Kentucky Wonder (brown)

[hmoosek]

macmex chrysanthemum

Brown seeded Kentucky Wonder

George, I’m sure I’ve heard you mention this bean. It might have been in your Tennessee Cutshort thread, but I don’t remember. What are your thoughts on this bean and our area? Does this one need to be grown in the fall like I did with TC? Is this a round or flat bean? 

Chrysanthemum when you grew KW was your seed white or brown? Somewhere I remember you saying you planted in May, but they didn’t produce pods till it cooled a bit. Is my recollection correct?


My reasoning for asking is I thought KW brown seeded was round and the white seeded was flat, but I was looking at Kitazawa’s description and they say the brown seeded is flat.

It peaked my curiosity.

[chrysanthemum]

You’ve got a good memory, hmoosek. I grew Kentucky Wonder for a couple of years down here. In 2020, I think it was, I planted the seeds in May after harvesting garlic. That was a little later than I had done before, but according to the planting guide put out by the extension service, I was still within my good planting window, but my plants produced absolutely no pods the entire summer. I kept them alive, and they did produce in the fall at the same time that the Rattlesnake and Purple Pole beans that I planted in late July or early August began producing. It did fine as a fall crop. It probably would have been better had it been a new planting, but it did produce a good number of beans. That was the the end of my Kentucky Wonder seed that year, and I haven’t replaced it.

I never saved seed from Kentucky Wonder, but I think it was brown seed in the package that I bought. I didn’t order it specially or anything. It was just what was on the Extension service’s recommended varieties list and available locally. I didn’t let the beans on the vines mature to the dry stage since I wasn’t saving seed, so I never studied the colors of the beans inside.

In 2021 I planted only Rattlesnake. It produced virtually all summer for me, but the summer of 2021 was unusually cool and wet, so it probably had an unfair advantage. I didn’t plant any Rattlesnake this spring, so I can’t say how it would have done. I wish I had planted it so that I would know how it would have fared in the crazy heat and drought we’ve had this year.

[hmoosek]

chrysanthemum
Do you happen to remember if the pods were round or flat?

[chrysanthemum]

I’d say more flat, but a thick bean with a lot of substance if that make sense.