Pole beans

[Worth1]

Frozen green beans are good for a long cook in a beef vegetable soup or stew that is about it.
The frozen steamed green beans they served at work were still cold and icy on the insides every time for ten years.
All other vegetables were the same way.
You bite into them and ice water came out.
Worth

[Gardadore]

A few years ago I switched from bush beans to pole because they were easier to harvest and took up much less space. I soon discovered that they produced all summer so I didn't need to pull them until frost. We prefer the French filet kind and found that there were some newer versions. For the green I tried both Fortex and Emerite and now opt for Emerite. I also plant one called Santa Ana from Seeds of Italy but will grow only Emerite after all the Santa Ana seeds are used up. Just making things easier for me.

The best yellow filet beans I have found are Ramdor but I have to get them from Solana in Canada. The next best one is from Renee's Garden called French Gold and are also excellent.

In both cases I have taken two pieces of 6 ft. wire fencing and bent each into a horseshoe shape and attached 3 metal stakes , one on each end and one in the bend. One cage is for the yellow and one for the green. Since there are only two of us I don't have to plant many beans to get a really nice supply. 5-7 plants each is more than enough and I give away double as many!

And as already mentioned if you keep picking them they will keep setting new ones! I'm never without a few of these each year in the garden.

[Worth1]

I just discovered this year it gets too hot here for pole beans to produce all summer.
Back to bush beans.

[Father'sDaughter]

My mother has been successfully freezing Roma beans for years. They need to be quickly blanched, shocked in an ice bath, spread out on a tray or baking sheet to be individually frozen, then sealed in a ziplock or vacuum sealed once frozen.

I've managed to produce just enough for fresh eating so I haven't had enough to freeze. My bush Romas are still out producing the pole Romas, so maybe next year when I go with all bush plants, I'll have enough to freeze some for winter eating. And we've tried the bush and pole Romas side-by-side and there is absolutely no difference.

[JRinPA]

5-7 plants each for 6 ft....I plant a bit more closely than that. 8x more dense if my math is correct. This only my second year with beans. I make a trellis from bamboo and arbor vitae branches, about 14' long I guess. Everything forms triangles for strength, so I suppose it is more properly called a trussis. Yeah, dorky engineer humor, but I typed it so it will stay. I plant a bean every 3" as the johnny packages say, but then I go and put them along each side, about a foot apart, and then lay compost over them. It is awesome. Two types of beans per trellis, and one type each on the teepee for total of seven types in that garden.

Last year I had three such trellises, but there was too much shade in the middle. This year I kept the two outside trellises about the same but erected three teepees in the middle instead of a solid trellis. Each teepee got maybe 20 beans under them. That helped a lot to keep the middle open to sunshine. I have way more beans than I know what to do with....oh well, better eat them! It is so much fun watching them fill in.

I figure plant heavy so the beetles can't possibly destroy enough to matter. The planting doesn't take long at all compared to putting the structure up. Next year I plan to put tomatoes there again. Not sure yet where I will put the pole beans, but I think I can get another year from those sticks.

My mom has done some blanching and freezing since the canning was blah. That is what she had planned to do originally. Her mom did that when she was younger and it worked fine. Freezer space is always tight, though. I am thinking maybe can some dilly beans.

[rxkeith]

terrible bean year for me here.
i planted 10 varieties of pole beans mid june. we had cool rainy weather for over a week after seeds were planted. thats just how it goes here sometimes.
only three varieties came up.

scarlet runner
khabarovsk both of which i am growing for the first time.
uncle steve italian pole.

scarlet runner has firm crisp pods that are pretty good raw.
khabarovsk is supposed to be a dry bean. pods are flat green with purple mottling.
uncle steve i have grown for over 40 years. it doesn't seem to mind cold weather as much. it always grows for me.

for cold tolerance, these varieties are worth considering.


keith

[Tormato]

If one wants ~0% germination, go with cold wet soil and white seeded beans. Take it from an expert.

[Zeedman]

Originally Posted by Tormato

If one wants ~0% germination, go with cold wet soil and white seeded beans. Take it from an expert.

So plant them extra early? I'll second that observation, the white seeded Clem & Sarah's came up very poorly this year, as it did the last time I grew it (which was another very wet June).

Originally Posted by rxkeith

terrible bean year for me here.
i planted 10 varieties of pole beans mid june. we had cool rainy weather for over a week after seeds were planted. thats just how it goes here sometimes.
only three varieties came up.

Had pretty much the same happen to most of my direct-seeded beans this year, for the same reason. Had backup transplants for all but one of the failures... and the exception was Fortex, which was supposed to be my main crop snap bean. I too ended up using runner bean snaps, from Sunset runner. The summer has been much cooler than normal, we never even broke 90 F., so the runner bean pods were longer & more tender than usual.

If several abnormally wet years have taught me anything constructive, it is the value of pole beans vs. bush in wet weather. Pole beans dry out faster after a rain, hold their pods well off the ground (out of reach of rot, rodents, and snails), and generally have fewer pest & disease issues. They also have a much higher yield per plant, so transplants - such as those which have saved my bean crops two years in a row - are highly effective.

The beans I grow change every year, in a planned rotation; but as luck would have it, had more than my usual quota of bush beans this year, 4 out of 11 varieties. Lost over 50% of one variety due to disease, two others are stunted & have about 1/2 of their normal yield, and the last one - while healthy - was slow to recover, and is several weeks behind where it should be. All of the pole varieties are healthy. While there are several bush beans I will continue to grow (for either soup or shellies) pole beans will always be the backbone of my bean planting.

Oh, and one other advantage of pole beans - they can be used as a wind break to protect tender crops. I've had great results growing okra & Moringa on the South side of several trellises of pole beans, where they benefit from the slightly warmer micro climate.

[Tormato]

Then there's the value of greasy pole beans and really wet weather. One year, with 30 days of rain in 34 days during dry down time (the pods, not the weather), I lost every variety to rot, except one, the one and only greasy bean in the garden. And that one produced about 300 seeds per plant.

The only thing I could figure out is that, perhaps, the slick/shiny pods shed water, and therefore dry better, than regular bean pods

[JRinPA]

I guess I have really good drainage set up now, doing deep broadfork aeration, then simply covering the seed row with compost. We are not in a flood plain, but I do remember years when the garden was wet and water stood on top of that hard packed clay. It was wet this year, but not in a bad way for me. I haven't had to water for a long time, so I think it's been great. The raised beds were amazing on peas and then bush beans, and the pole beans were great last year and better this year with a little more air in the middle.

My only real problem gardening is squash bugs, vine borers, and cucumber beetles ravage the squash and melons, and I am super reluctant to use pesticides. Well, those, and the imported spotted lantern flies are going to get really bad. I'm not sure how much damage they will do. They sit on the okra but I can't tell if they hurt it. There are so many I want to cry or vomit, its just sad and unnecessary that they are even here, and they are going to spread like crazy. Many thousands, likely millions, are hitching rides on vehicles this past month.

[efisakov]

I have being spraying with just a dish soap using hose-end sprayer. Which is easy and organic. It helps to prevent and keep under control many things. It is about 12 dollars in Lowes. Not 100% but still better than nothing. Even spider mites slowed down significantly. With SM I had to spray every 3 days. I stopped spraying for a week and they came.

[Tormato]

Whenever those tank sprayers get posted, I have to ask...do you have a backflow preventer valve?

[efisakov]

I do not, I think. But I had no problems with them and was using it for at least 3 years. It is made of plastic and does not create super pressure. It is small, about 20 ounces or less. You can set dispersion amount. It has a dial. You can set how fast it will mix (suck) the soap or anything you spray with. I can not carry big sprayer. That is my best option.

[beefyboy]

For myself, the clear winner with green pole beans has been Fortex, both in quality, taste, and yield. With Gold Romano Pole beans (I have trialed every one I could find), the winner has been Gold Marie Vining in terms of both flavor and yield. Emerite green pole grown here has been a big disappointment, poorly yielding and miserable quality. I am growing all in an outside hydroponic system and they do so much better in these big buckets of rockwool where the roots can stay moist.

[Tormato]

Originally Posted by efisakov

I do not, I think. But I had no problems with them and was using it for at least 3 years. It is made of plastic and does not create super pressure. It is small, about 20 ounces or less. You can set dispersion amount. It has a dial. You can set how fast it will mix (suck) the soap or anything you spray with. I can not carry big sprayer. That is my best option.

It's not about the pressure going out of the sprayer.

If the sprayer is hooked up and you lose water pressure (for whatever unknown reason), whatever is in the spray tank can get sucked back into your drinking water (and your neighbor's drinking water if you're not on well water).