If you are growing beans for use as snaps, you've still got lots of time... and "Bosnian Pole" should give you plenty. With a killing frost in November, you should even be able to get some dry seed. My DTM's for "Bosnian Pole" were 65 days to snap, 95 days for dry seed. And speaking of late plantings... I managed to put in 50' rows of "Emerite" for snaps, and "Yancheng Bush" for yardlongs. They are growing vigorously in our current heat wave, so the year shouldn't be a total failure. With a little luck (and a late frost) I might still be able increase my seed for "Yancheng".

We had a terrible growing season and had many failures regarding vegetables but had surprisingly good success with beans. Planted late, around the third week of June, because cold wet weather delayed gardening. Had to water plants late summer - we went into a long dry spell starting August that has officially turned into drought conditions as of December. We have had around one inch of precipitation since August 04. Beans set late because of late planting. Then we had an early frost on September 14 and I had to cover all the beans to protect them to try to get seed. It worked - we didn't have another frost until late October. Got one of the best bean seed harvests I have ever had but I consider the success to be extremely lucky and it took a lot of work and worry. I am already concerned about next season - this drought is supposed to carry over into spring. Last time I saw it this dry here was 1988 - a record drought year for my area. We'll see... Three varieties of bean seed received in online trades completely failed. No worries as I do not rely on traded seeds. My philosophy is if they grow they grow, if they don't grow it's merely a disappointment. More concerning to me is getting misidentified varieties in trades - I find this to be a rather common occurrence and can be very frustrating. For example I received and grew out a bean variety I received in an online trade that was supposed to be a pole bean but turned out to be a bush bean - a nice bean but was kind of a waste of valuable trellis space. ;) Zeedman, I received two varieties of cowpeas from you last winter - the "MN"s. I direct-seeded them and had wonderful success in spite of the poor season. I harvested around a pint of seed of each variety. They are by far the fastest growing cowpeas I have ever grown and I see no reason why they wouldn't grow successfully for any zone 4 gardener - maybe even zone 3 (would be worth a try anyways). I was amazed at how quickly they produced. Thanks again for the seed, I really appreciate it. Happy Holidays to All, -Tom

What can I say, this has been the weirdest growing season ever, Brita's Foot Long has really produced lots of beans, lots of seed and is finished pole pulled. Barksdale planted the same day is just flowering now and starting to produce pods, mind you the vines have gone wild, gone up the pole, down the pole, up again and reaching out for anything it could grab hold of like my clothesline. Several other varieties are behaving the same way like they're on steroids. Grandma Nellie's and Frank Barnett are also finished, got a bumper crop of seed from 8 plants planted of both of these. Had a bit of a boo boo with Rattlesnake and Louisiana Snap, the seed looks identical and before I realized what I'd done I threw the first dried seed from L.S. in with the Rattlesnake seed I'd already collected, dumb, dumb, dumb. Oh well lots more pods to pick of Rattlesnake so threw that lot of seed in a jar in the kitchen to be used in some recipe or other. Had a couple of failures but the sample of seed given me could have been old Chevrier Vert didn't germinate and Flaro French Flageolet I ended up with one plant. Surprisingly enough I have a tub of Fagiolina del Traimento producing beans, Yancheng Bush looks healthy enough but hasn't begin to flower yet. The runner I'm growing this year Aeron Purple Star has produced fantastically for me, we've had a few meals and now the rest have been left for seed. I have a few pods that didn't turn Purple and as the vines are so intertwined I couldn't find which plant to pull :). Next year I'll only plant half as many plants with a vulgaris variety in between so I can rouge out anything that only produces green pods, mind you that will probably be too late due to the bees. I'll only plant seed from purple pods and keep my fingers crossed. The first Big Mama I planted turned out to be a purple bush bean not a pole variety, have no idea what they are so will scrap them. I managed to find another source for this Big Mama, although planted late it's almost at the top of it's pole and is flowering so there's hope for this one even if I have to put an umbrella over it in the fall. It seems this is another heirloom that is endangered so will grow it again next year. Bosnian Pole is producing lots of beans, not quite at the full bean stage, my trial of the 3 different Tennessee Cutshorts is just about ready for picking and comparing and the samples of quite a few of the other beans I'm growing, seed already picked. I'll come back later with final results, lots of beans at different stages of development yet to report on. This has been one H*ll of a summer I have to admit the heat has been knocking the stuffing out of me, yeah I know the 90's are just warm to some of you but when you are used to most of the summer being in the low 70's it makes a difference. On the the other hand when we were in Arizona one December temps were in the mid 70's during the day and we were all hitting the pool at the motel we were staying at :) the residents all thought we were crazy. They were all sitting around bundled up and some even wore socks to bed at night to keep their feet warm, or so we were told. it's all what you're used too. Annette

Salt Spring Seeds https://www.saltspringseeds.com/  have Ugandan Bantu Beans and Jade. I don't know if their 'Jade' is the same as the 'Fort Portal Jade' which I sent to Dan Jason along with 'Oland Island Brown'. With Oland Island Brown when shelling dry seed you can actually see the color change before your eyes :). I also had 'Gialet della Val Belluna' and a couple of others but passed them along to someone else as I don't have the room for bush beans. I still might have a sample of 'Fagioli del Trasimeno' and 'Fagiolo di Cuneo' stashed in the freezer. I'm sending you a message :). Annette