Dakota Gardener: Best beans for gardeners

Do you grow beans in your garden?

I loved growing beans as a kid. It was easy. The seeds were big and easy to sow. The sprouts popped out of the soil in a week. It was such a rush!

A couple months later, the beans were ready to be picked. My mom would give me a basket and I would gather the harvest. It was fun to pick the beans. When I gave the beans to Mom, she would kiss my forehead and thank me.

I fell in love with gardening.

There are lots of beans you can grow with your family this summer.

Bush Blue Lake 274 is the most popular green bean in the U.S. This classic variety produces heavy crops of delicious pods.

The most reliable variety is Provider. It germinates in cool soils and produces a quick and bountiful harvest.

Have you ever grown purple beans? These are fun to grow with kids because the purple pods magically turn green when you boil them. Purple varieties are tender and delicious too.

Pole beans have a reputation for rich, old-fashioned flavor. The top performers in our trials are Monte Cristo and Monte Gusto (a wax bean). They produce straight, delicious pods that may reach 10 inches long. A great pole bean that ripens early is Seychelles. This would be a good choice in the north.

Another pole bean that is fun to grow is yardlong bean. These pods grow over 18 inches long. Yardlong beans may be the most popular garden bean grown in the world, but most Americans have never tasted them. They taste like asparagus and are sometimes called asparagus beans. I used to tell my children they only had to eat one bean for dinner, and then I showed them a yardlong pod. Fun!

Almost nobody in our trials wants to grow lima beans, but vegetable soybeans have become a trendy substitute. These soybeans are tender, nutritious and have a buttery flavor. They are a popular snack in Asia (instead of potato chips) and are often shelled and eaten while drinking beer! Look for an early variety such as Tohya or Beer Friend.

Lastly, I strongly encourage you to try filet beans. These gourmet beans are straight, very slender and crisp.

Growing beans may not seem exciting to you, but gardeners who grow filet beans in our trials absolutely rave about them. The variety named Crockett produces amazing yields of dark-green pods of the highest quality. You may want to try it.

All of these varieties can be found by doing a search on Google.

Hundreds of gardeners across North Dakota test promising varieties of beans and other vegetables in our trials. You are welcome to join our team. Go to the North Dakota Home Garden Variety Trials website at www.ag.ndsu.edu/homegardenvarietytrials. Request our online seed catalog and I will send it to you in a few weeks.

I invite you to grow beans this summer and get your children involved. You might create a love for gardening in them that lasts a lifetime.

For more information about gardening, contact your local NDSU Extension agent. Find the Extension office for your county at https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/extension/directory/counties.