Fortex and Kentucky blue for pole . Fortex I like a little better . Both are long and slow to get large seeds . I can grab handfuls of different sizes at once . For bush I like Jade ll . Grows good here . Texture cooked tends to be soft . Not an issue for me nice clean beans with no rust . Very productive .
I’ve been happy with Cobra for a pole bean. Even when a little bigger it’s still pretty tender.
Tennessee Greenpod - a flat, Roma-type bush green bean was always my favorite… but in looking at seed catalogs/sites… many show a round green bean for TGP.
My dad swore by Rattlesnake pole-type green beans… I have some seed in the cabinet from the plants that grew from seed I saved from the last crop he raised, in 2005… wonder if they’re still viable? Guess I should germ-test 'em , and plant a row, if they’re still good.
Our favorite is a French filet bean, Maxibelle. Thin and tender. I do like the photos and description of that Serengeti bean. May have to try it.
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Those pictures are a bit of over doing it. GREAT looking food, especially the bacon with a few beans.
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I grow Emerite, which is a green French Filet pole bean. They are really prolific for me and totally delicious!
I also vote for the Royal Burgundy purple bush beans. They are so much easier to see and pick.
When I grew up, I couldn’t stand green beans, but as a kid I was really picky about veggies. I think most of the times they were Blue Lake out of the can. I had pretty much swore off green beans.
But that changed a few years ago. When I was dating my future wife, her Mom made some GB’s for us that she had canned years earlier. I said, wow, what are these? She said they were half-runners; I had never heard of them back where I grew up in OK. But, they are quite popular here in this part of KY.
I liked them so much, that when we moved back to her family farm, we planted some white and striped half-runners. And, as a test, we also tried some Blue Lakes. That year, 2014, we canned over 50 qts of beans!
The HR’s were good as always, but the BL’s just didn’t cut it for me. I don’t know what it is I don’t like as bout the BL’s, maybe it’s the thicker, more stronger tasting pod. HR’s are a pole bean, and not a bush, so that might explain the different texture and taste?
BTW, we grew corn with the beans so that the beans could vine up the cornstalks. I had never seen that before, but my wife assured me that’s how they’ve done it here.
Last year our beans and corn did miserably, prob because the plot’s soil we used was too poor. We are going to try both together in a plot that used to be a former horse pasture, so I’m sure the soil should be plenty rich. We planted the corn about 10 days ago, and it’s up to about 3 inches now. We’ll plant the beans with it in a couple weeks. We’re also going to try some Rattlesnake pole beans, sounded like they might be good.
This week we’ll be getting our tomatoes that we started indoors back on March under grow lights outside to harden off before we put those in the ground. Have about 70 tomato and 20 peppers to plant soon, not looking forward to all that digging! Trying about 30 different tomato varieties this year, hope they do well.
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I do think pole beans are better in flavor than bush beans. Those HR’s sound like they are worth a try.
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Well, looks like we’re going to plant beans next week. We try to plant on a good “sign” day and Moon phase, fwiw.
Going to try to plant the beans with corn, that’s been growing about a month. The corn will be a trellis for the beans to climb on. Think we will try white half-runners and Rattlesnake pole beans this year.
These are far from my favorites, but I wanted to find a green bean thread to put them on. This is the first time I ever grew these. The are called “Thai Soldier Long Beans” and are from Southeast Asia. These were supposed to be bush beans but they really aren’t…mine sent out runners and ran along the ground as far as 5 feet or more from base.
I really enjoy growing unusual things, and these certainly fit that description. Several of them were 15-18 inches. SO they were fun in the sense that they are so distinct. But the fun ended there for me.
THey produced far more vine than beans and generally I’d call them fairly unproductive beans. The young ones don’t have to be strung, but the older ones do. They don’t have much of a bean in them while they are still tender. If you wait for them to be large enough to have a good sized bean, then you have to shuck them for those beans because the pod is too tough. If you break them while they are young (10-12 inches long) they have very little bean. I usually cook all of my green beans in a little boiling water with a piece of ham Hock, Hog Jowl, or bacon and a little salt. Then I put a little butter in them after draining most of the water. I did the same with these. First, they stay firmer than I like-no matter HOW LONG you cook them. I know now days restaurants and lots of people like al dente green beans, but I like mine a little softer (not completely mushy). These NEVER get much beyond crunchy. Also, many green beans have a very slight sweetness to them (to me). These do not. Last but not least, they just have some kind of unusual taste that I found a little off-putting. Almost a metallic taste or something…hard to describe. To me, they just aren’t very good.
They aren’t awful by any means, and I can imagine someone actually liking them. And they are fun because they are unusual. Hope this review and photo helped someone.
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Kevin, I continue to love Jade II, We are on our third planting now. Seeds germed in powder dry soil and haven’t stopped growing and are now producing a single serving from each plant. The beans are dark green and 8"x1/3". Very tasty and prolific. I can’t recommend it high enough.
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I planted Jade in mid-April. July 1 I started to pick beans and haven’t stopped or paused since. This is the Energizer Bunny of green beans!
My 2nd planting of Jade is setting fruit now and I may pull the first, as it’s looking tired, but I see blossoms starting, so I’ll bet it would be up for another flush
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Totally agree with your assessment of the Asian long bean. I grew several dif kinds years ago. Didn’t like the taste, even in stir fry w/lots of garlic, their off-putting taste comes through.
Grew Calima this year and liked them fine. They are much easier to process than any I’ve done so far (except the Asian long beans but won’t do them again). Next year will try another French filet bean called Orinoco. It is similar to Calima but a light yellow color, allegedly tender, buttery and prolific.
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I’d like to give a thumbs up to the Rattlesnake pole beans which we’ve grown this year. It has a sweet pod flavor, a big plus for me, pretty purple stripes on a long green pod. I picked one today that was about 8in long.
It’s about the only bean I like to eat straight off the vine. They’re not as prolific as the half-runners, but they’re doing pretty well.
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This year I grew yellow Romano beans from Seeds of Italy (the actual name is too hard to remember) and green beans Cobra kindly sent by @thepodpiper. I like them both, but yellow Romano beans are more vigorous and productive. They look good when canned together.
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I make bean salad with the green Jade and yellow Romano beans
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what I’d really really like is a bush bean like Jade, only yellow
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I have a friend that used to grow one called “Giant Stringless”. There was about 7-8" long and was a bush bean. He used to buy them in bulk at a local farm store and they stopped selling them. The other place was online and of course they are out of business as well. I wish I could find them again. He says they were delicious. Makes my mouth water thinking of eating them now with some cornbread. If anyone knows of where i can find them I would greatly appreciate that.
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I vaguely seem to remember you posting a photo of your pole beans growing, so I’m sorry I can’t remember this, but how what did you use for your rattlesnake (or any pole beans) to climb? Do you use sticks? If so, did you do them “tepee” style? Or did you use fencing or some other structure?
I really miss growing “stick beans” but they were a lot of work. I had a really fun way where I would just run one long string about 8 ft above the row, then I’d tie strings to the big one that would go down to the plant. The beans would climb those strings up to the top. It would make a really neat “curtain” of beans. I grew a bean called “White McCaslan” and it was soooo amazing how far they would climb if given the chance. Just for fun I’d sometimes run a string from plant all the way up to a nearby tree and beleive me or not, by the end of the season a bean plant would grow 25 feet in the air- no exaggerating!!!.
Sorry I chased that rabbit trail down memory lane. Back to the reason for my reply, can you remind me what system you used for your climbing beans? (Love to hear from others as well. Extra points for photos of climbing beans!) 
For all three rows of pole beans I ran a line (insulated clothes line wire) about 3ft above ground between T posts. We had two rows of half-runners and a row of Rattlesnake beans. I tried dropping some old clothes line twine from the wire to help the RS beans climb up. I dropped the twine every foot or so. It got very tiresome, so I stopped after about 20ft.
So, afterwards I tried to help train the vines up onto the wires. Some took, some didn’t. Most of the vines stayed on the ground, which isn’t the best scenario for beans, as they can get wet/muddy and start to rot. We still got a good harvest of all the beans, I think we canned about 40 quarts, but if I had put up a proper trellis for them, we prob would’ve had many more.
We grew the beans in the same patch as our sweet corn and popcorn. I actually mowed it all down last weekend with the bush hog.
Next year I’m planning on running some cheap wire fencing between the T posts so the beans can properly climb.