Hmmm ... Thanks.

>> But they can not be crowded like peas can. If beans are crowed they don't produce.

Forewarned is forearmed. I guess I will stick with pole beans until I have access to a bigger, sunnier yard. And add "beans" to the sections of seed catalogs and seed sites that I scrutinize. I'll look for pole wax beans.

Great, and informative article Sharon.The beans I grow are pretty much limited to the Red Runner Bean and Purple Hyacinth Bean, ornamentals.

Thanks J!
I have the Purple Hyacinth bean but have no idea what the Red Runner bean is??

I often grow Red Runner or Purple Hyacinth Beans but I don't think they are edible. At least I have never tried to eat them.

Sharon said:Thanks J!
I have the Purple Hyacinth bean but have no idea what the Red Runner bean is??

Scarlett Runner beans, They have red flowers.

The Red Runner is edible. I believe the Purple Hyacinth is as well, but certain preparation precautions are necessary.

Opps, you're right.
Scarlet Runner is the correct designation.

I grow them both for their beautiful flowers. Plus hummingbirds love Scarlet Runner beans.

If you have a trellis, yardlong beans are great! They climb quickly and produce prolifically. They tolerated my hot, humid summers better than any of the bush beans I grew and required no maintenance other than harvesting regularly. @RickCorey, funny to hear you say you think of beans needing enough heat... in my area (nearly the same zone, very different climate) they were spring and fall crops, and only the yardlongs would produce in summer. For bush types, I grew a large number of varieties in yellow and green... but I interspersed them all, so I can't recommend any one over the others.

Limas never produced for me, and I tried three or four different varieties. It's a shame, they're one of my husband's favorite veggies. We buy them frozen, but I bet they're great fresh.

Favas are a bit unusual, and not to everyone's liking. Inside the pod, there's a coating around each bean. It's edible, so I left it on, but it makes them rather tough and chewy. For tender favas, you have to peel them, which is a lot more work than just getting them out of the pods

Yardlong beans are great. They love the heat as they are from tropical climates in Asia. They are so easy to grow too. And very tender and tasteful if picked at the correct size before they get too big.

Yes, incredibly tender when they're thinner than a pencil... we'd harvest them that way for salads. But even when they got really big and the seeds started puffing up, they stayed pretty nice... never stringy or hard-shelled, like some beans can get if you leave them too long. We liked to saute the larger ones with a bit of garlic (OK, quite a bit of garlic ).

Garlic is the best, sometimes for me it's just beans sauteed in garlic and olive oil. Dinner!!

I wish there were some easy statistics for comparing summer warmth, as there is for winter cold. I kep a degree-day calculator link in my sig block.

Very probably, your spring and fall crops are my summer crops.
YOUR summer crops might need more heat than I have.

For me, tomatoes other than some cherries are a challenge. Even 'Stupice', a small cold-weather tomato was only tasty for a few weeks. then a few cold nights made them taste like cardboard or oatmeal.

>> (nearly the same zone, very different climate)

Yup. Garden threads by Texans drive me crazy. We're both "Zone 8", but their spring crop of tomatoes is ripe and then over due to summer heat before I have nights that usually stay above 50 F. Their first crop of tomatoes stops flowering due to early summer heat while I'm still carrying trays back indoors at night to keep them warm!

I like to stir fry my yard longs with garlic also. Makes a very tasty dish. But I do often eat them raw too. I pick the younger skinny ones and just munch on them raw. They are really good. So tender and sweet. But if I am going to cook yard longs then I stir fry them.

Yard longs are mostly green but there are red varieties. I tried the red two years ago as well as some green ones and liked the green better. So last year I did not grow any red yard longs. I stuck to my favorite green ones.

Oh Rick. That climate sounds so challenging. I love to grow summer veggies so I would hate it there. Tomatoes are my favorite summer veggies but I have a long list of veggies I like to grow.

We've experienced a bit of a climate change here and I'm still not used to it. Heat and drought play a large part, so crops need to be ready to harvest by July mostly. It's aggravating because you just never know how many days or weeks you have left before the rains stop. Two years 'ago it caught me unaware and I lost what I thought would be a great bean crop, the ones I would freeze for winter. It quit raining the end of May that summer. No rain until about November with heat you would not believe. And it continues to be unpredictable, very aggravating.

I grew up learning to plant by the moon and that stuck with me all these years, but no more. The moon refuses to tell me how soon the rain will stop, how hot it will be and when we go into drought. Anyway, I know what you mean by tricky zones and weather, Rick, it's a puzzle sometimes. The only thing for sure is that it is not consistent. @RickCorey

@rickcorey, the French Gold from Renee's Garden are a yellow pole bean. I agree with you about the flavor, yellows are my favorite.

In the green bush, Jade is an excellent bean but needs warm soil to germinate. It's touchy but boy those beans are beautiful and tasty!

I have been trying to use the moon calendar for planting but everyone tells me, it's not written in stone so don't stress. Good thing because sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate! But I still try! The first year I did it I really noticed a difference. Same with second year. Last year it just didn't seem to matter, the weather took over. I'm trying again this year.

Jar of Beans

Very pretty!

Yep, nice jar of beans. My favorite of the shelling type beans are black beans. I just love the flavor of black beans. I make chili out of all sorts of beans as I like to mix it up but the black beans are my favorites.

Oh Sharon, so sorry about the lack of rains. Here my pole beans always keep producing thru the summer but the trick is to keep them picked quickly. Once you let them sit there and not pick, it tells the plants to stop flowering and that means no more beans. After that you have to pull them no matter what time of year. So the pole beans are different from the bush beans. The bush beans seem programmed to set their crop and that is it. But lots of beans to be had. Then nothing.