“What green bean variety would you recommend for Minnesota?” – Question from Van of Hendricks, Minnesota

Answer: Early, early, early varieties! With the short northern summers of Minnesota, you want to choose a top-performing bean that produces as quickly as possible. Choose bush beans or pole beans, depending on your garden’s size and your planting preference. When seeking good veggie varieties for northern growers, I tend to turn to northern seed vendors, like Pinetree Seeds or Johnny’s, which are both based in Maine.

For bush beans, I recommend the early, disease-resistant, green bush bean ‘Provider‘, which yields in just 50 days from seed and germinates in cool soil. The flavorful heirloom bush bean ‘Bountiful‘ is even earlier, bearing green beans in just 46 days.

For pole beans, I LOVE the early-to-produce ‘Fortex‘. It’s long, slender, delicious beans appear in just 60 days from seed and are high yielding. I’m also a big fan of Roma green beans, and ‘Northeaster‘ is a very fast Roma that’s stringless, very early (56 days), and delicious!

I hope that you have good luck with these exceptional green beans! Happy gardening, Jessie

I also recommend you watch this Black Gold video on successful bean growing!