And probably the last for some varieties. The returns have been pretty paltry so far, and even that’s being generous. Although to be fair, the pole varieties have really come on in the last several weeks, so I should have a lot more before it’s all said and done. I planted four varieties, of which I’ve gotten stuff off of three. I haven’t actually eaten any of them yet either, so I have no comments on that component at the moment.

Kenearly Yellow Eye – “One of the best early baking beans. Healthy plants produce excellent yields of white beans with yellow-brown eyes. Easy to shell.”

They are the only bush dry bean I grew, and since all the bush beans were shaded out by the peas, they were doomed. I got maybe a quarter-cup total, so poor results. Since I took the peas out, there are a couple flowers popping up, but I don’t expect much more from these this year. They do look nice, and were easy to shell. I’m chalking this one up to gardener’s error.

Brockton Horticultural – “Beautiful red striped pods with large maroon-speckled seeds. Used only as a dry bean, wonderful nutty flavor. Large vigorous plants.”

Early results on these are about the same; very small amounts. These ones are at least still growing (all the pole beans started kinda wimpy but are now flourishing) and there are plenty of beans on the plants, so I have higher hopes for this variety. They’re the biggest bean of my bunch, coming in longer than most other beans, which are typically closer to being round. Again, they look nice but I don’t know what they taste like, and these ones should provide quite a few more before the end of the season.

Speckled Cranberry – “Triple purpose bean. Can be used as a snap bean at around 60 days, green shell bean at around 80 days, or as a dry bean if grown to full maturity. Produces heavy crops of stringless 7-9″ pods until the first frost.”

Another pole, so I expect that it’ll produce more than what it has so far. Looks like the Brockton Horticultural, only more rounded and a little lighter underneath the speckles.

Since it’s my first year trying dry beans, I’m not sure what to expect. I know for the time, effort, and money invested, it would be a better deal to pick up a bag of beans from the store, but it’s not as fun, the store doesn’t have many varieties, and things always seem to taste better when I know it’s the result of my labor. So, just like the harvest, I know this is a pretty meager review, but someday I’ll taste them all too – unfortunately, doing a taste test is not as easy as just slicing a hunk off.