QA

Question: How To Cook Blue Lake Bush Beans

How do you eat Blue Lake bush beans?

Blue Lake beans can also be steamed or roasted and served as a side dish, stir-fried with other vegetables, incorporated into quiches, or cooked into creamy casseroles. In addition to fresh preparations, Blue Lake beans are popularly used in quick pickling recipes and canning.

What can I do with Blue Lake beans?

The beans are long and straight. Excellent steamed or used in salads. Originally developed as a canning bean, but it soon grew to be a fresh favorite, too. Its predecessor, Blue Lake pole bean, is also an heirloom and has been around since the early 1900s.

Are Blue Lake beans the same as green beans?

“Green beans” is a general name that covers many related types of beans—and is also used to describe the most common type sold, which are a variety called Blue Lake. Haricot vert, also known as French beans, are a thinner, shorter variety—usually about 4-inches long (while Blue Lake green beans are 5-7 inches).

Are Blue Lake beans good?

The bush bean Blue Lake 274 (Phaseolus vulgaris), is an old time favorite with reliability, great flavor, large yields and disease resistance. The bean was developed in 1961 from the Pole Blue Lake variety. It is well-known in the canning industry because its crop matures all at once, making canning a much easier task.

Are Blue Lake bush beans stringless?

Heirloom. This stringless snap bean matures early and offers superior flavor, color, texture and ease of picking. A bush variety, it does not need staking.

Are Blue Lake bush beans hybrid?

Blue Lake Bush Bean seeds. 100% Heirloom/Non-Hybrid/Non-GMO. The Blue Lake Bush Bean produces long and tender stringless pods. Easy to grow and matures quickly.

Are Blue Lake beans climbers?

Green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) are among America’s favorite vegetables in the home garden. ‘Blue Lake Bush’ beans are prolific plants that feature 5- to 6-inch-long, straight, stringless snap beans on 24-inch-tall bushy vines.

Can Blue Lake beans be dried?

Blue Lake Pole Beans are is a reliable producer of classic and tasty beans. Pods are long, round, and stringless with a tender texture. Can be used fresh, shelled, and dried.

How do you harvest Blue Lake bush beans?

Harvest fresh snap beans when plump, but before they become lumpy and tough. Pick frequently to encourage more production. Harvest fresh shelling beans when the seeds are full size, but before the pods dry. Harvest dry beans when 75% of the leaves have yellowed and the pods have begun to dry.

Do bush beans taste better than pole beans?

The short answer is, “No.” Each bean must be judged on the variety, not whether it’s a bush or pole. Both styles have varieties that are full of flavor, and both have varieties that are near tasteless. In fact, it’s been said that every pole variety has a bush analog, and vice-versa.

How big do Blue Lake bush beans get?

The bush grows upright to a height of two feet (61 cm.) on average. Pods are ready for harvest in 55 days and most will mature within a couple weeks of each other. These beans have a sharp snap, sweet flavor, and are produced in profusion.

Do you have to support bush beans?

Bush bean plants grow short and squat, so they don’t require a trellis or other support to thrive. Have a shorter production time. Bush beans mature slightly faster than pole beans, and are usually ready to harvest within 40 to 60 days of planting. Produce all their beans in two weeks.

How long does it take for bush beans to flower?

Bush beans produce in about 50 to 55 days; pole beans will take 55 to 65 days. Bush beans often come in all at once, so stagger your plantings every two weeks to get a continuous harvest. Pole beans need their vines to grow and will produce for a month or two if you keep harvesting.

Are bush beans determinate?

Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) described as bush are determinate plants (much like determinate tomatoes) that develop flowers at the end of branches. Pole beans are vining because they are indeterminate and keep producing leaves on a main stem while also producing flowers and fruit along the stem.

How often should I water bush beans?

When growing bush beans, keep the soil evenly moist by giving the plants about two to three inches of water per week.

Can you save seeds from Blue Lake bush beans?

For bush beans, the Blue Lake 274 variety is one of the more commonly grown. Once you’ve picked the dried beans, you can then remove the bean seeds from the pods. We like to bring the beans inside the house and take them out of the pods there.

Is Blue Lake 274 an heirloom?

Blue Lake 274, an heirloom bush bean, also called bunch beans, sets pea-shaped buds that blossom into small flowers, followed by very straight and plump dark green pods—about 5½.

Are Blue Lake 274 beans stringless?

‘Blue Lake 274’ produces a very large crop of round, 6″ pods all at once on 16″–18″ tall, bushy plants that are disease resistant; beans are stringless when picked young. Excellent flavor, one of the best for freezing. A good container variety.

Are Blue Lake bush beans open-pollinated?

Beans. All beans are open-pollinated. Days to maturity are from emergence after direct sowing.