Pole beans

[skinyea]

so I bought pole beans from amazon this year. 1st time. Kentucky Pole Beans. they grew amazing up 8 foot poles. beautiful leaves and flowers. have 2 teepees set up. both looked super amazing.
Beans forms last week and looked good. then I noticed they were not just green but almost spotted. thought I had some type of disease, but the leaves looked so good! did research and turns out my beans are actually rattlesnake pole beans. never heard of these guys before. extremely tasty!! will save some of these seeds for next year.

 

[Oliver Buckle]

A success story !!
Pick your beans to save, that sort of selection and in very few years you can have a strain that is especially suited to your garden environment. Someone did comparisons of foreign veg that were saved by immigrant gardeners in Britain compared to varieties bred by seed companies for a UK climate, the ones selected by gardeners over ten years or so were way ahead of the commercial ones.

 

[Meadowlark]

Yes, those rattlesnake beans are tasty. Did you shell some or eat/use them green? As a shelled bean, is our preferred way to use them but both are good.

 

[skinyea]

this was the 1st week they grew so ate them green. Now that I know what I have, I will probs do both

 

[Ruderunner]

I recommend constant picking the beans. Seems if you slack off, the plants stop producing and focus on maturing the current growth.

 

[skinyea]

I recommend constant picking the beans. Seems if you slack off, the plants stop producing and focus on maturing the current growth.

to your point. picked about 10lbs of beans Thursday, have another 5lbs to pick today.

I still have about a months' worth of beans from last year's garden either frozen or canned.

I got into this for the taste of fresh veggies. But i cant get over how much $$$ it now saves.

 

[Meadowlark]

Agree, Taste was/is my big motivator also...but food prices with the War in Europe and very bad drought in US and inflation have pressured prices through the roof. I would not be the least bit surprised to see major shortages this winter....and then those pole beans will really taste good!

 

[Mr_Yan]

Agree, Taste was/is my big motivator also...but food prices with the War in Europe and very bad drought in US and inflation have pressured prices through the roof. I would not be the least bit surprised to see major shortages this winter....and then those pole beans will really taste good

I got into this for the taste of fresh veggies. But i cant get over how much $$$ it now saves.

I got really in to veg gardening for this reason in 2008 / 2009, I was newly married just bought a house and had a kid on the way in the midst of a stock market crash arguably worse than 1929.

This year I am doing three type of pole beans for dry beans to be the base of our winter soups.

Good Mother Stallard - saved from a few years ago, worked great then and easily doing the best in this years garden. White and purple speckled about the size of black turtle beans. Can't speak to the flavor as the multi-bean chicken soup I make has a lot going on in it.

New this year
Slippery Silks - red beans
Autumn Zebra - tan with black speckles, slightly smaller than a pinto bean

Both of the new ones are from Baker Creek and I'm not impressed with quality or germination rate.
The Good Mother Stallard were from Jung