Longest bearing is always going to be pole bean. There are bush beans touted as "everbearing" which do dribble alng for a considerable period of time. The old Commodore comes to mind. You still get about the same amount of beans, but a small amount at a time, rather than a main crop flush common to bush beans.

Thanks, I'll take pole beans into mind then. The main reason that I wanted to avoid themw as because in these containers I don't have a place to put them where I can craft support for 8 or ten foot vines.

What sort of pole beans would you reccommend? I have a real heat problem, especially with them being in pots.

Scarlet runner if you can grow them and have the right climate. They will crop here from late May to the end of October. That's only counting green beans not shellies or dried.

You know, if you can make support for a 4 or 5 foot foot vine, you can let pole beans grow up it then just cut off the growing tips of the vine. Most of the bean production will be in the first 4 or 5 feet anyway.

happyday

I haven't found your statement to be true for pole beans. As the vines grow, they produce pods further and further along the growing stems. The last thing you want to do is cut off the growing tips! Might as well grow bush beans in that case and save yourself the trouble.

wildforager, I use only a 5-foot trellis for all my pole beans and let them drape over the top and start down the other side! No problem. In fact, I don't want a trellis any taller -- so I can harvest them.

{{gwi:71389}}

If you can give them enough horizontal space to do their thing, you can probably hang a polyester or nylon bean net on a wall and let the vines grow up and out from them.

anney, you misunderstood my advice. Of course the vines produce pods along their length, although most are in the first few feet, unless you have a very long growing season. However, if you want a pole bean only don't have the room, you can clip it back, or let it flop over as you do, although don't you find that can lead to shadekilling the leaves underneath, and putting weight strain on a trellis? A container-grown flopped over vine might unbalance and tip. Trimming the tips could encourage lateral growth, similar to the way that grapes and espaliered fruit trees are trained.

It's the gardeners choice whether to grow pole or bush. Knowing they can trim or let vines flop over gives them more choice not less. The energy not spent growing more vines can be spent growing the pods already set.

This advice might be helpful to someone with limited space who wants to try pole beans but thought they had to have a 10 foot trellis. I see no reason to discourage such a person and tell them they can only have bush beans. There are always ways to grow things bigger or smaller or out of season (greenhouse)

Thanks everyone for the input. I will do some more research on my own taking your advice into account.

For shellies, Tongue of Fire is a classic, tasty late season pole. For string beans, I am partial to Romano types, but they do not have the longest season, just the earliest. They are also the best tasting in my view but become stringy soon. The best combo, for string beans, is Romanos plus a main season type (in my case, Violetto described below).

My heaviest producers in very sandy soil are Violetto, purple string beans. They are early-to-main season. These are the type of plants which can feed your family every day with just 3 ft of trellis. They don't stop until they die. Taste is average, but unbeatable for quantity and persistency of crop. Vigorous plants too, go easily to ten feet. I grow them on my hoophouse frames, so even ten feet are easy to pick standing inside the hoophouse.

Another vote for pole beans. As already mentioned, they extend the harvest out over a longer period of time, versus the usually all-at-once harvest of bush beans.

From my experience, the difference may not be as pronounced in containers as it would be in open ground. It would depend to a large degree on the size of the container, and how many plants would be in it. Regardless, they should produce fairly well, as long as they are kept picked.

My best recommendation for pots would be "Emerite". It has shorter vines than some of the more robust pole beans, at about 6 feet. My yield this year was nearly continuous, and the pods are round, firm, and very high quality.

If by a "heat problem" you mean heat buildup, then you might have better results with "Rattlesnake", which has proven to be heat tolerant.

One last thought, Wild Forager. You mentioned container(s). Provided that you have several of them, you could plant bush beans in them, and stagger the plantings. This would also stretch the harvest out over a longer period. Presumably you will be dedicating some pots to long-season veggies such as tomatoes or peppers... but if you have other pots you could use for succession planting, bush snap beans reach harvest stage very quickly (55-60 days), so you could plant other fast-maturing vegetables both before & after, or plant several sowings throughout the summer.

Just found this old post but thought you might be interested in hearing that there is a bush bean called "Mascotte" that thrives in containers and is everbearing. It won the AAS award for both flavour and yield.

Also thrives in small home gardens, which is my situation.

Available through Veseys Seeds online