Cherokee Trail of Tears

Planted 80 seeds and only 64 made it the bugs attacked the young growth, I laid on the ground a slug and ant killer with spinosad and iron in pellets. Bugs left them alone after that, They are prolific viners which can reach 8-10ft long!! I just left them all on the vine until they dried up, If you plant in June at the end of October They cook up real nice, The beans are large with tons of flavor and have a smooth texture. I harvested 2.5lbs of dry beans! I plan on planting more next year so I can harvest twice as many more!!

I've been growing this variety every year since 2012. I've grown these in northern California (zone 9B) and central Minnesota (zone 4B) and they grow wonderfully in both climates. In Minnesota, I plant them indoors in April and put them outside in mid-May. Vines grow very quickly with flowers appearing by June. Green beans are ready by the end of June or beginning of July and stay productive as long as you pick them every few days at a minimum. Beans get stringy fast, so I recommend picking before "bean lumps" appear (developing seeds). By August, I start leaving patches unpicked for dry beans to develop (mostly for seed saving). By September, I stop picking green beans and leave them all to ripen. Each year, I save the earliest seeds for replanting and the later ones for cooking. Beans dry easily indoors after shelling. Hands down, one of my largest and most anticipated crops each year.

This was a very wonderful pole bean to grow. My husband trellised it 8 feet tall and it grew 2 feet over. The young pods were delicious, older pods were a little tough, but we let them dry out and harvested, so far, 2 pounds of dry beans. Overall, we harvested 15 pounds of beans from about 30 seedlings and we are still harvesting. The flowers attracted wild bees into the garden, http://be-notafraid.com/the-wedding-treasure-in-grandmas-hatbox/Hichborn was nice as well. I did need to water them every day during the drought. This variety of pole bean did very well in the heat, humidity In VA. First time that i was so successful growing pole beans!

now I know why the Cherokee people were crying because all they had to eat was these beans! As young green beans these were bitter, woody and just plain awful. I thought maybe they are more of a dried bean so I let them mature.....not much better!. With all the great bean varieties on the market surely this is one we can assign to the dust bin of history.

I garden here in Middle Tennessee, and this bean has it all: 1) Easy to grow 2) Gorgeous purple-pink blooms 3) Versatility, both as a snap-bean (if you harvest young so as to avoid strings), and as a soup bean