2024 Little Easy Bean Network - Growing Heirloom Beans Of Today And Tomorrow

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Question ? The grape vines are in a 4’ high raised bed. Been seriously thinking about tacking out some of the vines and replacing them with pole, runner or vine beans . Any ideas which beans to try that would best fit a 15’ wide area with cable wires up 5’ for the vines to cling to?
It’s easy pickens from this high bed. Zone 8b.

 

[heirloomgal]

Question ? The grape vines are in a 4’ high raised bed. Been seriously thinking about tacking out some of the vines and replacing them with pole, runner or vine beans . Any ideas which beans to try that would best fit a 15’ wide area with cable wires up 5’ for the vines to cling to?
It’s easy pickens from this high bed. Zone 8b.

So many choices for that @Shades-of-Oregon! You want fresh eating beans? Runner beans?

 

[Zeedman]

Question ? The grape vines are in a 4’ high raised bed. Been seriously thinking about tacking out some of the vines and replacing them with pole, runner or vine beans . Any ideas which beans to try that would best fit a 15’ wide area with cable wires up 5’ for the vines to cling to?
It’s easy pickens from this high bed. Zone 8b.

There are 2 possible sources of Oregon-specific growing info that might be of help;

Seed Ambassador Project. (can't verify if they are still active, no recent posts on their website.)

Peace Seedlings (formerly Dr. Alan Kapular's 'Peace Seeds'.)

One question to consider is what kind of beans you want: Snap? Shelly? Dry? In your climate, you might be able to succession plant, with common pole beans (P. vulgaris) in warm weather, and runner beans in cooler weather. Runner bean roots will even over-winter & re-sprout in Spring, in areas where the ground doesn't freeze... perennial beans.

 

[Blue-Jay]

Lazy - Pole Snap left photo. It was given to me as Lazy Wife but this is not the original Lazy Wife so I'm going to call it Lazy. The original Lazy Wife is a nearly round and glossy, but in the 1980's a white kidney shaped bean was marketed. The flavor of this bean was not of the orginal. Originally "Lazy Wife" had been carried by W. Atlee Burpee starting in 1885, who obtained it from Mennonite immigrants in Pennsylvania who had grown it for generations. Burpee dropped it in the early 1900's. Burpee's strain was obtained by Derek Fell, a former Burpee Seed catalog manager, from Bill Byrd of Carversville Pa, who had grown & saved seed of the original "Lazy Wife" ever since Burpee dropped it from their catalog.

Louisiana - Pole Snap. Right Photo. I have grown this bean since the early 1980's and it's one of my all time favorites pole beans. Early with green round pods with purple striping. I can often pick these at about 7 inches long.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

So many choices for that @Shades-of-Oregon! You want fresh eating beans? Runner beans?

Both would be nice , wax beans are an old favorite. Thank you for taking time . Beans grow fast once they get started someing nice about them.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

There are 2 possible sources of Oregon-specific growing info that might be of help;

Seed Ambassador Project. (can't verify if they are still active, no recent posts on their website.)

Peace Seedlings (formerly Dr. Alan Kapular's 'Peace Seeds'.)

One question to consider is what kind of beans you want: Snap? Shelly? Dry? In your climate, you might be able to succession plant, with common pole beans (P. vulgaris) in warm weather, and runner beans in cooler weather. Runner bean roots will even over-winter & re-sprout in Spring, in areas where the ground doesn't freeze... perennial beans.

Would like to try perennial beans . Pole beans for summer and cool weather beans to start early spring.
And snap . I like the idea for succession planting, lately we are all coping with a changing climate every grow season is different lately. Have to start seedlings in my heated greenhouse to get them outside when temps are warm enough to harden off seedlings and ground temps warm to plant outside.

Oregon zone 6b in western coastal areas . Usually the ONSU has great selections and recommendations for several different pole beans . Most beans will grow in late spring when ground temps warm to 60F- 65 F.
Which is usually in mid-late June. Roughly 4 months of growing time.
Thank you for your time , advice and links.

 

[heirloomgal]

Both would be nice .

@Zeedman made a good point that didn't occur to me given where I live, you could grown runner beans in your area as a perennial. There are so many gorgeous and extremely productive ones out there, with either red, pink or white flowers. The beans are good for eating too - a nice plus with all those flowers and vigorous vines. I love Piekny Jas and Sunset runner.

But for regular snap beans - oooh, so many good ones!! @Blue-Jay has just so many amazing fresh eating beans - Louisiana pole, Green Savage, Landfrauen, La Vigneronne, Champagne, Fasold (really love this one).

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@Zeedman made a good point that didn't occur to me given where I live, you could grown runner beans in your area as a perennial. There are so many gorgeous and extremely productive ones out there, with either red, pink or white flowers. The beans are good for eating too - a nice plus with all those flowers and vigorous vines. I love Piekny Jas and Sunset runner.

But for regular snap beans - oooh, so many good ones!! @Blue-Jay has just so many amazing fresh eating beans - Louisiana pole, Green Savage, Landfrauen, La Vigneronne, Champagne, Fasold (really love this one).

Piekny Jas & sunset runner will look into .
Snaps are overwhelming when deciding which ones. L. Pole , Green Savage etc all will make the grade…just a tricky decision… maybe time to bite the bullet and just try 3or4 rows of each. Mmm- Looking up Fasold. Oh nice French climbing long and thin. Those look tasty. I remember discussions on that one.
Thank you again for you advice and your experience of course adds trust and confidence in decisions .

 

[Blue-Jay]

Lynnfield - Pole dry right photo. Large beans. My growing of this bean goes back to probably 1978. John Withee who's oranization of Wanigan Associates was operated out of his home in guess. Where else but Lynnfield, Massachusetts. He described Lynnfield as a selection from Lila Stuart that has persisted for three years.

Ma Williams - Pole right photo. Some people ask me if this is one called Goose under another name. I don't know as this bean is new to me and I can't seem to find anything about the bean in a search. I don't know if it's strictly a dry bean or can be used for both fresh eating and as a dry bean.


Lynnfield - Pole......................................................Ma Williams - Pole

 

[flowerbug]

it was a tougher season in some gardens for the early to middle part of the whole season. as i'm shelling out beans i'm finding some that are not very well developed and in some cases hardly any of some rows even got barely formed beans before giving up. i'm not sure if it was because i had Mom do some watering for me or not, but next season i'm going to try to not let that happen again and do all the watering. i've also been making some changes to a few gardens to level things out and fill in some low spots and other things to make it more likely the beans will do better.

once again though Purple Dove shows how much better they do than most of the rest even during those tough spells. rows of beans right next to each other of various types of beans. Purple Dove gives some results where the others just give up. normally if Purple Dove can start a bean it will usually be able to finish it without cracking the seed coat or forming oddly. Not that they are perfect, but they do better because they are a smaller bean. this season i am noticing more cracked seed coats or beans that didn't even get completely formed.

by rather stark contrast the Purple Dove beans that formed in the later part of the summer are darned near perfect in all regards. the pods are clean of mold spot or rot on the ends or even bug damage. yes, there's always some of all of that happening no matter what, but on the whole those four bags of beans i picked were really nice as i could hope for. opening up a bean pod and having 6-9 beans all perfectly done was such a delight.

that all said i'm not going to be hurting for beans this season even with loses from weather or critter munching. i'll still end up with about 20 - 30 lbs of beans with 80% of those being bulk beans for eating once i've selected out what i want for replanting or selling at the seed swap.

five more bags to go yet... it's like Christmas for a week or two yet and then on to sorting and selecting which is a whole 'nother layer of fun.