After growing Contender bush beans, Tendergreen bush beans and Kentucky Wonder pole beans side by side, I have found Contender to have the best flavor and texture by a long shot. At this point, I don’t care if they take up more space or are less productive than pole beans. They are quite good! The children love them as well and find the bush beans easier to pick.
Sometimes bush beans make sense. I’m planting more this evening.
I also got some more hyacinth beans as well as jicama today. Those will be fun to try.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
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I finally stumbled onto Fortex French Filet Pole Beans a few years back. No more looking around for new varieties. Quite pricey if you forget to save seed. Virtually stringless at all sizes. Best tasting beans we have had though. Quite prolific. We can enough to last into the next summer. About half of my pole beans are them. Grow them on trellis over sidewalk every year. Not gotten burned on no crop rotation so far.
Afternoon from Poland. Good to know there are so many different varieties of beans. Beans are awesome, eat them almost every day. But eat rather those most famous from markets (so red, white and black). My favourite is red kidney. I like to add them to tomato sauce with corn for spaghetti with chessee. And then after cooking it add some herbs, like Basil, Oregano, Rosemary, Thyme or Tarragon. Would be great to have them all planted and growing in our family garden. Godbless.
I watched the video on Marjorie Wildcraft weekend about garden pests, but didn’t see my issue. I have little worms curling up in the leaves, and eating them. I have been picking them off, so far. Also, my beans and cucumbers have that viney light green squiggle in them, I thought it was a virus, and tried clipping those leaves…is there something else I can do> Should I not save seeds from these, because of this? So glad for all your help, thank you for the info and the fun in your videos : )
I went crazy on beans this year, putting in Lazy Housewife, Emerite, Fortex, Maxibel, Dragon’s Tongue, Provider, Vermont Cranberry, and Jacob’s Cattle. I ordered Kentucky Wonder, but they were sold out. (No matter. I grew them last year and know what to expect.)
Next year I will cut back on varieties, growing only the ones that worked best. Seed saving this year probably won’t work, as I have a high bumblebee population. But once I focus down to a couple of varieties, I may be able to save seed. This will be especially important if I decide to focus on something relatively hard to find, like Emerite or Fortex.
I think you’ll still be fine on seed saving. Beans don’t cross very easily. Still, if they do, you might get something really awesome. Good work experimenting.
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