Pole Beans 2023

[GoDawgs]

I'm just now getting the bean beds ready. Seeds will go in April 23-24. I'm putting in five 10-seed samples from last year's MMMM as there was no room last year. Also four tri-pods for pole bean samples along with three 18' rows of the usual bush bean varieties and two quad-pods of pole beans trialed last year that did great. Those were Jeminez and Grandma Roberts Purple. I should have enough seed of those two to send some in to the swap this fall.

[Tormahto]

I'm just now getting the bean beds ready. Seeds will go in April 23-24. I'm putting in five 10-seed samples from last year's MMMM as there was no room last year. Also four tri-pods for pole bean samples along with three 18' rows of the usual bush bean varieties and two quad-pods of pole beans trialed last year that did great. Those were Jeminez and Grandma Roberts Purple. I should have enough seed of those two to send some in to the swap this fall.

A few of my favorites are Jeminez (probably my most productive bean, due to a high frequency of 5-7 pods on a truss, and a very large pod size, "beyond tender" in my book), and Grandma Roberts Purple (has very light strings even when young, problem solved by cutting into very short lengths, the extra work worth it due to exceptional flavor).

A few pole beans, Aunt Jeans and Seychelles for example, do poorly when grown next to taller varieties.

Long rows of bush beans are better than blocky grids. Several of my bush bean vines grew to about 4 feet (I've read that this can happen even with pure seed), making for a tangled mess.

If you have Flamingo (pole, flat podded, wax, pink coloring, turns yellow when cooked), I'm hoping that you can make room for just 1 plant. Until I build up enough seed stock, I worry about losing this discovery from my garden. Seed is nearly identical in looks to Jeminez.

[GoDawgs]

...Long rows of bush beans are better than blocky grids. Several of my bush bean vines grew to about 4 feet (I've read that this can happen even with pure seed), making for a tangled mess.

If you have Flamingo (pole, flat podded, wax, pink coloring, turns yellow when cooked), I'm hoping that you can make room for just 1 plant. Until I build up enough seed stock, I worry about losing this discovery from my garden. Seed is nearly identical in looks to Jeminez.

I do mine in 18' rows on each side of a bed and have baling twine strung along each side of the rows. It keeps them from flopping which makes picking a pain when they flop towards the middle of the bed!

No Flamingo seed but if you ever find enough to send a few I'd love to try it and bulk up the numbers.

[karstopography]

The French Gold were a hit with my French filet loving mom. She notices when I slip in non-filet green beans or ones that might be sub par.

I planted the French Gold about 12 days prior to our February 19 28° freeze. I covered them up and a few plants survived. The beans themselves are beautiful.

[karstopography]

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Been harvesting plenty of beans for a while now. Goal is to have an on demand supply of green beans for as long as possible into the second half of spring with any surpluses going to my mom, she will blanch and freeze the excess. She actually got the first big batch, but we did roast a few of the very earliest ones along side some snap peas.

Mom declared French Gold every bit as good as Emerite which has been her favorite green bean of any stripe or shape. Maxibel and Rolande bush beans are right there at the top with Emerite and French Gold, according to mom. Carminat pole is one notch below those and Trionfo Violetto is two or three notches below Carminat. I can slip in other bush beans like Cantare, but those don’t fool her, she knows the difference right away. Honestly, I think they are all delicious, but there’s some flavor she’s getting in the top tier that dad and myself cannot detect. Forget about the flat podded or the fat round types, she’s had them straight from my garden, but it’s like emergency food to her, only eat in case of a food crisis or emergency.

I have two surviving French Gold plants, many, most of the entirety of the pre freeze planted pole bean plants perished in the February 19-20th 28° freeze but the two French Gold and several Carminat survived I suppose because of the freeze cloth I used. I was out of French Gold seed for the subsequent post freeze pole bean plantings, but had few remaining Carminat seeds. Everything else is Emerite pole, almost all post freeze plants except three or four post freeze planted Serengeti and Castandel bush beans.

The bush beans are just coming online. The Serengeti and Castandel bush beans, maybe 9 Serengeti plants and ten or eleven Castandel. Those both got seeded several days after the second planting of pole beans. I have some dozen or so Rolande and similar numbers of Maxibel bush bean plants just starting to flower.

[PlainJane]

Isn’t that funny - I think the flat podded types have much more flavor than the round … but I love any home grown way better than store bought. Commercial growers always maximize size over flavor so I almost never buy them. Same for snow and snap peas.

[karstopography]

Isn’t that funny - I think the flat podded types have much more flavor than the round … but I love any home grown way better than store bought. Commercial growers always maximize size over flavor so I almost never buy them. Same for snow and snap peas.

Flat podded types do taste a little different than the filet types, even to me. I like them all and would probably grow them all but for my mom’s strong preference for the filet types. She’s nuts about them, really nuts, and always asks me in early spring when will I be getting these beans to be ready for harvest. That’s why I pushed the early planting this year that a slightly later than average freeze mostly took out. Beans are so easy to restart that it was worth the risk of a late frost.

Most flat podded types I have tried fail a little sooner than the filet types in the heat.

I’ll grow filet beans again starting in early September. The fall season is actually longer most years.

Green Beans are a low effort, low cost, high production, high reward, no brainer crop. One of the big wins for the home gardener. Tomatoes, I sometimes wonder about the effort to reward math. Beans, never. Always an easy layup.