Rocdor Bush Beans

Rocdor is a very popular yellow (wax) bush bean. Gardeners like it because it is one of the earliest to start producing, at about 50 days to maturity. It is tolerant of germinating in cool soils, meaning you can plant it a little earlier than beans usually go in, getting even more of a head start on the season. We planted ours alongside all our other beans though, and it is still the first to be ready by what looks like will be at least a week and possibly 2 weeks. Mind you, all our other fresh eating beans are pole beans. I was reminded as I picked these why we don't often grow bush beans for fresh eating, even if they are ready sooner than the pole beans. Oh, my back!

Yields are very respectable, for a bush bean, and the flavour and texture are good. They have a rich deep beany flavour and nice crisp texture. The beans are very attractive, growing mostly straight and thin and having a lovely pale yellow colour. As with a lot of yellow bush beans, the seeds are black.

More reasons that gardeners like them: they are not only tolerant of cool weather - and they have been holding up to this cool, rainy summer very well - but also of heat and high humidity. They are said to be resistant to anthracnose and bean mosaic virus, both of which we have had in the garden at various times, so we shall see. Not yet though; the beans have generally been healthy so far this year. I have noticed, though, that if they suffer a physical injury such as a bird peck or poop landing on them or even just the tip dragging on the ground, that they are less likely to scab over but instead to develop mould and rot. This has not been a big problem, but I discard or at least have to trim 4 or 5 beans from every quart I pick.

This is usually described as a French heirloom. The French part is correct; they were introduced by Vilmorin seeds. However, that was apparently in 1982 so they are not a particularly old bean.

Posted in: Ontario Food