Balvenieman wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

This is what happens in fact. In addition the beans are nicer when
young so pick them regularly and if you can't eat them all while
fresh then give the rest away, you will get more good beans yourself.


Does early cropping encourage further flower growth, or does the
plant flower only once?

Different cultivars have different flowering patterns. The ones
favoured by commercial growers flower over a short period and most
of the beans are ready together. This is advantageous as such
growers like to harvest all at once, often using machinery.

Which is, in fact, the case for the "Blue Lake" round green beans.
I suppose they could be called "French" beans because they're round
green "zydeco" or snap-beans but I sure don't think of them as being
in the same league as "real" French fillet beans; "Delinel", say.
Blue Lake beans were developed for machine-processing by West
Coast (U.S.A.) food packers. They blossom and bear within a narrow
time frame in order to provide uniform, if mediocre, beans for the
canning industry. Blue Lake beans develop a thick, fleshy pod quickly
but it gets tough as the beans mature. Blue Lake beans endure close
spacing and high temperatures (back in the day, we picked'em for Del
Monte in South Florida in late fall, nearly winter) and are tough
enough for machine picking (going to be steam pressure canned,
remember). Unfortunately, Blue Lake beans are among those primitive
hairy beans with mediocre, generic "green" flavor; pods get tough
long before they mature, and they have far too short a harvest for
home gardens.

It's more than 20 years since I grew blue lakes so I had to look it up. It
is odd because now there seems to be climbing and bush varieties, some
photos look quite round and others flatish. Many suppliers and comentators
say they bear over a period of time. This mob:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...6/ai_18285074/

say the original 'blue lake' has been bred quite a bit more since it was
first seen.

It seems that there is more than one bean going around called by that name
so it may depend on which one Anthony has whether it flowers all at once or
over a period of time.

David