For the climbing beans, I planted Kentucky Wonder, Fortex, and Kwintus. KW was my old favorite, lush and prolific when my late husband was the gardener. Fortex was new to me last year, and did well. Kwintus was an impulse buy this spring; I'd never heard of it.

The KW's came up days before the others. After the others emerged and were growing, all three suffered damage from deer or groundhogs or both. They've recovered since I've been spraying with Liquid fence, but the KW's and Fortex vines are nowhere near as tall as they should be by now, and have no beans developing. Not so for the Kwintus. They've grown by leaps and bounds, and have produced a meal's worth of beans already, with many more in various stages of growth. I'm impressed!

The bush beans are in containers: Provider, Fantastic Filet, Greencrop, and Bush Blue. The latter two are okay, but not distinguishing themselves in any way. Provider, however, has the largest number of beans by far, and Fantastic Filet is prolific and especially tasty. I'm still a pole bean lover, but it's rewarding to grow bush beans for an earlier crop.

Anyone else have experience with these varieties?