Dean,

I have Blue Lake Pole, which I will be sending you.
Did you find a good chili/soup bean?

Best new one, for me, was Supermarconi Cuneo. Jeminez still remains my favorite. I didn't care for Kentucky Wonder Pole, as it developed strings quickly.

Next year looks like I will be focusing on the several different F3's from a cross with Jeminez.

Gary

Dean,

I really liked reading your review. I grew a number of different beans this year and most were successes.

For bush beans I grew: Derby, Pencil Podded (yellow), Kinghorn Wax, Purple Queen, Royal Burgundy, Burpee Stringless. I was happy with how all of them produced. Cherokee Wax was my "old faithful" yellow bean. However, Kinghorn Wax out produced it. I also like Burpee Stringless better then Blue Lake Bush which was my "Old faithful." Purple Queen also out produced Royal Burgundy.

Oh I also grew a mystery "heirloom bush bean mix" which I received in a big seed swap. It was Purple Acres seed swap that happened in the spring. I wish I had gotten more of that mix of beans. All different kinds and very pretty. I wish I could get my hands on some more of those mystery packs from that swap.

For Pole beans I grew: Cherokee Trail of Tears, Kentucky Wonders and Chinese Red Noodle. I was very happy with Cherokee Trail of Tears which out produced the Kentucky Wonders. The Kentucky Wonders weren't too shabby either though. The Chinese Red Noodle was a big disappointment to me. Not productive or tasty to me. I did get a late start with them this year. Maybe an earlier planting will help with them.

I have grown very few varieties compared to many of you, so this is a humble newbie report. What I have grown in the past couple of seasons are pretty common beans, and some are even pantry beans, but I still wanted to make a few recommendations at least for folks in my climate. All pantry beans are the New Orleans brand Camelia beans.

Grew and recommend:

Yellow pole wax. Can grow very large before it becomes fibrous, or gets a string. I love its texture and flavor and will grow it again.

Purple peacock pole beans. Again, gets very large before getting a string, light tan seeds, cooks to a dark green. Delicious flavor. Did really well, very productive and problem/pest free. Made it climb corn stalks, sunflowers and some trellises.

Kentucky wonder, pole and bush. Love them, pick earlier on the pole version, will grow again. Does great in pretty hot weather.

Peas: Super sugar snaps (Oregon) pole peas. I like them but they got a bit burned at the end, I will try them as a fall/winter crop instead (planted in Feb)

Pole snow peas Oregon sugar pod II and Oregon Giant): like them, great lightly cooked or thinly sliced raw in salads. Plant in the fall (got burnt a bit and plants stopped production).

Also grew:

Shelling peas (bush) Ok, tasty but did not get many. Same issue with planting time, but will hold off on them this year.

Pantry black eye peas (bush). Tried them as green beans, can be eaten this way only very young. They get tough early. Ate them as young dried beans and they were delicious (a lot more than the original beans). I will grow this type again but will search for more interesting varieties of the species V. unguiculata and cook them like you guys show here. Since they are warm weather legumes I have time to shop aroundÂ

Blue Lake pole beans. These got stringy and fibrous very early for me, they can only be eaten very young, so will not grow again and grow something else like KW. They are different than the KW, they are flatter, the KW are rounder in cross section.

Growing now:

Chick pea (common pantry ones). Sprouted and got hit with 100F weather, they look alive but not great. Interesting leaves, does not look like any bean I have ever met before. Hope to taste them as young beans.

Lima bean Fordhook No 242 (bush). Had a low sprouting rate (seed was old maybe?) and it is flowering, tiny pods growing, cannot tell much yet.

Oregon sugar pod pole pea. Sprouted, experienced 100F, it is shielded by corn stalks but will be happier when it cools down.

Pantry green baby limas and regular baby limas (bush). Low sprouting rate but they do look good. Just starting to make little pods, some still flowering.

Pantry Red kidney beans (bush). Can eat them tender as green beans but they are flat and they get the string early. Also, the beans inside grow large fast. We ate some as green beans but I will let the rest grow and savor as young beans, or part of a multi bean soup.

Great northern (pantry bush beans). These look like they might be undecided between bush or pole. They are just about ready to get flowers.

I only grew two bush beans this spring.

Gold Mine: Great producer. Kept bearing into the summer, although the quality of the pods did suffer after it started getting really hot. I have some more growing now from an early September planting and they're starting to bear flowers.

Jumbo: This is a super choice if you have a small garden like I do. The plants are bigger than some bush types, but you get a good number of HUGE flat pods, so you can get away with planting fewer of them if you don't have the room. The pods stay tasty and tender even when the seeds start to swell.

I grew one lima.

Christmas Pole: These were kind of an afterthought, so I only had room for three plants. They were RAMPANT and covered with flowers. Because I planted them late, the heat caused a lot of blossom drop so I didn't get as many beans as I would have liked. I'll plant them again next spring, a little bit earlier.

I grew one "yard long" bean.

Chinese Red Noodle: Only four plants, and maybe one pod each. The plants were overcome with some invisible something that made a lot of their leaves fall off. Disappointed.

I grew two bush type cowpeas.

Purple Hull Pink Eye: These just didn't do well for me. They, too, suffered leaf loss. I harvested very few for shellies.

MN 157: Once again, it's the Minnesota native that does the best in my Texas garden. One plant is still alive. I only grew a few, but it was enough to blanch and freeze some for my New Year's supper. :)

Interesting reviews. My own bean reports were piggybacked on FlipTx's Legume Report thread, so I won't repeat them here.

Dean, it sounds like you either had some poor trades, or our Spring weather killed much of your bean seed. I also had two varieties that did poorly ("Jeminez and an unnamed Serbian pole). Only one plant of each survived to produce seed. In fairness, however, both were very small samples (about 5 seeds each), and I had been warned that they were older seeds. I will re-grow the Serbian pole next year, to further increase the seed, and to test its culinary qualities.

Yardlong failures seem to be a common theme; apparently it was not a good year for them. It was a poor year for my pole yardlongs as well; they started bearing very late, and I just barely got (not much) seed from them before frost.

The Chinese pole (from a GW swap) had dark green, very long, thin pods with few seeds. While late, it produced a good set just before frost. The Chinese bush yardlong (also from a GW trade) did much better... it produced its first pods after only 50 days, and all the pods left for seed matured. It performed very well in a bad year, and may have found a permanent place in my garden.

Next year looks like I will be focusing on the several different F3's from a cross with Jeminez.

It sounds like "Jeminez" continues to exhibit above-normal crossing. I have come across references to this on several forums. Next year, I am planning a larger growout (with additional seed from Sand Hill Preservation) and will observe it closely to see if I can find out why.

FlipTx, by coincidence I grew those same two cowpeas this year ("Pink Eye Purple Hull" and "MN 157"). Due to heavy Spring flooding, they were both planted late. The PEPH really sprawled; it took up the same space as a double row of "MN 157", so I took the opportunity to compare yield. The seeds of PEPH were heavier (135/oz. compared to 165/oz.) but "MN 157" had more of them, so the yield was comparable. Both began to bear at almost the same time, but while the "MN 157" ripened quickly, the PEPH pods ripened over an extended period... many were still hanging when my frost came on October 4th. I've yet to try the PEPH as a dry bean, so I can't testify to its flavor (yet).

Zeedman, I'm really glad you sent me those MN 157 seeds last year. In my climate, I never would have thought to try a plant with "Minnesota" in its name.

I also completely forgot I also grew Dragon Tongue bush beans. They were fairly productive for me, and the flavor was top notch. The appearance when blanched was a little iffy, though. The pods are a beautiful yellow with purple streaks when raw, but they turned sort of a grayish yellow when I cooked them. Maybe steaming instead of blanching would help.

Tormato, Thankyou for the Blue Lake Pole bean offer, I just found a small packet of 15 seeds I bought from Walmart discounted to $.10 at end of season, so that ought to be enough for next year.

Tormato said, "Did you find a good chili/soup bean?"

No, I have not as of yet found a good pole chili style bean. I plan on ordering mainly from Fedco seeds, so I hope they have something good. I have thought about maybe using dried Rattlesnake beans for chili beans.

booberry85 said, "Cherokee Wax was my "old faithful" yellow bean. However, Kinghorn Wax out produced it"

It's hard top believe it could out produce Cherokee Wax, I will have to try the Kinghorn Wax.

Zeedman said, "Dean, it sounds like you either had some poor trades, or our Spring weather killed much of your bean seed."

If I remember right the trader said they were a trade from a previous trade, so who knows how old or what weather conditions the seeds went through til they arrived at my house.

I forgot to report on:

Insuk's Wang Kong
They got a late start and were planted in a very windy and shaded area. They still managed to grow a bit, maybe 1/3, but nothing like reported by others. I will be relocating these beans and trying them again next season. I have plenty of seeds from Jim so I might try two different locations.

Dean

Tormato said, "Did you find a good chili/soup bean?"

Dean, there are a lot of Beans/pole/dry listed in the SSE Yearbook. Quite a few pole pinto types. You might want to try several to see how they perform; I have seen a few varieties on Heritage Farm that were completely dry during my annual Labor Day visits. I'll dig back through my records, to see if I can find their names.

I tried a pole dry bean this year called "Sangre de Toro", with small bright-red seeds. It produced heavily, but between late planting & early predation by rabbits, the plants were set back by several weeks. Only three plants matured any seed; the majority of the pods were still hanging when frost took them. Not enough seed harvested to try cooking them, but there is more than enough to plant... the variety looks promising enough that I will grow it again next year.

And this time, I'll be fencing the rabbit out!

Zeedman, please let me know what you find in your notes on a good dry pole pinto type.

I was able to get a few dry Rattlesnake beans for next years planting. These are my first saved beans, kinda of neat and they were easy to break open and retrieve the seeds.

Dean, I have acquired more beans in the last few years than I am able to plant... and some always get pushed aside by other projects (like my shelly trials). Among them are two pinto-type pole beans, "Roark" and "PI 110233", that I obtained from SSE member Will Bonsall (ME BO W). "Roark" is decribed as especially early. I'd be happy to send them to you... but they are "second hand trades" from several years ago. If you wanted to try them, I would recommend starting them in pots next year, using the nitrate-soak method I have described elsewhere in this forum. Email me if interested.

On other trips to SSE, I have seen two pole beans that really impressed me; but the seed has yet to be offered. They were "Budapest II" and "Brown King #2". Both showed outstanding vigor & pod set, and had numerous pods dry at the time of my visit. All of the "Budapest II" were dry, so it is exceptionally early... I hope it surfaces in the Yearbook eventually.

I never did find most of SSE's beans this year. They are usually grown with the tomatoes... which I couldn't find either, in the short time I was there. They were probably in one of the new preservation gardens on the South Farm. Next year I'll be making it a 2-day trip. ;-)

Zeedman,

These F3's are from my one and only plant of an unknown variety crossing with Jeminez (1 in 275 plants over the past five years).

I just finished shelling the last of my 2008 seed, and have found my second cross. It is from an unknown flat yellow podded variety said to come from Poland. It probably crossed with Jeminez, by the looks of the seed.

Since about half of my garden consists of Jeminez each year, and the other half is several other trials, I estimate I've had 2 of about 550 plants from my own saved seed cross. Well under 1%, which various studies also concur.

Gary