Quick-maturing, Flavorful Soup Bean

[897tgigvib]

Digit, there are indeed several varieties of DRY BEAN that grow and produce real fast.

A person can grow dry beans exactly like fresh beans and have a good harvest.

There are a few differences though, and if you keep the differences in mind when planning your garden, things will work out better for you.

The plants will be growing to their full maturity. When bush beans, dry or fresh, grow the full season to season end the plants get bigger, and different varieties get bigger in different ways. (plant architecture).

Some like Sangre de Torro get taller and remain truly determinate. That's a good variety for the north by the way.
Some like Eye of the Tiger get taller and flop over easier because some plants have a tendency to be semi determinate. Both these 2 varieties are good stout stemmed. Eye of the Tiger is one of the very quickest to mature dry beans there is, and they are not small beans either. Dry, the seeds are something approximating kentucky wonder regulars in size, mmm, i think a bit larger even. The pods are 3 to 7 inches long, wide, and somewhat sickle shaped. Sangre's pods are longer and rounder. Sangre's beans are true kedney beans, but a deep blood red, and much better than store bought.

Both of these are very excellent varieties for the north digit! For harvesting the biggest harvest possible, pick them just as the pods begin to shrivel, and let them finish drying on a paper plate. It's my feeling that doing this helps the plants do a rebloom. Here in this longer season rebloom is really cool! I still have a lot of rebloomed plants with hanging and slowly ripening beans.

Sangre will remain alive and active for you until frost kills it. The same for you up there will probably be true for Eye of the Tiger. My eye plants are passing on now. Sangere is still kicking good.

You can for sure extend the season in fall with covers for a variety like Sangre de Torro by covering them. They are a tough long lived variety. Eye of the Tiger is tough too, just that they finish earlier.

 

[897tgigvib]

Then there are the tender vining dry bean varieties digit, that also are good for the north.

Both Anasazi and Indian Woman Yellow are tender viners that could be called quarter runners. or third runners.
Indian woman yellow is also very quick to mature. Her vines are tender stemmed, not heavy and thick. they do best with 2 or 3 foot stakes. I had them with those treefall branches, and they did well on them. Indian woman's pods and beans are much smaller, 2 to 4 and a half inches, good proportioned. These will have a race with eye of the tiger for being first.

Anasazi is a week later, but will indeed work up there Digit. Cool looking little beans too.

Which is the earliest pole dry bean?
Hidatsa Shield Figure, Sacajawea's bean from North Dakota, will give any variety a good race for first to mature to dry. They grow as a heavy strong full height vine, not the tallest, but definitely full 10 foot. Again, pick them as soon as they begin wrinkling.

Growing dry beans you notice the full color range the pods go through. Most yellow to dry straw. Hidatsa shield makes pods typical of good dry bean pods. 3 to 8, usually 4 or 5 inches long, fat, wide, sickle shaped. They will fill your coffee cans very effectively.

Digit, you do know you can start beans indoors, and i know your indoor starting space is limited. you don't need to indoor start the sangre or eye bush varieties, nor the indian woman yellow, and will very likely be alright starting most hidatsa shield outdoors...using the tricks you and i know well for starting a bit earlier using plastic etc...but you might want to start maybe a dozen or 12 plants inside a few weeks earlier for a bigger harvest...transplant the no rootball movement method...

If you have room inside for somewhat later maturing varieties started inside a month early, you might want to try the beautiful Black Spanish Allubias de Tolosa that grows similar to hidatsa shield, and one of the Italian Pole Borlotto varieties listed as early. Petaluma Gold rush is NOT a good one for up there! That one is just now barely full cropping ripe pods for me. My Italian Pole Borlotto is one that is also called Cranberry, but is not the true red cranberry variety. Both of these, the Black Spanish Allubias de Tolosa, and the Italian Pole Borlotto-Cranberry, are giving me a good rebloom crop. While I was making this paragraph I stepped out and picked a few fully dry Black Spanish and could have picked some Italian Borlotto Pole beans too.

For these reblooming pole varieties of dry beans up there, a tall cover at the end of the season could give you a bit of a late crop.

 

[digitS']

Thank you, Marshall! Three! (Don't go out there in the garden again!) I was hoping you wouldn't come up with 10 or 12 ideas for me . Anasazi, Spanish Tolosna and Tiger Eye are there! (Yellow Indian Woman - out of stock)

I don't see the Sangre de Torro or several of the others on the Purcell Mountain list but that's okay. When I went into the exploration of soy, I had adzuki and cowpeas and, at least, a half dozen soybeans. One result was that I was out there the 2nd and 3rd year without any notes, everything back home in the computer and I'm guessing what I'd like to have in a 2nd run. Influenced by the name, which I associated with the Japanese ski resort, I continued to try Sapporo Midori even into the 4th year, I believe. At least I gave it a good chance to prove that it really wasn't going to do very well here . . . Big plant, barely producing anything.

I will order enuf that a pot can go on the stove and I can learn what they taste like. I do know that I like Navy beans and can see how they grow . Having 4 or 5 new varieties to grow next year should more than do it! Maybe a whole New World of Beans will open up for me .

Steve

ETA: I do want to try Hutterite. I see that altho' Purcell is out of stock, Fedco has them & I have an order for Fedco most every year.