Hi, smokeymist! Oooh I love collecting heirloom beans. If you have any left of: Barnes Mountain Striped Hull Greasy Cut Short North Carolina Speckled Long Cutshort Greasy Doyce Chambers Grandma Barnett I would like to trade 7 of my beans (seven seeds) for 7 of your beans (seven seeds), so I can grow some out. If you'd rather have squash or carrots, I can spare 12 squash, or about 30 or 40 carrot seeds or so, again in trade for 7 beans. This is what I have - These are all packed for 2011 from Baker Creek or Territorial Seeds: Hidatsa Shield Bean Beurre De Rocquencourt Bush Wax Bean White Rice Bush Bean Bolita Pole Bean McCaslin 42 Pole Bean Red Dragon Carrots Tromboncino squash - I have never used it as a winter squash, but it is our favorite summer squash Thank you! Kathy

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.

Well, the harvest of dry seed has begun. For peas, both Sugar Magnolia and Limestone had an exceptional year. PM never made its appearance, and the two varieties produced about a pound of dry seed each. Mesa was almost completely washed out by heavy rains, but a few plants survived, and I have enough seed for another attempt next year. Cera Sierra has a great stand, is loaded with pods, and beginning to dry down. Nadja was flooded out after planting, and was a complete failure... so like Mesa, it goes to the top of the list for next year. The cowpea CES-18-6 (Paayap) has a very heavy pod set, about 1/2 of which have dried & been harvested. MN-13 also has a very heavy stand, and I picked the first dry pods today. It seems cowpeas were the only direct-seeded beans which appreciated the drenching rainfall which followed their planting. There were two plantings of the black-seeded yardlong that I grow (one for seed only), and both are loaded with pods. Chinese Red Noodle is just beginning to set pods, and Thailand pole (which is incredibly vigorous this year) has begun flowering. All should have time to produce dry seed. For runner beans, I picked the first dry pods from Gigandes today. Considering that most of the seed I harvested last year came in late September, this could (finally) be a good seed harvest. Tucomares Chocolate surprised me by setting large numbers of pods even during 80 degree heat, so it too should have a great year. German Butterbean lima has only a fair pod set, but there are a lot of plants, so the harvest should still be good. Some of the pods have begun to change color now. The news is not so good for my other lima, tentatively named "Pan-Pacific Black & White" (a Filipino heirloom from a member of this forum). While the vines are vigorous, they have yet to begin flowering. It may be daylength sensitive, and my hopes for getting dry seed are diminishing. The Takara Early adzuki has begun drying down pods, I picked the first few today. Yellow Mungo has quite a few pods set, but I've lost a few plants to the wilt which has decimated them in years past; those plants were pulled & destroyed at the first sign of infection. The mungo is spread out in two widely-separated plantings & surrounded by flowering plants, so hopefully those measures will impede the spread of the wilt, should it reappear. The bush rice bean, which I had such high hopes for, has yet to flower. The plants are incredibly healthy & Vignas mature seed quickly, so I haven't given up hope yet. Beans have just begun to mature. I've already harvested quite a bit of seed from both Solwezi and Sargas... making up for the total loss of Sargas last year. Pods on Jembo Polish & Giant Red Tarka have just begun to enter shelly stage. All other beans are filling out, and beginning to change color. Barring any interference by weather (a major hail storm missed my garden by 10 miles), it looks like it will be a good year. It is also on track to be my best tomato & pepper harvest ever (yes, I do grow things other than beans) ;-)

SUBSTITUTIONS AND DUPLICATES OKAY I'm not picky! Surprises are great just no ornamentals please BEANS (anything pretty! except scarlet emperor I have lots of him) Blauhilde Purple Koronis Nonna Agnes's Blue Bean Fort Portal Jade Bean Dragon Tongue Red Swan Sunset Runner Painted Lady Runner Good Mother Stallard PEAS! Any rare, heirloom, or odd colored varieties Carouby De Maussane Spring Blush Tendril Blue Pod Capucijner Tall Telephone Arbogast Magnum Bonum Prince Albert Lincoln Champion of England Sugar Magnolia SQUASH (any bush types) Bush Buttercup Desi Summer Squash Galeux d'Eysines Kakai Kogigu Lakota Marina di Chioggia Moranga Musquee de Provence Sibley/Pikes Peak Sucrine du Berry Sweet Dumpling Tatume Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Triamble/Shamrock MELONS Ali Baba Watermelon Crane Early Frame Prescott Ginger's Pride Ineya Old Time Tennessee Piel de Sapo Strawberry Watermelon Swan Lake Tip Top Valencia Winter Melon Vert Grimpant TOMATOES African Queen Aunt Ruby's German Green Aunt Ginny's Purple Aunt Gertie's Gold Believe it or not Big Ben Big Rainbow Black Russian Blondkopfchen Brandywine Yellow Burpee's Globe Ceylon Chile Verde Elfin Emerald Evergreen Gold Medal Goldman's Italian-American Green Doctors Green Giant Jaune Flammee Marvel Striped Mary Robinson's German Bicolor Matt's Wild Cherry McClintock's Big Pink Mortgage Lifter bicolor Old Ivory Egg Opalka Orange Banana Orange Strawberry Orange Minsk Peach Blow Sutton Purple Russian Red Rose Santa Clara Canner Sara's Galapagos Stump of the World Stupice White Beauty Wild Sweetie MISC. All kinds of radishes (the more colorful the better!) Carrots - Atomic Red, Black Nebula, Black Spanish, Chantenay, Gniff, Koral, Oxheart, Scarlet Nantes, St Valery Ramps, Wild Leeks Nodding Onion (Allium cernuum) Egyptian Walking Onion Ground Cherry - Aunt Molly's, Goldie Goji Berry (scarlet wolfberry) Wild Strawberry (fragaria vesca) FLOWERS Papaver somniferum - Pepperbox, Black Swan, Danish Flag, Drama Queen, Igor, Hens and Chicks, Hungarian Blue, Fire and Snow, Giganteum Calendula - Kablouna, Oopsy Daisy, Solar Flashback, Pink Surprise, any apricot colored Dianthus plumarius (ANY) Echinacea purpurea - ANY PURPLES, Bravado, Fatal Attraction, Pink Poodle, Ruby Star Orange Honeysuckle (Lonicera Ciliosa) Pink Honeysuckle (Lonicera Hispidula) Rose (Rosa rugosa) Sunflowers - Chianti, Greenburst, Ikarus, Jade, Jolly Joker, Taiyo, Titan Wild Violets (Viola Sempervirens, Viola Adunca, Viola Glabella) Zinnias - Cherry & Ivory Swizzle, Tudor NASTURTIUM - ANY except mixes, Apricot Trifle, Cherries Jubilee, Copper Sunset, Creamsicle, Double Delight Apricot, Evelyn, Hermine Grashof, Margaret Long, Moonlight, Vesuvius, Yeti, Ladybird Cream Purple Spot HERBS Orange Thyme (thymus fragrantissimus) Culinary Sage - Berggarten Variegated, Broad leafed Sage White Sage (salvia apiana) Basil - Tulsi, Lime, Lettuce Leaf, Purple types Lavender - Hidcote, Munstead, Ellagance Pineapple mint Ashwagandha Soapwort Lemon Verbena Sorrel Lovage Salad Burnet Mizuna