Garden Trial: French Gold Filet Pole Bean

Looking for a pole bean that grows quickly, is highly productive and actually tastes good? Look no further than French Gold Filet beans.

French Gold Filet beans (front) with some Blue Lake and Purple Pod beans (back)

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Why I Pick Pole Beans

When it comes to fresh eating, pole beans are better than the bush variety. They’re more weather tolerant (hot and cold), they produce over a longer period, and they’re more efficient with space (grow up not out). Plus, if you ask me, they taste better.

My usual go to pole beans includes a couple of heirlooms, Rattlesnake and Purple Pod, which are super versatile – as a snap green bean, as a fresh shelled bean, and as a dried bean.

For French filet / haricot vert beans, where we pick them young for best flavor, it’s generally Fortex. This year, however, a friend of mine gave me a packet of French Gold Filet Beans, so I planted them instead. And wow, am I glad I did!

Planting: Mid-April

I direct-sowed these into a raised bed back on April 13 while the weather was still cool and cloudy most evenings and mornings (mid-60°F / 18°C in the day, low 50s / teens overnight)., two rows, each about 3 feet long, 10 seeds per row.

They sprouted within a week and I thinned them to 6 plants per row for a total of 12 bean plants under the climbing trellis. By early May they were already off and running up the trellis, some of the plants almost three feet tall.

Flowering began 3 weeks later

French Gold Filet Bean vines at around 50 days

A couple of weeks later they were all well over 6 feet tall and had begun to flower with a creamy-white-to-pale-yellow flower. Lots of flowers. So many in fact, the bean trellis almost looked like it was covered with Jasmine instead of a bean.

Even though the beans were working over time on flowering, the vines took no breaks growing upward. By June 13, 61 days after planting the seeds, the plants had reached the top of the trellis arch, over 12 feet up.

Interestingly, while I was battling a gopher invasion in and around this bed, they did not attack these plants like they did the peppers and squash next to them.

First Harvest: 68 days

Lots of beans hanging on the vines

We harvested the first round of bean pods on June 20 – 68 days after planting. The packet said they’d be ready in around 60 days, which was pretty spot on if you count germination time. We probably could have started picking them a few days earlier, but at this point the pods were round and long without the beans starting to bulge. Since we planned on eating these whole as filet beans, this seemed like a good time.

The first harvest was just the lower beans, which were the oldest, but we still managed to pick around three pounds.

Second Harvest: 78 days

Trying not to let any of these go to waste, we went back for a second harvest a little more than a week later. The amount we picked this time was shocking. The mid-section of the plants were literally wall-to-wall beans ranging from 8 – 10 inches long. After only a few minutes, we had filled an entire basket—a little more than 9 pounds in total—and we hadn’t even touched the upper half of the trellis yet.

The bean pods average 8-10 inches long

As I write this, it’s a little less than a week later. Temperatures are now in the high 80s (30s C) during the day and the low 60s overnight. The bean plants don’t seem to mind. Some of the lower leaves are yellowing with age, but the upper portions of the plants are still a vibrant green and there are plenty of beans for a third harvest almost as big as the second still to be picked.

I wouldn’t be surprised if they started flowering again either.

Texture and Flavor

Often, an unusual color or shape in a vegetable means it’s lacking in texture and/or flavor. Not so with the French Gold Filet Beans. The pods are a creamy yellow, which makes them a standout among the other beans, but they are crisp, tender and stringless just as my old green go-to Fortex beans are.

Thus far we’ve enjoyed them as fresh snacks, in a 3-bean salad, steamed, and grilled (my favorite). The texture and flavor has been outstanding. Yesterday I added a handful to a new batch of giardiniera, so we will see how they do in that. Sometimes pickled beans get soft or funky tasting, but I’m guessing these are going to maintain their crunch and avoid the funky bean taste. (I’ll know in a couple weeks.)

Summary: Great pole beans all the way around

It might be a little early to declare these beans a complete success as I haven’t seen how they’re going to do through the hottest portions of summer which are yet to come. But thus far, I’ve found them to be great all the way around.

They handle weather swings well, they’re easy to care for, they taste good, and they’re ridiculously productive. If I have any complaint it’s that with some of the vines over 12 feet high, it’s a little difficult to pick the uppermost beans. Fortunately, I have a step ladder, so it’s not that big of a problem.

Based on my experience, I think the French Gold Filet is a good replacement for Fortex. The one question that remains is how well do they grow in fall?

One of the things I like about Maxibel is that it will grow well into fall so we have fresh filet beans for my wife’s green bean casserole at Thanksgiving. I’ll be planting a second round of the French Gold Filet here in the next couple of weeks (I only used half a packet in the first round, so I have plenty more). If they grow as reliably when the days get shorter and cooler as they do when they’re getting longer and hotter, they’re definitely a winner.

Only time will tell.