Most good shellies are also good as snaps; but the yield as snaps tends to be lower. "Bird Egg #3" is an excellent snap for example, but the yield is much less than varieties bred for snaps. And most of the really good snap varieties I've tried have been only passable as shellies.

I agree with "Bert Goodwin". The young pods are round & flavorful, and the pod set is very good. If let go, the seeds ripen quickly, and it can produce a heavy crop of shellies in a small space.

"Ma Williams" (a.k.a. Goose, Kentucky Goose, Pumpkin Bean) is a good all-purpose pole variety. It will bear heavily as a snap, but is just OK for flavor, IMO. The quality of the shelly, however, is excellent; very large, thin-skinned, fine-grained, and flavorful. The yield as shellies is very high, and the plants bear earlier than most large-seeded pole varieties.

I think that "Brita's Foot Long" would probably make a good all-purpose bean, with long pods very much like "Kentucky Wonder"... but when I grew it, I was focused on saving seed, so I only snacked on a couple pods raw. The quality & yield of dry seed is outstanding.

Thank you Zeedman.

I picked a four of the "Bert Goodwin" pods from the greenhouse plants and my wife and I both thought they were very good steamed.

The "Ma Williams"/"Goose" are not very robust in my garden. I do not know if they will make much of a crop.

"Britta's" on the other hand seems to like our climate. Quite similar to what the Salt Springs people have.

Two varieties I have grown may be of interest. They are Soissons Vert and Tarbais, two French pole beans. I have not used them at all three stages, however the linked site touts them as all purpose beans and I believe they could be. I've used Soissons Vert as a shelly and a dried bean with excellent results. Tarbais is a wonderful dry bean and I am willing to bet it is excellent as a shelly and probably good for snaps as well. I was fortunate to be introduced to these great beans (by zeedman in the case of Soissons Vert) early in my pole bean 'career'.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: French Beans

Thanks Jim. Zeedman has said that Soissons Vert is the best quality of the shellies that he has tried. I had not heard about Tarbais. Do you know the days to shelly stage for these?

Sorry. I don't keep good records, so I don't know the days to shelly stage for those beans. And this year was a late start, so may be atypical.

Jim

The problem with all purpose beans is that some of the traits required are mutually exclusive. A good snap bean has a fleshy pod with no strings and is usually fairly long. A good shelly bean has thin pods with large beans and is easy to shell. A good dried bean has specific cooking traits including flavor, texture, etc. A good bean for leather britches (dried pods) has very tender texture, moderate bean size, and dries easily. It is VERY rare to find a bean that combines traits for all four uses. Here are a couple more to add to your list.

Supermarconi - a wide podded black bean from Italy that makes decent snaps and good shellies but is mediocre as a dried bean or for leather britches.

Jeminez - a good snap bean that also makes a decent shelly , pretty good dried, and decent for leather britches.

Turkey Craw - probably the closest I grow to being a multipurpose bean. It is good for snaps, leather britches, shellies, and dried. Of the 4 uses, it is weakest as a shelly.

Darrel Jones

Darrel, thank you for the suggestions. Between those and Soisson Vert and Tarbais I have some more interesting beans on the list for next year.

By the way, I appreciated your detailed recipe for sprouting old beans.

I have Jiminez in the garden this year and should have some snaps in a week or so. I am hoping my spacing is adequate as Jiminez appears to be one of the worst for crossing.

I also have NT half-runner for leather britches. I grew it as a bush bean. What a tangle.

Dick

Just an update...

I had hesitated to list "PI 507984" as all-purpose, in spite of good-flavored snaps, because I thought that harvesting the snaps would reduce the yield of shellies. That concern was unwarranted.

The bushes blossom like pole beans, and set many more pods than can be supported to maturity. Many of these pods were aborted as the seeds began to fatten up. I believe it could provide both a crop of snaps, and a full crop of shellies, provided that there is sufficient growing season to do so.

I could recommend three beans. The one I know best is our own family heirloom: Tennessee Cutshort. Childers Cutshort, which I trialed last year, from Gardenweb member Gene Hosey, seemed equally good. Both have strings, but make up for the extra work by the fact that the pods themselves are so fat that preparing a "nice mess" is actually less work than with most regular stringless beans, with smaller pods. Both are easy to shell for shellies. Both would make excellent dry beans and lots of them.

The other, which I tried last year, and which seems like it too would be outstanding, is Ruth Bible. I didn't keep the few we ate separate from other beans, when picking, to make a good judgment on this one's snaps. Ruth Bible came in a week later but also seemed more heat tolerant. It made more dry seed than either Tennessee Cutshort or Childers Cutshort.

Because of our family heritage I'm partial to Tennessee Cutshort. But for all practical purposes, if I had to depend on but one bean, I'd feel good about any of these three.

Over the years my wife and I have gravitated more to "snaps" with more filled out beans in them. Hence we prefer tender hull varieties. This year I am growing (and currently harvesting) a really nice white seeded greasy bean. Its pods are not so substantial. But they are very good. It too would fit the bill as a good all purpose bean.

Someone here sent me some Jimenez seed. I hope to grow it out in the coming year. Everyone who grows it seems very fond of it.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Thank you George.

Here in the PNW, "Jeminez" turned out to be a very good multi-purpose bean, especially in that the pods remain tender so long on the vine. On the other hand, they hung on the vine for weeks without making dry seed and it barely made shellies.

"Goose"/"Ma Williams" was my favorite multi-purpose bean. The pods remain tender until they start to dry so a single sowing will produce food for many weeks. The mature pods do have strings but this is a small inconvenience and we just string them as we eat them.

"Brita's" makes good snaps and shellies and is very productive. For snaps, the pods should be picked when young as they get fibrous and inedible.

We did try both "PI 507984" and "Bert Goodwin" as snaps and we liked the BG better . We were in seed saving mode so I do not know how the pods are as they mature. Both make good shellies but we did not do much taste-testing this year. Both did well grown in beds in blocks, but the "Bert Goodwin" would appreciate some 2-3 foot twigs to climb on. It did not do as well in the pole section as it was shaded by taller pole beans.

This year I also received seed for Cherokee Striped Cornhill, a pole bean. I got it from Blueflint, a member here, and also a Seed Savers Exchange member. I am VERY impressed with this bean! Some pods were 9" long. It's a creaseback with strings. Pods remain tender right up until they begin to dry. This bean was super prolific. I grew it on corn and found great pleasure in poking around, always finding more hiding in there! Cherokee Stripe Cornhill is a prodigious seed producer and I am positive it would be great for snap, shell or dry. Seed is not very large, elongated, beige with dark brown stripes.

Over the years I've come to the conclusion that strings are not a disadvantage in a snap bean, unless the pod is very small. We grow a stringless bush snap bean with slender 5" pods and we prefer our string varieties because the pods are so much larger (yet tender) that it's faster and easier to fix a batch to eat.

George

Hi George,

"Faster and easier" was also a consideration for me. My home office and my home are about 100 feet apart with the garden along side both. So when there were time issues, I would stop on my way home, pick a couple ears of corn and a mess of "Goose"/"Ma Williams" and just toss them in the steamer pot. - Dick