Early pole bean

[simy1]

I am growing the Borlotti "Fire Tongue" type, which have fabulous taste, but every year in early october (first frost) I have big vines covered in green pods, with more pods on the vine than in the freezer. This heirloom is perhaps best for a gardener 200 miles to the south.

I mostly fresh-freeze them for the winter. Next year I will be looking for an earlier type. I still want a pole bean because cabbage and other greens like the shade and nitrogen that these plants provide. I am well aware that scarlet runner beans are precocious, but I don't know about taste and productivity. The Borlotti have great taste but I never met a fresh bean that I did not like, so I will be looking for a productive early pole shelling bean. Suggestions anyone?

[zxcvbob]

I grew "Rattlesnake" this year, and they were a lot earlier than the Romanos. Next year I will plant only Rattlesnake instead of half-n-half.

I grew them for snaps, so I don't know about for shelling. HTH

Bob

[Pat Kiewicz]

Johnny's 'Garden of Eden' is a lot like the bean I've been growing from saved seed for many years from seed given to be by a co-worker. (I bought seeds once to grow side by side for comparison.) Their 'Northeaster' is also a pretty good bean.

you do get a pole bean you really like, be sure to save your own seeds.

[Steve Peek]

[simy1]

Thanks to both of you. I am already saving a variety of romano beans which is very early for snap beans. Besides being early, with a tremendous first flush, I like the taste a lot. But it has been discontinued at Territorial because if you let go those pods even one week they become very tough. Also, it does not do much after the first flush. But grown together with some more standard snap beans, it is perfect. Garden of Eden or Northeaster it is.

[simy1]

I went in there and GoE did look like a good shelling bean, not much pod, long row of beans. But Northeaster looks like a typical romano, big pods with small, sparse seeds. Yes, romanos are very early for pods, and my romanos are in the pod drying stage right now (for seed saving), but I would never characterize them as productive for shelling.

[farmerdill]