and 3- climbing beans can go all over the place too I have one up my sunflower!

This has been the weirdest year for these beans. There is absolutely a lot of pole beans mixed in with the bush. So much so that it matted the patch down to the point I can't even pick like normal. I can't get between the rows. And what beans I get are a lot of different varieties. Some flat some plump some with strings some without. Also many of the bushes have tons of white flowers that have never produced a bean and it's now a month beyond the normal days to maturity. So I gave up yesterday and cut the plants off at soil level and picked what beans there are. I did half the patch which is 6 30 foot rows. I got about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket. I canned 14 quarts. When I've had good beans before I would have gotten that much from picking one pass and I would get 5 or 6 passes. Next year or whenever I'm ready to can beans again I will definitely not buy them at the Farmer's Co-op. I need to research where to by and what variety. I like the plump non-string type.

Kwinch, that would be very discouraging; I hope you will talk to someone at the co-op and tell them what happened, maybe they will at least give you a refund! I'm glad you were able to salvage something, but that's a lot of beans to plant and then end up with such a mess.

Interesting conversation. I am one of those folks who find picking bush snap beans or lima beans easier than pole beans. I just walk on my knees and pick in front of me. No stooping. Pole beans, on the other hand, set at different levels so I either have to stoop or kneel for the bottom vines and stand and reach for those at the top of the vines. At my age the up and down is painful. Plus pole beans are less heat tolerant, more difficult to grow in the south.

Yeah it is disappointing that I didn't get to try out my contraption I built (see post #5 from Jun 30). With it I would have laid on it and picked out in front of me and being on wheels I would just scoot it forward or at least that was my thought. Now I won't get to try it for a year or more. Hope the mice don't eat it up in the shed I will keep it in .

As for a refund from the Co-op they only cost like $1.60 for a scoop and one scoop did the patch I put in this year. Normally I wouldn't have planted that many but I had intended to let the garden lie fallow this year but got to reading how legumes put nitrogen into the soil so I thought what the heck I'll plant all the seeds I bought and invite neighbors to pick any they want. Now I'm debating on planting soybeans in the whole garden and cut them down and till them under before they flower. I just wonder if I still have time for that this year. Our average first frost date is Oct 20.

kwinch said: This has been the weirdest year for these beans. There is absolutely a lot of pole beans mixed in with the bush. So much so that it matted the patch down to the point I can't even pick like normal. I can't get between the rows. And what beans I get are a lot of different varieties. Some flat some plump some with strings some without. Also many of the bushes have tons of white flowers that have never produced a bean and it's now a month beyond the normal days to maturity. So I gave up yesterday and cut the plants off at soil level and picked what beans there are. I did half the patch which is 6 30 foot rows. I got about 3/4 of a 5 gallon bucket. I canned 14 quarts. When I've had good beans before I would have gotten that much from picking one pass and I would get 5 or 6 passes. Next year or whenever I'm ready to can beans again I will definitely not buy them at the Farmer's Co-op. I need to research where to by and what variety. I like the plump non-string type.

Variety is extremely important as beans come in a wide array of shapes sizes, growth habits ... I does seem like you got mixed beans. Some varieties of bush beans do put short stiff runner. There are also half runners which are usually grown as bush beans, but which do send out multiple thin runners. Snap Bean (String (Phaseolus vulgaris 'State White Half Runner') Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris 'Mountaineer Half Runner')
It is easy to dump the wrong sack of beans into a container. Probably one of the workers just dumped sacks of whatever was available to keep the bin full.

Just thought I'd add to this thread from last year. I planted bush beans from packets bought at Home Depot. Burpees I think. This is definitely what bush beans should look like:




This year I'll get to try my picking contraption. I'll update when I do.

Thanks for reviving this thread. How long have your beans been planted? I hope you have better success this year.

I found it interesting as I normally plant a Jade bush bean. This year I realized I was out and didn't want to turn in small order. I was at Tractor Supply and grabbed a bag of Burpees stringless green pod garden bean. Said they needed no support. Well I have 6 foot T posts at the corners of the bed and these vines have climbed them and are reaching for the Heavens. I had never run into that before. Nowhere on the package does it say runner bean or height. The beans taste fine. It was a large package so next planting I will give them cattle panels to grow on.

Good luck with this years harvest.

Kristi, Burpee's Stringless Green Pod bean is supposed to be a bush bean; I've been noticing more and more people complaining of getting pole beans for what were supposed to be bush beans, and last year I grew what were supposed to be "Kentucky Wonder wax beans," which turned out to be some sort of green bean that wasn't all that good. I'm not at all sure what the answer is to this problem, other than to save seeds when you grow a variety that you do like (as well as contacting the company that the seeds came from). Quite frustrating to have this sort of thing happen!

You mentioned saving seed. A friend was given bean seeds from an elderly woman at church. He planted and liked them. He was intending to harvest seed but said no matter how old the bean pods got, there were no seeds. We wondered how she had saved them to begin with.

As for me, I don't mind if they are pole or bush as long as I like the taste. I am easy to please.

I can't say for sure, since I certainly haven't tried every variety of bean - but all the ones I've grown have produced seeds if I let the pods go, rather than picking them. Some definitely take longer than others; and one that is late to mature would be a plus as far as harvesting the beans for eating.

pod said: How long have your beans been planted?
Good luck with this years harvest.

Mine are Burpees Tendergreen. I planted them about April 23 here in mid Missouri. They are not producing vines of any kind so far and are now starting to flower.

If you see the bean 'Castandel', I recommend it. It's an old-ish french variety but I used to buy it in the states so I know seeds are available there, though not as widely as many others. I like it because it 'holds' particularly well on the plant without becoming fibrous. It allows us well-intentioned but scattered gardeners to have beans without needing to harvest every day. I dislike canned and frozen beans so want to enjoy fresh beans regularly without feeling that I need to pick and eat every bean on a plant at any given moment.

I did a quick search and found that Renee's Garden sells seeds for Castandel; I might give that one a try next year!
https://www.reneesgarden.com/p...

I often do a double row of bush beans along the front edge of the bed, making it easy to either kneel or sit on my butt while I pick. I do like kwinch's contraption!

Seems to me my bush beans produce for at least a month, so I wouldn't pull them until they were about played out. If you have more space for succession planting, pulling could be a good solution, but to me it seems like a waste.

That would really annoy me to get pole beans mixed with bush. I only plant Top Crop that I buy in bulk from the hardware store. My plants are getting really big and I didn't leave enough space between the rows of course. Some of them are falling over and breaking the stems. Guess I didn't pull enough soil to them. I'll still have plenty.

I don't recall how far apart the rows were but my Mom would plant rows of bush beans. When we would pick them, you could go down one side of the row and roll it over to pick, then back up the other side. It sounds odd but worked well.

So I'm curious, is it called top pick because the beans grow on top and are easy to harvest? I'll have to read up on them.

No they're not easy to pick. I've got a mess this time it's the variety my mom grew.

Top crop was a major producer in its time. There are some newer varieties that are easier to pick. EZ Pick Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris 'E-Z Pick') comes to mind. Most of the commercial varieties designed for machine harvest are easier to pick than traditional varieties. Major drawback is that they set all at once for a one pass harvest.

Did my first pick this morning. My plants are so fragile I snapped off several at the ground. They are mostly laying over to one side so I tried to stand them up and tamp the soil down around the base. I gave that up after breaking off a couple. Maybe it's the variety or maybe I didn't firm the soil up sufficiently when I hilled them. I only did one pass of tilling between rows and hilling dirt up on the base of the plants. Then I mulched them heavily with dead leaves. The soil is very loose still. I may not get the quantity I was expecting this year but at least I got good looking plants.