different times, many are symbiotic relationship plants ( think 3 sisters planting,like corn, beans and squash in the same bed), and they also build and maintaining the soil. We have not yet aquired most of these but hope to soon. They provide food crops and fodder crops at different stages so the production is double duty. With carefull and selective harvesting and seed saving we can set aside next years crop of some of the anuals like the buck wheat. We have plans on a small orchard and I received a gift of a few nut trees for birthday ( 2 hazel nuts a pecan and an almond) and they should arive in june. We will also try to take advantage of the native plants to incourage the continued diversity of wild life we have out here. If the Fox, Cyotes ,hawks,eagles, mountain lions , badgers and other bigger preditor types have an ample food sources, our animals are less attractive to them. We also get better polination , and bug controls. I am an experianced gardener but not in this zone 5 and with these kind of temp swings ( We are alpine high desert with -5 to -15 in the winter , 100 plus regularly in the summer and a last frost date of june 10 ). I can tell you it will be a challenge to everything you think you know. So, Thank you, Your efforts do not just benefit those you seek to help but also some of us at home. I wish you the best of luck with your experiment and will follow your post for any lessons you may be able pass on.

As of now, I plan to grow only 3 beans. Pathetic, aren't I? Fortex - pole bean for snaps Pink Eye Purple Hull - cowpea for shellies Tarbais - pole bean for dry beans I have limited space and I want to go for more quantity this year of my favorites. That, plus the many other types of veggies I am eager to grow, puts a restriction on how many different beans I can grow. It's tough to be so restrained. Jim

I have grown very few varieties compared to many of you, so this is a humble newbie report. What I have grown in the past couple of seasons are pretty common beans, and some are even pantry beans, but I still wanted to make a few recommendations at least for folks in my climate. All pantry beans are the New Orleans brand Camelia beans. Grew and recommend: Yellow pole wax. Can grow very large before it becomes fibrous, or gets a string. I love its texture and flavor and will grow it again. Purple peacock pole beans. Again, gets very large before getting a string, light tan seeds, cooks to a dark green. Delicious flavor. Did really well, very productive and problem/pest free. Made it climb corn stalks, sunflowers and some trellises. Kentucky wonder, pole and bush. Love them, pick earlier on the pole version, will grow again. Does great in pretty hot weather. Peas: Super sugar snaps (Oregon) pole peas. I like them but they got a bit burned at the end, I will try them as a fall/winter crop instead (planted in Feb) Pole snow peas Oregon sugar pod II and Oregon Giant): like them, great lightly cooked or thinly sliced raw in salads. Plant in the fall (got burnt a bit and plants stopped production). Also grew: Shelling peas (bush) Ok, tasty but did not get many. Same issue with planting time, but will hold off on them this year. Pantry black eye peas (bush). Tried them as green beans, can be eaten this way only very young. They get tough early. Ate them as young dried beans and they were delicious (a lot more than the original beans). I will grow this type again but will search for more interesting varieties of the species V. unguiculata and cook them like you guys show here. Since they are warm weather legumes I have time to shop around Blue Lake pole beans. These got stringy and fibrous very early for me, they can only be eaten very young, so will not grow again and grow something else like KW. They are different than the KW, they are flatter, the KW are rounder in cross section. Growing now: Chick pea (common pantry ones). Sprouted and got hit with 100F weather, they look alive but not great. Interesting leaves, does not look like any bean I have ever met before. Hope to taste them as young beans. Lima bean Fordhook No 242 (bush). Had a low sprouting rate (seed was old maybe?) and it is flowering, tiny pods growing, cannot tell much yet. Oregon sugar pod pole pea. Sprouted, experienced 100F, it is shielded by corn stalks but will be happier when it cools down. Pantry green baby limas and regular baby limas (bush). Low sprouting rate but they do look good. Just starting to make little pods, some still flowering. Pantry Red kidney beans (bush). Can eat them tender as green beans but they are flat and they get the string early. Also, the beans inside grow large fast. We ate some as green beans but I will let the rest grow and savor as young beans, or part of a multi bean soup. Great northern (pantry bush beans). These look like they might be undecided between bush or pole. They are just about ready to get flowers.