"Green" Beans

Green beans, string beans, snap beans, whatever you call them, they are a summer garden staple.  They can be grown in two ways.  Bush beans grow about two feet tall and do not require a trellis.  They produce all of their beans in a short period of time and are then pulled up.  Pole beans (a.k.a. runner beans) are a vine that can grow 10 feet or more in length and requires some sort of trellis.  They produce a steady supply of beans from early July until the first frost of the year, which is October 15th around here.

We have grown both and have really become firm in our preference for pole beans.  Because of the ability to trellis, pole beans take much less garden bed space than bush beans.  They produce a lot more beans over the course of a season.  They are MUCH easier to pick because they are right there at shoulder/head height.  Bush beans require bending over and searching for beans amongst thick foliage.  The arbor made from a folded cattle panel has really worked out well for us.  We planted beans in the beds on both sides and they have grown up and met at the top.  This has provided great access for picking.

We are growing a variety called the purple podded pole bean.  One reason is that the purple beans stand out against the green foliage, making finding them much easier when picking.  We've found that picking green colored beans is an easter egg hunt with grass colored eggs.  The other reason we like growing the purple beans is that they look cool and are a conversation piece when people visit the garden.  They turn green when cooked.  How neat is that?

Plant the seeds in mid-May with a trellis in place.  As they emerge, train them up to the trellis and they will do the rest.  The vines have a rough texture to them and they will aggressively wrap themselves around and around the trellis as they grow towards the sun.

Tips and Tricks:

• Try to harvest the beans before they get noticeable bulges in them.  At this point they are starting to get too mature and won't be quite as tender as they could be.  They are still very edible if this happens and you will note from the pictures that we had some get to this size.
• Snap the beans by hand and remove the "string" from each side of the beans as shown in the picture above.
• Beans are good for your garden soil.  Being in the legume family, they take nitrogen out of the air and fix it into the soil.  This makes more nitrogen available in the soil for future crops.

Putting up the Harvest:

• Freezing - wash, snap, and destring the beans.  Blanch the beans in boiling water for 3 minutes, then immediately immerse in ice water until cooled.  Pat dry and arrange on a cookie sheet so that they are in a single layer*.  Put them in the freezer for an hour and then put them in ziptop bags or vacuum seal them.  Keep them in the freezer until ready to use.
• Canning - Consult a high quality canning manual such as the Ball blue book.
• Dehydrating - Prepare and blanch the beans as if freezing them.  Dry in a dehydrator until hard as a rock.  They will store almost indefinitely this way.

*The beans won't be stuck together in a mass during freezing, allowing you to take as many or as few as you need from the bag.