Tammy, surely someone here will give you a good recommendation for where to order seed. My two bits would be to suggest you plant at least a pole or two just to produce your own seed. One can make bean growing VERY economical that way. Drop me an email through my member's page if you would like a copy of a guide on saving bean seed.

George
Tahlequah, OK

tammy

I suppose you know that if you order one packet of any seed, you'll have to pay close to an equivalent amount for shipping. You'll probably need to Google the seeds and make a list of their cost + SH to choose the best price.

Sand Hill Preservation has:
"Fortex: 70 days. Long, French stringless filet type bean. Dark colored seeds. (25 seeds/Pkt.) 1 Pkt./$2.50."

Shipping is free-of-charge if your order is $10 or more. On orders under $10, they charge $2 shipping.

Some Mom & Pop operations close down shipping seeds during the busy field/crop season. Check the web site for pertinent information.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sand Hill Preservation, Beans and other Legumes

I just purchased Fortex pole bean seeds from Sand Hill and was very pleased with the response time in my seed order. I plan to save seeds from my first planting for further plantings. I just checked out from the local library, Suzanne Ashworth's book "Seed to Seed" which has excellent seed saving instructions for beans. Also, this forum has had excellent instructions for seed saving. I hope this helps.
Mary

Thanks for the info everyone. Sandhill did seem to have the best price. We have been used to eating Blue lake, and half runners. Is the taste of Fortex similar? I am afraid if I stray to far in taste from what my famil considers "green beans", that they wont like them. I know there is a lot of praise for fortex on here.
Tammy

Tammy, what's the name of your half-runner? Please take care of any seeds you have, and if it's an old family variety, you could use it to trade for other seeds/donate seeds to an organization like SMAC.

Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center (SMAC), Berea, KY, has a large selection of interesting old family heirloom pole beans, mainly half-runners, cutshort, cornfield, greasy, greasy cutshort, and fall beans.

SMAC's prices include shipping, $7 for 1 packet; $6 per packet for 2 or more packets. If you purchase 6 packets, you get a gift Bean Medley of 125-150 seeds. The Bean Medley packet can also be purchased at the regular prices.

Their packets are very generously filled. Two recent packets, each supposed to contain 100 seeds, contained 140 and 123 seeds respectively.

SMAC beans

Here is a link that might be useful: Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center

ppod, the half runner was just one I bought from Parks:
Mountaineer Garden bean White half runner pole type
I dont have any saved seeds. I wish I had some older varieties, but if anyone in my family saved seeds it would have been my grandmother, and she has been gone for some time. Thanks for that link tho. I bookmarked it for possible future purchase.Prices dont sound too bad.
Tammy