2013 pole beans
 

I harvested 9 different pole beans from one of my gardens last week. Here's one day's harvest.

First column:
Cherokee Trail of Tears
Goose
Scarlet Runner Beans

Second column:
Sultan's Green Crescent
Purple Peacock
Emerite

Third column:
Bosnian
Jeminez
Mayflower

I like them all. I planted 6 seeds each of most of these beans (the ones I'm growing for the first time), except for Peacock and Sultan (12 seeds each, grew them last year) and Runner (came back from the root; planted the seed 2 years ago).

I usually try them raw first. In this bunch, the best is Purple Peacock, with a good crunch and sweetness. It's quite similar to Blue Coco, which I have growing at another garden. From 24 plants, I'm picking more than 100 Blue Coco beans every 2-3 days. Emerite is also ok, with kind of a grassy flavor and some sweetness. (And my favorite is La Vigneronne, which I usually eat only in the garden, but it's also sweet as a cooked bean.)

To cook them, I rinse them, boil a pot of water, and let them cook for a minute or two. Some of them are like Romano beans, in that the cooked beans become especially soft and tender and develop a whitish film (Sultan, Bosnian, Goose, and iirc Jeminez,). I eat those first. All the beans turn green when cooked.

Cherokee and Bosnian are very productive! I keep finding more beans, and the Cherokee vines are going all over the place. Emerite started out very productive, but it's already winding down. Jeminez and Peacock have the largest beans, so it doesn't take much to pick a big pile -- and they're the easiest to find because they aren't green!

The runner beans were the first to start producing, so I picked a lot of those at first. Once the other beans started producing, I stopped picking them, because I prefer the flavor of most other beans. Then I remembered how much I'd enjoyed eating dehydrated runner beans last year, so I'm picking them again and dehydrating a bunch, at different sizes. I will also let some go to seed and try them as shelly beans and dry beans.

I dehydrated some Emerite and Blue Coco, but they're not as good as runner beans dehydrated. Emerite dried to almost nothing. Blue Coco is ok, though, so I will dehydrate a quart jar of them. I've donated a bunch to the local food bank, brought some to my local garden group and a monthly produce share, and I'm eating a lot of beans every day!

I have beans growing at 3 gardens, and at the third garden, where I also planted 24 Blue Coco, production is winding down. I got no beans at all from one variety, a tiny handful from 2 more, and medium-size handfuls from the 2 varieties that normally produce huge harvests.

If I had to pick one bean I'd grow again from this group, first choice is Sultan's Green Crescent because it's such a wonderful cooked bean. I also grew it last year.

I may start letting some of these go to seed so I can try the dry beans, but I grow them mainly to use as snap beans.

that? is a beautiful sight!

what are the dark ones in the middle called and are the red ones on the side tongue of fire beans?

I posted the photo first, then went back and wrote the rest, so that I could check the orientation of the photo.

loving the extra info in the first post! and now i've added most if not all of those beans to my seed wish list . . .

Loved seeing this thread because I'm still exploring pole beans. Sultan's Green Crescent and La Vigneronne, which I seem to remember you mentioning in another thread, sound like like they must make next year's trial. Emerite is DH's current fave and I really liked Rattlesnake but this year the Rattlesnakes hardly have any coloring and are developing strings even when rather small. The seed is from a different source this year so I'm wondering if it's that or just the differences in the weather. Thanks for posting the photos!

kath

Wow, what beautiful beans you have! I have always been curious about Sultan's Green Crescent. Thanks for sharing.

curly bean problem
 

Can someone tell me why my Kwintus Pole beans are curling? I have grown them 3 years and they never did this before.

Thanks for posting these. I like to be able to see them all together like that. I hope you don't mind but I added the names to the photo for you.

That's the most beautiful bunch of beans I've ever seen!!! Doug, thanks for adding the names to the photo. H-g, thanks for starting this thread--it's
very helpful for us novice pole bean growers. Darlene

I could eat the whole mess ofum right about now.:yes:

Worth

[QUOTE=Worth1;371060]I could eat the whole mess ofum right about now.:yes:[/QUOTE]

That's just about what I'm doing to keep up with them!

[QUOTE=JoParrott;371007]Can someone tell me why my Kwintus Pole beans are curling? I have grown them 3 years and they never did this before.[/QUOTE]

That is unusual! I often get one or two that curl because the tip of the bean hit an obstacle as it was developing (trellis, leaf, etc.), but not all of them.

The curling has me stumped- The entire trellis is like that.

[QUOTE=kath;370966]Loved seeing this thread because I'm still exploring pole beans. Sultan's Green Crescent and La Vigneronne, which I seem to remember you mentioning in another thread, sound like like they must make next year's trial. ...[/QUOTE]

A note about finding some of these varieties:

La Vigneronne (aka Weinlanderin) is a French/Swiss bean that does not seem to be available here. It's early and prolific, so I'm surprised someone isn't growing it to increase seed stocks! A similar bean that is easier to find is Waterloo County Mennonite (aka Mennonite Purple Stripes), which has similar coloring and stays crunchy even when it's huge. It has good flavor but it's less sweet than my favorite. I didn't grow that one this year. (Actually, not so easy to find! I got mine from Sample Seed Shop a few years ago, but the only source in the U.S. seems to be [url]http://www.wrightsdaylily.com/beans.html[/url])
Rattlesnake looks similar, but it wasn't as productive as other beans in my garden last year -- I don't think it likes the cool nights we have in the summer.

I got Sultan's Green Crescent from a local seed bank last year (3 seeds) and saved seeds. I've seen it in the public Seed Savers Exchange catalog.

Purple Peacock was the purple bean in the Renee's Garden Tricolor Pole Beans packet. Available at other places, too.

Sample Seed Shop has sold Bosnian, but it goes out of stock quickly. I got my seeds from an online seed swap (along with many of the others).

I don't think any of the others are hard to find.

[QUOTE=JoParrott;371007]Can someone tell me why my Kwintus Pole beans are curling? I have grown them 3 years and they never did this before.[/QUOTE]

Are you saving your own seed? If not I'd suspect a mix up at the vendor.