Rogue! In the Garden!

...thought you out to know.

Magical movie quotes aside, this has definitely been a good year for rogues. While many will end up with their own space on the "Current Projects" page, until now they've existed only in my garden and as pictures on my phone.

So today I'll highlight one of them, which has become something of a personal favorite:

MAGPIE BEAN

(aka: Purple Peacock Pole Bean Rogue)

This dude appeared in my first trial sowing of eight Magpie beans in late April. The trial wasn't to test out the variety, but rather to see if this particular location in the garden would be suitable for summer bean growing.
  

It wasn't.

Palm-in-Bucket contraption attempting to keep the Rogue from cooking

Once our first 110°+ heat wave hit, the beans were toast. The trial bed turned into an oven. None of the varieties (Meraviglia Di Venezia, Calima, Red Swan, Magpie, and Purple Teepee) were happy, with most dropping blossoms and ceasing their growth. About half of the plants died outright.

The eight Magpie (small bush bean with white flowers) exhibited a wide degree of diversity, more so than any of the other varieties. Some plants were very tall bush, some short bush, some covered in jungle-thick foliage (and producing no beans) while others put out scarcely a leaf.  However, the few dry beans I was able to collect looked true to type.  So despite their differences, seven of those eights plants I would qualify as Magpie.

This guy, however:

Not exactly bush.

Almost immediately after putting on his first set of leaves, he sent out a long tendril and started grappling for a hold on anything nearby. When all his bush buddies started setting blossoms, he showed no interest, instead sending out more vines and attempting to conquer as much of the Monopoly board as possible.

I figured he was just a "pole rogue" of the common Magpie. Cool, sure. But I often find bush and pole rogues on varieties claimed to be stable. However, the day before our second 110°+ heatwave hit, he put out his first flower:

Though the blossom quickly crisped and dropped, the color was worth it.

Now I was paying attention. I quickly pulled the rest of his half-dead trial buddies and erected the stupid looking palm awning to try to keep him alive. I also removed all the bricks from the bed wall to help keep the ambient temperature as low as possible during the hottest hours.

Then I bit my nails, and waited.

For the rest of June and most of July, he pumped out blossoms - and they all fried. Or they were aborted just as the tip of the baby bean emerged. The ground was a graveyard of crispy purple petals. But he kept on keeping on - putting out more vines, more leaves. More suicidal blossoms.

And finally, when we had a week of temperatures never cresting 100°, he did the thing.

Though we're still a long way from viable seed, and even that isn't guaranteed, I'm letting cautious optimism reign. Magpie was actually one of varieties that inspired me to begin this garden in the first place. I'd always found beans fascinating, and something about the look of those dried, B&W filet beans really appealed to me.

Apart from any practical purpose, I liked their aesthetic. Which is to say... i thought they were purdy. Which is also to say (since it's me we're talking about) I immediately began to wonder what I could cross them with.

It seems happy coincidence did the work for me. Because although I keep referring to Mr. Peacock as a "Rogue," odds are he's probably accidental F1 cross.

After Mr. Peacock's discovery, I poured out my remaining Magpie beans and examined them. The differences between beans were astounding. In my haste to get the first trial bed planted, I hadn't even noticed. Alas, I did not take a picture.

Some beans were exactly on point, just like the photo above. Others were filet shaped, but all black. Others were correctly marked, but shaped almost like cutshort beans. Others were plumper and had a slightly purple gleam. Still others were tiny, jet black Tic-Tacs.
 
Curiosity not satiated, I picked thirteen of the most differing ones and planted them in a new (slightly shadier) trial bed. Germination was good, but several were devoured by mysterious somethings. I re-seeded the gaps with more off type seeds.

So far, everyone looks pretty normal. 

Except this guy.

Off-color stem.

Meet Peacock Jr.

The picture is terrible, I know, but our morning sun is truly a force to be reckoned with when it comes to photoshoots. What's important to note is the stem. Difficult to see, since it's about the same color as the soil. But to give you some comparison, here's Peacock Jr's neighbor.

Green stem

And here's a photo taken a few days ago, with the two side-by-side:

Curious even before they sprouted, I did a little light digging. Even as infants, I noticed that Peacock Jr.'s coloration was different than the others. 

Purple flushed stem and cotyledons.

Typical green stem and cotyledons.

Though Peacock Jr. hasn't shown a tendency to vine like Mr. Peacock, I'll definitely be watching him closely in the days and weeks to come. A single mutant in a batch would not be unlikely, but two in twenty-one sharing similar characteristics makes me think that there was likely some crossing between Magpie and the neighboring variety. Score.

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That's it for today, though I'll be sure to post more Rogue Spotlights soon. Happy Friday!