Cherokee Trail of Tears

I prefer these as a shell & dry bean. They have the most amazing purple-blue colour & I grow them just so I can enjoy the beauty when I shell them. Pure joy. The plants are strong & dependable,& yield well. With their beautiful purple blooms I grow them with my runner beans for a gorgeous colour display.

I bought these beans about 8 years ago and save every year on the pole. this year they came up by themselves so I did not have to plant. they consistently outperform my old standard Kentucky Wonder. we eat them fresh and can them, The Japanese beetles are not as much of a problem on these. In west Kentucky fungus has not been a problem. They were developed for this climate and do very well with little problems except for weeds. Always weeds aren't there

Makes lots of beans.

For me, in the South, this bean didn't fare well. For one, the plants were plagued with fungus from the start, and no spraying ever got it under control. Eventually this knocked the plants out quite early. Next, the beans themselves were not that spectacular... They developed an awfully tough , sharp string very quickly. To make em tender, they have to be picked when disappointingly small. Production was okay, but long gaps of no beans was a bit disappointing.

I bought these seeds more than 4-6 years ago, and they got set aside multiple times, then abused. I just moved & decided it was a good year to use up old seed, especially the seed that had gone fridge-freezer-fridge & spent weeks at a time room temp & then multiple multi-day trips in trailers that got to 120 F. I didn't have high expectations, and was surprised enough a few days later to see them sprouting. So I double seeded them when I sowed, & didn't bother pre-soaking. I shouldn't have double seeded. They were FINE. I'd bet on 85-90% germination even after all that time and abuse. Even the ones with sunflowers are only slightly behind. They seem disease, humidity & bug resistant, and have really gorgeous deep purple flowers among the dense foliage. I don't know that we made 65 days, but they're early, prolific, enormous (8-12' vines), and they are FANTASTIC as young green beans. The hardest part is letting half dry to seed to plant again and use for dry beans.