You can freeze yardlongs; blanch a pound of cut beans in boiling water for 3 minutes, cool them immediately in cold water, drain, and freeze. The beans have a relatively low moisture content, and can get freezer burn very quickly. I freeze them in plastic freezer boxes, then vacuum seal the frozen block in plastic bags. They will keep this way for up to a year with little loss of quality.

Thanks! I will give this a try. Also, how much yield do you think I will get from an 8 foot row?

Zeedman wrote "The beans have a relatively low moisture content, and can get freezer burn quickly."

Well, that explains it -- I've noticed that too but didn't know why.

I don't have a vacuum seal unit anymore, used to, but it was kind of pricey for the pouches/bags.

I think I might try a different approach if I get some this year (the plants are up, but now the rabbits are after them! Yikes!). I might try blanching, then freezing them on a cookie sheet individually, then dipping the frozen beans quickly in and out of ice water a few times to coat them in ice, then back on the cookie sheet until hard, then into the freezer bags, doubling those. This approach has worked for me for other things, and they use it commercially for things like seafood (ice glazed fillets).

Thanks for the glazing idea. I don't have a vacuum sealer either. I wonder if they would can or pickle well?

OR... you could just freeze them in ziplock freezer bags. Pack the blanched beans in the bags, add water, close & shake to release air bubbles. Then unzip the bag slightly, squeeze out air & excess water, re-seal & freeze.

Zeedman, my yard longs seem to taking their own sweet time growing. It's really hot here, which I thought they would like. After probably at least a month, the tallest are waist high. Should I fertilize or something?
They have been given iron and sulfur as I'm very alkaline here.

I am on my fourth year growing these. I really like them. Boil them like spaghetti when young and they are just as good as baby green beans. I am at 4600ft in AZ and green beans just can't take the weather. Poor production and poor quality in the summer. Too cold in the winter. Spring and fall too short. Yardlongs love heat and letting just a few pods mature will give plenty of beans to plant next year. In my experience they like alkaline desert soil provided you get at least some rain. They don't grow well on the local silty tap water only and you need to move your fence every couple years. They don't appear to need much fertilizer. I plant around May 1 and again in August. My plants were slow growing this year and I don't really know why. I assume lack of rain and cool nights? The plants that didn't get afternoon sun appeared to do better. They are really growing the last week though.

I used to grow them in the high desert of Hidalgo, Mexico. We had white alkaline soil. They did tolerate it better than regular beans. But I also followed a regimen of incorporating plenty of organic material in the soil. Flooding the garden deeply, at least once or twice a year, and even spreading powdered sulfur once a year. The sulfur combines with the salts and improves alkaline soils.

George
Tahlequah, OK

I've been canning dilly beans with Chinese Red Noodle yardlongs. They are delicious. I like the pink color, too.