THE VARIETIES
• Of the climbing beans, the ‘Persian Lima’ was the most vigorous, diseaseresistant and prolific variety and was still flowering well into winter. The flat pods looked more like mangetout and I doubted whether they would make a good dried bean.
• Another climber, ‘Good Mother Stallard’ came highly recommended by Mark Christensen and this variety proved as robust and abundant as its homely name suggested. The beans looked remarkably like borlotti.
• I grew the large white climbing French tarbais bean a few years ago but my remaining seed didn’t germinate and I’m annoyed at myself for losing this one.
• Ron’s Factory beans were climbing green, stringless beans grown for the canning factory in Motueka, but the fat white seeds suggested they might make a nice dried bean.
• The same goes for the climbing bean that Rex and Margie from Maerawhiti gave my Dad, the plump, stripy, coffeecoloured seeds looked delicious.
• ’Blue Shackamaxon’ was a climber I wanted to grow just for the name, but it proved to be a good late-harvest bean with pods full of black, glossy seeds.
• The ‘Indian Hannah’ climbing bean is an ancient mix of varieties traditionally grown together by the Lenape/Delaware Indian Nation.
• Of the bush beans dwarf ‘Haricot’ and dwarf ‘Cannellini’ had a poor strike; ‘Soy Kiwi No 8’ produced a very small crop; but dwarf ‘Red Kidney’, ‘Borlotti Red Rooster’, and ‘Mexican Pinto’ produced well.