Beans for fresh shelling
 

What varieties of beans have you found good for fresh shelling, plump and still soft as opposed to dry beans?
Anasazi are particularly easy to shell but the beans are on the small side. I've heard that Tongue of Fire is an easy to shell, tasty bean but it's also on the small side.
What ones have you discovered?

Raymondo, mate i grow a snake bean that mostly use as a green bean cooked and again soaked in Olive Oil and lemon but if the been getsleft a tad too long before being picked we just split it open, rake the been pods out and cook.
Nice, soft n tasty..
This year i'm growing a variety thats grows near a meter long and so far the taste hasnt dissapointed me..
Hopefully the weather will allow me to grow long enough to keep seeds as well so if your wanting some just Hollar:)..
Cheers

G'day Volvo. I like snake beans but I've only ever had them as green beans. Good to here that they can be shelled too. Not sure my season is either hot enough or long enough for snake beans but always willing to give something a go. Keep me in mind if you do get to save some seeds.

Will do mate and sure you'll love these ones..
Cheers

By far the best I have tried are the Vermont Cranberry Pole Bean. I have a strain that's been in our family since the early 1900's, perhaps before. These were handed down to me by my Uncle, Walter Gallagher so I simply call them Uncle Walt's Vermont Cranberry Pole Bean. I've been raising them for 30 some years.

Here are some I raised in 2005.

Hey Big_Red. They look really good. Are they easy to shell when fresh? I know it's only a short period but I do like fresh-shelled beans, harvested just after the pod fills out so the beans inside are still soft and tender.
Have the beans in the jars in your pics been processed? If so, how? To date I've just been storing the dry beans for use during the rest of the year. Hadn't thought about canning them.

I can vouch for what I've tagged temporarily as "Waterloo County Mennonite Pole Bean", a variety that I obtained back about 7 years ago from the Doon Crossroads Museum's Mennonite Farmhouse Kitchen Garden. So far I haven't been able to get the actual name for them. (Somehow I managed not to write it down or missed hearing it when I was there taking a seed saving course. We got to take sample seeds from any of the plants from the Kitchen garden - all Mennonite heirloom varieties - seeds supplied to the museum from the local mennonite community. I do remember hearing that the variety was at least 100+ years old. But I've not got any documentation to that fact, as yet. Many of the varieties in the Mennonite Kitchen Garden were from seed stock brought to the County in the early 1800's-mid 1800's from Switzerland and Russia, via Pennsylvania.)

I do have a limited amount of seeds to share if people want to try them. They're delish fresh shelled, dried or steamed in the pod when young....with lots of butter and garlic ;).

Zana

[URL="http://www.tomatoville.com/member.php?u=89"]Hi Raymondo,[/URL]

Yes, these beans are very easy to shell. 4 or 5 large beans to the pod, very soft with excellent flavor.

These have already been processed, I use a pressure canner, 40 minutes at 10 pounds pressure. When you're ready to eat them, just open a jar and heat them up.

This year I've dried a few to use as a baking bean, excellent! My Uncle used to pick them young and use as a green bean but I haven't tried them that way, they look as though they'd be a little tough and probably have strings.

All around, I think these are the best shell bean you can find. :)

Red

They both sound delicious. I'll have to look out for something similar here. Sadly, we can't import beans.