Hope you don't mind if I start at the bottom and work up? :) Growing kidney beans worth it? No, not IMO. Takes too much space for any worthwhile production. Plus they need to dry on the vine so all that space is locked up well into fall. Canning info? That is the Harvest Forum here for all the canning info you need. How-tos are readily available there. Seeds or plants? Seeds. They do much better than trying to transplant. Bush beans don't usually need any support. They are bushes and support themselves. But I guess you could use tomato cages if you needed to for some reason. I wouldn't. Pole beans don't require heavy duty support unless wind is a real problem. If so you can use clothesline or even wire but the string has the advantage of being disposable at season end. If you are concerned just double the string. But many other more effective types of support are available too. Check out the Beans and Peas forum here for more ideas and even some support pics. Hope this helps. Dave

I am wondering the same thing. I saw a video posted on YouTube where a guy had planted pole beans with his Mammoth sunflowers. It seemed that the plants were performing well together but if anyone else has any experiences with the two I'd like to hear about it.

My own preferences are much the same as Hemnancy's; I prefer pole beans for their size, flavor, and yield... and for the enormous variation available in heirloom varieties. They require more space, but that is not an issue for me. Bush beans, however, have their advantages too... so sometimes (preferences aside) it's a question of which type is most suitable for the location & the intended purpose. It's also worth noting that beans should be considered for more than just snaps. Bush beans Advantages: - Easy to plant, require no support. - They mature more quickly. This makes them better suited for short-season areas, for late planting, and when they will be grown early or late as part of a succession planting. - Generally bear all-at-once, so good if grown for canning in large batches, especially with limited space. - Low profile, so better suited for high-wind areas. - Most popular dry beans are bush varieties. - More wax bean varieties available commercially as bush than as pole. Disadvantages: - Less suitable for kitchen gardens, where a prolonged harvest is preferable. Succession planting every few weeks can overcome this, if space is available to do so. - More vulnerable to damage by slugs and rodents. - Lower yield.* - Generally smaller pod size. - Fewer cultivars available for use as shellies. - Harvest can be uncomfortable, due to constant bending. Pole beans Advantages: - Higher yield*, sometimes enormous. - Generally larger pods as snaps, so less cutting involved for canning. - More varieties available for shellies, including most of the larger-seeded. - Prolonged harvest, good for fresh eating over a long period. Some varieties, though, will have large flushes in a relatively short period of time. - Pods are higher, making them easy to see & pick, with minimal bending. - Less damage from rodents, snails, & crawling insects. Disadvantages: - Require erecting a pole/trellis. Not too tough for a 20-foot row, but 500 feet of trellis can be a chore. - Take longer to bear, making them less suitable for short season areas. (There are, however, fast-maturing varieties like "Goldmarie" and "Early Riser"). - Except for very long-season areas, they occupy the ground for the entire season, so not suitable for succession planting. - Not good for high-wind areas, where poles & vines may be snapped. - While the over-all yield is very high, the yield-per-plant for a given period may be relatively low, so smaller daily pickings. This is only an issue where space is limited. - Few varieties commercially available for dry beans (but many heirlooms). I have also observed that many bean diseases are either caused or aggravated by soil being splashed on the leaves; bush beans seem to be more vulnerable to this. I used the (*) for yield, because with different planting strategies, either bush or pole can be high-yielding: - Pole varieties have a higher yield per plant, and often the highest yield per row foot... but much of this advantage is lost with multiple rows, because of the greater row spacing required due to shading. They are at their best if planted in a single row, at the North side of the garden. My largest yield per row by far was from a row of "Pole 191" snap beans. - Bush varieties, while yielding less per plant, can be spaced more closely... and since shade is not an issue, the rows can be closer together as well. Succession planting can also help overcome the yield gap, since it allows bush beans to time-share a given space with another crop. I think that the best bean strategy is a single row of pole beans on the North side - with a row or two of bush beans directly adjacent on the South side - so as to form one wide row. This gives the best of both worlds, in a relatively small space. Those pole beans, by the way, can include limas or yardlong beans. As for strings, I think there is little difference; there are both pole beans & bush beans, with- and without strings. However, since most breeding going on now is for bush beans, there will eventually be more stringless varieties available as bush. I don't necessarily see "stringlessness" as an advantage, since many varieties that develop strings are stringless when picked young, and have outstanding flavor. "Kentucky Wonder" is a great example of this. Most of the new bush varieties, while stringless, are of the petite style now popular in Europe... takes a lot of picking to get a basket full. No thank you. Give me the 11" pods of "Fortex", or the long pods of "Goldmarie" or "Garafal Oro", any day.

When you have a limited amount of space like I do trellising space is crucial.I have two 4x8 beds which face north to south direction so putting a trellis at south end of the garden would shade out everything else. I put the trellis on the north end which gives me 4 squares per bed(8 squares in all).I plant 4 squares in tomatoes and 4 in green beans. I added some extra trellising space up the sides of both beds which I used for cuks and more tomatoes. I would like to plant other vining type plants like butter beans or summer squash but trellis space is unavailable and none can be added because it would shade out other plants. Planting the bush beans is a really good idea for canning, but how many squares does it take to make a large enough crop for canning, and do you have any problems with them getting into other squares?