Ju1234, last year I reached the same conclusion.. So just want to point out that within the yardlong category there are lots of options/cultivars. Pods vary from light green to dark green and seeds are white, red, black, striped, solid etc. Not sure if the characteristics define the cultivar or if there are multiple cultivars with the same characteristics.

This year I've tried black seed/dark green, red seed/light green, white seed/light green, and they are different. I'm leaning towards going 100% white seed/light green next year which seem to be a bit more productive with a longer pod. The light green with red seed are the alternative choice. But whatever the plan it will be all long beans.

This post was edited by grandad on Fri, Oct 3, 14 at 8:25

Hyacinth beans might be worth trying too... they are tropical, and really love heat. The purple podded ones, IMO, are thicker & better flavored. Pick them young, before seeds develop - when cooked, they taste just like "green beans". Baker Creek & Kitazawa sell several cultivars.

As an added bonus, the vines when in bloom are really beautiful, and as fragrant as their name implies.

Yard-long are in the Vigna (cowpea) tribe, which is why they can tolerate much more heat than common bean cultivars.

Chris, I grew hyacinth for the first time this year and they just flowered a few days ago - didn't know if they would with such a cool summer we've had. What a spectacular flower for a vegetable!

Zeedman: Thank you. I looked up Hyacinth beans, looks like they are shelling type. Am I right?

Grandad: thank you for pointing out some other possibilities. The one I have grown for two seasons is the red seed/light green outside. I did get some seed for red seed/red outside late in season so I will try those next year. Please, can you compare the ones you have grown for their taste and growing characteristics. Are they all heat tolerant? Are they all resistant to aphids too?

Thanks to both of you.

I usually do some green beans and some yard long beans specifically because the yard longs really start produce when it gets hot and the green beans slow down. However, the pole beans I grew this year just kept pumping them out this summer once they started producing. Since weather varies from year to year, I plan to continue growing both kinds of beans so I can benefit from whichever the weather is more beneficial to in that year.

As far as the yard longs, I grew Chinese Red Noodle this year, and thought it stayed more tender than some of the green varieties I've grown in the past. It doesn't get as ridiculously long, but that actually makes it easier to handle.

"Zeedman: Thank you. I looked up Hyacinth beans, looks like they are shelling type. Am I right?"

Well, not exactly. Their primary use in this country has been the cooked immature pods. The seeds are considered to be "toxic", but in the tropics, the ripe seeds are eaten. I don't know how the seeds are prepared, nor know anyone who has eaten them... so I will only recommend their use as cooked immature pods.

And if all hyacinth beans are as hard to shell as the one I am growing this year, they would be last on my list for shelled beans regardless!

Pnbrown, the unfortunate thing about hyacinth beans is that most are daylength sensitive, and will only bloom as the equinox approaches... as yours have. For those of us with short seasons, that doesn't allow time to get dry seed. When I trialed a few pole cultivars here, I was only able to harvest pods for a few weeks.

This year, however, I received a hyacinth bean in trade that was unusual on two counts:
(1) it was day neutral, and bloomed just over 30 days after sowing
(2) it was true bush habit.

It is white flowered, green podded, and brown seeded. All I presently know about its origins is that it supposedly came from India. Given how it rushed to bloom - and continued blooming furiously until a week ago - it would probably be ever-bearing if the immature pods were kept picked. The first dry seed was at 85 days, which is similar to many common dry beans.

{{gwi:112696}}

My FIL, living in Zone 8, came to the same conclusions. But he prefers pink yard long beans,which I assume are the same that Lantanascape grows. It is no surprise, everyone in the South should be concentrating on the cowpea family.

...probably need to adjust my above remarks to say planting all "climbing/pole" beans as Chinese long beans. Contender bush beans planted mid-March and late August do very well in this growing region.

I haven't tasted my hyacinth beans but they are a great plant for extreme heat and produce tons of pods.
Cowpeas will do as well as long beans, they are closely related.
Okra and Armenian cucumbers, eggplant and some peppers will also do extremely well. Sometimes the peppers and eggplants stop setting fruit when it's extremely hot but then you get a huge burst in the early fall.

Edible gourd.

Chris, that's interesting, I didn't know hyacinth was day length sensitive. Like pigeon pea and a lot of tropical legume cultivars, I guess.

I grew the red seed and black seed yard long beans. The black seed ones produced earlier and are still producing. I agree, they were very prolific. The red seed ones - they started later, and yielded a little less, but were delicious. I am leaning towards planting more of these and less of the other beans.