All things considered - such as getting a late start - my beans did pretty well. I hadn't posted much about them previously, so this is the summary for the season. Hope I don't give anybody scroll cramps. ;-) "Fortex" gave me a great yield of snap beans, even planted late. Filled half of a freezer, and still literally gave buckets away. I also attempted to increase several heirloom beans this year, with at least limited success on all of them. "Austrian Soup" (from a GW swap last year) proved to be a very high-yielding half-runner, with very fat seeds about the size of "Cranberry". A 10-foot row of gave me a tray full of dry seed, and half of a 5-gallon bucket of ripe pods. "Blue Blockeye" (from a departing SSE member) was also a productive half-runner. It is a wax variety, with very straight, somewhat flattened 4" yellow pods. They held their quality for a long time on the vine, although the older ones did require stringing. Nearly all of the pods ripened, except for the taste-test. "Blue Marbutt" (from Fusion) was a very aggressive climber, but rather late to bear. It is supposed to be a snap, but I was away for awhile, and missed testing them in that stage. The pods are 6" long, rounded, with varying shades of purple-on-green. They are borne in great profusion from top to bottom. I was able to harvest a fair amount of dry seed; but with frost threatening, the vast majority were ripe, but not yet dry. The black seeds proved remarkably easy to shell, they virtually fell out of the pods. I'll be cooking some up this weekend. "Bosnian Pole" was from a GW seed swap. There were only 5 seeds in the sample, of which 3 germinated. These were transplanted into large pots, after which squirrels dug them all up - twice!!! Only one plant survived this ordeal, and produced 5" flat pods, which developed very fat seed with black-on-white coloration. No testing was done, since the object was to save seed... I'll grow it out in a larger quantity next year. It might be a good shelly. "Kentucky Wonder White #191" was once my favorite snap, but I hadn't grown it since the mid-90's. It has become hard to find commercially, and was not even carried by SSE, so I wanted to return it to circulation. The seed had a 50% germination rate when tested with a nitrate soak, but only had a 10% germination rate in the ground. Then rabbits destroyed all but 4 plants! From those 4 plants, however (two of which appear in the "Bean Spacing" thread) I harvested nearly 3 pounds of dry seed. "PI 507984" showed great potential last year as a shelly; and since it was too late for most pole shellies, I did a large-scale planting. It did amazingly well; several pounds of dry seed, and 20+ pints of frozen shellies. I am a big fan of pole beans; but for a short-season shell bean, I have not seen it's equal. "Rose" was obtained in a swap from Gardenlad. It is a very late pole variety; even started early as transplants, it is just now beginning to bear seed. Unfortunately, they could freeze tonight... if they survive, I'll get a lot of seed. If not, they'll be shellies tomorrow. The snaps are really tasty, but it does not appear well adapted to Northern climates. "Sangre de Toro" is a pole dry bean. Rabbits nipped all but 3 plants, setting them back by several weeks. The 3 intact plants, however, bore heavily. The narrow 5" pods turn bright red as they mature, and hold 8-9 small red seeds. The seed was direct-planted late, and only about half of the pods have dried... I will grow it again next year on a larger scale, provided that I can plant it earlier (and keep the rabbits away). Of two "runner beans" that I grew this year, one ("Olteanu's Romanian Yellow") was not a true runner bean at all, but a purple-seeded common bean (and a wax bean at that). I didn't find it pleasant as a snap, and while the seeds are attractive, they are too small to use as shellies. "Tucomares Chocolate" was a seed increase, since almost all of my stock had been traded last year. It is a brown-seeded runner bean, with beautiful bi-colored blossoms. It is the red-flowered vine in the photo posted in the "Bean Spacing" thread. The pod set was very high, probably due to our cooler-than-normal Summer. Unfortunately, it was also direct-seeded late, and only a handful of pods have matured. There is enough seed for me to maintain it, but not enough to trade... so I hope they survive the frost. There were two heirloom limas this year. "North Star" is a pole variety, medium-sized white seed with a prominent maroon eye. It was started as transplants, and most of the pods ripened to dry seed. "Hopi Pole" was also started as transplants... but still only matured a small percentage of its seed. The yield potential of this lima is incredible, and I really enjoy its rich flavor; but like "Rose" above, it appears poorly adapted to my short seasons. Cowpeas: "Pink Eye Purple Hull" (from Jimster) was grown primarily as a seed crop; but I tried a meal of shellies, which I enjoyed. Still quite a few fat pods hanging... I just ran out of daylight, and had to leave them to the frost. :-( One of the stars of this year's trials was an unnamed Chinese bush yardlong sent to me in a GW swap. The plants are true bush habit, completely runnerless. The 12-18" green pods are borne very early, 50 days from planting... much earlier that my earliest pole yardlong. This would probably succeed in short-season areas where other yardlongs fail, such as into southern Canada. All pods matured & dried before frost, and I had a large seed harvest. Getting late, I will try to post some photos soon.

Are you primarily interested in bush or pole types? Or doesn't it matter? You could almost pick varieties at random and get a nice cross section of colors and patterns, there are so many. Given your small space, I would consider one of the multi-color varieites, such as Cherokee Cornfield, Sacks, and Faulkner's Cornfield. These are all pole beans which have as many as 20 different colors and patterns. One of the prettiest beans I grow, also a pole type, is Rose. This is a largish bean. About 1/3 or so of it is a gorgeous plum color, which breaks up to speckle and frost the balance of the bean, with is an ivory color. Snowcap and Mostoler's Wild Goose are both large beans with orange and white markings. Very pretty. Anasazi, Thousand-Year Cave, and Trout are almost indistinguishable, with maroon and white patterns. Etc. Etc. Etc.

We are warming up in Chicagoland, will be 40 F or 4 C. so happy to get that warm !! But it will be 35 mph wind today, and up to 45 mph tomorrow, typical of our windy city. The strongest wind here was 60 mph one year which caused commercial damage. Mung bean is VERY EFFECTIVE in weight-loss since it's high in protein & high in fiber, and low in calories. Sticky rice (glutinous rice) stays soft at room-temp, and fills you up fast. Both are sold at Korea or VN stores. There's this sweet mung-bean desert (high protein), which I post here to explain the below video (fast & fun to watch): Overnight soaking with plenty of water and in containers similar to video: 1 cup of yellow mung bean in 1st-container, 1 1/2 cup of sticky rice in 2nd container. After 10 hours soaking, DRAIN OFF the water in the rice container, but leave less than 1/4 inch. of water above the bean. Mix 1/2 teas. of salt in mung-bean, cover tight with plastic wrap, nuke in microwave for 10 min. Let stand. Mix 1 Tablespoon of olive oil with rice, put enough coconut milk to cover the top of rice just a bit over 1/4 inch. Cover with plastic wrap, nuke for 10 min. Let stand. Take the cover off the mung-bean, with a potato-masher, mash 1/2 to 1 Tablespoon sugar into the mung-bean until creamy. Mix this into the cooked rice. Then cover again, and nuke for another 10 min. See You-Tube below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMnDAGmfvmY The above microwave-recipe can be used to make "banh chung", just omit the sugar and coconut milk, don't mix the bean with the rice. Traditional New Year cake (Banh chung) uses banana leaf to wrap, but one can use aluminum foil to put a layer of cooked rice, a layer of mashed bean, and shredded-cooked-pork plus freshly ground black pepper, wrap that in a tight bundle, and boil the bundles in water. Mung-bean is creamy & delicious, high-protein & B-vitamins, and great for weight-loss. My 90 year old Mom with diabetes eat that, it stabilizes her blood-sugar. Below link talks about the tradition of "banh trung" and how to wrap those bundles: http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-banh-chung-vietnamese-rice-cakes-164610

Im a big legume fan lol. I have Lupinus perennis Baptisia australis And this year I started from seed: Astragalus canadensis, Senna hebecarpa, Desmodium canadense, Dalea purpurea, and Lespedeza violacea, and I tried to get veiny pea Lathyrus venosus going but it didnt survive the spring. I have a seed packet of partidge pea but didnt try them yet. These are mainly intended as filler plants to improve the soil and sprawl between other perennials to take up space that would otherwise be invaded by weeds, but I do love the leaf shape and flowers on most of then.