The variety may make a difference. But as a general rule, I'd say that as long as the plants are healthy, it is likely that they will start producing again. It's just that there are some varieties which are extremely determinant, meaning, they produce a few weeks and ... that's it.

I grow, and really like, Woods Mountain Crazy Bean, which flowers and produces all season, provided it receives enough moisture.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Thanks, I'll watch them - I forgot I had already started some more seed in another couple of locations. The heat must be affecting my memory!

George, these are seeds of Royalty Purple, that I got from the million seed project a few years back from I believe it was seeds of change. They are pretty plants with purple blossoms so they look like an ornamental plant that I can tuck here and there in the garden. I don't know how the flavor will be.

Susan

I used to grow Royal Burgundy and my wife LOVED them. I suspect Royalty Purple is a scion of Royal Burgundy and will taste very good. Oops! I just looked it up. Apparently they are the same bean!

George

They are delicious and stay tender even when big. They are one of my favorites and like you say beautiful.

Thanks everyone. I almost did myself in today watering. The heat came on so quick, I started getting weak, dizzy, sick, and sweating buckets...more than usual. I hit the house fast. I'm not sure my garden and i will survive this heat and humidity. Why does it seem worse than a couple years ago with all those triple digits? I've got to get out there before 8 am from now on.

Susan

Susan, I think it feels worse because we didn't get to acclimate to it gradually since we stayed abnormally rainy, cool and cloudy well into June or, for some folks, even during the first 7-10 days of July.

I have more or less abandoned the garden the last couple of days. I don't think there is anything out there that is so important that I have to do it in this weather. I'm waiting for a cool day, which may or may not come this week or next week.

My favorite time is from 6 to 7 a.m. but even then it is a lot warmer and more humid than it normally is at that time in July. When you go outside and your temperature is in the upper 70s even before sunrise, to me that is a clue we didn't cool off enough overnight and that I shouldn't stay out there long. At 6 a.m. it is just the cottontail rabbits, an occasional deer and I. By 7 a.m. we have been joined by cardinals, crows and doves. That's about the time I stop whatever I am doing in the garden (all I did today was harvest tomatoes), let the chickens out to free-range and come indoors.

I'm looking forward to autumn!

Dawn

I think I will just water containers today. You're right in that there is nothing so important that I need to jeopardize my health to preserve.

I see that next week is likely to be worse. I never thought about it being an issue of "acclimation", but that makes sense. Thank goodness for AC! I'm even trying not to use the oven right now, at least after noon. We're eating lots of fresh fruit and cold salads and such.

Ya'll be careful out there, too!

Susan

I cut one-third of mine back to little 3 inch stubs (something I read about online somewhere - they are already re-growing), left one-third to just grow and produce slowly in the heat, and pulled up one-third and stuck in new bean seeds. We'll see which works best!

Kate, please let us know the results.

Susan, We've been on the same cold food diet for the last week or two. Lots of salads, fresh fruit, pasta salad, tuna salad, cold cut sandwiches, etc. And iced tea. We're drinking an ocean of water and another ocean of iced tea.

Kate, I've tried various things with beans over the years, and have found that what works well in one year may not be what works well in another so I like the way you're doing three different things at once.

Meanwhile I still have pole beans flowering and setting beans, which is highly abnormal in this heat. (George, if you see this, one of them is Insuk's Wang Kong!) This is the oddest year.

Dawn

Kate - that's a great idea!

I'm going to have to look that bean up, Dawn!

Susan

Kate - that's a great idea!

I'm going to have to look that bean up, Dawn!

Susan

Susan, It is a finicky one and hard to grow. Usually it does better in fall than spring, but since it was such a cool, wet spring, I planted it anyway and it has been happy. That happens here maybe once a decade. Generally I only get enough beans from Insuk's Wang Kong to provide seed for the next year.

Dawn

Yes, I gave up on Insuk's Wang Kong. I
couldn't maintain enough seed to keep it going. Now Cooper's Running
Snap, which is probably an older form of Rattlesnake, now that's a
pretty bean which handles heat. I've got a cattle panel of these
going and they are beautiful. They have nice pink flowers and tons of
streaked green bean pods.

Here's a picture of Cooper's Running Snap, which I received from a Gardenweb member in 2008. It's an heirloom from Morvan, Georgia and probably an older strain of Rattlesnake.

"Boink!" I just tried every format listed by Photobucket, and none would display a picture here! I will give a link to a Green Country Seed Savers post with a picture.

Coopers' Running Snap

I only grow Insuk's Wang Kong as an ornamental, which essentially means I've admitted defeat and know I'll never get enough seed here to use it as an edible. It is such a pretty plant and so vigorous. It was the first bean variety this year to climb to the top of the 8' tall garden fence.

This year the other long-lived pole bean from the spring planting has been TenderStar. It also is a runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) instead of a standard bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). It is described by retailers as a cross between a runner bean and a French bean. It is the only runner bean I've ever grown that produced a harvest in May from seeds sown in March. Often the true runner beans (P. coccineus) do not produce a harvest until fall----if they survive the summer heat. It also is the only runner bean I've grown that has produced a harvest in May and June and still is producing in July. I stuck the runner beans back in the far NE corner of the garden so that I wouldn't have to look at them much (the garden gate is at the SW corner of the garden) if they didn't do well. So, naturally, they're doing great and I enjoy looking at them this year. The blossoms are beautiful and so far the plants themselves have been pretty resilient, fighting off bean rust in May and early June, and tolerating a sustained attack by several pests including spider mites and grasshoppers. The first couple of years I tried TenderStar, it did not produce impressive yields, but that was more an issue caused by drought and extreme heat. Here, in the wettest year ever for us, it has been a very happy camper.

We have a freezer full of beans that will carry us through the next year and I really don't need to plant any for fall. I might plant some anyway just for the sheer pleasure of having fresh ones all autumn.

Update on my "1/3" green bean project - leave 1/3, cut back 1/3, and replant 1/3 of my bush beans (a mix of Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder). I just have a little plot in my raised beds - probably about 5' by 4' of beans. They all look pretty terrible and some have died. Some put out tiny, gross looking beans in the past few weeks which I have picked off and discarded.

Just this past week suddenly some of them are blooming more robustly (but I worry they will just produce itty, bitty beans because I ignored all advice I read about feeding the plants that had already produced.) Maybe cooler temps will help? If they don't start earning their keep REALLY soon, they are going to be evicted to free up more space for garlic and shallots! I garden in four 4'x8' beds in my yard (one of which is permanently herbs) so things rotate in and out pretty regularly.