Pole Beans come in 3 basic types re having strings. Older varieties have what I call "rip cord" strings which you must remove before cooking. Many later varieties have intermediate strings where the young beans are stringless but as the beans mature, they get stringy. Most recent introductions do not have significant strings. Many purple pole bean varieties fall into the intermediate strings group.

There are plenty of bean varieties selected for shelling such as Goose. These beans tend to have very fibrous stringy pods. I would not recommend trying to use a shelling variety for snaps.

For a good pole snap bean, Fortex, Emerite, and Musica are hard to beat. They are standard green beans, not purple.

Grandma Roberts Purple Pole is a my personal favorite for a deep purple bean.

DarJones

For those who are unfamiliar with the various Grandma Roberts beans, this might be an opportune time for you to tell the story of them, DarJones. I am slightly acquainted with them, thanks to the seed you sent me a while ago, just enough to know it is an interesting story of family heirlooms.

Jim

It is not that much of a tale jimster. My grandmother was a long term bean collector and grower who grew up in Paynes Cove Tennessee near Pelham. She passed away in September 2009. She had given me a start of the purple pole beans several years ago. When we cleaned out her deepfreeze, she had a package of bean seed that must have weighted about 3 pounds. Some were individually packaged but most were just mixed seed that could be visually separated. I grew out the seed a few years ago and found that there were some outstanding heirloom bean varieties among them. The one I call Grandma Roberts Purple Pole is much better than the average purple beans like Louisiana Purple, etc. Among the other beans she had, there is a delicous black seeded bean that makes a good canning bean and there are several others that are unique and unusual. If you want to find out a lot more about them, read this thread on the heirloom forum.
slippery question

As a side note, I have a full row of grandma's purple beans this year and will be sending seed to Sandhill for next season. I consider this to be one of the better varieties of heirloom beans that you can grow. Blue Marbut and Tobacco Worm are also near the top of the scale.

One of these days, I want to cross Fortex with Rattlesnake. Fortex is an excellent bean with lots of good traits but relatively poor heat tolerance. Rattlesnake is exceptionally heat tolerant but could stand to improve flavor, size, and tenderness. Between the two of them, there is a good possibility of breeding a topnotch bean for hot and/or humid climates.

DarJones

Shannon, if you post the name of the objectionable pole bean, someone may be able to help you identify its type and culinary purpose. But don't dispair..... your objectionable beans may turn out to be a favorite, maybe not as snap but as shellie or dry bean.

Here are some suggestions for its use:
You could string the beans before cooking them. If they are snap beans, they'll be good eating. If not palatable as snaps, try them as shellies:
Âleave the pods on the vine until the seeds inside the pods have swollen significantly. Pick before pods start drying. The bean seeds are now at the shelly stage. Shellies are delicious eating. Cook them together with your snap beans. Compost the empty pods.

ÂAlternatively, you could leave the pods to mature on the vines until they reach the dry stage, then harvest them, and use the bean seeds as dry beans (like the dry beans you find at the grocer's).

Many of the old-fashioned heirloom pole snap beans are string beans that need to be stringed prior to cooking. Many people favor these beans over the less-work but supposedly less tasty modern snaps.

Lots cn be learned about various types of pole beans by reading Bill Best's interesting essays about Appalachian heirloom beans that Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center (SMAC), collects, grows out, sells at a farmers' market in KY, and sells seeds of to the public.

Bill Best divides beans into these groups
ÂCornfield Beans
ÂBunch Beans
ÂThe Half Runners
ÂGreasy Beans
ÂGreasy Cut-Short beans

Bill Best: essay, and bean catalog
Bill Best: essay
SMAC
SMAC pictures