You never know until you try. I would suggest getting another type cowpea that is a bit shorter season just on the off chance it would be better adapted to your climate. Please note that cowpeas are really not happy at temps below 80 degrees and the really grow best at 90 or above.

DarJones

What is the length of your growing season?

My personal favorite beans are rattlesnake beans, which should do well there.

Dean

Chinese Red Noodle and Chinese Green Noodle both like hot temperatures. I've tried to grow them the past two years. We've had unusually cool summers so production has been poor. However, you're in a warmer zone than me. They may do well there.

Beans in general don't like their roots disturbed. I wouldn't start them more than a week or two earlier than you plan to plant out. Planting them in peat pots might not be a bad idea. That way you can you can plant the whole pot without disturbing the roots.

Dean the length of our growing season varies, years back you could count on our last frost date being around the end of march but now it seems to be around the beginning of may. We've had lousey summers for the last few years but an exceptionally warm/no rain this year with temps going into the nineties. I have a greenhouse so could start them early and even pot them on before going out. Since I have the seed I think I'll give it a try, nothing ventured nothing gained, so they say. I'll also look for rattlesnake beans and give them a try also.

Anymore suggestions of what other heirloom pole beans I might try? I find I'm swinging away from hybridized and genetically altered seeds and just growing the oldies now.

Annette

There are so many out there and folks have such wide tastes in beans. What do you like in a bean? Do you like them almost all pods or with the seed in them (when you eat them as snaps).

I grow a number of Appalachian heirlooms, most of which, a person lets fill out before using. They have to be strung. But then, after stringing, the pods remain tender for a very long time. When cooked these beans have large seeds (shellies) mixed in with the snaps. This is my favorite way to enjoy green beans.

This summer I have been trying an Alabama heirloom, from a GW member with the screen name Chao. It is apparently a variation of Rattlesnake. I've never grown Rattlesnake before. Anyway, I've only been able to try a very few, since I need to build up my seed supply. But I can see why Dean likes Rattlesnake. Very impressive!

George
Tahlequah, OK

George, we mostly like to eat the beans in the snap stage before the pods fill out but I have eaten Cherokee Trail Of Tears after the beans have started to form and enjoyed them as well.

We have a few places in Canada where we can buy heirloom bean seed but not a lot of the ones mentioned on this forum, can anyone recommend anywhere online I could purchase more of a selection, that will send to Canada?

I realize a lot of the seed mentioned on this forum aren't sold commercially but traded and kept going that way, I've done the same with my Mr. Tung's beans brought to Canada I'm guessing late 1800's/early 1900's from China from 4 seeds I was given some years ago. I would love to try a couple of new (to me) varieties each year along with my favorites I plant every year. I only have space for pole beans now but could manage about 6 more poles in different spots in my garden.

Annette

Heritage Harvest Seeds, located in Canada, has an excellent on-line bean catalog w/pics.

Sand Hill Preservation has a delicious pole bean, "Jeminez: 80 days. Red streaked romano-type bean." Pods have unusually thick, "meaty" walls, great cut & stewed w/other vegs.

Sustainable Mountain Ag. Center, KY, has an outstanding collection of heritage beans from the Southern US + Appalachian South. I have the impression that all(?) their beans are pole-type needing trellis.

Hope this is useful.

Thanks ppod, I've saved these addresses :o).

Annette

Looking for Chinese Red Noodle Beans
I live in zone 10 Hawaii
I think they would grow here.
Diva

Here's a place you can get them. Enjoy!

George
Tahlequah, OK

Here is a link that might be useful: Red Noodle/ Territorial Seeds

am- I had a great time with runner beans last year. I grew them a long time ago and stopped but I think I wasn't eating them early enough before. I'm going to try some Thompson and Morgan ones this year that have lengths of 12-14" and set seeds slower, and are stringless. Runner beans are more adapted to cooler growing conditions and are the main beans grown in Great Britain, which I have found out is a lot like the PNW in climate, being also maritime. In England they have been developed into several different cultivars, not the one or two available here. They started yielding much faster than my regular pole beans, yielded better, and lasted longer at the end, even after frost. They also make great shellies.

My favorite regular pole bean used to be Jeminez, but while a wonderful tender very large bean, it is slow to start producing and not as prolific as current favorite, Uncle Steve's, though Super Marconi also did well for me last year.

Another plus to the runner beans is that they are firmer than regular pole beans, so they don't fall apart after cooking. I liked the texture and the flavor a lot this last year. They would probably be great for freezing, too.

They are also wonderful for attracting hummingbirds, since they mostly have red flowers, though pink and white exist.

Remy, I love runner beans, this is the bean I remember from my youth, it's the only bean my grandparents grew waaaayyy back then. Both my parents were born in England, both families immigrated in the early 1900's.
Why I haven't grown them myself is a mystery, I have a few Insuk Wang Kong to try this year and will also be growing another runner but will plant it at my daughters.

Uncle Steve's is similar to the italian bean I've been growing for 44 years. I do believe after comparing the two seeds although close mine is probably a different bean.
I'll be putting poles up in the most unlikely places for other pole beans just so I can have a taste of several more of the varieties I seem to have acquired over the last few months from generous GWer's. It's going to be a fun year.

I don't have the garden space for big grow outs but will let most of my italians go to seed. Although this bean has a history of being grown here in the Nanaimo B.C. area since the early 1900's, I don't know anyone else still growing it here. I think it is a good snap bean, I don't know about shellie or dry. Hopefully I will have more seed to share in the fall.

Annette

Ooops, sorry H, I was just looking at some campanula seedlings, Remy was on my mind. It's the pits getting old, I seem to have had a couple of Oooops lately LOL.

Annette

AM- that's OK. I got some Red Noodle beans last year in a trade and will be trying them too.

I'm also growing a bunch of unusual legumes this year, mostly not edible as beans, prairie clover, prairie turnip, butterfly peas, lead plant, Siberian pea shrub, etc. Some of them are very difficult to sprout, so far. It makes me appreciate regular beans. I'm hoping to find some new useful legumes not usually grown.

What is the best method to preserve the Chinese red/green noodle bean? Can I can it? Freeze it? Dehydrate it?