WOW, they look like they would be delicious ! And I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about opening up this topic, LOL !

My mind wasn't in the gutter... I was actually thinking 'weight loss' or 'snow'. lol

Great looking beans! I'm going to print out the picture for my parents who grow a huge garden every year.

Weight loss would have been nice, Lydia. But not snow!!

I never heard of Fortex beans until I encountered the name over and over on GardenWeb forums, especially the Peas, Beans, and Legumes. People were raving.....

Oh yum! How do you cook fresh green beans? A friend gave me a big bunch of them last night and I want to make them for supper. It has been years so I don't remember how to cook them.

I had tried different kinds and always went back to Kentucky Wonder for the flavor. It should be interesting, please let us know about how they compare in taste.
That would be so great to have them that long -- less ends to remove and a handfull of beans is enough for two people.

They look great!

Do these "require" LOTS of support....to grow on? Extra heavy? and I can't see your finger nails in that pic....really disappointing....;0)

dotmom....put beans in a sauce pan, cover with salted water, bring water to a roiling boil, simmer for 15 minutes....serve.

We don't have any home grown ones (darn) but I buy them at the store and cook them often. We like them cooked in the electric skillet with a couple of slices of bacon and lots of red onion and a little fresh garlic. I sort of fry/steam them, I like them crunchy but hubby likes them really soft. Either way they are really good, but I can only imagine how much better they would be from alisande's garden !

OUCH!!!

LOL

Judy, to me the Kentucky Wonders taste better. Fortex is really excellent, sweet and flavorful, but they lack the "beany" quality of the KWs. I'll never give up my KWs, but I love having both.

Nicole, yes, any kind of pole beans need strong support. Over the years I've come up with some really dumb attempts to provide this (my late husband used to create wonderful support on a large scale, but I couldn't manage that). But this year I struck gold on GardenWeb: pictures of bean arches made from cattle panels.

I've posted pics here before, from when we first put up the arch till now. Here's the most recent. The arch is 8' tall, and I can walk through it, picking beans that hang down. I'm so glad I found this idea and was able to execute it (with my son's help).

Ouch indeed, Deemarie. :-)

{{gwi:48166}}

My Favorite way to cook fresh green beans.

Sweet and Sour Green Beans

1 pound trimmed green beans
4 pieces lean bacon
3 tablespoons chopped onion
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon sugar (I use brown sugar)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Blanche green beans and set aside. Cook the bacon until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, drain on paper towels. Add chopped onion into bacon fat. Cook until translucent. Add vinegar, sugar, and salt in with onions. Stir to mix well making sure sugar is completely dissolved. Add green beans to onion mixture. Cook to warm through. Plate. Crumble bacon on top to serve.

hahahaha!

Your beans look great!

Yummy! I'm jealous, and I wish I'd planted some. Next year I will!

I do a similar dish as what Gayle posted but I replace the bacon with a touch of ham base and/or liquid smoke and use rice wine vinegar and splenda. We love fresh beans, I'm making a note of these for the garden next year!

I love them steamed (B&D Handy Steamer/Rice Cooker) with salt and pepper and a bit of butter. I have a George Foreman grill and laid them on that, grilled them and ate them. I was afraid they would dry out, but they didn't and were oh do good!! I've really fallen in love with the grill, easy to clean and doesn't heat up the kitchen. Cooking for one is the pits.

Ya know those $10 cheap Hobby Lobby wedding aches, they assemble in sections.....think one of those would work? I've got the room.....for next year.....planning ahead...

(rotfl) -- Impressive!

I was initially jealous, thinking you had a new boyfriend . . . then I was again jealous to see those bean beauties. My fave way with fresh beans is to saute them in olive oil with garlic, fresh mushrooms and sea salt; takes awhile, but oh, so worth it! (sometimes I cut down on the time by blanching the beans first.)
Either way, susan, you made me salivate, LOL :)

Now when I read 11 inches I immediately thought you were going to tell us how much rain you had last night!

Maire

I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive about opening this post at first but, once I did it wasn't at all what I expected. You just never know with Alisande!

Take Gayles recipe, leave out the vinegar and brown sugar but add a quart of home canned tomatoes and you have what we called Schnitzel beans, a favorite when I was growing up.

Ron

When we use to grow a big garden, this is what I used for pole beans. O bought 4 or 5 green treated wooden 2 X 2's. I liked them 8 feet long. Then I would pound nails into the 2 opposite sides. Make the nails about 10 inches apart and sticking out of the wood at least 1 1/2 inch. Leave the bottom 2 feet w/o nails, so you can pound them into the ground. We would put them into the ground about 18 inches apart, and the plant 4 bean seeds around each pole. When they start to grow, you might need to start the climbing arount the pole, but then they fill in all the way up the pole.

We just pull the poles out at the end of the season and save them for the next year.

I might have a picture ............

Found one!

The Green Beans are near the top of the picture, in the middle. It looks like I had 4 poles that year. That was at the edge of the patio, so I could reach them eaisly.

hayjud....Your garden is so pretty ! I love the raised flower beds ! I have to tell everyone , I am SO jealous when I see anything GREEN , especially grass. We live on 2 1/2 acres of *dirt* ! We do have lots of trees and flowers, but its still the desert !
alisande's pictures of beans are really pretty, and I am enjoying all the different ideas on cooking the beans too.

Judy, what a beautiful (and neat!) garden!!

Ya know those $10 cheap Hobby Lobby wedding aches, they assemble in sections.....think one of those would work?

I'm not familiar with them, Nicole, but I'm thinking "cheap" and "wedding" and "$10" equals lightweight and impermanent. And "sections" sounds an alarm, too. The bean plants and beans create a surprising amount of weight. I've come up with some support ideas over the years that have failed spectacularly, which is why I was so excited to have the arch this year.

The total cost for the cattle panel and metal stakes was under $35. Whatever you use, you'll have to anchor it into the ground. You won't want the beans pulling it over or a wind taking it.

LOL Pixistix.......my homegrown vegetables are the most exciting thing at my house. :-)

Yeah, rain is what I was thinking, too. NOT! LOL

1 inch pvc pipe, placed over a smaller piece pounded in the ground makes great bean poles. Just tie some string to the top of the pipe.

Those are some great looking beans, Susan. I messed around until it was too late this year.

I have some long sticks that I hammer in at each end of the bean row, then string several strands of baler twine between them, and hammer in other stakes about every 6 - 8 feet or so if the space is longer. When assembling, I hammer in a couple of short stakes, rather like tent pegs, at about 45 degree angles out beyond each end stake and fasten them to the top of the end pole with more baler twine, which will keep the strings holding the vines taut, and stop the whoe kaboodle from falling over.

Sometimes I've used strings down from the intervening stakes to tent pegs on each side, to keep them from falling over. If I have two rows side by side, I've used twine between the tops of neighbouring intervening stakes, and guy strings down to tent pegs, also ... but think that if in future I nail a stick across between them to make them like your arch, that'll make them rigid enough to not need guy strings down to the tent pegs ... which make running the tiller down the rows inconvenient.

Maybe if I slanted the neighbouring stakes in two rows together at the top and tied them thus, the beans would hang down from the vines that were crawling up the stakes at that angle, making them easier to pick. Plus needing no anchoring twine.

When I'm picking, I find that a labour-saving device is to pinch them with my thumbnail just inside where the bean is attached, so that I avoid having to cut off the attachment portion as I prepare them. I don't cut off the tail at the far end of the pod ... figure that they, too, are nutritious - haven't had any of them catch in my throat and unable to be swallowed the rest of the way, yet.

Enjoy your beans, folks.

ole joyful

When my DH and I grew a huge garden, we grew most things in quantity. I did a lot of freezing. I remember picking in the long double row of Kentucky Wonder beans, two big brown grocery bags on the ground next to me. I'd pick handfuls and drop them into the bags. One day I picked 40 pounds of green beans.

I put tons in the freezer, but we ate a lot fresh, too. We loved a wonderful green bean tossed salad from the book, Grow It and Cook It. And I remember green bean pizza!

My husband preferred beans to be French cut. I tried to automate this, but ended up doing most of them individually with that little cutter at the end of a vegetable peeler. Talk about time consuming! These days I don't bother just for myself.

Thanks for the grilling idea, Pawsitive. I'll bet it's good with zucchini, too (plus garlic). I agree: Cooking for one is no fun.