Fortex Pole Beans

[so lucky]

Has anyone here tried them? They get really good reviews. Long French filet type, not stringy....prolific....A member of a different forum used to really speak highly of them, and she grew them in Alaska. Trying to decide between Blue Lake pole, and the Fortex. Last time I got Blue Lake, as I have mentioned here previously, they were not Blue Lake. They were bumpy, tough and stringy. I know they are not supposed to be that way, so I'm not buying beans from Livingston Seeds anymore.

 

[digitS']

Well, So Lucky, maybe that was my problem.

After reading others say great things about Fortex, I grew them ... I don't know ... sometime prior to 2005.

I wasn't happy with them. The shape, coarseness, flavor didn't seem as described. Maybe they weren't Fortex, at all!

Steve

 

[so lucky]

Well, Gee! What if they really were Fortex, and they are really that coarse and weird? Now I am afraid to try them! (Only people with limited garden space knows this fear...wasting a whole garden season and all that space on something that is unsatisfactory)
Since most of the reviews I saw on them where I could pinpoint their location were in the Northwest, I was wondering if Fortex was more suitable for that area. Steve, your experience kind of negates that idea. But, as you say, maybe they weren't really Fortex that you grew.
Maybe someone else will give their opinion.

 

[digitS']

I don't know about others' ideas on the "Northwest," So Lucky. This is the highway I drove nearly 50 years ago to arrive here:



Now, imagine that you drive through that canyon, continue on for a couple hundred miles of sage brush and rolling hills of wheat. You then arrive at some forested canyons coming out of modest mountains rising about 2,000 feet above your highway. Is that what you suppose most people think of as the "Pacific Northwest?"

There are several purple pod types I would like to try this year. DW won't be happy with those beans with their stronger flavors, however.

Steve
in semi-arid, Wild West settings, soften only by a few, challenged evergreens.

 

[so lucky]

Yeah, I realized after I mentioned the northwest that your area doesn't qualify for rainforest designation. Geez--it's almost desert! The diversity of this country still amazes me.