Cherokee Trail of Tears

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

The best pole bean I have ever grown in the heat and humidity of central Texas. Planted in the spring and even produced some in the heat of the summer. Carried over for the fall with another abundant crop up until freezing. Being a heirloom, if you save the seeds it comes back true year in and year out! Vigorous. Hardy. Disease resistant . You can go wrong with this bean. Use as snap or dried black beans.