Saturday, April 19, 2014

Fortex beans... a great bean for Central Florida

First beans of the season. These are Fortex, a hybrid I think. Anyway HUGE beans (8" isn't uncommon) that stay tender. Very prolific and great tolerant of heat and drought.

From Johnnys...

Fortex

Product ID: 34
Early, dependable pole bean with an extended harvest period.
Growing to over 11", Fortex produces extra long, round pods. Early and very productive, the beans may be picked at 7" in length for extra slender, "filet" beans. Dark green, firm-textured pods are completely stringless and delicious at all lengths, even after the seeds enlarge. Walnut brown seeds. Avg. 1,250 seeds/lb. Packet: 50 seeds.

3 comments:

Coffee to Compost said...

I should try some of these. I have heard good things about them. I'm trying Rattlesnake pole beans this spring, do you recommend them?

Michael said...

rattle snake beans are a GREAT late spring/summer crop. i mean, they can get planted as late as, say, the first week of june, and you can get a crop out of them. they are heat-tolerant and drought tolerant. looking back at my blog (http://centralfloridagarden.blogspot.com/search?q=rattlesnake) i see that i have gotten harvests as late as july. i suspect if you sowed two crops, one in june and one in july, you might get enough to make it worthwhile.

rattlesnakes--you can save seeds, replant same season.

they aren't as long, VERY tender, or early as fortex. and fortex are really productive this time of year--i don't know whether rattlesnakes would be as productive. fortex are hybrids BUT some of mine from fall reseeded this spring and the "impure" seeds (the second generation, ex-hybrid) are still producing the same long, very tender bean... right? so, though they are hybrid, based on my very narrow experience, they might be worth saving seeds.

Lewis Clark said...

Good and useful post, I need to try it on my lawn, hopefully I will manage to do well. Thank you for sharing such useful post with us.