I always plant bush blue lake.
Maybe I need to explore something different then?

I used to grow bush Blue Lake back when my "nurse" made some gardening decisions. I eventually (after she left) switched to Blue Lake pole beans when it got too hard on my back to harvest bush beans.

A couple of years ago, I decided to cut out the seed sellers, as much as I can, more to save shipping costs than beat the retailers out of some revenue.

I switched to Fortex pole beans last year. I saved a bunch of seeds, and plan to do so in the future, to avoid having to buy them and pay the ridiculous shipping charges.

Blue Lake is a hybrid. Fortex is open pollinated. Fortex tastes better. Let some dry on the vines, pick and shell them, and plant them next year.

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing the results!

Would you say in the end that the pole beans are worth the extra effort of trellising?

Thanks for the taste test results. I still like growing Dragon Tongues for the looks.

Lots of people like growing pole beans instead of bush beans because they don't have to bend down as much to pick them. I grow them both.

FYI: Blue Lake Bush & Blue Lake Pole beans are OP not hybrids.

petegreg, I do find bush blue lake to be an excellent green been - personally I think it's the best bush type I've tried. It has a great texture, you know, how it almost 'squeaks' when you bite it? The others all have a softer texture. So you're probably safe sticking with it unless you want to try a pole type, in which case Fortex seems to be hard to beat. (With the number of people raving about it, I wonder if it'll be the only pole bean grown in a few years...)

tdscpa, I did try blue lake pole last year, but I was very disappointed. The beans were small and stringy, nothing like the bush type. Maybe I got the wrong seeds, or had a bad year. I might try them again to confirm.

As far as I know from reading the bean forum, booberry is right and there are no hybrid beans.

mlorne, there seems to be very little disadvantage to pole beans. SO made me a 30-ft trellis out of 2x2s and bunny fencing (so you could say that the extra effort of trellising was all his!) and now that that's done the pole beans are a snap :) They are much easier to pick, and climb the trellis all on their own. They do get going a bit later, though. I still planted a bunch of bush beans for the earlier harvest and because SO's sister decided to forgo her garden this year and I went from providing beans for 2 to beans for 6. But the plan is to transition entirely to poles once I use up my bush bean seeds.

booberry, so I take it you're not thrilled with the taste of Dragon's Tongue either? I'm sure I read glowing descriptions of it somewhere.... Maybe it's just that we don't appreciate wax beans enough. Are there special cooking/preparation tips for them? It is a gorgeous bean, though, and gets points for being easier to spot when picking.

Thanks for the responses, everyone - but is nobody else doing taste comparisons? I didn't think I was that geeky about my veggies that I'm the only one!

I have Fasold and Blue Lake pole beans this year and the Fasold are out performing and better tasting then the Blue Lake by miles! They were also earlier than the Blue Lake by more than two weeks. Of course, with our heat and drought this summer, neither one is performing up to what they should be doing. I'm surprised by the Fasold. I've never grown them before and just took a chance on a catalog description. For a change, it was true! LOL

Sandy

Thanks for posting your taste tests. Just wondered if you too have had a severe draught this year?

In my soil, Blauhilde and Neckargold (pole both) usually produce good-tasting beans. However, this year, they haven't done as well due to the draught (no rain since March except for three short thunder storms). Though I hand watered them, the beans were tough when cooked - but very fragrant raw. Perhaps it was my cooking?

Yesterday it started raining, the first real soaking rain since March, so things are looking up for the rest of the season. All day today, it rained on and off.

I've linked to some interesting taste-testing posts.

Here is a link that might be useful: Taste comparisons

I haven't tasted anything from my garden yet, as it was planted so late, but when my DH and I used to grow a big one we were always trying new varieties and deciding which ones were worth growing again. I miss doing ten kinds of tomatoes, etc.

This year my focus is on green beans, and I was interested to read the results of your taste test. We've always grown (and loved) Kentucky Wonder pole beans, and I'm growing those again. But I also added Fortex, which folks on the Bean forum (Peas, Beans & Legumes) rave about all the time. The seeds of the latter were pricey, so it's good to know I can save some for next year.

M_Lorne, the increased yield alone makes pole beans worth the effort, but if you set up a permanent trellis you'll find pole beans require no effort: You pick them standing up. Here's a picture of the bean arch my son put up for me this year. It's a 16-ft. cattle panel folded in half. I got the idea from the Vertical Gardening forum. Total cost of materials less than $35.

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My pole beans are climbing the arch now, and so are a couple of cucumber plants.

{{gwi:95910}}

I'm also growing four kinds of bush beans in containers. I took this picture a couple of weeks ago; now they're covered with tiny beans. I'll definitely be doing a taste test on these, as they're all new to me. I hope my favorites turn out to be Black Valentine and Royal Burgundy, as these have been such vigorous growers.

{{gwi:42071}}

Our weather was wet from last fall until late spring. Then about 6-8 weeks ago it just stopped raining. Since the first of June we've had about 1.5" of rain. Watering keeps things alive but it's not the same as rain water. The drought combined with the second hottest June on record for our area really took a toll on the garden. There were only a handful of days with temperatures below 90 degrees and quite a few when it got above 100. Deep watering twice a week just couldn't keep up with what the plants were losing to the heat. I don't know how people garden out in the southwestern part of the country were it's hot and dry all season long.

Sandy

Yes, we got about 2 inches of rain total in June - not as bad as some areas, but about half the average. None in July until the past two days, when it dumped about an inch and a half.

My plants don't seem to have suffered much though (except a bunch of cherry tomatoes that split from the rain) which I attribute to the foot of compost on top of my beds.

I'm also trying Kentucky Wonder pole and Chinese Red Noodle, but they haven't given me any beans yet. Some of my beans got off to a very slow start due to the attentions of 'the Nibbler,' who chewed through my plastic deer fencing. But once I get some beans I will update my test results :)

Sandy, I hadn't heard of Fasold, but it sounds like I should keep an eye out for it.

alisande, nice arch! You can see my trellis over on the 'show me your trellis' thread on the bean forum (it's a thread worth checking out, so I won't repost that pic right now.) I'll be interested to hear about the Royal Burgandy's tastiness, as I keep swearing that it I ever plant another bush bean it will have to be a purple-podded one so I can see it to pick it. Please do post your results!

I didn't post this on the bean forum as I intended to post my pepper results too, which I've been slacking off on as this turned into a nice bean conversation :) But I will post the peppers now.

Peppers:

5 varieties, all tasted at the green and (hopefully) mature stage. All sauteed lightly in oil ('fried') - we'll probably do tests under other preparation methods, and we'll definitely test the ripe peppers when they change color. (Several of them are probably not at their best green.)

Cayenne Long Thin and our Sweet Banana Peppers were still too immature to try, and we left out the Jalapenos at the last minute because there wasn't room to keep another variety separate in the pan, and we know what jalapenos taste like.

These results aren't as straightforward, as we liked some peppers for different reasons/purposes, so there were some ties. Variety SO's Rating SO's Comments My Rating My Comments Pasilla Bajio -100 He actually spit this one out! "Tastes like a rotten cabbage" 3 No sweetness, deep bitter pepper flavor Black Hungarian 1 good amount of heat for eating (rather than seasoning) great flavor 2 mild heat, nice and fruity! Aruba Cubanelle 1 Always our favorite, but walls were a bit thin 1 I can't say eough about cubanelle peppers - they're just so good. Jimmy Nardello 2 probably better red 2 doesn't beat the Cubanelle, at least not green, but nice complex flavor Ozark Giant 1 nice thick meaty bell, a bit sharp 4 tastes like a bell pepper - blech.

~emmers

Love the taste tests Emmers! I just keep a tally in my head as to what I like & what I didn't like. I think I may pick the Dragon Tongues a little past prime. They always seem a little tough & stringy to me, but they're so pretty I'll keep growing them. Favorites have been Derby bush beans, Purple Queen bush beans, Kinghorn Wax bush beans, Burpee Stringless bush beans and Blue Lake bush beans. For all the hype I was dissappointed in Contender bush beans, Provider bush beans, Sequoia bush beans.

Pole beans I love are Rattlesnake poles, Cherokee Trail of Tears and Kentucky Wonders. Last year I grew a purple pole bean that was very disappointing. A good note about Emerite beans too. The deer mowed them down to about a foot above ground. They never did grow again and climb the poles but became "bush beans" and still produced!

A few Hot peppers I love: Bulgarian , Pulla, Kalocsai V2 (A red Hungarian type), good old fashioned Jalapenos, Hungarian Hot Wax & Habs as well as Chocolate habs. Disappointing in flavor is Ordono (great as an ornamental though.)

Pole beans are so much more productive than bush, and longer bearing, that I have almost completely switched. I grow Romano pole, excellent.

booberry, you're giving me lots of food for thought! How did the Emerites taste? (That's the only variety that I've seen mentioned as measuring up to Fortex.) With all these good comments about Kentucky Wonders I can't wait for mine to get going and make with the beans! And the Rattlesnakes - with all the comments about them being great for southern gardens I admit I assumed they wouldn't do as well for me. But they perform well for you?

I'll also keep the Purple Queen in mind in case I convince myself out of switching entirely to poles and need some purple bush varieties.

pnbrown, have you ever grown Romano bush and can you compare the two? If not, would you say the Romano poles live up to the 'intensely beany' description I've heard for the Romano types? Based on the bush beans I wasn't going to try the poles, but that might be a bad assumption as I've already discovered blue lakes are quite different between bush and pole.

Thanks!

~emmers

I would definitely give Rattlesnakes a go! They are pretty, have a good flavor and they let you know when your done cooking them (the purple streaks turn green.) They also survived the deer massacre last year. It took them a few weeks but they grew right back up the poles again and produced. The Emerites have good flavor. I was so surprised they did as well as they did last year, considering we had a cool rainy summer last year. I thought Emerites were suppose to do well in the south.

Under my pepper review, that was suppose to be Bulgarian Carrot.

So Rattlesnakes and Emerites are on the list for next year for sure. Possibly Fasold and Romano pole if my seed order works out. It would be nice to find a bean that tastes better than Fortex, partly to have a response to all those 'best green bean' threads but also because that would be one amazing tasting bean!

Booberry, you like some really hot peppers! How do you eat them? The Cayenne is the only really hot one we're growing this year. For some reason, our end of the season Jalapenos got painfully, harmfully hot last year and knocked the SO on his butt for a few days, so he's a bit cautious this year!

~emmers

I picked my first bush beans today, Black Valentine and Provider. Provider is twice as prolific so far. My verdict was that Provider is good, but Black Valentine is better--slightly sweeter and beanier. I wouldn't hesitate to grow Provider again, though......there's a lot to be said for early and prolific!

Royal Burgundy and Tenderpod have a few days (or more) to go before some of their beans will be ready. The pole beans were planted later, and haven't even flowered yet.

Oh, and my first cucumber--Burpless Bush--was delicious.