I don't know anything about the safety, so can't comment, but others here will :). Personally, I like my beans very well cooked! I usually cook grocery beans for about 8 hours, after soaking them overnight. So I would not worry :). I am intrigued at the idea of growing romanos for shell beans. I grow them, but I eat them all as green beans, with the pods. Thanks for bringing me a new idea!

I could recommend three beans. The one I know best is our own family heirloom: Tennessee Cutshort. Childers Cutshort, which I trialed last year, from Gardenweb member Gene Hosey, seemed equally good. Both have strings, but make up for the extra work by the fact that the pods themselves are so fat that preparing a "nice mess" is actually less work than with most regular stringless beans, with smaller pods. Both are easy to shell for shellies. Both would make excellent dry beans and lots of them. The other, which I tried last year, and which seems like it too would be outstanding, is Ruth Bible. I didn't keep the few we ate separate from other beans, when picking, to make a good judgment on this one's snaps. Ruth Bible came in a week later but also seemed more heat tolerant. It made more dry seed than either Tennessee Cutshort or Childers Cutshort. Because of our family heritage I'm partial to Tennessee Cutshort. But for all practical purposes, if I had to depend on but one bean, I'd feel good about any of these three. Over the years my wife and I have gravitated more to "snaps" with more filled out beans in them. Hence we prefer tender hull varieties. This year I am growing (and currently harvesting) a really nice white seeded greasy bean. Its pods are not so substantial. But they are very good. It too would fit the bill as a good all purpose bean. Someone here sent me some Jimenez seed. I hope to grow it out in the coming year. Everyone who grows it seems very fond of it. George Tahlequah, OK

Zeedman, I'll do my best to answer on the soissons verts but I hope you like the statistics of small numbers. We try to maximize overall vegetable yield, so we shamelessly interplant and intensively plant. Also, I do not record plant dates for anything, since we are planting small numbers of something or another every week of the year. We do not plant in 'rows' that you folks talk about. It is more like in-ground beds and raised beds in different shapes, all over the place with either paths or citrus fruits around. Also, I have all sorts of things eating my seeds and plants or disturbing them (dogs, cats) so I lose a % to the resident wild life. If you only have one seed, don't send it to me...:-) So I planted I think around mid July, 7 seeds in one bed an 7 in another on a completely different location (well, within a 1/4 acre lot, so not that far, but there is a house in between). The germination rate was not 100% and I did see at least one of the bean baby plants disappear from being eaten by one critter (maybe 2? proof they were tasty early on....). One bed grew 4 plants, one died but produced beans. This is a deep bed (pretty good soil that does get fertilized) which is running south north and accommodates for the slight elevation gain of the property (foothills). It is away from all other P vulgaris so this was going to be for seed (and will be, I already collected some). The three remaining bean plants are about 4-5 inches from one another, on the east side of a trellis which is also supporting 4 very vigorous hybrid sungold tomatoes. 2 1/2 feet wide, very long the north-south way (has other crops on the other end). In any case, the beans and the tomatoes had to compete with each other to some extent. The 3 living bean vines are about 1 foot from one of the 4 cherry tomatoes. The whole bed is irrigated by soaker hose but lately we have been hand watering. The beans did not climb that high on the trellis, so they are a rather compact pole bean. The beans liked to climb the tomato, and the tomatoes liked the trellis that I intended for the beans. The 3 living specimens in that bed produce(ed) quite a few beans and also climbed the tomato. Neither the tomato nor the bean seem to mind the other's presence, the tomatoes are flowering and producing little sungolds abundantly. These have been by far our most productive tomatoes, but most of the others are the OP type, so we can't really compare. Maybe the beans are somewhat hurt by the tomato? not sure. They had to compete for space, soil nutrients and sun. Forgot to mention due to the bed being close to a living fence on the east side of the property, and being smothered by tomatoes, they got only partial sun, but my zone is very sunny as you know. On the other bed, 5 lived but they were even later on the production. I lost one without being able to harvest due to recent strong winds knocking down my most unstable trellis, that will be rebuilt for more pole beans. 2 vines are still alive, but 3 were uprooted. I had them growing with Gold of Bacau, which seemed a lot more vigorous but also more stink bug prone. So on a trellis with other beans, the soissons were more 'petit', compact, or whatever you want to call them. I simply planted the soissons on the missing spots, where the other beans (that I had started one month earlier or so) did not germinate or were eaten by something. So they were away from each other, but close to the gold of bacau. Trellis was made from pecan branches and I placed about 3 beans per branch, separated by 1-2 feet from the other branches. So in other words, more space all around, but the 2 varieties were in clusters of 3 beans, only 2 inches apart from each other. The tree beans were less than 2 inches apart though. Better than partial sun, the bed is on the ground, less fluffy but OK fertility overall. No idea if it matters, but there are eggplants on the middle of that bed. So the trellis was more widely spaced, so the sun could get to the eggplants. In retrospect, this was an OK idea, but next time I will only put one bean per pole. I did not weigh anything, but I remember the approximate volume from cooking them. I would say about 3/4 cup from the ones near the tomato (but still producing and I left a few for seed)- so I am guessing 1 cup. The 3 wind damaged ones produced less than 1/4 cup, but one of them was still too young. Next year I will give them more respect and put them on their own trellis (well, the one with the potatoes in the middle). It seems that 4-5 inch spacing is good? I am able to space them better on the 'potato trellis'. It has partial sun, but I feel this is OK with them because this year was cooler overall and next year might be a scorcher. One more thing. You mentioned them being small? not so small. The husk is very thin and they are flattened, but I measured them, and they averaged 2 cm, and the larger ones 1 inch in their largest stage (full grown shellies that did not dry yet). This year I also grew the purple hull cowpeas and these are much smaller. I also grew the goose beans (or Ma Williams? not sure) and they are a lot larger and fatter, so I guess they are medium? So glad to have them since I have wanted to grow flageolets for a while, since I tasted them purchased from a store. They remind me of them, but the flageolets would have been bush beans. I don't have so much space for bush beans in the summer.

Both Fortex & Emerite are considered to be pole filet beans... but IMO it would be a waste to use them that way. A question of taste, I suppose. I believe most gardeners use them as regular snap beans, for which they are both outstanding. I grow one or the other every year, and freeze large amounts for the winter. Fortex is longer, sweeter, and the better of the two for eating raw. If you like to give away beans to others, they will really enjoy Fortex. My only complaint about Fortex is that the long, tender young pods are very susceptible to wind bruising; so if possible, they should be grown downwind from something which blocks the wind (like on the south side of a wall or fence). Emerite is shorter but straighter, firmer, and less sweet. It is a good choice for canning, and outstanding for making pickled dilly beans, due to the straight pods & firm texture. Both varieties are excellent snap beans, have better than average cool-soil germination, and remain stringless even when fairly large. The vines are not as rampant as some of the more vigorous pole beans (such as Kentucky Wonder) so I plant them a little more closely in the row... thinning to 6" apart, or 2 @ 12". As you say, there are several bush varieties of filet beans, but because I prefer pole beans, I've never tried those, so can't comment on their quality.