North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Hélène Dessureault <interverbis@videotron.ca>]

Jerry,

 

 The poles beans take longer to produce than the bush beans, so I plant a short row of both green and yellow bush bean to pick early (the earlier the better for fresh beans). From bush, you get a crop or two, and more small picking if you pick regularly... The pole bean are slower to develop (the plant is a lot bigger and need support of course, and the better the support the better the production in the end), but once the pole beans start producing, they keep going as long as you pick them. My impression is that pole beans are more productive for a given space, not only do they produce continually when picked regularly but they produce over a larger vertical space. 

While on this topic,  I would like to add that If you freeze beans, there is a major difference in frozen bean quality between varieties. A lot of great tasting fresh beans freeze poorly, and I do mean poorly. If you want to freeze beans, choose a variety that freezes really well (it is usually indicated in the seed catalogues and you can do trials and errors) so that you can enjoy firm well coloured beans in the Winter.

My favorite yellow pole bean is Goldfield, a flat yellow large (easily a foot long) that is flavorful fresh and freeze really well. One 8 feet row of Goldfield produces fresh eating and freezer yellow beans in sufficient quantity for us for the winter. I usually give a few bags away too. Emerite is a long round green pole beans that I like. I also plant 8 feet of Emerite. I also tried a purple bean this year, given by a friend and it was SO agressive (the plant becoming twice as large, and that is quite large) as other poles (I only planted 5 seeds) but I have not yet tried the frozen beans so I don't know how well they do in the freezer.... I tried canning a few jars but the colour turned out faded and there is a string... Canned beans is not my favorite anyway... Fresh, they were quite good and extremely prolific until frost... You know of course that purple beans turn green when cooked!

 

Do you know you can do beans in brine, like sauerkraut? I have done green beans before and it is fabulous, if you like this type of taste. The beans are brightly green and crunchy. Those were canned successfully as well.

 

To get back to your question as to whether pole beans are twice as productive as bush, I would guess that it is, and more if you pick regularly... Beans don't seem to be sensitive to length of daylight and keep on producing into the Fall... until frost that is.

 

Hélène, zone3-4

----- Original Message -----

From: jerrydana5@aol.com

To: nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Friday, December 03, 2010 6:57 AM

Subject: [NAFEX] space for pole beans

I am thinking about planting pole beans this summer instead of bush beans to save space.  Does anybody know if one row of pole beans would produce a comparable amount of beans as two rows of bush beans and save space?  Jerry in southern Indiana

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