Heirloom Beans- The Search for the Perfect Bean

Looking for a good reliable source for Heirloom Seeds? My favorites are Baker Creek and Renee's Garden Seeds.

The last couple years I have been on the hunt for the perfect bean. I wanted something that would can and freeze well, make good dilly beans, taste great fresh, be stringless, and have reliably good yields.

Following are a the bean varieties I tried and the results...

• Provider Bush Bean -  high yields of nice big beans with typical bean flavor
• Slenderette Bush Bean- thin dark green pods with tender sweet flavor. Ripe earlier than some others
• Emerite and French Gold Filet Pole Beans - The gold outperformed the emerite, and had tremendous season-long yields! They had a nice flavor and worked well pickled and frozen.They were also very pretty with the long yellow pods.

Lush green growth - pole beans on cedar trellis

I was really hoping for a good bean to make Dilly Beans, and they were all good! I wondered if the thinner beans would be less crisp pickled but they all turned out delicious! The thinner beans tended to be longer, so they filled the quarts nicely. I like to combine yellow and green beans for a nice looking jar of Dilly Beans.

I have also tried growing the purple pod varieties of beans, but gave them up. They do have a nice appearance and flavor, but are not nearly as vigorous as the yellow and green.

My other bean observations -

• Pole beans with flatter pods do no have the flavor and crispness of the round types
• Yellow wax beans are also good to mix with the green types
• The usual Blue Lake types just aren't good enough to be the perfect bean
• Slender beans are very tasty! 
• Beans are best picked before they get too ripe - about the thickness of a pencil (thinner for the slender varieties)
• Pole beans are more prolific and produce longer than bush beans but the flavor is usually not as good. They also use less space because you can use vertical trellises
• Most bush beans with have one big crop, and then more small crops if you keep them picked
• Fancy colored and spotted type bean pods will all turn green when cooked (except yellow)