You mentioned heat. If you're growing bush beans, try one of the varieties known for heat tolerance, such as Brio or Festina. I know of no variety that will remain tender when temperatures are above about 105 degrees. The heat-tolerant ones tend to bear all at once. I just plan on switching to edamame or cowpea relatives when it's really hot. Contender, which does well in spring in the South, gets fibrous (not stringy) in cool fall weather. Brio does much better in cool weather than Contender even though it's supposed to be a hot-weather variety. But I like to plant varieties that I can use as "shellies" in fall, in case cool weather makes the pods unusable. Black Valentine, Coco Rose de Prague, etc. Romanette is the most heat-tolerant of the flat beans that I've tried. Romano Gold isn't too bad. Maxibel is the best filet I've tried for hot weather. Emerite pole filet is a complete waste of time here: in hot weather the beans are curled-up little leathery husks. I was given some seed of Champagne pole beans, which are more tolerant of heat than most pole beans. Kentucky Wonder is more heat-tolerant than the Blue Lake or Filet types, but it is naturally kind of on the tough side. Some of the flat pole beans require perfect weather for good quality. I have gotten some beans on pole varieties in hot weather when grown on a fence with vining squashes, but they're more a surprise than a crop.

I have never tried Blue Lake, though I see them recommended in boks and such. I consider Rattlesnakes virtually stringless - they have a bit of string, but not a great deal. As I snap them, there will be a bit of it on each segment that I strip off, but it's not very tough. Have I confused you enough? :-)

Doesn't surprise me, ceresone. Most people have never heard those terms, as they're used mostly by the real old-timers back in the hollows. They're more common, too, in the backwoods of the Appalachians than in the Ozarks. By I have heard the terms used in your mountains. Sometimes when I use those terms I get a look, and a comment to the effect that "my mom used to call them that. Haven't heard the expression in years." But the Ozarks and the Appalachians have a lot in common, in terms of how people lived and worked in the old days, and what they grew. Plus, much of the English settlement of Missouri came right out of Kentucky and, to a lesser degree, Tennessee. In fact, that's why the Appalachian Heirloom Seed Conservancy includes Missouri in it's region, even though it's not an Appalachian state. Often we find heirlooms with a Middle Ground connection there, for instance, which can no longer be found in the Appalachians per se. Our most recent tomato accession, for example, came from a Missouri member who collected it from a now deceased Amish lady who had grown it for more than 50 years, ever since migrating from Tennessee where her people had grown it "for generations." Yet, to date, I cannot find anyone in western Tennesse who's familiar with this tomato. By the same token, I find that the original Whippoorwill cowpea is still grown as a family heirloom primarily in western Kentucky and eastern Missouri.

I have 6 rows of beans across the garden. Each row is about 110 feet long. 1 row of Tobacco Worm 1 row of Blue Marbutt 1 row of Lima beans (1/2 Old time pink & white, 1/2 Herndon) 1 row of Insuk's Wang Kong scarlet runner beans 1 row of Uncle Walt's Cranberry beans 1 row of about 12 different varieties with 10 to 20 feet per. The row of different varieties will give me enough beans to trial several that I am interested in or that I have grown before and need fresh seed. I am growing the beans in part for myself to eat and can and in part to save seed for Sandhill Preservation. To answer the urgent question posted above, 20 feet of beans is enough to comfortably feed 2 people and have enough beans to can about 20 to 25 quarts. Rattlesnake is very productive here in the south. It is not my favorite bean for flavor. That is not a serious negative, Rattlesnake has decent flavor, it is just middle of the pack. DarJones