I dont sée thèm. Looked a bit with ecosia. There’s coco blanc, which means white. But no coco bleu. Why you want European ones if i may ask?
try “haricots blue lake” . I remember having cultivated them a few years back. They are white.
1 Like
Blue Coco are reasonably available in the US (at least 3 small to mid-size seed houses stock them), and I tried some 5 or so years ago. They turned out to have such good flavor that we plant about half of our bean row with them every year. They are also very popular in our university campus garden.
Since then, I’ve found two other beans attributed to the same French colonials. Black coco are a bush type with US availability and are a top-notch dry bean for eating (the story is they are so good that the French are willing to tolerate the dark bean broth). If I had more space to grow dry beans, I would grow them every year. White coco or Coco de Paimpol are also a bush type and are traditionally eaten as a shelly (semi-mature) bean. I got a pound of dry ones from a specialty dry bean house this year for eating and saved 20 seeds to plant so I can experience them fresh.
1 Like
Thank you for the tip, Beth. A casual internet search didn’t show me a source in Europe, but it is great to have all these (international) bean varieties in the back of my mind and know what people think about them. I guess I am a little hesitant about a bean that was developed in such a different climate…You say that it has superior taste, how about vigor and health?
And thanks @isabelle for the tip with the blue lake. What did you like about them?
I believe I will not sow beans again this year (unless the first batch fails) but I definitely will keep your suggestions in mind!
1 Like
Ah! I misunderstood completely. I thought you wanted us to send them to you! But it’s a tip.
Well i think the French have not saved one of those seeds, , they thought to ask the neighbors in spring, but the neighbors thought similar! Gone, just like that.
1 Like
They have been quite vigorous and productive for me inland from Los Angeles. Ideally, they would have a 3 meter tall trellis. I make do with 6 and 8 foot trellises. In the early summer (planted in March), we’ll have 6-8 weeks of picking 4-8 liters of beans every other day from 2 1/2 meters of row. The fall crop doesn’t run quite as long, as they have trouble getting started when it’s over 40C.
For my mom in the middle of the country, they’re a good fall crop but not such a good spring crop (she only has 6-8 weeks from last frost to first 38C afternoon, so bush beans work better).
And, my in-laws in the Rocky Mountain foothills almost to the Canadian border tried them last year and liked them well enough to plant them again this year.
They are a bit more resistant to powdery mildew than average beans and plants I’ve left all winter produce a few beans all the way through the short days (but I get more volume from snap and shelling peas). They are about average for heat tolerance for beans. Rattlesnake beans hold on about two weeks longer into August before stopping production. I’ve never been in a very humid climate with the disease pressures that come in that package.
1 Like
Well it was just a packet I was given by friends. I didn’t notice a significant vigour but the community liked them as greens. I surely have some of them in my grex, but I no longer track individual varieties. and I cultivate beans primarily for the protein, so I harvest them dry, not green.
1 Like
Well, @APUCommunityGarden, they sound great for you. My greatest challenge is propably not heat, 30 °C is about our maximum here (not that there aren’t exceptions) but that our springs are really totally unpredictable. For example, sinced I sowed 8 days ago, it has rained every day and was quite cold. According to the forcecast it will continue to rain the whole week. I need beans that can endure these conditions…Additionally, the days get markedly shorter and cooler in the end of August, so I like beans that start fast so I get a good harvest until then. My Dasinger keep blooming and producing until the first frost, which I like very much. i still don’t know enough about diseases in my beans to say something about that. But your Blue coco definitely sounds great, espescially, that it seems to be adapted to a broad spectrum of climates. So if it ever is available in Europe, I know what to get!
@isabelle, thanks for your assessment of the blue lake. It sounds like it is not quite the material I`m looking for, but thank you nonetheless!
1 Like
Well in 2024 I totally forgot to update. I don’t remember everything but I know that the snails were very active and almost completely ate the first beans that came up. In my second and third sowing i mostly had Dasinger Blaue since the other, more rare seeds had all been eaten. Oh well, maybe that will teach me.
In 2024 we harvested Dasinger, some Fasöi Grisoni and maybe some Kaiser Friedrich seeds. So, for sure two kinds, maybe 3. i would tend to 3, my mother who actually put the seed into the ground in 2025 maintains that she only put in 2.
Anyway, yesterday, the 12 of November 2025 I harvested my bean seed. This is the first year to pick them that late. Against better knowledge I picked a last harvest of green beans at the end of August/ beginning of September. Since the whole of October was veeeeeeeery foggy, it took until now for the pods to dry down somewhat.
And even now, the fleshy Dasinger pods were mainly limp, but definitely not dry, while the Fasöi Grisoni were very dry.
In any case, on to the interesting bits: I got more shapes and colors of seed out than we put in in the spring!
For reference, Fasöi grisoni and Kaiser Friedrich picture of the seller I got them from:
The Dasinger blaue has enough Photos up-thread, a very boring basic beige bean (sorry darling, you have other qualities!)
So and now photos of my own seed:
My own Fasöi Grisoni, basic and with color reversal on the left and Dasinger on the right
Maybe Kaiser Friedrich, just one pod (they were much lighter when shelling them).
Mystery 1:
These are very small beans as you can see here and came from a very small pod, which was striped purple on green, so like the Fasöi Grisoni, but obviously not the same! I would guess that the white beans withe the blueish overcolor and the tan seeds with blueish overcolor are the same, since size and shape is the same.
Mystery 2:
Now this bean really tickles my fancy and makes me think. Just look at it? Doesn’t it look like a perfect mix between a Dasinger and a Fasöi grisoni?
Top: Fasöi grisoni, Middle Mystery bean 2, Bottom Dasinger. The middle and the right picture show the mystery bean open and closed. Note the violet stripes on green ground and how the beans lie open in the pod (the pod doesn’t constrict around the beans)
Compare now the pod of a Fasöi grisoni, which constricts tightly around the seeds and which was also striped. The Dasinger on the other hand are uniformly violet and their pod is fleshy. Even fully dried the Dasinger don’t constrict around seeds, you can peel them just out with the thumbnail. Note also that the Mystery beans pod is longer than the Fasöi grisoni…
Perhaps someone has a alternative explanation how this came to be, but to me it seems that Mystery bean 2 has to be a cross between Dasinger and Fasöi grisoni.
- It has intermediate traits
- these two varieties were grown together in the season (2024) the seeds I sowed this spring, were from
- There were definitely no seeds with this shape and coloring-combination put into the soil this spring
What do you think?
3 Likes
Mystery 1: maybe a hybrid Fasöi grisoni X Kaiser Friedrich
1 Like
You know, i was thinking the whole day about where this bean may have come from. So I decided to look at what other beans the seller had in his inventory and found a bean than looks quite a lot like the one I have here: Amish Gnuttle:
I think the form is quite similar and the color pattern. But the color itself is not the same…
So if it got crossed into the seeds I bought from him, why didn’t it already turn up in 2024? It is a neat little riddle but I will probably never find out and to be honest it is not really important, just interesting.
Anyway, now I have 5 distinct kind of seeds:
- My dasinger
- The Dasinger x Fasöi grisoni hybrid (mystery bean 2), which I will call Dasinger gestreifte (Stripy Dasinger) as a working name
- The maybe Kaiser Friedrich
- The Fasöi grisoni
- The Mystery bean 1, which I will call Kleine Gesprenkelte (little sprinkled one) as a working name
I have high hopes for the Dasinger gestreifte, since it fits my prefered phenotype:
- very long, fleshy pods
- seeds are easy to get out of pods
On the other hand, I am less sure about the other three:
- The maybe Kaiser Friedrich was just one pod, so either not healthy, not vigorous or otherwise unlucky
- The Fasoi grisoni is very tightly constricted around the seeds, which makes getting the seeds out such a chore
- The Kleine Gesprenkelte had such tiny pods, seems like the yield will be low
So I will propably put all my beans onto seperate trellises next year so I can evaluate their behavior better. Additionally, I am looking forward to finding out if they will stay stable in the form they now have or if there will be segregation. So I will next year propably mainly eat Dasinger blaue, while the other beans are evaluated.
And of course i want to do a seed increase of the Dasinger gestreifte!
2 Likes
Hi Laura, i believe you didn’t want my beans at the time, but my memory might be wrong.
I’ve got some Purple Polebeans, they seem to be superb climbers and i want them to climb in some ringed or dead trees i have growing. They already were the only ones that did great from sowing quite a diverse grex i planted in front of trees, to see if they would climb them. The snails had most of them and one of these just kept growing back.
Looking familiar? I know these as Spanish beans my friend gave me who got them from his father who brought them from Spain to France and grew them 50 years…
Looking familiar?
I hope they still ripen, if you want we can exchange, i’d love to have them cross on the trees next year!
2 Likes
I don’t remember if we talked about beans or not, sorry, but I can’t believe that I didn’t want your beans, they are beautiful 
And look quite similar to mine in the pod type. I would love to exchange with you, but I will propably do a seed increase this year, i let my stocks go a little low and since this year was so late, I don’t have quality seeds from this year, but I hope I can give you quality seeds in fall 2026.
Do you eat the pods or the seeds with your beans, or both?
Few years back Laura. Oops i forgot to pick them! Hope they survived -3C. I’ve never eaten any of my beans. I’m always seed increasing.. But the man who gave me these said something about eating them whole, but he gave me two differing ones.. Ok we’ll see next year if we swap.
1 Like