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Gary350
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Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

Lets talk about BEANS

Which beans do you grow? What varieties have you tried? How well do beans grow in your geographical location? Do you grow, green beans or dried beans? Does soil preparation help your beans? Do you fertilize or water your beans? Do you save seeds? What problems do you have growing beans? Do you freeze beans or Can them in mason jars? Which beans have the flavor you like best? How do you cook your beans?

40 years ago I tried several varieties until I found Blue Lake Bush Beans. Seeds germinate very well in 65 to 70 degree soil about May 10 or 15, beans are a 65 day crop. First harvest about July 20 is about 65% of the total summer crop. Second harvest is about 25% of the total summer crop. Third harvest is about 10% of the total summer crop. I leave third harvest on the plants to dry so I have my own seeds. Plants do well in TN hot dry weather it is usually 98 to 100 degrees F by July 4th. Sometimes I think beans grow best if they get shade from a large shade tree the hottest part of the day but sometimes it is had to tell this summer rain stopped, we had a small rain once a month all summer. Beans suffered in the hot sun with no rain. Beans never have problems with bugs or animals. I pick beans when they are tender, pods have no strings, we freeze several bags and can several pints for the pantry. We cook green beans in everything, stir fry, soup, stew, chili, bean casserole, pizza, steamed, slow cooked all day, fried in the skillet. Since I only need about 500 seeds to plant I usually remove seeds from pods by hand.

I grow bush beans because they are less work than pole beans and the harvest is much larger than pole beans. Soil preparation is very helpful, plants have better roots in soft soil with plenty of compost. I never use nitrogen fertilizer on beans they are nitrogen fixing, they get nitrogen from the air. I have noticed when I plant beans with my corn the corn grows better beans seem to be fertilizing the corn. I save wood ash and use it for fertilizer on beans.

We love Lima Beans but have not planted them in years they are too much work to remove beans from pods unless I have a burlap bag full to beat against a tree. I might plant 1 row this year for dry beans.

I am not growing Purple Hull peas, we don't care much for the flavor of these beans. They make a good harvest pods are about 1/3 longer than Blue Lake beans.

In the past our favorite beans are Navy Beans and Dark Red Kidney Beans. Navy beans are 5 times better flavor than Great Northern. Red Kidney beans are good in chili so are Navy Beans. Grocery store Pork & Beans and Baked Beans are both made with Navy Beans if you grow your own you can make your own Baked Beans. We buy about 30 cans of Kidney beans and 40 cans baked beans from grocery store every year so we might plant enough of each to Can in pints this year for the pantry. We can make a 5 gallon pot of baked beans with our own garlic & onions then put them all in 1 pint mason jars.

I bought oriental Yard Long Beans at farmers market this summer we don't care much for the flavor of these beans so we won't be growing them.

Years ago we use to plant about 10 rows of several type beans and let most of them dry on the vine. Put all the kidney beans in a burlap bad then beat the bag against a tree. On a windy day dump the beans on a tarp wind blows away all the hulls, dry beans are on the tarp to pick up. Do the same thing with each type bean. Beans were dry so they go in quart jars in the pantry.

My Son talked me into growing Roma Flat pot beans last season. These turned out to be very good beans, pods are big and flat like Snow Peas. Pods grow fast with no beans inside but you leave pods on the vine for a few weeks they start growing beans inside. Pods are easy to pick, easy to snap, we froze some an put some in pint mason jars. These are very good wife and I think Roma beans are better than Blue Lake beans they make good stir fry. Wife cooked some for dinner tonight. Roma pods are about 2 times larger than Blue Lake pods and plants are loaded with 1000s of beans. I planted 4 rows of Roma in 20 ft rows about last week of August, my Son picked 80% of the beans for himself, we got about 10 bags in freezer an a few pints in pantry. I saved seeds to plant this year.

What are you going to grow this year?
Last edited by Gary350 on Fri Jan 18, 2019 3:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

pepperhead212
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Location: Woodbury NJ Zone 7a/7b

I only grow pole beans - much easier to pick on trellises. Blue lake pole is a favorite, and last year I tried a new one - Withner White Cornfield - that was a keeper. Great production, with large, flat beans (though not wide, like roma), stringless up to 7 or 8", and very resistant to rust. Blauhilde is a purple variety, that is stringless to 6 or 7", resistant to rust, and productive. Fortex is one I got again this year, and is a favorite which I only stopped growing because it isn't as heat resistant as others. Hopefully, that won't matter this year. Red noodle beans are a long bean I grow, which stay solid, not hollowing out, like most long beans.

I can't eat canned beans - had enough of them as a child! I freeze some, but even those get overcooked, unless tossed into something at the last minute, to heat up. Or sometimes I use it in salads, though I do that more in the summer, not with frozen beans. Some beans I freeze "dry fried" beans - a Chinese method, usually deep fried in restaurants, and I often use the noodle beans for that.

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digitS'
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Location: ID/WA! border

I like green bean and used to think of them as my favorite garden vegetable - I guess that I still do! They aren't very difficult for me to grow altho there are some problems. The vegetables that I want to grow and that require more effort, probably take up too much of my time :roll: . I come to imagine that they are highly desirable when they are mostly more bothersome :wink: .

Green beans are grown commercially about 200 miles south. They were once grown here on farms but I haven't seen any fields in many years.

Let's look at my "problems:" The first planting may have pests and disease problems before they can make a 2nd crop. The first crop seems to always work, until I plant it too late - I'll get to that in a minute. My bush beans grown from a sowing in late May should probably be pulled after harvest. They won't be as productive, the second time around. I think that there is a disease called curly top that weaken them, at times. There may be mildew but the most likely problems are pests, primarily spider mites. I may leave the first planting and about 2 out of 3 times, things go okay.

Most years, I don't grow dry beans. The Rattlesnake pole bean that I have had for many years makes a very tasty dry bean. If you want a good tasting bush dry bean, Jacob's Cattle might be a very good choice. Like the other dry bean varieties that I have grown, Jacob's Cattle come out of the pods, easily. That isn't true with Rattlesnake and it has small seeds and is primarily grown as a green bean. It's really tasty as either but the pods dry onto the seeds and dumping them on a tarp and walking on them is almost a requirement. Maybe the burlap bag and beating a tree trunk would work. I climb a stepladder on a breezy day and pour the beans and chaff back down on the trap. Gathering the beans and doing that about 3 or 4 times usually cleans them well enough.

DW and I have different tastes in green beans and that somewhat disappoints me. She wants one with a mild flavor so we grow Jade every year. The flavor is okay and the plants are trouble-free and productive. I can make successive sowing right up until mid-July to have a nice, long fresh harvest.

I have read that during the early growing weeks, legumes use more nitrogen from the soil than they produce. I think that is likely although I don't fertilize the bush beans. Almost everything here requires irrigation. Having a rainstorm that "dumps" a 1/4" of water on the garden during the summer months is about as much as we can hope for. That's maybe once or twice, meanwhile, humidity levels drop below 20% every afternoon.

With green beans over a lot of weeks, we sometimes freeze beans. We don't can ... anything! DW must have that traditional green bean casserole for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Good Heavens. I have been eating that all of my life!

Usually, we just have green beans cooked with a little bacon or sausage. Dry beans are for winter soup.

Steve

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jal_ut
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Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

I confess I have planted a good variety of beans. Jade Bush beans and Pinto beans are good old time favorites. Green beans are bottled in pint jars and pressure cooked. Now you have a winter supply of green beans.

Taiji
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Location: Gardening in western U.P. of MI. 46+ N. lat. elev 1540. zone 3; state bird: mosquito

My most reliable bean has been Burpee's Stringless Green Pod. I always plant them in a small depression and cover with lightweight potting soil. Seems like for me it helps them to sprout more easily without pulling off the leaves when they push through.

I tried Strike (supposed to be really prolific) and Jade in the past but couldn't get them to sprout. I think though I just had a bad batch of seeds. I must give those another shot!

I usually cook with bacon, a little fresh garlic, chopped onion and a dash of olive oil. For storage, I just blanch and freeze in bags.

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PraticalGardener
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Location: Potomac Highlands region, West Virginia, USA (Zone 6a?)

I've only started to play around with 'string' beans the last few years. I've grown and tasted:
one kind of bush bean (I don't remember its name)
1/2 State Runner Bean (white seeds), grown as a pole bean
Scarlet Red Runner Bean, pole bean
Rattlesnake Bean, pole bean

All the string beans I tried seem to thrive for the location, in a well-established garden. They didn't get any special treatment in fertilizers, just whatever is applied to the whole garden. They were generally watered when planted, when sprouting, and then on an as-needed basis.
While I don't eat string beans much, I like the taste and smooth pod texture of the 1/2 State Runner Beans and the Rattlesnake Beans, which both also seemed to be about the same in taste. However, the Rattlesnake Beans had problems towards the end of the growing season with striped cucumber beetles eating at the pods and especially on the leaves.
Both the Scarlet Red Runner and the Rattlesnake Beans can go to seed and still produce new pods. The 1/2 State Runner Beans quit producing new pods when I allowed the pods to mature in order to go to seed.
I played around with growing 1/2 State Runner Beans on well-spaced sweet corn plants for more sunlight. I concluded that it was easier to harvest string beans on a trellis. :roll:

I like string beans home-grown, frozen for storage, and cooked in a crock pot/slow cooker the best so far. :mrgreen:

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jal_ut
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Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

When I was a youngster, there were farmers who would plant a large plot of pole beans. They needed poles for them to climb on so we would go cut willow sticks and take them to the farmer. He would pay us a bit for our efforts. Then when it came time to pick beans you would grab a bucket and go pick beans, He would weigh your harvest and record it in his book. When it came time to settle up he would pay you for the amount you picked not for the time spent.

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digitS'
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Location: ID/WA! border

I grew up eating Kentucky Wonder beans from the family garden. These experiences with garden vegetables in contrast to supermarket vegetables will influence our tastes, there is no doubt.

(My memory goes back to a time when the first "supermarket" opened in the little city near my home. The Groceteria products weren't a lot different but the building was different. The door was from a big parking lot. There were ropes from light poles with flags guiding us to the door. We had always parked the Oldsmobile or Dodge on the street! Inside, the lighting was from those new fluorescent bulbs. Some of the products looked kinda strange. We looked kinda strange. Blue!)

Anyway, wanting to use bush varieties mostly in the garden but wanting extra "bean" flavor, I discovered purple beans several years ago. DW doesn't really like the Purple Queen or Royalty beans that I have grown. It was too late to get a crop from Velour Purple last year but I plan to try it in 2019. It's a French filet type.

I won't be trying to push the more typical Romano beans into DW's kitchen but Greencrop is one of my favorite varieties.

Steve

okie dodger
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Location: East Central Oklahoma zone 7

I've always liked to eat green and dry beans, so I try to plant at least one variety of each every year. Some years are better than others , as most of you can attest to. Derby bush bean was a favorite of mine, especially when my children were growing up. I remember picking these until we had enough canned, then tilled them in. As I've gotten older, I find myself leaning towards the pole beans. It is easier on my back to pick them. Last year I grew Rattlesnake pole beans and they were terrific! I do plant Purple Hull peas most years. I would crawl to pick these if I had to, I like them that much. This year I will try Jackson Wonder limas and Christmas pole beans (again!). My Christmas beans were all bush no beans last year. I have also grown the Roma bush beans, but not recently. We really liked the flavor of these. I've grown the Orient Wonder yard long bean once, and that year (2016) these were the only beans I had enough to can. I should grow these again as I thought they had a good taste. This is my bean story, and I am sticking to it! LOL :-()

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jal_ut
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Location: Northern Utah Zone 5

okie dodger, Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your bean story.

mach1cj
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Location: Zone 6

I have planted Blue Lake Bush beans for better then 30 years. Last year I planted a variety called Ambra. I thought were excellent and I will be planting them again this year, probably late May.



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