a newbie bean thread

it is coming up on spring and some people may wonder what are good beans to start
with.

so to get a bean thread going apart from the other bean thread i thought i would ask...

so far, my favorite beans that i would recommend for new people to try are:


Fresh eating:
- Top Notch Wax (bush)

Shellies:
- Fordhook Lima (bush)

Dry:
- Yellow Eye (also called Molasses Face) (semi runner)


Others notable to mention:

as a new fresh eating green bean this year i'm going to give the Purple Dove bush beans another try. they were very productive of pods, seeds last year and the plants were beautiful and the beans were early, really sweet and yum. so i want to repeat them to expand the seeds and to see what they do for a 2nd season. if they do well i'll be distributing them to people that want them. i haven't grown enough yet to cook any up from dry beans to see how they taste. that's on my ToDo list too if i ever get enough... if last season is anything to go by i may have no problem there... the only downside to these beans is that the Japanese Beetles loved 'em first and frequently all season. so they make a good trap crop for JBs too... heh...

the other bean we liked because we'd not had any other lima beans before to compare was the Red Lima bean on the fence. it was productive and we had a lot of shellies from them we liked and i mixed 'em in with the Fordhooks.

Last season was a bad bean year for us. We we planted our bush beans then fill in planted the gaps in the rows like three times lol. We ended up getting only about 20 packages vacuum sealed. We also planted Turkey craw pole beans, but with the slow cold start when they started to produce the season was ending. Also planted some runner beans. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of them,I want to say Black coat runner beans though. I have some really nice seed I saved from them though if anybody wants to try them.
Really am hoping for a great bean crop this season.

Collector said:

Last season was a bad bean year for us. We we planted our bush beans then fill in planted the gaps in the rows like three times lol. We ended up getting only about 20 packages vacuum sealed. We also planted Turkey craw pole beans, but with the slow cold start when they started to produce the season was ending. Also planted some runner beans. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of them,I want to say Black coat runner beans though. I have some really nice seed I saved from them though if anybody wants to try them.
Really am hoping for a great bean crop this season.

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i hope so too! your arm all healed up ok?

the first year i had some scarlet runner beans there was a mix of seeds of the black with purple markings and some seed was solid black. both flowered scarlet in color so i've not segregated them. i grew some out last year but they didn't do as well as the first year. i think they need to be started in a gallon pot first several weeks before planting them out up here. love the flowers on them tho.

someone said you can eat scarlet runner beans when young pods but i've not ever tried that, have you? i've eaten several rounds of them cooking them up from the dry seeds - to me they are edible but not my favorite (hard to really have favorites when i like so many).

Collector said:

... Also planted some runner beans. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of them,I want to say Black coat runner beans though. I have some really nice seed I saved from them though if anybody wants to try them.

Click to expand...

Black Coat sounds right. I grew those about 10 years ago, and was impressed with the flowers... a fairly short flowering period, but really intense color. Runner beans don't seem to have as much variability in flavor as common beans, but as I recall, the young pods of Black Coat were very sweet.

flowerbug said:

... someone said you can eat scarlet runner beans when young pods but i've not ever tried that, have you? i've eaten several rounds of them cooking them up from the dry seeds - to me they are edible but not my favorite (hard to really have favorites when i like so many).

Click to expand...

Although I grow runner beans mainly for their shellies or seeds (and to attract hummingbirds), I always cook up a batch or two as snaps... especially in the last cool weeks before frost, when the common beans are done & the runner beans are loaded with young pods. The flavor is almost universal between different varieties, strong & fairly sweet, with a flavor similar to Romano. They are firmer & meatier than most snap beans, and have a rough outer skin that IMO takes some getting used to. The pods of heirlooms I've grown need to be picked very young, before the beans inside have begun to expand. There are many varieties in Europe (especially the U.K.) that were bred specifically for use as snaps, but I haven't tried any of those... it would be interesting to see how they would perform here. Runner beans make sense in areas with cool summers, especially in Maritime climates. But for those of us with warm summers, where common beans do well & runner beans languish, it would be counter-productive to grow runner beans expressly for their snaps.

My grow list is still a work in progress, but I have two garden sites 6 miles apart, and generally grow two runner beans each year. One of those will be Aeron Purple Star (thanks to @aftermidnight ) a variety bred by a U.K. gardener which has purple pods - the only variety I know of with that characteristic. The other variety will probably be the white-flowered / white-seeded Gigandes, which I am trying to select for better adaptation to my Northern climate. The shellies of Gigandes live up to their name, you can eat them with a fork.

DW wants to grow them again because she said the hummingbirds loved them last season. I have saved plenty of seed and plant start them early in gallon pots like @flowerbug suggested.

Collector said:

DW wants to grow them again because she said the hummingbirds loved them last season. I have saved plenty of seed and plant start them early in gallon pots like @flowerbug suggested.

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they are gorgeous!



in warmer areas they are said to be perennials. we won't ever see that here. i tried to examine roots a few years ago and they certainly didn't make it to "tuber" stage.

@Zeedman, thanks! if i grow them again this year i'll have to try some at the shelly stage.

What's the name of the above picture? Is it a Scarlet Runner Bean?

Mary

ninnymary said:

What's the name of the above picture? Is it a Scarlet Runner Bean?

Mary

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yes, i think the black coat beans are the same color. i have both black coat and just what was sold to me as the scarlet runner bean (planted in the same pot even ). both bloomed same color of blooms and were identical in habit as far as i could tell.

Many true runner beans have scarlet blossoms. There are also white flowered (and white seeded) varieties like Emergo & Gigandes, pink flowered (Sunset & Apricot), and a few with bi-colored flowers (Painted Lady & Tucomares Chocolate). Planted together, the different colors would be breathtaking in bloom.

Tucomares Chocolate

earlier today i was looking at the Painted Lady flowers because a friend had mentioned them. i'm not decided if i like them or not yet, so to me that says i probably don't like them quite enough to add them to the collection. not sure they would grow well here or not.