Dean,

I grow an heirloom from my wife's family called Tennessee Cutshort. It is a pole variety which produces 5" fat pods with 5-8 somewhat square ended seeds. The pods, when well mature, have heavy strings. But this bean is actually a low effort bean to prepare. Though one can pick them very tender and with no strings, we prefer to let them fill out a bit and string them. The pods stay tender until they actually yellow down as they dry and the tender seeds are delicious. Usually when we cook a pot of these we have shelly beans in with our snaps. The large fat pods make it easy to quickly fill the pot. And, as often happens in our household, if we leave them on the counter too long, they are still tender, even if they begin to dry out a bit. This is a good bean for growing on corn or poles. It has "Kentucky Wonder brown" colored seed.

This year a couple of us grew this bean and two others; Childers Cutshort from gene_washdc and Ruth Bible. Childers is a family heirloom in Gene's family. Ruth Bible is an heirloom which has been listed by a few members of the Seed Savers Exchange for over 20 years. Both of these beans come from KY.

I need to compare notes with the others. But I couldn't distinguish between Tennessee Cutshort and Childers Cutshort, other than that one of the Childers Cutshort vines produced violet colored flowers and lightly streaked pods when they were drying down. The great majority of Childers, and all of the other beans, produced white flowers and green pods which dried down yellow. Ruth Bible has a rounder, narrower pod and averages at least one more bean per pod than the other two. In this, my first time to trial it, I found it produced nearly twice as many seeds as the others. But unlike the other two its pods got tough when they were drying down. All three are excellent beans. My wife has been singing a happy tune this summer, whenever she works with our bean harvest!

Incidentally, all three of these beans would be great for dry beans, snaps or shell beans.

There are MANY good beans out there. But my family has "arrived." We will seek no farther.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: Childers & Tennessee Cutshort thread

Well Dean,

Maybe I was too enthusiastic and scared them off. I thought you'd get a flood of replies. Maybe you should try the same question on the beans and legumes forum.

Get Blue Marbutt from Sandhill Preservation. Glenn does not have it listed yet, but will be listing it for next season. This is a kidney shaped black seeded pole bean with a unique color pattern on the vines and the beans pods. This is a vigorous climbing bean that makes a heavy crop of 6 to 8 inch beans. They are in the semi-stringless category meaning that they are stringless or nearly so at the proper harvest stage but if left on the vine to seed maturity, strings will develop. These beans are excellent for fresh snaps and also for canning. The flavor profile is moderate, slightly stronger than commercial beans like Fortex and Emerite, and a good bit less than some of the Italian borlotto beans.

This bean was passed to friends and family by a Mrs. Marbutt about 30 years ago. I don't have much history beyond that except that she was said to have grown it most of her life.

Fusion

I like Turkey Craw myself, but I haven't tried that many heirloom beans. TC is very buttery and a fairly decent producer of 3-7 inch pods. A very quick grower; if you grow them make sure the rows are at least 3-4 feet apart as they tend to grow together if they can't go up any higher. They can be hard to string sometimes, but it's worth it. I can send you some seed if you want.

Abby

I grew Uncle Steve's Pole Bean for the first time this year and absolutely loved them! They are a green and purple striped bean (turns green when cooked), slightly flat and curved. Very delicious - very buttery. Mine grew like crazy, were a little bit cold tolerant (I accidentally planted my beans too early and they still took off while the other beans languished) and were still producing until the voles chewed through the roots last week (evil voles). They also stored well in the refrigerator when I picked, but didn't have time to cook right away.

They are available from Sandhill Preservation Center. I also really loved this seed company. Everything I ordered from them had excellent germination and I was very pleased with the varieties that I ordered.

Enjoy your beans next year,
Bellatrix

Here is a link that might be useful: Sand Hill Preservation Center - Beans

Just a heads up on the Uncle Steve's Italian Pole, It is a good bean, but does not do well in the deep south. It is well adapted to any of the northern states.

Fusion

I hope to grow this bean next year, I just found out I should have the space.

I will report how it does for me in Iowa.

thanks,

Dean

Hi Dean,

In reading the above suggestions a year late, you are about now finding out that all pole beans are not created equal especially when introduced to you Iowa weather which is seeing flooding again.
If you are more near South Dakota and Nebraska, the heirlooms which do so well in the garden of eden of the east coast are soon burned to oblivion by 100 plus degree heat which you will get or shredded by winds.

I trialled a number of varieties a few years ago and found all of them dropped blossoms when it gets midwest summer hot. They never started putting on beans until it cooled some fortunately in August, but you know Iowa can be 100 degrees into September then too.

Blue Lake just became stunted and was a disaster. The much touted Rattlesnake for drought resistance limped along and Purple Pole did nothing until late rains revived the few plants and all I got was a taste.
In that Old Homestead and Kentucky Wax Wonder were the beans which survived for the final rains to produce a great deal of beans.

I grow them for eating and flavor and Old Homestead is just wonderful, so the Lord blessed a good hardy bean with great taste. I could not say Blue Lake or Rattlesnake were that wonderful. Wax Wonder was good and for an almost asparagus flavor which was wonderful the Purples in cool weather were great, but a dozen beans does not make a gardener pleased.

So while I do intend to order and try some of Mr. Drowns beans, I learned quickly that heirloom does not mean production when it meets the ghastly conditions you can experience in the midwest. People just do not comprehend as Elizabeth Custer stated over 140 years ago, "There is just no place on earth like the great plains".

Iowa is being pounded this year early, so I hope you are fairing well as are your beans, but garden with care as the great plains chews up and spits out the rest of the nations best heirlooms which produce so wonderfully there.
So while not glamorous, I would recommend Old Homestead aka Kentucky Wonder and then find another more exotic heirloom to play with to not be disappointed.

God bless

Starflakes,

Thank you for the recommendations. I do plan on growing Kentucky Wonder beans this year.

It has been a tough year so for, because in May it was to cold to plant beans and now it will not stop raining. We are getting major flooding in the area now. I am lucky because I live on high ground though.

I have planted my beans in the house and will transplant later next week, because if I plant them outside I think they would just rot in the ground.

Dean